tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-69726222108435312302024-02-19T06:10:50.506-08:00Preaching Transcripts and Mp3'sstanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-10047824736446468362014-02-18T07:46:00.003-08:002014-02-18T07:47:19.971-08:00Peculiar Presents: Three Ways God Subverts Gift Giving Protocol (1 Peter 4:7-11)<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Better than a WEGE: 1 Peter 4:7-11 </span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL8JT5BzJvn3vKSRrIqmQgzXva6vd2MCgzGkxrJo1FxCtALIwSNrnFpzQllIkMX4LTUAwXMLTjlQ__IvYzS8W71KSSBwsPf3CBgOEL0BCeF9GbSkvWWm45dwRjSiskXKgHppeW3Ot4x2Ru/s1600/1+Pt+4+10+art.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL8JT5BzJvn3vKSRrIqmQgzXva6vd2MCgzGkxrJo1FxCtALIwSNrnFpzQllIkMX4LTUAwXMLTjlQ__IvYzS8W71KSSBwsPf3CBgOEL0BCeF9GbSkvWWm45dwRjSiskXKgHppeW3Ot4x2Ru/s1600/1+Pt+4+10+art.jpg" height="311" width="320" /></a></div>
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I never know what to say when someone gets Baptized.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Do you say congratulations?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It is a big deal…a huge and wonderful decision…I cheer and whoop…but
congratulations seems weird, because the heavy lifting has been done by someone
else.</div>
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But I want to celebrate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I mean a gift seems appropriate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But again, what makes a good Baptism gift?</div>
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<br /></div>
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How about a towel?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Or better yet…body armor…because the Christian life isn’t
easy?</div>
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<br /></div>
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But baptism isn’t the only place I get confused about
gifts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gifts are a weird.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Take for example, White Elephant Gift Exchanges…a couple
years ago I ran into this delightful guide for dealing with this strange
cultural tradition from blogger Stacy from Louisville.</div>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://stacyfromlouisville.blogspot.com/2008/12/how-to-sabatoge-white-elephant-gift.html">http://stacyfromlouisville.blogspot.com/2008/12/how-to-sabatoge-white-elephant-gift.html</a></span> </div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">Over the years </span>(she says) <span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">I have become a connoisseur of White
Elephant Gift Exchanges. (Hereafter referred to as "W.E.G.E.". And
yes, we are going to pronounce WEGE phonetically.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">Truthfully, WEGE brings out the worst in me. It's the gift
stealing that upsets my delicate demeanor. If someone steals my gift I get this
overwhelming desire to bludgeon them with a light-up, plastic molded Christ
child from the tacky yard display up the street. That's right. Come up against
me and I'll drop you like Santa down a chimney.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">But not anymore.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">You see, I have discovered that WEGE is not about the
gifts. These days my goal is to <u>sabotage</u> <u>the</u> <u>game</u>. For a
few fleeting moments it's as if Santa is just asking to be depantsed in the
name of universally lame gift giving.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then she offers some fun ideas on how to subvert a
WEGE…particularly a church WEGE.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">#1. Give away
liquor</span></u></b><span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">. We all know that even mentioning alcohol in some church
settings will get you blacklisted. So why not make everyone in the room
uncomfortable right from the beginning? Chances are that though they may
suspect you of bringing the Satan Water, there are at least 3 other couples
they will suspect, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My brother did this once...he got a 6 pack of the nastiest malt
liquor he could find for a church staff wege…but then he took one out and left
a IOU from the pastor in its place.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Visual gag with a 5 pack and a note from Dan Seitz…”Got
thirsty…I owe you one.” –Dan Seitz</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She and the commenter’s offers other helpful options for how
to subvert a Christian White Elephant gift exchange like Lingerie, 50 shades of
grey and live goldfish </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why a live goldfish: <span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">“Because a Golden Retriever is hard to wrap and has
a tendency to pee.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But my personal favorite is another one my brother actually
attempted…a gift caper she calls:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Is that my
purse?</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> Here is how she describes it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">This one is serious. I have done it but you've got to be
slick. When one of the women at the party isn’t looking, take her purse, throw
it in a gift bag, put it under the tree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Then just sit back and enjoy the confused recognition and delightful
awkwardness all the way around.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Gifts are weird.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Turns out that giving really good gifts is hard…and I’m bad
at it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I’m not the only one.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">We
say “It’s the thought that counts” but really, isn’t that is just a kind way of
saying “Nice try.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I get it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gift giving is super hard”</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But you know who is really good at the whole gift giving
thing?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Justin Beiber.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
No, just kidding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
is just that you expected me to say ‘God’ and I was going to say ‘God’ and it
all just seemed really predictable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
even if you’ve heard it before it’s the truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>God is a bomb gift giver.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It turns out omniscience and omnipotence are a pretty great
skill set for the whole gift giving thing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And that is why in the book of 1 Peter, a passage about the
gifts God gives follows so closely after a passage about belief` and baptism.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because, the best gift I can think of to celebrate belief and
Baptism might be a towel…but God has something much grander in mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And in tonight’s passage Peter introduces us
to at least three aspects of God’s gifts towards us that are kind of
wonderfully peculiar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Three ways that
God gives gifts on the occasion of belief signified by baptism that are better
than we give gifts to each other.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But first, It has been several months since we took a break
from 1 Peter to take on the playlist series, so let me orient you to where we
are in the book.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In chapter 2 and 3 Peter talks about how Christians should
interact with hostile powers…with oppressive institutions and dangerous people:
he helps the Roman Christians think about how to deal with political oppression
and economic oppression and…marriage…which in Roman culture fit pretty neatly
in the realm of ‘things that are oppressive.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoTableGrid" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184; width: 499px;">
<tbody>
<tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;">
<td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.45in;" valign="top" width="235"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
1 Peter 3:13-4:6</div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.75in;" valign="top" width="264"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
1 Peter 4:7-11</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 1;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.45in;" valign="top" width="235"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
How to Interact with Hostile Powers</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.75in;" valign="top" width="264"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
How to Interact with the Family of
Faith*</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 2;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.45in;" valign="top" width="235"><div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>The Emperor</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.75in;" valign="top" width="264"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 40.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Love</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 3;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.45in;" valign="top" width="235"><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Slave Masters</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.75in;" valign="top" width="264"><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto;">
2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Show
Hospitality</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="mso-yfti-irow: 4; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.45in;" valign="top" width="235"><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 58.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Marriage</div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 2.75in;" valign="top" width="264"><div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 76.5pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l2 level1 lfo4; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Serve</div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But in chapter 4 he turns his attention from how to deal
with opressors…to how to interact with other Christians (which isn’t as
dangerous but can still be pretty messy)…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">7 The end of all things is at hand; therefore be
self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. 8 Above all,
keep loving <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>one another</u></b>
earnestly<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="color: #76923c; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a>,
since love covers a multitude of sins.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="color: #76923c; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a>
9 Show hospitality to<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> <u>one another</u></b>
without grumbling. 10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>one another</u></b>, as good stewards of
God's varied grace: 11 whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God;
whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order
that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong
glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Turns from how to deal with hostiles…to how to deal with
each other (which isn’t as dangerous but can still be messy)…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some clear thinking on grow to interact with ‘one another’</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Love – not a fuzzy word (of pro-social emotion)
– the active discipline of overlooking offense</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Hospitality – living invasiable lives and
meeting concrete needs</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>Service <span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">à</span></span>
Gift exchange </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And all three of these have two things in common – they are
essential for sustained relationship and they are incredibly difficult.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because, well, take a minute and look around
this room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is it filled with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is filled with people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And all people even Jesus’ people are strange
critters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are unaccountably kind and
creative and beautiful, but we are also petty and vicious and selfish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only way to build something out of people
like us is with tools like love, hospitality and service.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But God doesn’t just say…so, um, good luck with that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He gives us resources…Look with me in verse<span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"> 10 </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">“As each has received a gift, use it to serve <u><b><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">one another</span>, </b></u>as good stewards of
God's varied grace”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
God forms unique capacities in us, through a mixture of our
natural talents + the skills we develop through practice + straight up
supernatural interventions of the Spirit in our lives to give us what we need
to be the kind of person characterized by love, hospitality and service.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is a common trope in film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In LOTR – Gladriel gives them gifts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We know its going to be hard…but we are
encouraged knowing that they have been equipped for the task.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmN4NhP5jd9cZCavvjVXRCwI-S3Q7AN7uosErfW1IKbwi-qljVoN4epHtVf9p16u8OSQXYkOnPXWmbOecYr_xNCKXl1UCvi-q6E4spvZf_84nIUnQc-r3ZL_vXx7E0D5liu8l6AUuLT_5w/s1600/1+peter+4+bond+q.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmN4NhP5jd9cZCavvjVXRCwI-S3Q7AN7uosErfW1IKbwi-qljVoN4epHtVf9p16u8OSQXYkOnPXWmbOecYr_xNCKXl1UCvi-q6E4spvZf_84nIUnQc-r3ZL_vXx7E0D5liu8l6AUuLT_5w/s1600/1+peter+4+bond+q.jpg" height="238" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But probably the most iconic instance of the ‘equipiing
gift’ trope is Q in the Bond franchise. At the beginning of the film Q gives
bond something weird and wonderful, that unacontably becomes exactly the thing
he needs to fulfill the mission.That is what tonight’s passage argues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That the strange and eccentric gifts that God
has given you will turn out to be exactly what you need to be agents of love,
hospitality and service as you follow Jesus and knit yourself to his people.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">1. God’s
Doesn’t Give Gift Cards </span></u></b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I like to give generic gifts, because I hate
inefficiency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And human-to-human gift
giving is inefficient.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In a recent book, an economist analyzed the economic
inefficiency of gift giving.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">Gifts that people buy for other people are usually poorly
matched to the recipients' preferences. What the recipients would willingly pay
for the gifts is usually less than the givers paid.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQmtn5HiBZZ4r9xYrSthIkMeDOWd0h0uht89oKld2jOcnFH7Iz8AQXYM52wl2gJ2LmOWD4Nprhs7U72ekiXjZjAD-7QzRf-IzDJeb47Ujwii_UzKPTr9Ivs7O3jw0QP2T5eAZ9byISRm6M/s1600/1+Peter+4+value+subtraction.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQmtn5HiBZZ4r9xYrSthIkMeDOWd0h0uht89oKld2jOcnFH7Iz8AQXYM52wl2gJ2LmOWD4Nprhs7U72ekiXjZjAD-7QzRf-IzDJeb47Ujwii_UzKPTr9Ivs7O3jw0QP2T5eAZ9byISRm6M/s1600/1+Peter+4+value+subtraction.jpg" height="238" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now there is a pleasant sentimental insight…Gift giving
destroys value.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If someone buys you
something you wouldn’t buy for yourself, the difference between what they paid
for it and what you would pay for it is the value that was destroyed in the
transaction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is called ‘value subtraction.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
One analysis on Christmas a couple years ago found that $12
BBBBillion dollars worth of value was lost in these transactions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>$12 billion dollars of value subtraction.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And so human gift givers have a choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Show love and care by observing someone
carefully and trying to give them a gift that matches with their hopes and
dreams (within your budget) and risk value subtraction…or they can give an
Amazon gift card.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5pj21-2I_uO9OAIcVxEbv3vFJx8PQxkPm-20HpKaBf6BtJRwiYZjsbNbah2kqeLoOZA1iE-wI9tcpdA74EEyZ5r8kpV-iq5DBW836qXoKxH1klY4tAWnfk1ZbNBDNIAsKy1Qr1UdqmfGD/s1600/the+value+subtraction+paradox+1+Peter+4+10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5pj21-2I_uO9OAIcVxEbv3vFJx8PQxkPm-20HpKaBf6BtJRwiYZjsbNbah2kqeLoOZA1iE-wI9tcpdA74EEyZ5r8kpV-iq5DBW836qXoKxH1klY4tAWnfk1ZbNBDNIAsKy1Qr1UdqmfGD/s1600/the+value+subtraction+paradox+1+Peter+4+10.jpg" height="227" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
And this is what is so remarkable about God’s gift giving</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
God doesn’t give gift cards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He gives perfectly customized gifts without value subtraction.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">10“As each has received a gift, use it to serve <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>one another</u></b>, as good stewards of
God's varied grace”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Look at the second word of that verse </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Each’ – means that everyone gets something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At first this seems pretty generic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It raises what I like to call: The Dash Paradox:
“If everyone is special, no one is.” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At first, by Dash’s logic if God gives gifts so
promiscuously it doesn’t feel special to receive them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is like the guy on the corner in old sac
handing out taffy coupons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone gets
them, so they are not special.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But Dash’s logic fails, because he only evaluates on one
axis…speed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But, God recognizes that if there was only one axis of
value, Dash would be right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there
isn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And because of his ‘diversified
and varied grace’ God has made a situation where each person has the capacity
to actually be incalculably valuable<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>bring different things to the table, which is why God gives personally
customized gifts.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But the look at how the passage describes what God Gives
you:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">10“As each has received a gift, use it to serve <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>one another</u></b>, as good stewards of
God's varied grace”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“…God’s varied grace…” or in another translation “God’s
diversified grace…”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But God doesn’t just give everyone generic gifts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The answer to the question how can I be
special when every one is…is that God has customized what you have to
offer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are literally irreplaceable.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Listen to what CS Lewis says on this…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">“There are no <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ordinary</i>
people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have never talked to a mere
mortal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nations, cultures, arts,
civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a
gnat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it is immortals whom we joke
with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting
splendors.” - Lewis</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Remember the passage we covered in week 1 – God builds a
building with people…I said this was kind of like Michael Johansen’s ‘junk
art.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And green crocs may seem pretty
useless…except that they were exactly what he needed to make something
beautiful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Be the green crocs</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But if we see ourselves as part of something bigger, we can
be exactly right even if we are acutely aware of all our lack.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“…God’s varied
grace…”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“God’s diversified grace…”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
God’s grace to you will look different than God’s grace to
someone else.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Diversity is a big word on campus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is one of the central values of this place
and places like it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But you know
what?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Way before diversity was a thing
in the university, it was one of the central values of the Church.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
God has a diversified portfolio of kingdom agents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He doesn’t need a whole closet of green
crocs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He only needs one.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is a caricature of the church as a bunch of people all
trying to fit a particular mold that shun those that don’t fit.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span></span></a></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that could not be more foreign to the
Christian Scriptures.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The church was into diversity about 1800 years before the
university.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, welcome to the party
UC Davis…but um…the value of diversity has kind of been around a little while.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But you know what real diversity takes…love…because sin
makes differences a big deal.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But the problem with varied gifts…is we tend to over
emphasize the value of ours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that is
why you get churches that are really into one thing…because all of the people
with that kind of gift got together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Which leaves them distorted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So in giving perfectly personalized gifts…God avoids two
common gift giving blunders:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-showing indiffence with a generalized gift</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
-value subtraction - giving a gift with less value to the
person than you invested in it</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, while both of these are a bummer…neither are the
most egregious social offense when it comes to gift giving….What is?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Regifting: Seinfeild<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VGbY6sirHM">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VGbY6sirHM</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But once again, God is not constrained by miss manners…or
the ironic post modern version…Seinfeld</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
("I mean isn’t that basically what Seinfeld was, an
ironic, deconstructing, postmodern version of Miss Manners - Miss Manners for
generation X: the generation who just couldn’t seem give a crap no matter how
hard we tried but still need some basic principles to organize our social
interactions.")</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But God doesn’t need Seinfeld to tell him how to do this
thing…the second way God gives gifts better than us, is that…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<b>2. </b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">God <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Intends</i> Regifting</span></u></b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why is it that regifting so socially offensive?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In human gift giving, regifting is the ultimate faux paux because
it shows ingratitude for the gift <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>AND</u></b>
a lack of care for the new recipient.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[6]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">“As each has
received a gift, use it to serve one another…”</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The gifts that Jesus give us aren’t for us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The equip us to be his agents of service and
the gospel.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Or in other words God’s gifts come with missions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lets go back to the opening scenes of a James Bbond film,
where Q gives bond some new gadget.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The
gadgets aren’t just his to enjoy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They
are tools for a mission.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were given
to him with a purpose.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Illustration: Imagine if James Bond got those gifts but had
no mission.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Imagine Q hooked him up with
an amazing set of tools for a dangerous and essential mission, and instead, he
just used them for stuff he wanted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Actually,
you don’t have to imagine it…because we know Ryan Benoit who can just show
us…(Benoit film of Bond using a gadget for pedestrian things)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a class="_553k" href="http://youtu.be/JNWhUstVjmg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://youtu.be/JNWhUstVjmg</a>
(click on it...it's amazing)</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">“As each has
received a gift, use it to serve one another…”</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
God intends regifting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>His gifts come with missions.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And finally, the third peculiar but wonderful aspect of
God’s gift giving, is that:</div>
<br />
<u><b>3. </b></u><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The
ultimate goal of God’s gifts are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">his</i>
glory.</span></u></b>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Look back at the passage with me</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">“As each has received
a gift, use it to serve one another…in order that in everything God may be <u>glorified</u>
through Jesus Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To him belong <u>glory</u>
and dominion forever and ever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amen.” </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is the first occurance of the word ‘glory’ in 1 Peter
but it won’t be the last.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“glory” shows
up 6X in the last 21 verses of the book.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And look at how glory is apportioned here:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">“As each has
received a gift, use it to serve one another…in order that in everything God
may be <u>glorified</u> through Jesus Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>To him belong <u>glory</u> and dominion forever and ever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amen.” </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Glory to God through Jesus<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And</b> Glory to Jesus – which
makes this another place where the New Testament have a sort of confusing but
unequivicol equivalency between God and Jesus.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The ultimate purpose of gifts and the services they render
to other humans, is glory to God and to Jesus.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Most sane theologians agree that if Jonathan Edwards wasn’t
the Greatest American theologian, he deserves to be in the conversation.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[8]</span></span></span></span></a>
One of Edward’s fines works was a book titled:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“The End for Which God Created the World” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Where he answers the question –why does stuff exist…not just
your gifts…not just you…not just people…like all of it…why does stuff exist…and
he uses a lot of big words and technical language…but his answer is ‘Stuff
Exists for God’s glory.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now, if you are here tonight and aren’t really in on the
Jesus story or the Jesus following life, that idea probably bugs you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The idea that God would give gifts ultimately
for his own glory seems weird at best and even kind of unworthy of him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you are here tonight and you belong to
Jesus, well, frankly, you probably find that weird too but don’t tell anyone
because you feel like it isn’t supposed to seem weird.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And if you fit in either of those categories…you are in very
good company.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Listen to what CS Lewis
says about God’s glory:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">“There is no getting away from the fact that “glory” is
very prominent in the New Testament and in early Christian Writings…This makes <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>no immediate appeal</u></b> to me at
all, and in that way I fancy I am a typical modern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Glory suggests two ideas to me, of which one
seems wicked and the other ridiculous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Either glory means to me fame or it means luminosity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As for the first, since to be famous means to
be better known than other people, the desire for fame appears to me as a
competitive passion and therefore of hell rather than heaven.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As for the second, who wishes to become a
kind of living electric light bulb”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lewis is right on both counts…First…Glory <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i> a weird idea to moderns…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">second</i> it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is </i>a very central idea – some say <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the</i> central idea – in our world view.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So here’s the first problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The word does not mean to us what it meant to Peter’s Roman
audience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To get a sense of what it might have meant…let’s turn to
everyone’s favorite period roman:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Maximus Decimus Meridious…in that great opening scene of
Gladiator, when they are going up against the last of the Germanic
resistance…the Emperor, Marcus Aurelius turns to Noah…er…Maximus and asks</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">Marcus Aurelius: Tell me again, Maximus, why are we here? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After conquering Europe the Emperor is conflicted and
confused about why he has done it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
his general is not…Maximus answer is swift and confident:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">Maximus: For the glory of the Empire, sire. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Aurelius was questioning and uncertain…but Maximus
wasn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For him it was always about the
glory of Rome…even in the end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1J9mkHguRpWASUZPmvIk8cEK0j9koShZhJlv83kjbUL42u-S0tabb3rnfwCMZMlc8ALUKU5SkiguoujP1i8DFKvpZzYHkjhD-y7sdgOvJ6glyt-4s7sbn7cAFN08YJCTgeco-BzJ0m3fk/s1600/Maximus+for+the+glory+of+the+empire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1J9mkHguRpWASUZPmvIk8cEK0j9koShZhJlv83kjbUL42u-S0tabb3rnfwCMZMlc8ALUKU5SkiguoujP1i8DFKvpZzYHkjhD-y7sdgOvJ6glyt-4s7sbn7cAFN08YJCTgeco-BzJ0m3fk/s1600/Maximus+for+the+glory+of+the+empire.jpg" height="218" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Glory animated vigorous action in many Romans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For them it was a big beautiful word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They wanted to exist for the magnification of
something big and wonderful and permanent…they just backed the wrong horse, when
they decided to live for the glory of Rome.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But Glory is a word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It was the best word Peter had in his context.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In Roman culture glory was everything…but the strength and
meanings of words actually change with time and culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now the English word ‘glory’ can’t hold all the water Peter
needs it to carry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If someone seeks
glory in post-modern English they are self aborbed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[9]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But what Peter is saying…all that passion…and all that
regard and all that effort and all that action that animated someone like
Maximus…should be oriented towards Jesus and his kingdom.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">…in order that
in everything God may be <u>glorified</u> through Jesus Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To him belong <u>glory</u> and dominion
forever and ever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But the second reason that God calling us to his glory seems
self involved is that we have grossly under predicted God’s value.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
God doesn’t want us to vest in his glory because he is the
insecure mediocre student on in your group project team who wants all the
credit.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
No one has to tell him he is great for him to know it with
total confidence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He’s not like us…his self assessment is not tied to the
assessment of others.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Christian Scriptures and tradition are obsessed with
God’s glory…not because he needs us to tell him…but because God knows that he
is the only thing that won’t disappoint us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>God wants us to be into his glory so WE won’t be disappointed…<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[10]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By asking us to vest in his glory is lovingly directing us
to most satisfying thing in the universe.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Do you see how wonderful and counter intuitive that is?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wants us to persue his glory because he
loves <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>us</u></i></b> and wants only the very best for <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>us</u></i></b>.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[11]</span></span></span></span></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[12]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
God’s glory isn’t just a job, it is a hobby.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
God’s command that we be interested in him is not because he
wants our attention…its because he’s the most interesting entity in the
Universe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this is where CS Lewis
goes in his essay on “The Weight of Glory.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #403152; mso-themecolor: accent4; mso-themeshade: 128;">“We are half hearted creatures, fooling about with drink
and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child
who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is
meant y the offer of a holiday at sea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We are too easily pleased.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-CS
Lewis</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
God’s concern for our concern for his Glory comes down to
that…’we are too easily pleased’ with the universe…there is more for us to
discover.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this is what Jonathan
Edwards concludes as well.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #403152; mso-themecolor: accent4; mso-themeshade: 128;">“God’s
respect for the creature’s good,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #403152; mso-themecolor: accent4; mso-themeshade: 128;">And
his respect to himself</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #403152; mso-themecolor: accent4; mso-themeshade: 128;">Is
not a divided respect,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #403152; mso-themecolor: accent4; mso-themeshade: 128;">But
both are united in one,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #403152; mso-themecolor: accent4; mso-themeshade: 128;">As
the happiness of the creature aimed at,</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #403152; mso-themecolor: accent4; mso-themeshade: 128;">Is
happiness in union with himself.”</span> 80</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
Piper – who is the living advocate of Edwards theology – coined the
term “Chrisitian hedonist” because a preoccupation with God’s glory is a
preoccupation with our own satisfaction<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[13]</span></span></span></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“It is fitting that God’s glory be delighted in as well as
known.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And so tonight, as we celebrate belief through baptism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As these six participate in a public symbol
that they are in on God’s mission to restore his creation through Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the declare that they want to be people
who do relationships in the context of love, hospitality and service.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is helpful for them and us to remember
that we are not just left to our devices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Jesus pulls a Q for his diversified portfolio of agents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He gives us each gifts according to his
varied grace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And these customized gifts
come with customized missions….because he intends regifting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the ultimate goal of the gifts he gives
is that we would find satisfaction in his glory…that we would recognize that he
is the most interesting thing in the universe.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one
another, as good stewards of God's varied grace…in order that in everything God
may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever
and ever. Amen.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a>
Love is a vigorous tenatious thing…not something that happens naturally.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a>
Love is a game of whack a mole…the sin keeps coming, trying to undermine the
relationship…and love just keeps beating it down...<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or darkness encroaches, but love transforms
it (there has to be a fantasy film version of this)</div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
Church can’t be petty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Grown up Christians overlook small offenses…and deal lovingly with big
ones.</div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
Grudem “But where love is lacking, every word is
viewed with suspeicion, every action is liable to misunderstanding, and
conflicts abound – to Satan’s perverse delight.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[3]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 9.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> One of the
ways that people get around the inefficiency of gift giving is to give generic
gifts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something everyone can use.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a sense it is kind because it says “I want
you to be able to use this gift.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in
a sense it is awkward because it says “I haven’t really tried to know you or
imagine your desires and needs enough to make a real shot at figuring out what
you would love.”</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[4]</span></span></span></span></a>
This is the reason I am a little uncomfortable with spiritual gift bubble trons
or internet quizzes…because it ends up creating a 6 to 12 bin taxonomy of
functional value to the church, when God’s graces are far more diversified.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn5" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[5]</span></span></span></span></a>
Sometimes we bristle at ‘diversity agendas’ because our world view seems to get
marginalized.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the value of diversity
actually emerges from the doctrine of sin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>That we are all kind of partial instances of humanness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That we need the company of very different
people to help us realize our full humanness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Diversity is our idea.</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn6" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[6]</span></span></span></span></a> It
is a two for one act of douchiness</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn7" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; tab-stops: 445.5pt;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[7]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"> Glory becomes a theme from here on out.But this is
the kind of language that would emerge from the orthodox theology of the
incarnation and trinity</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn8" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[8]</span></span></span></span></a>
(Judging him by the ‘sinners in the hands of an angry God sermon’ would be like
making all of your conculions about Jesus by his Woe to Corizin speech’ Piper)</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn9" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[9]</span></span></span></span></a>
Edwards: Why doesn’t God’s preoccupation with his glory make him selfish?</div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
“If God is supremely valuable he should value himself
supremely” (in economic models omniscient actors find the best value…well, God
is an omniscient actor and finds the best value in the universe…its him)</div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
“God esteeming himself supremely is not contrary to
his esteeming human happiness, since he is that happiness.”</div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
“Nothing is more loving than for God to exalt himself
(over dead end quests) for the enjoyment of man”</div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
God directing us to his glory is an act of love,
because it is the source of satisfaction</div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
Illustration – someone who chooses an alternate,
lesser option</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn10" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[10]</span></span></span></span></a>
Edwards “What God values for its own sake in creation is his ultimate end in
creation.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dictate 5 – The End for which
God Created the world.p145</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn11" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[11]</span></span></span></span></a>
Edwards – “The degree of regard for a being is in proportion to his
excellence.”</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn12" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[12]</span></span></span></span></a>
Jonathan Edwards – Probobly the Greatest American theologian (Judging him by
the ‘sinners in the hands of an angry God sermon’ would be like making all of
your conculions about Jesus by his Woe to Corizin speech’ Piper) wrote a book
“The End for Which God Created the World” that Piper republished with an
‘intro’ (twice as long as Edwards work) where he answers the question –why does
stuff exist…not just you…like all of it…and he uses a lot of big words and
technical language…but his answer is ‘for his glory.’</div>
</div>
<div id="ftn13" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[13]</span></span></span></span></a>
Lebron just recently said he will be one of the best players of all time… there
wasn’t much outrage because… well… it’s true</div>
</div>
</div>
stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-31050277493210591792013-10-22T08:14:00.001-07:002013-10-22T08:33:55.788-07:00Transcending Twitter Theology: Mapping Peter's Images of AtonementMP3 - Coming Soon<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXn2GP2BOlZWwKQlO0n-98rRYsCQBs9hTChcYkzrqeuyqVRBD4e74le7-v6LZ1t9dDQS16uMJJ_CP59LAhq5Rtc9jqusE2xGrMVwlzMgz7upJ1zOKEBGG102VjSgOVoNNRCuTWW-y3QVFN/s1600/Metaphores+of+Atonement.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXn2GP2BOlZWwKQlO0n-98rRYsCQBs9hTChcYkzrqeuyqVRBD4e74le7-v6LZ1t9dDQS16uMJJ_CP59LAhq5Rtc9jqusE2xGrMVwlzMgz7upJ1zOKEBGG102VjSgOVoNNRCuTWW-y3QVFN/s320/Metaphores+of+Atonement.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK2"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK1"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 8.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Note: I went with a totally
different introduction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t use any
of the first 1000 word in this manuscript.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It happens, often.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I liked
them, so I kept them here.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></a></div>
<br />
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 8.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’m intrigued by bumper
stickers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am always surprised when
someone finds the world so simple and tractable that they can articulate their
polemical worldview in 3-5 words </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 8.0pt;">But Christians are
particularly into this form of ‘drive by debate.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We loves us some bumper stickers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
it always leaves me with 2 questions: 1) do you really want your worldview
evaluated by the quality of your driving<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(I know I don’t, I am one of the 8% of Americans who considers myself a
below average driver…yeah, you do the math on that for a minute)…hey I may have
just inadvertently cut you off…but ‘my boss is a Jewish carpenter”…but secondly
2) Doesn’t God deserve more than 5 words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Reality is too complex and beautiful and nuanced to be reduced to a
pithy one liner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sound bites always lie
by omission.</span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When I was in undergrad
there was a promotional graffiti was right next to the Union.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Student organizations could sign up to paint
it for a week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So from time to time if
we had a big event coming up the Christian group I was involved in would sign
up for it and get a crew out to paint it.</span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But one time, we signed up
for it without a big event coming up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So
about 15 students showed up without a plan…they just wanted to paint something
that would be interesting and provocative and would get people thinking about
Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, I wasn’t there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But apparently the process of 15 people
trying to distill Christianity into a single image or sound bite was painful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course it was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reducing the beauty and complexity of the
gospel to a single sentence or image is impossible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But apparently, they were there for literally
hours sitting in the upstate NY cold…trying to come to a consensus on the
single image or phrase that captured the essence of what we were about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here is what they came up with:</span></span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOcGe7s6zoQtBYh4Lkx5kYhyphenhyphenLzpuH3sa0fjDLnvdshoQMAtnzWlmUZ4f8cGJqBq4ldbClVPMH_czHdbbIEIHOQOM3mrsAUEK1ZcH9nDWryuXq7vwmeX6oJ0QrRiZtrnBqSxVCrYCV1sEaS/s1600/religion+relationship.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOcGe7s6zoQtBYh4Lkx5kYhyphenhyphenLzpuH3sa0fjDLnvdshoQMAtnzWlmUZ4f8cGJqBq4ldbClVPMH_czHdbbIEIHOQOM3mrsAUEK1ZcH9nDWryuXq7vwmeX6oJ0QrRiZtrnBqSxVCrYCV1sEaS/s320/religion+relationship.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And that is a pretty popular
way of thinking about Christian discipleship in our movement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Last year there was a viral video that took
over facebook for a week that essentially boiled Christianity down to this
idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And while it was provocative and
did get people talking…and like most clichés …it is a cliché because it
contains real truth…like most clichés it also lies by omission.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We tend to reduce Relationship
= intimacy…but intimacy can’t be maintained out of nothing<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Intimacy rests on content</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[1]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> and habits.</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[2]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Marriages that have no
content get dull…fast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Marriages that
don’t have practices get hard…fast.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Infatuation can maintain intimacy
for a while on the shear force of will and wonder.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But love, love requires
finding the loved one fundamentally interesting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sustained intimacy requires content.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There has to be “true facts</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[3]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">” about the loved one that
capture your imagination.</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[4]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, while we (as the
teaching team here at CL) work hard to be practical…to focus on the ‘practices’
of maintaining intimacy with God…sometimes we just need to take a step back and
say…”But why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why is God Awesome?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You keep using that word.” And that…is
called…theology!<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">‘God’ is not a self defining
word…Because he is infinite and omnipotent does not mean that he is anything we
imagine him to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is a particular
kind of being with specific characteristics and modes of operation that make
him beautiful rather than dull and just rather than indifferent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>HE is Awesome…in the purest form of the
word…but for particular reasons.</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[5]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Nothing in the Christian
system is of greater consequence than the doctrine of atonement.” –John Wesley<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In undergrad I was a geophysics
major.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now a geology department which
isn’t known for being particularly friendly to spiritual things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there was really only one professor that
was hostile to Christianity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when I
heard his objection to Christianity it was surprising:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">How can the actions of another
person affect my moral destiny?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How does
morality accrue across accounts?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I am
cosmically accountable for my<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>behavior I
don’t see how the actions of another person could affect my account.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He essentially saw morality as these cosmic
bank accounts that we can make deposits or withdrawals from…but there are no
inter-account transfers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One’s person’s
actions cannot accrue or withdraw from anyone else’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So the idea that Jesus could somehow affect
our moral and eternal destiny seemed odd.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dan and I work really hard
to make talks practical.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But sometimes,
you just gots to do some theology.</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[6]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">WE want you to graduate here
with as many tools to live well as possible…but we also want you to think
carefully.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">John Driver: No fewer than
12 motifs<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfMECvbkmJ2fJe5ukbfStVotoLHD0prnVx4o3R9-PzM8xYokTCe3_jv3_1pFqsDy_qcncM2BTKRxpZhr3Oki5zy-xpT9i6cx_ixfuwS6k3J3t-BhZU-bML-pTeQuDbK9dDMhdMCJD8ZsLG/s1600/a+dozen+ways+to+think+about+atonement.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfMECvbkmJ2fJe5ukbfStVotoLHD0prnVx4o3R9-PzM8xYokTCe3_jv3_1pFqsDy_qcncM2BTKRxpZhr3Oki5zy-xpT9i6cx_ixfuwS6k3J3t-BhZU-bML-pTeQuDbK9dDMhdMCJD8ZsLG/s320/a+dozen+ways+to+think+about+atonement.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In 1 Peter, we get at least
4 of these…which each kind of a connect with a cultural component of Peter’s
cultural life. </span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[7]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC4PrsXmTraXPgq1QOOUAMDoWbqEsVfq9NljTiIHnk_kAoEgCWr153LYSqG5dVXUDmLEq3Y7QSzdKn0OHDppzT_3dExxpxqcdGb8yjXxbFZxmUMQig4pmzXaGMJ6eRJE7IISIDZIzNUheE/s1600/1+Peter+Atonement.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC4PrsXmTraXPgq1QOOUAMDoWbqEsVfq9NljTiIHnk_kAoEgCWr153LYSqG5dVXUDmLEq3Y7QSzdKn0OHDppzT_3dExxpxqcdGb8yjXxbFZxmUMQig4pmzXaGMJ6eRJE7IISIDZIzNUheE/s320/1+Peter+Atonement.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span></span></span> </div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span></span></span> </div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So let’s walk through the
ancient world and 1 Peter and see if we can get a little deeper into what we
mean when we say ‘Jesus died for our sins’…and see if content doesn’t deepen
intimacy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s start with two verses
that make a sandwich out of the passage Dan talked about a couple weeks ago:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 18pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 18pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Substitution (Temple)<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBXFH8fjZL-RgDN5fL7x3Qbxzl8n9t7u3zhNdA_q1oUhp5hZdF6f79d4YjQE2Ue5_jQj3vCIknO6_jsl4KFimx6dO2gnzz4X58PkCQrxNdA9SJz6_UE0Axv4Y04TdL5a8QtIk7wOrCkapl/s1600/atonement+images+substitution+temple.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBXFH8fjZL-RgDN5fL7x3Qbxzl8n9t7u3zhNdA_q1oUhp5hZdF6f79d4YjQE2Ue5_jQj3vCIknO6_jsl4KFimx6dO2gnzz4X58PkCQrxNdA9SJz6_UE0Axv4Y04TdL5a8QtIk7wOrCkapl/s1600/atonement+images+substitution+temple.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span></span></span> </div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1:2 “To those who are elect exiles of the
Dispersion…according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the
sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>for sprinkling with his blood</u></b>”</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">[8]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">[9]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">[10]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now there are a lot of words
and phrases in that sentence that are confusing…but there is only one that is also
weird: “Sprinkling with blood”… “Sprinkling with blood…” sounds like something
out of a vampire cook book.</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[11]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">… and it is not the only
time Peter talks about blood</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[12]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1:19 but with <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>the
precious blood of Christ</u></b>, like that of <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>a lamb without blemish or spot</u></b>.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Pentateuch, especially
Leviticus, talks about sprinkling blood on things or people no fewer than</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[13]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> 15 times…blood is the most
common substance sprinkled in the Bible</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn14;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[14]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn15;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[15]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">-When I was a skeptic and
someone challenged me to read the Bible…I was deeply confused when I hit
Leviticus and ran into all kinds of animal sacrifices and what seemed to be an
obsession with blood<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But why is weird?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We find ‘the blood of Christ’ to be an
awkward solution…because we don’t understand the problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems like someone offering us a lifeboat
in the desert…or cliff notes of Madame Bovary to help us with our Chem lab…or
(the solution doesn’t match our perception of the problem).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this is where we have to pause and see if
ancient worldviews didn’t understand something about reality that we have lost.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqHU1iMl1jVaXynA7YDmXHdVzQku6mubaG7Q9uGWHG-HsLHdFYP9PjXZIYK9UQaGSYV4Rngd4qhiSJCqfcjxcFjWVWqUBWlLZo40UK_xhwfBe-dmuWSS1cDJ4fXxVX5mVUTc70eyki847n/s1600/solutions+that+don't+fit+the+problem.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqHU1iMl1jVaXynA7YDmXHdVzQku6mubaG7Q9uGWHG-HsLHdFYP9PjXZIYK9UQaGSYV4Rngd4qhiSJCqfcjxcFjWVWqUBWlLZo40UK_xhwfBe-dmuWSS1cDJ4fXxVX5mVUTc70eyki847n/s320/solutions+that+don't+fit+the+problem.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span> </div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ancient religion both
Hebrews and the surrounding religions saw offenses against God as kind of a big
deal…in a way that we do not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In some
senses, the sacrifice motif addresses a problem we don’t think we have…it
answers a question we have stopped asking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But it is a problem and a question that was at the front of the ancient
conscience…<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What do I do about my cosmic
guilt…how am I going to pay the moral debt I have wracked up?</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn16;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[16]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn17" name="_ftnref17" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn17;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[17]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn18" name="_ftnref18" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn18;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[18]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn19" name="_ftnref19" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn19;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[19]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Illustration: Final episode
of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vikings</i> – Ragnar the great -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Season 1 ends with one of the central characters
offering himself as a sacrifice to the gods, with the image of his blood
spilling out on the table in an attempt to purchase some favor and good fortune
for his people who had displeased the gods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Now, the Hebrew prophets saw this sort of thing as a broken distortion
of a correct impulse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were
constantly telling the surrounding cultures <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i>
the Hebrews to stop sacrificing people to Gods.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"> </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn20" name="_ftnref20" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn20;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[20]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the reality was intrinsic…Ancient
cultures had a sense that the gods had to be satisfied with blood…<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ancient customs which
betrayed a little desperation about our evil against other humans and against
our creator…often ended in blood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yahwehism was distinct because the blood wasn’t human blood. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The ancient religious
conscience recognized that guilt and justice required penalty for rebellion
against.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That there is a moral, cosmic,
cause and effect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And you could either
face the penalty yourself or exchange a sacrifice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And by calling to mind the sacrifices of
Hebrew and other religions both in the OT and in Roman society (which is what
he’s doing by talking about “sprinkling with blood” and “the blood of a …Peter
says, the death and resurrection of Christ was the thing that all of these
things were pointing to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The human
impulse to seek to feel grave concern about the debt our injustice and
falseness puts us in before God and a kind of desperation make things ok with
God is right.</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn21" name="_ftnref21" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn21;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[21]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Modern people tend to ask, ‘How
could a good God punish humans?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The authors of the NT asks a
completely different question If God is really good and just how God can he refrain
from punishing people immediately and fully without becoming morally
compromised.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn22" name="_ftnref22" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn22;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[22]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn23" name="_ftnref23" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn23;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[23]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3hQC_MBOhkRqUdPyrEZsW2Q3NecalwkpDO7T7j7qy4dfA91uDec5h13igJ0XRUhoZzAPM-ONTcuT1KBmI9r6CQZ0XgaFwCuIHSRjGhrelJMaxylfcPU1LAJ30lVLEO27l6cByNu-fePns/s1600/justice+and+mercy+ancient+and+modern+questions.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3hQC_MBOhkRqUdPyrEZsW2Q3NecalwkpDO7T7j7qy4dfA91uDec5h13igJ0XRUhoZzAPM-ONTcuT1KBmI9r6CQZ0XgaFwCuIHSRjGhrelJMaxylfcPU1LAJ30lVLEO27l6cByNu-fePns/s320/justice+and+mercy+ancient+and+modern+questions.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span></span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We have a problem and the
problem is us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both 2:4 and 3:18 suggest
that the work of Christ is in some sense an exchange…our guilt for his
innocence…which is what the OT blood stuff was pointing to all along.</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn24" name="_ftnref24" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn24;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[24]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And that is where blood and sacrifice came in because ancient
religion often looked for a substitute to take the brunt of the justice so they
could experience mercy.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This is a question that would not occur to most modern
people…but that doesn’t make it a unimportant question…just one we’ve stopped
asking.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And essentially, both of these dilemmas get down to the same
thing.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We assume God is merciful…but we also want him to be just.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">They assume God is just…but also want him to be merciful.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But the interesting thing is that the ancient and modern
questions both end up with essentially the same dilemma…they just get to it
differently:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Justice and mercy are always at odds, yet God embodies both.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The question is…how can that be?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And you have had this
experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You hear a news story about
something awful…but then you hear about the background of the guilty party and
feel something for them…and you are torn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You want to extend love to the
perpetrator but also to the wronged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Part
of you wants mercy for the broken perpetrator and part of you wants justice for
the one who was wronged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it leaves
you will all sorts of cognitive dissonance…because you can’t have both.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">Illustration</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">: <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Let me tell you about my most difficult
experience negotiating the irreconcilable nature of justice and mercy.</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>About 8 years ago my Dad was driving home
from visiting my grandmother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had
recently retired and a couple times a month he made the 2.5 hour drive to see
her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But on that particular day he was
driving around a bend on one of the windy country roads that are typical in the
finger lakes region of central new York…and a semi was coming in the other
direction…when a car came flying down the road and tried zip around the semi
and the double yellow line…smashing into my dad’s car head on…and in an instant
of reckless judgment…my whole family changed forever…mom was a widow…and our
children would never meet their grandfather…and the world suddenly seemed like
a much starker and scarier place without my dad standing between me and it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now the young man who did this already had a record, so
manslaughter was going to put him in jail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But there was a strange nuance to the legal process that took me totally
by surprise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Part of the legal process
in manslaughter cases I didn’t know about was that during the sentencing process
the family of the victim is invited to make an appeal to the judge on how
strict the sentence should be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
remember thinking: Are you kidding me?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What would I say?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t have
any background in legal theory or justice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(I haven’t gotten that degree yet.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>How am I qualified to say have an opinion on sentencing?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that was mainly a smoke screen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know why I didn’t want to do it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know why I didn’t know what to tell the
judge…really? Because I had these two contradictory impulses inside me: an
impulse for mercy…and an impulse for justice.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I honestly felt a lot of compassion for the young man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He had a kid and probably a rough
background.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jail is not a restorative
character building place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I felt for
my family too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My mom was devastated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her life would never be the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their first grandchild was born 3 days after
the funeral.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Real violence had been done
to my family…and I knew that that mercy towards my mom meant justice for the
one who had done violence to her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The real
reason I didn’t know what to say about sentencing was that I wanted justice…and
I wanted mercy…and couldn’t have both.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span></span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span></span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span></span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the cross the justice and
mercy of God meet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God’s moral
seriousness is displayed and his desire to spare us what our actions deserve
even to his own pain is demonstrated.</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn25" name="_ftnref25" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn25;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[25]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn26" name="_ftnref26" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn26;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[26]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 18pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 18pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Christus Victor (Military)<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></span></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirIQCaus1Kp4YkHrniGkktuZM1xb3Tu7VuBx7AFOjZ81mN4rFGjPcjlOEYv3WCAhbZm8aDDQzlZUcwDb6SiRYHeqlj1UMamAIwcPyLNQajOxltw-oHafIePVsGL0hr8y5mynP4JFj8CwC3/s1600/christus+victor+model+1+Peter.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirIQCaus1Kp4YkHrniGkktuZM1xb3Tu7VuBx7AFOjZ81mN4rFGjPcjlOEYv3WCAhbZm8aDDQzlZUcwDb6SiRYHeqlj1UMamAIwcPyLNQajOxltw-oHafIePVsGL0hr8y5mynP4JFj8CwC3/s1600/christus+victor+model+1+Peter.png" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span></span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“…through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has
gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and
powers having been subjected to him.” 3:22<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We have a problem, and the
problem is us…but not just us.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Your personal forgiveness is
a very small part of the victory Jesus won over evil…<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…angels, authorities, and
powers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is certainly true to say
that ‘Jesus died for your sins’…but it is such a tiny part of the story…that it
is almost a caricature<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Seeing Jesus as your own
personal savior is a pretty small view of both what is wrong with the world and
what the Christian story is all about…your personal sin is not the biggest
problem with the world…but it’s kind of a big deal to you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I was talking with my friend Peter Nittler, one of the CL
interns and he said “you know, it is kind of like a super hero movie.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Think about a climactic battle in a super hero movie…say “The
Avengers” (slide) where the avengers are doing cosmic battle for the destiny of
our planet against aliens and these <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">terrifying
giant flying critters that look like anti-gravity cross between a mosasar and a
eurypterid.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lets call them mosyptarids
(Eurypasaours?)<o:p></o:p></b></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzFKb45mrbjpYvq05NkX6TjZnJDefA3NH9M4D4fvgTOTOnFNBLn85Lyc5aswjddc7XEUI_e0EddXp2kCs3bTHUgPiKvraEcfB8qyCz4Cd6bSVXYeZss1GxYif4lJqbgRn-8mZDfaOuEpXz/s1600/paleontological+origin+of+Avengers+Leviathan.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzFKb45mrbjpYvq05NkX6TjZnJDefA3NH9M4D4fvgTOTOnFNBLn85Lyc5aswjddc7XEUI_e0EddXp2kCs3bTHUgPiKvraEcfB8qyCz4Cd6bSVXYeZss1GxYif4lJqbgRn-8mZDfaOuEpXz/s320/paleontological+origin+of+Avengers+Leviathan.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When all of a sudden, one of the avengers notices that there
is a kid in harm’s way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So he takes a
break from pounding on the flying <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">mosyptarids
</b>to scoop up the kid and bring him to safety…and then resumes opening a can
on the cosmic villains.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now getting
rescued is kind of a big deal for the kid, but is a very small part of the
cosmic conflict underway.</span></span></div>
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The gospel is not about your
sin problem.</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn27" name="_ftnref27" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn27;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[27]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is about God rescuing you from your
sin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the story of God rescuing his
cosmic creation (including you) from the powers (human and otherwise) that are
destroying it…including you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are both
the enemy and the object of rescue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
that is the disorientigly sublime nature of the gospel and the reason that the
victory is so counter intuitive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
victory is so counterintuitive because the objective is so
counterintuitive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God is waging a cosmic
battle to save his enemy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jesus died and rose from the
dead as dramatic, surprising, military victory…a final battle in which he defeated
evil and death and the powers</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn28" name="_ftnref28" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn28;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[28]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> that had subjugated his
creation because humans…God’s chosen care takers of his creation…gave them
access.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jesus defeated evil…which
includes us…it includes our evil…and while my personal evil (which we call sin)
is a pitifully minor part of that…but it is kind of a big deal to me…because it
puts me on the losing side of the battle<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> I</span></o:p></span></b></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">llustration</span></b></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">: (I cut this from the talk...and ran it over on my blog)<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Triple jump relay – In high
school I ran track…badly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We had state
champion sprinters…so I made the team as a freshman because they needed warm
bodies to throw at the distance events.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But as bad as I was at track…I was worse at field…in particular my
event…the triple jump.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here’s how bad I
was at the triple jump.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t triple
jump quite as far as the best long jumper on my team.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For those of you unfamiliar with track…that
is exactly as pathetic as it sounds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
could not jump quite as far in 3 jumps as Kuan Gladney could in 1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my entire 4 year varsity track career I
never scored a point in triple jump.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My
coach just thought it would be a good idea for me to have something to keep me busy
between my two races which were the first and the next to last races on the
track.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So for the first event of my
senior season we went to a ‘relay meet’, which is kind of an exhibitional event
where all the races are relays…and since you can’t really do high jump or shot
put in ‘relay’ you put up a 3 person team and the added the scores.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now we had two very good athletes John and
Devon who were triple jumping for the first time that year…but neither of them
had done it before and I was the only other triple jumper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were good sports about it, but you could
tell that once they realized my score was going to be added to their they knew
that they were just out for a few practice jumps and so I think they kind of
decided they’d just compete against each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Anyway, I went out and did
my awkward, underwhelming jumps…and then headed out to anchor a ‘distance medly
relay’ where I ran a mile at the end of a 2 and a half mile mixed distance
relay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the last 100 m of that race I
caught a guy and moved us up from 6<sup>th</sup> place to 5<sup>th</sup>
place…which, in my underwhelming track career, counted as a pretty big
deal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was pretty psyched about
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And right after I finished I looked
up and saw my track coach coming over to me with a huge grin on his face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He shook my hand proudly and congratulated
me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At first I was like…”Oh yeah, I’m
the man…5<sup>th</sup> place…out of 8” But then when I thought about it, he was
actually a little too excited.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean,
I’d passed one kid and managed not to get passed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was proud of it, but it was hardly a big
deal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then my coach reached out his hand
and was holding something I had literally never seen before…it was a blue
ribbon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Congratulations, he said,
you won the triple jump.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It turns out the other two
jumpers had gotten into some sort of almost super natural zone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was like none of the other jumpers
mattered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were in their own
universe…back and forth, pushing each other…each jump better than the next…they
put on a clinic…they had jumped out of their minds…putting up the two top
distances…</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn29" name="_ftnref29" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn29;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[29]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">that when added to my silly
little jump to the two top distances…we won by a quarter of an inch…<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…the only time I ever scored
in the triple jump…I won…even though I did not remotely deserve it.</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn30" name="_ftnref30" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn30;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[30]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn31" name="_ftnref31" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn31;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[31]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">That is how this image of
the work of Christ ‘works.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Life is a
relay meet…and the dark powers that are marauding this world (both spiritual
and institutional) are more than a match for us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">On our own, we lose…but by
aligning with Christ we can join the winning team.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We were made caretakers of
creation…but let the enemy in the gates.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The enemy plundered and trashed the land, enslaved us, and convinced us
that it was all for our good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The gospel
narratives are God’s unexpected and subversive sneak attach to take it all
back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The good news is that he is taking
back creation and will remake it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
bad news is that, when he comes back to win the sublime victory, we are on the
wrong team.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So how do we respond…we
surrender.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We lay down arms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">Illustration</span></b></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">: A war where the vanquished
surrendered and were restored to citizenship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>When the North defeated the south in the Civil war…a change of
allegiance meant a full restoration of citizenship<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Oh, and you get to choose a
team.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without the cross…you’d be on the
‘black hat’ team by default.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cross
lets us join the winning team.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Cultural artifact…the spell
is broken…the unwitting/unwilling army lays down their arms<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Illustration: My middle child's parent teacher conference survey:</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Last week I went to a student conference for our middle child,
who’s just about one of the most original human beings I have ever met.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now this kid is 4.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
they had her fill out a survey that we could talk about at the conference.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now there are a few details in this survey that are entertaining.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I look like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dude, my kid can bring it with a pencil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of my kids are going to have to consider
the sciences because the arts are just not going to be an option.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But on the topic of vocational aspirations…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What does my daughter want to be when she grows up: A
beautiful butterfly…That’s encouraging… I hear there’s big job market for that.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But the last one floored me.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">She goes to preschool over at University Covenant Church so
they asked her what she thought of Jesus<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaXMHo__P-lCR1_pU1kockzUKZSSsOODqXYCNn9FliG3HaEI3F4Nt71wy8BIFFUVojuEuIgsiT2JmegTEbAAI551Regb6yFVjT6vJ2sfp6NpKA4SnLBQY5vo3tPsahJBL19v_lLe_9kpd5/s1600/Jesus+is+the+strongest+king.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaXMHo__P-lCR1_pU1kockzUKZSSsOODqXYCNn9FliG3HaEI3F4Nt71wy8BIFFUVojuEuIgsiT2JmegTEbAAI551Regb6yFVjT6vJ2sfp6NpKA4SnLBQY5vo3tPsahJBL19v_lLe_9kpd5/s320/Jesus+is+the+strongest+king.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her answer - Jesus<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>is The Strongest King…<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now that isn’t language I’ve ever used with her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is her own orriginal 4 year old
theology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I immediately thought.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“…angels, authorities, and powers have been subjected to
him.” 3:22<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">She may want to be a butterfly when she grows up…but that
girl GETS the Christus Victor Model of atonement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She might think that he is the king of the
hexapods…but she knows, when Jesus goes to battle…he wins.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll take it.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Boyd: “By calling on
disciples to join Christ’s rebellion against and victory over the ever-present
powers, the Christus Victor perspective inspires disciples to live
countercultural lives that aggressively resist the demonically seductive pull
of nationalism, patriotism, culturally endorsed violence, greed, racism, and a
host of other structural evils that arpe part of the spiritually polluted air
we all breath.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">CLers in the march against
rape</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn32" name="_ftnref32" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn32;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[32]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> and walk for life
IJM…fighting evil is a totally legitimate thing for you to get involved in.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 18pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><u><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 18pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Exchange/Ransom
(Business/Commercial)<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_Lh4ehztxYGZW9K3Px-jQQhZXICN71BnXlMwkTYM-v5VXHJAsd541POzjG8v28w9FB3kUvX6npmMdtUdNoN_EAmdOw-U5AKJXrcoFYlOVnPleqwBVAtpqiueV2BVeDxehxKrZpP0NqDBv/s1600/ransom+atonement.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_Lh4ehztxYGZW9K3Px-jQQhZXICN71BnXlMwkTYM-v5VXHJAsd541POzjG8v28w9FB3kUvX6npmMdtUdNoN_EAmdOw-U5AKJXrcoFYlOVnPleqwBVAtpqiueV2BVeDxehxKrZpP0NqDBv/s320/ransom+atonement.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But ransom language moves
from the military realm of Roman life to the market place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gladiator slave market.</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn33" name="_ftnref33" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn33;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[33]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1:18 “…you were <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>ransomed</u></b> from the futile ways</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn34" name="_ftnref34" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn34;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">[34]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> inherited from your forefathers…”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Boyd “Ransom” means paying
the “price of release” and was most commonly used of purchasing slaves from the
slave market. (A Roman slave market would have had slaves from all over the
world…the ransom language suggests that Jesus buys the freedom of a diverse
collection of slaves…not unlike the Michael Johansen image)<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Rev 5:9-10 “By his blood the
Lamb has ‘ransomed’ a people’<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now, some translations will
use the word ‘redeemed’ here but the greek word is much more precise…it means paying
the “price of release” and first century literature most commonly used of
purchasing slaves from the slave market. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And that is what Jesus
did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He paid a price to free us from the
things that enslave us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The price for
our freedom…is himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he’s good
for it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now, ‘ransom’ is kind of a
culturally distant word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We don’t have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">public</i> slave markets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So when we talk about someone giving their
lives in exchange to free a doomed captive in the last couple years…we<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>might use a different term:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I don’t know…maybe
say…tribute.</span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I volunteer as tribute.”</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">Illustration</span></u></b></span></span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">: This was unquestionably
the best scene in the Hunger Games.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For
those of you unfamiliar with this story…all three of you…the story centers
around two sisters – a younger sister Prim and an older sister Katniss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In what the call ‘the reaping’ Prim, the
younger sister of the protagonist is selected to be <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">shipped off to a gladiator style-to the death- battle where she will </b></span></span></span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">certainly die a horrible and public death.</span></b></span></span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And Katniss, the protagonist, immediately rushes
the stage and invokes a rule where anyone in the town can volunteer to take the
selected…except it is very dramatic. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">She rushes the stage and
yells “I volunteer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I volunteer as
Tribute.”</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA9kWlqFnlLwd82StbgprJCnDhf3wa5w0MrEbnRj4O-0_L9FhB3C731lQSXG45AhbiJ2vjefNIHSZEafJzEYtpNJGgiGBBE1slKfeao90TPUdGmqBHmdilYxS0CJBL_KvrDs1FpPt39anF/s1600/hunger+games+tribute+and+ransom+atonement.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA9kWlqFnlLwd82StbgprJCnDhf3wa5w0MrEbnRj4O-0_L9FhB3C731lQSXG45AhbiJ2vjefNIHSZEafJzEYtpNJGgiGBBE1slKfeao90TPUdGmqBHmdilYxS0CJBL_KvrDs1FpPt39anF/s320/hunger+games+tribute+and+ransom+atonement.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now I’d show the clip…but
there is a little bit of a technology problem...you see, this scene makes my
eyes malfunction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I actually can’t watch
it without them leaking…it’s this clear salty fluid…its weird.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this is frankly embarrassing, because men
in their mid-30’s… are not exactly the target demographic of this story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So you’ll just have to imagine it with me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
B<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ut Katniss offering herself
in place of her sister to free her from a dark oppressive slavery and painful
public doom…volunteering as tribute…is precisely the kind of image that Peter
is trying to leverage in this sound bite:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1:18 “…you were <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>ransomed</u></b> from the futile ways inherited from your
forefathers…”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Or <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He volunteered as tribute to free you from the
patterns and cultural systems that are holding you captive.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now the sequel is coming
out…and there is a scene in the trailer to the sequel that bridges us to our
final sound bite.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I feel like it isn’t a
spoiler to tell you that Katniss survives when there is a sequel with her
picture on the poster.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">Illustration</span></u></b></span></span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">: Prim in the new Hunger
games trailer<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://youtu.be/jyPnQw_Lqds?t=1m35s"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">http://youtu.be/jyPnQw_Lqds?t=1m35s</span></span></span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Prim: “You saved my life,
you gave me a chance.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Katniss: “To live.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Prim: “No, to do something.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7NgDqlXLLfnzghiHN17TDbTuCZawAvGhvqLTSWf4PADdepqXqCwsXcrjcAuseVQvsCC_nk0PJbcthB2By3bBViPN3X0TjxFLWCk-hTJ5pKGKYZbtEj2YdrdWOWjmqNk8Ld2VZIxzmx4EI/s1600/Katniss+prim+I+want+to+do+something.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7NgDqlXLLfnzghiHN17TDbTuCZawAvGhvqLTSWf4PADdepqXqCwsXcrjcAuseVQvsCC_nk0PJbcthB2By3bBViPN3X0TjxFLWCk-hTJ5pKGKYZbtEj2YdrdWOWjmqNk8Ld2VZIxzmx4EI/s320/Katniss+prim+I+want+to+do+something.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What does Prim do?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She joins the liberation movement…she becomes
a medic and puts herself repeatedly in harm’s way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She wants to become a medic in the liberation
movement, which terrifies her family.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But her logic is
unassailable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Someone volunteered as
tribute to purchase her freedom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She
couldn’t imagine using that freedom just ‘to live.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had to ‘do something.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had to get involved in the liberation
movement even at great risk.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But that’s the thing about
people who have been dramatically liberated…they realize that their life is too
valuable to waste… become liberators.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And if you get your head
around the ransom picture that Peter and others paint…neither will you.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The price for our freedom…is
himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not unlike…the best scene
in the Hunger Games.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not going to
show it because I honestly can’t watch it without tearing up.</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn35" name="_ftnref35" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn35;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[35]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But you know the scene I’m talking about…”I
volunteer…I volunteer as tribute”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But the freed slaves…they
seek transformation (tie into Dan’s themes) and become part of a liberation
movement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They become a diverse
purposeful people.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Prim: “You saved my life,
you gave me a chance.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Katniss: “To live.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Prim: “No, to do something.”</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn36" name="_ftnref36" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn36;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[36]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What does she do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She joins the liberation movement.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Which leads to the fourth
idea:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 18pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">4.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 18pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Example<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></span></span></div>
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLDWQlyP9mrYpuhwe1s-q352OybUTrjZutuc8UFLEdfLAwsROzlcvw_5X7uZaXOA4AmYjOyzrh1_FFA50vUS0vD1seq1xkAMGwbu5ScjbIMA0Dec1Xmbnq_lA1Zfvp0O2T2yLjDrxz24Oa/s1600/Example+metaphor+of+atonment.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLDWQlyP9mrYpuhwe1s-q352OybUTrjZutuc8UFLEdfLAwsROzlcvw_5X7uZaXOA4AmYjOyzrh1_FFA50vUS0vD1seq1xkAMGwbu5ScjbIMA0Dec1Xmbnq_lA1Zfvp0O2T2yLjDrxz24Oa/s1600/Example+metaphor+of+atonment.png" /></a></div>
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2:21 “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for
you, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>leaving you an example</u></b>,
so that you might follow in his steps.”</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn37" name="_ftnref37" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn37;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text2;">[37]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So as we have already
seen…to make Christ’s example the only thing the cross was good for…to reduce
him into a sentimental martyr that becomes a kind of good example for a heroic
life…is to gut the gospel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that is
exactly what happened in Liberal theology in the early 20<sup>th</sup> century.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus is like Gandhi or Mother Teresa…his
heroic sacrifice inspires us to live lives characterized by heroic sacrifice…it
doesn’t even have to be true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And in
this way, they found a way to somehow keep going to church on Sunday…even
though they thought that Jesus, Paul, Peter et al were basically mistaken about
who Jesus was and what he did (for about a generation)… these churches are unsurprisingly
empty now…but that image that Jesus is a good guy…a sapiential prophet…is still
the dominant picture in the public consciousness…<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But here is the problem with
the story of American Christianity in the 19<sup>th</sup> century.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Liberal faction of the church took one
part of the story and made it the whole game…and so more orthodox factions
started to shy away from legitimate implications and application of these
portions of our story…which incidentally is how we got entire generations of
Christians that weren’t interested in serving the poor and fighting injustice.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Just because it is not the
whole story…doesn’t mean that it isn’t part of the story.</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn38" name="_ftnref38" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn38;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[38]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn39" name="_ftnref39" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn39;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[39]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The sacrificial love that
Jesus showed us on the cross is a call to a lifestyle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this fits very well with the other
pictures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>None of these pictures
separate “how you become a Christian” and “How you live as a Christian.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Our moral failure has been
healed by a devastating act of self giving, making us just in God’s sight…a
reality we actively ‘live into’ by putting off the old ways and habits and
putting on the new ways and habits.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We have surrendered to the
irresistible advance of justice and beauty into the cosmos…but it is still and
active battle, so we join it on the side of beauty and justice.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3.</span><span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We are slaves that have been
purchase to freedom…it makes no sense to become anything other than liberators
ourselves<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jesus offers himself in
exchange for us…but we are saved, rescued, and ransomed…for a life of
articulating the gospel, resisting evil, and liberation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">These four metaphors do not
exhaust the biblical imagery of atonement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We haven’t even talked about a couple of the images central to Paul’s
writings.</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn40" name="_ftnref40" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn40;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[40]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
_____________________________________<span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: text1;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[1]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> I remember picking up “Knowing God” and expecting it
to be a mystical volume on how to develop relational intimacy with God…and was
really disappointed that it was essentially an abbreviated Systematic
Theology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because I had bought the weird
cultural narrative that intimacy is based on experience with no component of
content.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It didn’t occur to me that part
of ‘knowing God’ relationally would include ‘knowing what he is like’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn2" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[2]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Mysticism is hard work…it requires diligent inquiries
into the truth and consistent spiritual practices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mysticism requires theology and disciplines.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn3" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[3]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> I imagine a slide with two
opening images from the “true facts” series…and one that is mocked up “true
facts about Jesus”</span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn4" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[4]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">
<span style="font-size: 8pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Dorothy Sayers: “The
Doctrine is the drama.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn5" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[5]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Repeated declarations that “God is so awesome” can
only carry you so far.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At some point,
you wake up and are 30, with a couple kids and a job, and ‘God is so awesome’
just doesn’t cut it anymore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You need
particulars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You need to learn to see
beauty in detail and complexity of his work and character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(PN - which is ironic because by truncating
it and trivializing it, we miss out on real “awesomeness”)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn6" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[6]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> If you grew up catholic or orthodox…you probably got a
little systematic theological training…but if you grew up in an evangelical
church or no church at all…you’ve picked up your theology peicemeil…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn7" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[7]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> My idea here is to do something like John Green’s
thought bubble animation segments of his history videos…he’d make blood
splatter in on the temple and the priest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Instead of an outline…I’m going to invite them to walk through the
ancient world with me to ‘see’ how Peter describes atonement…walking from
institution to institution and describing how it illustrates atonement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think the handout will be an annotated map
rather than an outline.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn8" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[8]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Amanda’s bit about “it must have been messy to be a priest’s
wife”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn9" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[9]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> This reminds me of a recipe of how to get right with
God…put in X, Y, and Z…but whatever you do…don’t forget to sprinkle some
atoning blood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can see my Italian
Grandma…’and then…just a sprinkle of blood’…* The Blood of atonement is like
yeast…obedience doesn’t work without it…it is the active ingredient though
invisible…but obedience is the bulk of what you see and do.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">*footnote to the
footnote: IF SHE WAS A VAMIPRE…blood illustrations get weird fast…but that
isn’t new…the Romans thought that the early church was into cannibalism because
of confusion over blood metaphors.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn10" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[10]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> See Leviticus 17:11<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn11" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[11]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> I had a bunch of jokes
regarding Edward Cullen that were 100% unusable</span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn12" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[12]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> We are actually a blood obsessed culture…because it
can transfer pathogens…in the ancient world…it could transfer life an guilt.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn13" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[13]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Now, I’m a parent of a 2 year old boy…so I have some
experience with inappropriate sprinkling.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn14" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn14;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[14]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Others include hyssop, dust, salt, and water<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn15" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn15;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[15]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Grudem “Sprinkle blood in the OT was a visual reminder
to God and to his people that a life had been given, a sacrifice had been paid”
p56…in only three places was blood ceremonially sprinkled on the people
themselves. (the initiation of the covenant, establishment of the priesthood,
and purification from leprosy<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn16" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn16;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[16]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The Father,
because of his love for human beings, sent his Son (who offered himself
willingly and gladly) to satisfy God’s justice, so that Christ took the place
of sinners.” Thomas Schreiner<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn17" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn17;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[17]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> My early church experiences revolved around a small,
rural church which was dominated by a giant statue of Christ dead on the cross,
suspended in the front.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t get
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why does a weekly celebration of
God’s love revolve around such a grisly and depressing image.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I asked someone and was told…Jesus’ death
‘opened the gates of heaven.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, I
thought, well, I guess that’s pretty bad ass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>There is a causal connection between his death and me getting to be with
God forever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can see why that is a big
deal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But as I got older, the details
began to seem fuzzy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Questions like:
How? And Why? And even WHAT?!? Begin to creep up.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn18" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref18" name="_ftn18" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn18;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[18]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> The OT is bloody…but not just in the fighty parts…also
in its religion. A debt and an exchange.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A blood debt requiring a violent exchange.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn19" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref19" name="_ftn19" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn19;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[19]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> “For many of us the sacrifice of animals remains
abstract.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Not if you grew up on a
farm…but I digress…the Palin turkey clip could be interesting here) But reflect
on the violence of the activity: the blood, the entrails and the goriness of it
all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The death of the animals shows the
penalty for sin is death.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn20" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref20" name="_ftn20" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn20;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[20]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> A decent amount of the OT is not about God’s people
doing too little religion…but too much, and getting involved in human
sacrifices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Hebrew prophets are
always telling the neighboring peoples…’Hey stop sacrificing people…especially
children…to your gods.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And occasionally,
they had to tell the Hebrews the same thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But from Mesopotamia to North America to Scandinavia to Peru…ancient
people had a spiritual impulse that we have lost…there is something in the
fabric of reality that takes rebellion seriously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both explicitly, in the Hebrew Scriptures and
implicitly in the human impulse to placate the forces and cosmic personalities
of the universe with animal and human sacrifices.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn21" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref21" name="_ftn21" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn21;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[21]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Add to the list of Ice and Fire illustrations I can’t
use…the special power of the blood of a king.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn22" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref22" name="_ftn22" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn22;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[22]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
Paraphrased from Thomas Schreiner - 88</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn23" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref23" name="_ftn23" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn23;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[23]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Cam and the Lamb sandwich – I
brought a lamb sandwich to work after Easter and my friend Cam said<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I just can’t figure out why Easter is this
like, kid holiday (something I hear a lot and it really bugs me) with candy
eggs and chocolate bunnies and lawn games…and then for dinner we have this dead
baby sheep.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It struck him as
incongruous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A flash of brutality in a
sea of pastel fun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Exactly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>On Easter, we celebrate an atonement that is beautiful but not
pretty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is cleansing but not clean.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn24" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref24" name="_ftn24" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn24;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[24]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Sin as Lawbreaking is impersonal </span></span><span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 8pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">à</span></span><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> um, sin is very personal…it is rebellion…or spiritual
adultery as the OT prophets were want to describe it<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn25" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref25" name="_ftn25" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn25;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[25]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
ot sacrifices – uncashed check</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn26" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref26" name="_ftn26" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn26;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[26]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> I’d like to find a good substitutionary atonement
illustration: Ben Affleck and Bruce Willis in Armageddon might work, Jack at
the end of Lost, I feel like there is something better.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Someone who is saved for
a purpose…Prim in the Catching Fire trailer<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91G2vheJdOw"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91G2vheJdOw</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn27" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref27" name="_ftn27" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn27;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[27]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> (PN: It’s almost like in a Superhero movie in one of
those big battle scenes where civilians are in danger and the hero rescues one
in the midst of the battle… that need to be saved was very real for that
no-name character… but it’s a blip in the movie, it’s 12 seconds of a 2:45
movie… it would be foolish for that character to say that Superman or Batman or
Spiderman exists or existed to save them…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They are savers and restorers by nature and along the way to SAVING THE
DAY, their nature allowed them to save a life…)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn28" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref28" name="_ftn28" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn28;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[28]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> You know how we said that Christian community has
‘emerging properties’ where the beauty and utility of the whole is
qualitatively different than the sum of its parts…well the same is true of
human evil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Human evil transcends the
individual badness of humans participating in evil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has feedbacks and magnifying effects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is goaded and fed by cosmic evil.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this web of injustice and greed and
destruction, it takes on something of a personality of its own…which both Peter
and Paul refer to as ‘the powers’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So
Jesus came to disarm the powers…he is facing off against cosmic evil…and human
sin…but also structures of injustice…patters of degradation…evil systems that
are bigger than the evil of any one individual.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn29" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref29" name="_ftn29" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn29;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[29]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> We were made caretakers…and abdicated, choosing the
rebellion…and when the land is liberated…instead of being treated like rebels,
we can be reinstated as caretakers…but the human story is just a small part
of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Jesus died to save you from your
sins makes the story a little too small.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What are ‘Rebels’ – the
good guys<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn30" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref30" name="_ftn30" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn30;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[30]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> I picked the wrong team…I feel like there is a
cultural artifact that delivers this line<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn31" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref31" name="_ftn31" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn31;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[31]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> (PN: I also think the curious case of Bengie Molina is
interesting… Bengie was the Giants catcher before Buster Posey and he got
traded to the Rangers the year Buster came into the league… Interestingly,
Bengie’s Rangers played Buster’s Giants in the World Series… I’m not going to
tell you who won </span></span><span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 8pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">J</span></span><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> But what was interesting is that Bengie still got a
ring… even though he lost, even though he was the enemy, he had inherent value
after the Giants’ victory because he was part of it.. . even though he went to
a different team for a while and lost with that team, he still gets the World
Series win and a share of the spoils…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Not quite perfect maybe because he doesn’t come back to the team, but
interesting…)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn32" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref32" name="_ftn32" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn32;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[32]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> I was sitting in Pete’s one day and suddenly about 40
students march by chanting and holding signs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It immediately caught my attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But upon closer inspection, 2 things drew my attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, they were all men.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And Second, they were holding signs about how
its up to men to stop rape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was
sitting with a couple friends and we nodded our heads at each other and said
‘that there is all right’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Rape
culture’ is a thing and men bear responsibility in trying to change it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But then I saw a couple dudes from CL in the
mix…and it, frankly, made me really proud of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was glad that Jesus was in that mix…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn33" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref33" name="_ftn33" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn33;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[33]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> <span style="font-size: 8pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Ransom language is connected
to the Christus Victor language…because in defeating the devil he frees us</span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn34" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref34" name="_ftn34" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn34;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[34]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Grudem: Lotroo – distinct sense “to purchase someone’s
freedom by praying a ransom’ and was used in secular contexts of purchasing
freedom for a slave or a hostage held by an enemy*.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a very specific verb with a narrow
semantic range.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“saved” or “redeemed”
doesn’t quite do it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Ransomed” is more
of the thing<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">*this ties it to the
military image…slave markets are filled by military campaigns…you probably
could tell how well the Germanic campaigns were doing by the ‘stock’ at the
slave market…but unlike the roman campaigns…God’s victory empties the slave
markets instead of fills them<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Grudem points out that
you were ransomed from your slavery to ‘ways’ (“pattern of life”)…to patterns
that you got from your family or cultural…generational, hereditary habits that
hold you bound “an influence made by the accumulation of generations of
tradition in a society that valued such ancestral wisdom.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>p88<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn35" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref35" name="_ftn35" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn35;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[35]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
Which is emberassing, because men in their mid-30’s…ok…late 30s…are not the
target demographic of this film.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn36" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref36" name="_ftn36" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn36;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[36]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: 8pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The “Exchange” in the first
hunger games seems like it would work for #1 but the question of ‘who is the
ransom paid to’ is a problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(I
literally tear up every time I watch the “I volunteer as tribute” scene) In the
first it cuts the wrong way, because God is in the position of the oppressive
regime.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This gets at the weirdness of
the debate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did Jesus take our place to
satisfy the justice of God or to take the brunt of the Devil’s offensive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, yes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">But under the Ransom metaphor, the protagonist gives
herself in place of someone she desperately loves…lives…and then they battle
the oppressive forces together (spoiler alert: even to the point of huge cost).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The clip is a little weird because Katniss is
reluctant to let Prim face the risks of joining the resistance (where Jesus
calls us to it), but I think the whole thing works under this heading.</span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn37" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref37" name="_ftn37" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn37;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[37]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> “The example theory of atonement rightly sees that
Jesus functions paradigmatically for Christians.” Schreiner p69<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn38" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref38" name="_ftn38" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn38;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[38]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Evangelicals do this all the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Liberals distorted things and focused too
narrowly on one corner of the story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
in response to this, we reject whatever corner of the story they focused on,
instead of give it its proper weight.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn39" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref39" name="_ftn39" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn39;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[39]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> We tend to
shy away from this because it became unduly central to Liberal thought, but in
its place as “a” component of the work of Christ, it is really important.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div id="ftn40" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<div class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref40" name="_ftn40" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn40;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[40]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">
Not sure where to put this, but I want to tip my hat to the fact that by
looking at Peter’s categories, we are leaving out some big ideas.</span></div>
</div>
</div>
stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-61338899100177579972013-10-02T07:33:00.001-07:002013-10-04T09:33:57.242-07:00‘Old School’: Ancient Wisdom for the Modern University<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://googledrive.com/host/0B5yLYrSTDvD7dUpPMEtCaVVMc1U/Old%20School%20(1%20Peter%20Intro).mp3" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-large;">MP3 </span></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK5"></a></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Practically the minute you step onto a college campus you are faced with a number of difficult questions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">For example, the age old question…<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Should I take classes that I find interesting or classes that will help me get a job?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Or maybe something a little less critical but still a question you will face…<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Is it ok to wear pajamas to class?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You know, important questions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Fortunately you are way ahead of previous generations because you literally have more information readily available to you than any freshman class in the history of freshman classes…through the magic of Google <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There is a boatload of advice out there about how to survive and thrive during your college years. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">And this would be super useful…if it wasn’t for one unfortunate property of this database of accumulated digital human wisdom.</b><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For almost any platitude you have heard or read about how to do college well…you will find someone asserting the exact opposite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Take for example that really critical pajama question?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In two lists of tips for Freshman…<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">#21 (on one list).<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Go to Class in Your Pajamas</u></b>… <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">Go ahead and show up to class in your pajamas with half a breakfast burrito hanging out of your mouth, and no one will bat an eye as long as you contribute positively to the class and do well on your assignments. I fail to see any downside here.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">#53 on another list <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>Don’t wear pajamas to class</u></b>…<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">“This is a public service announcement: If you have any self respect at all, please stop wearing your pajamas to class.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But it gets a little more frustrating when you deal with a more substantive question…like, <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Should I take classes that I find interesting or classes that will help me get a job?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Within 30 seconds of searching the web (which I verified, these are actual quotes by internet ) you will find one expert asserting authoritatively:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Major in something employable”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And another confidently telling you:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“follow your heart and study what you are interested in.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In fact, this dilemma has so many people taking both sides of it even Google’s auto fill algorithm is indecisive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you type in these 10 letters into Google “Major in som…” the first two things that come up are <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd4tpP7iHKmXmPEyFXdNnaESpHNFOp9j67IwJl31ndFF_WNec4LaX0ARWJbBkmUfZwa-CBCQwpWZvQ06Zf2uwSXAq7WjKxHtDXwvbxUZ3MScLhGGaYcy4ECg_SlrwvfXnANrN17HRYDhv_/s1600/google+auto+fil+what+to+major+in.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="117" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd4tpP7iHKmXmPEyFXdNnaESpHNFOp9j67IwJl31ndFF_WNec4LaX0ARWJbBkmUfZwa-CBCQwpWZvQ06Zf2uwSXAq7WjKxHtDXwvbxUZ3MScLhGGaYcy4ECg_SlrwvfXnANrN17HRYDhv_/s400/google+auto+fil+what+to+major+in.png" width="400" xsa="true" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Thanks Google…that’s SUPER helpful.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Incidentally, I think the other two are funny…The third one is for Juniors…“Dude…it doesn’t matter if you love it or if its practical…sooner or later you HAVE TO major in something!!!” <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And…Major cities in Somalia!?!…in case…I don’t know…you are going to study abroad in the horn of Africa but think that Mogadishu was too touristy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">PBS blog: Relax and have fun…study hard and go to fewer parties.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You hear people say: Make your passion your work…The fastest way hate something you love is to turn it into a job<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And here is actual advice I got from academic advisors when I was in undergrad:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Classes aren’t that important because who you know is more important than what you know…vs…<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The first one hired and the last one fired is the one who knows the most math.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The problem with crowd sourced wisdom is that it provides no consensus on critical questions. <span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Google and Facebook feedback on confirmation bias, because they use algorithms to show you more of what you read in the past…slowly making dissenting opinions less available and creating the illusion that what you want to believe is the majority opinion.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Basically any platitude you can find about College…you can quickly find the opposite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So basically, whateve you want to believe…you can find someone to back you up…It is easy to find advice that confirms what you want to believe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">One of the things that Christians believe is that while it is hugely advantageous to collect, weigh, and sort contemporary advice…there are some things about the universe and about being human that are, timeless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And there are sources of wisdom, that transcend internet chatter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that is one of the reasons that intelligent interesting students just like you…who did well on their SATs and played multiple sports…and got into UCD…gather in this room every week to consider the cosmic and practical implications of an ancient text.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A little googling can be hugely useful…but it should be paired with something a little more timeless.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: #548dd4; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">‘Prepare Your Minds for Action’<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1:13 “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Let me draw your attention to three key words here:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">PREPARE <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">MINDS<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ACTION<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">First, Prepare: “prepare your minds for action” – literally “gird the loins of your mind”…pretty hilarious…the word ‘loins’ is just a weird word…and ‘gird’ isn’t much less weird. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it isn’t particularly unhelpful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, what exactly is a loin and how do we gird it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We don’t know what it means but it sounds vaguely naughty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like girding your loins is something you should really do in private.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And then to expand the metaphor to ‘gird loins of your mind’ sounds like a weird ancient, vaguely inappropriate, way of talking about the life of the mind…wear an athletic supporter for your reflective life… <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But here’s what’s actually going on here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It turns out that pants are hard to mass produce.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And in Roman society they hadn’t really figured it out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So dudes dressed in kind of long flowy robe type cloths…you know…something like this (Students enter: Note, I had two students come out in togas at this point).<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Now, as the dress wearers among us know (or anyone who has been a ghost for Halloween), just wrapping cloth around you is mostly a pretty good solution of how to stay warm and covered</span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">…unless you, say, want to move quickly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(student tries to run and has obvious trouble) <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Running was a problem for robe wearing Romans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there is an obvious solution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you need to run, you just grab the hem of your garment…and hike that bad boy up…and boom…you are ready to move with haste. (students book back across the room) <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And that…is “girding your loins.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is doing what it takes to be ready for action. </span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[1]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A more contemporary metaphor would be…roll up the sleves of your mind…double knot the cleats of your mind</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[2]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…Tighten the backpack straps of your mind…<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He is talking about taking the required steps to do something vigorous.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But the thing about this verse that I think speaks directly to the college experience is what it tells you to prepare…prepare your mind.</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[3]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The really interesting thing about this verse is that it essentially argues that college is a legitimate thing to spend your time and money doing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Soccer socks…seems like they take forever…but the game is worth it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peter says…lift up your skirt…do what it takes to get ready.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Second, what does he tell us to prepare…our MINDS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he picks this theme up a little later:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">4:1-2 “Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, <u>arm yourselves with the same way of thinking</u>…<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jesus following is not anti-intellectual.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, college is far from a damaging thing to the Christian life…it is an ideal place to grow and develop a life of kind, wise, practical, authentic Jesus following. Good, sound, creative, precise, careful thinking is part of Christian development.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But thire…What does the passage argue is the point of mental preparation… <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Prepare your minds…FOR ACTION”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The reason to ‘prepare your mind’ is ‘to do stuff’<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It may seem dull and preparatory…sitting through Calculus may seem like a kind of abstract intellectual hazing with no connection to redemptive action for Jesus…but the intent of mental preparation, including the development of the hallowed ‘critical reasoning’ and ‘problem solving’ that intro to calculus is to become a person of action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is counterintuitive that sitting at your desk redoing practice problems until your butt goes numb is preparation ‘for action’ but that is what it takes to become a person of action.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So should you approach college as a time of reflection and intellectual development or as a kind of white collar trade school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, Peter says yes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a time to prepare your minds…But is a time to prepare your minds <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for action</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">College is expensive…and it is costly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Make it worth it</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[4]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[5]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You want to collaborate with the opportunities for intellectual development that the university offers to develop:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Wisdom<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Skills</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[6]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[7]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As you choose what to learn ask 2 questions:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">i.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Does this help me understand God’s world better<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ii.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Does this build skills that will help me serve God and people - stuff like writing, speaking, productivity software, engineering software, actually, any software that doesn’t somehow involve Colin Kapernick, orcs or a first person shooter, artistic or musical proficiency, statistics…I mean, UCD even offers a class in the (slide) Operation, adjustment, and troubleshooting of Farm Tractors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But forming a Christian mind also means applying your reflective life to things they won’t teach you on this campus (Double major in Bible and theology).</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[8]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Applying yourself to consistent disciplines of studying and reflecting on the Christian Scriptures, alone and in small groups…but also finding a place that teaching theology and the Scriptures in a way that is winsome and contextual but also substantive and orthodox in an integrative format…which is the kind of thing we hope aim for you to be able to find regularly, Tuesday nights in Kliber 3…and that you will find in the growth groups.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Peter argues that intellectual development should be integrated into your spiritual development…<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Nepal Story – I graduated undergrad a semester early and got on a plane to Nepal after one phone call to a woman who ran an orphanage there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a crazy thing to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I was so done with school…I wanted to get on to something that mattered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wanted to be a person of action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know what I found?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I did not have the skills required for my action to be useful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was not theologically formed to offer more than culturally distant platitudes and I had no useful skills to offer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After three months in Katmandu I felt like the most spiritual thing I could do to be a person of action was get a water engineering degree and seek out some theological formation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">College is a time to ‘prepare our minds for action’ but we have to ‘arm ourselves’ with good thinking …but look at the end of the verse<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">4:1-2 “Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, <u>arm yourselves with the same way of thinking</u> …<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">…live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God…</span></b></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, while Peter urges us to good, preparatory, action oriented thinking…he argues that there are a number of obsicles that <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And then he essentially describes the Van Wilder</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[9]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> picture of ‘the college experience’ which leads us to our second big idea.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: #548dd4; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Don’t Waste your ‘College Experience’<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">4:3 For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality</span></span></b></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">[10]</span></b></span></span></span></b></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, passions</span></span></b></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">[11]</span></b></span></span></span></b></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, drunkenness, orgies, <u>drinking parties</u>, and lawless idolatry. 4 With respect to this <u>they are surprised when you do not join them</u> in the same flood</span></span></b></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">[12]</span></b></span></span></span></b></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> of debauchery, and they malign you; 5 but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Does that sound familiar?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here is what Peter really wants you to know about ‘the college experience.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The college experience is a lie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peter says, don’t be gullible.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Don’t waste time with that crap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He says you know what’s going to get in the way of preparing your mind for action…that stuff.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“These were supposed to be the best years of my life…and they weren’t that great.” –Cory’s friend<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But Peter’s argument is really interesting here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He doesn’t just say – hey, that stuff is bad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He doesn’t point out that experimentation with sensuality and substances is spiritually damaging…though it is clear elsewhere in the book that he thinks that being careful about sexuality and substances is in our best interest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Look at how he structures his argument.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He argues from a position of time management….He says hey, don’t waste time with that stuff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He says you know what’s going to get in the way of preparing your mind for action…that stuff.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Peter says…substances and sensuality (which, in one way or another compose most of the items in this list)…and which form the heart of the famed college experience…he says, no matter how much time you have spent on these things (and notice he doesn’t harp on them for the stuff in the past) …he says “that’ll do.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">‘you have already wasted enough time’ on drinking parties, <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">you have already wasted enough time on sensuality, <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">you have already wasted enough time on…orgies? <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I bet some of you thought I was going to skip right over that gem…Listen, the Bible isn’t for prudes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you are easily scandalized...you might want to go get yourself a children's edition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They sell those.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now, if you are getting invited to orgies…you <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">are</i> having a more interesting college experience than I did. I’ve never been invited to an orgy, and frankly, I’m a little offended.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"> </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[13]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn14;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[14]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, it would have been nice just to be invited.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d love to be able to tell you the story about the time in undergrad I turned down the invitation to an orgy.<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"> </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn15;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[15]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK4"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK3"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But here’s why I find this little detail interesting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peter isn’t impressed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sensuality and substances that you are faced with in this place don’t faze him one bit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s not shocked by hookup culture or theme parties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apparently there was an ancient near-eastern orgy scene that was prevalent enough that Peter felt the need to suggest to these people he loved that taking part in that might not be a great idea for their spiritual development.</span></span></span></a></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Here’s the point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cultural script says that these 4..ish years are primarily about sex and substances…and you better not miss out…you better not waste these years on boring stuff like building a worldview or perusing useful skills or on character development or on developing substantial spiritually based friendships….because later on, your life gets boring and you won’t have time for things that really make your life fun…like sex and substances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">(Note: I cut the rest of this point to go off script and just talk frankly but, hopefully kindly about how I get that this is a hard word for some of you…for some the biggest challenge to their faith in college won’t be some philosophical or scientific argument…but the classical Christian ethic on sensuality and substances…but that if the rest of the story makes sense, If Jesus really does seem remarkable and good, and true, then maybe we should consider the hypothesis that this counter cultural, counter intuitive ethic is actually for our good.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn16;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[16]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Peter says…Seriously ’the time that is past suffices for these things’…or NIV ‘You have wasted enough time with these things…”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he suggests a decent litmus test that you aren’t wasting your time on these things, is that people will think you are a little weird.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">they are surprised when you do not join them</span></u></b></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"> in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; 5 but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He has a better vision of how to spend your time that will bring you more joy and meaning and purpose…<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: #548dd4; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Build Something of Value<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">(note: I cut about 2/3rds of this point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It made it better even though it left a lot of exegesis on the table.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which is part of the reason I keep this little blog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The beneficiaries of this blog are not primarily those who read it…though if you are the one person reading this, thanks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The beneficiaries of this blog are the students who come to these talks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having an outlet for good cuts that make the talk better allows me to make them more freely.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Two of the critically acclaimed television shows of the last 5 years were Mad Men and The Wire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"></span></span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-j5XWo1fPI"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-j5XWo1fPI</span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“You know what the problem is?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We used to build shit in this country…make shit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now everyone just has his hand in the next guy’s pocket.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>–The Wire<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"></span></span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoeLq-Fqzpo"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoeLq-Fqzpo</span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn17" name="_ftnref17" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn17;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[17]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I want to work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want to build something of my own.” –Mad Men<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I love that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My pulse quickens every time I watch that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did you feel it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did you start to feel a little angsty when Draper delivered that line?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know what that feeling is?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Adulthood.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This is the driving impulse of young adulthood.</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn18" name="_ftnref18" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn18;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[18]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having a little angst about wanting to build something is really just a sign that you are a grown up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a healthy impulse.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2:4 As you come to him, a living</span></span></b></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn19" name="_ftnref19" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn19;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">[19]</span></b></span></span></span></b></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> stone</span></span></b></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn20" name="_ftnref20" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn20;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">[20]</span></b></span></span></span></b></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious</span></span></b></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn21" name="_ftnref21" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn21;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">[21]</span></b></span></span></span></b></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, 5 you yourselves</span></span></b></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn22" name="_ftnref22" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn22;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">[22]</span></b></span></span></span></b></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> like living stones</span></span></b></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn23" name="_ftnref23" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn23;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">[23]</span></b></span></span></span></b></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn24" name="_ftnref24" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn24;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">[24]</span></b></span></span></span></b></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Illustration: Dad Camp – intern at the Buffalo district who said she was going to ship her husband off to ‘dad camp’ so he could learn to do ‘man stuff’…because every young man would love to spend his newly-wed weekends hanging out in his in laws garage while his wife’s dad tells him all the stuff he doesn’t know how to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I bet that worked out really well.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Paul Boyd “My wife didn’t marry me because I’m pretty…she married me because I can build stuff.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Um…but I never went to dad camp…I am as handy as sea turtle…I don’t have a lot of skills to ‘build stuff’…and if I can cobble together a workable solution, it’s always ugly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So…it poses an obvious question…why did my wife marry me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It must be because I’m <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">so</i> pretty?<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But look more closely at the metaphor of the passage, you don’t build by having great craftsmanship or <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jesus is looking for solid materials…he’s got the skills...he’s been to Dad camp…he is Dad camp…<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I might not have ever gone to dad camp…but I can be a rock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t build anything, really…but I can be built.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But you can’t build this thing alone.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2:9 “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once you are not a people, but now you are God’s people…”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What do you notice about the four identifiers in the first sentence:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l3 level1 lfo5; text-indent: -0.5in;">
<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">i.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Chosen Race<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ii.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Royal Priesthood<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">iii.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Holy Nation<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">iv.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A People of God’s Possession<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">They are group identities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are identifiers of community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we read “you” in the Scriptures we read “me”…but that is an unhelpful ambiguity in English.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You in this passage is a plural you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>when you read ‘you’ you should read ‘us’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you want to redeem the ‘college experience’ into something wise, winsome, and wonderful…you need to become an us.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“In what follows the point is made that Christian existence can only be lived in the Church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The readers are summoned, therefore, to incorporate themselves into a Christian Fellowship.” – Leonhard Goppelt<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The spiritual house he is describing is ‘a people’ v9…’<u>a people</u> for his own possession’<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When you ‘Come to Jesus…’ v4...it isn’t just Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That would be uncomplicated…but it is also insufficiently real…insufficiently effective…a ‘personal relationship with Jesus’ is sub-Christian.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Peter says <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">‘As you come to him, a living stone…you yourselve</span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><u><span style="color: red; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">s</span></u></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"> (plural) are being built up into a spiritual house…”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Christian scriptures almost never talk about a ‘personal faith in Jesus’ – it is always about a purposeful people, building something beautiful in community.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The ‘personal faith in Jesus’ is sub Christian because it is insufficiently corporate and far to passive.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You don’t have to have a lot of artistic or building skills…you just have to be willing to be part of it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But this thing we are building is peculiar, because we ourselves are integrated into it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are not so much craftspeople as we are the materials.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God wants to build something with you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wants you to be a part of something bigger than yourself. <span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Peter uses a curious metaphor…describing Jesus as a rock…and then calling us rocks.</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn25" name="_ftnref25" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn25;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[25]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>( this is not usually a positive metaphor – in our culture “Dumb as a box of rocks.”) God is building around Jesus…with us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>HE is building something using cast off materials.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Christianity does not have a place of worship…there is no sacred location…it has a people of worship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A Rock even piled on a large foundational rock is still a rock…a rock in a building is a building…it changes the nature of the object without changing its substance.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA61Ien4AcyXzl8sUlx2ECtQm9dxcnQCLMHgpSh-jEyoRIy3hzEXOypsIA0xvQHNOFRsc_pImh4CQ7vA9tiH9vvH-v0FWf34lzqVR8A99raeT6_CPeUXzslc-L5IzxtoovpC2wOzFxO7WR/s1600/Living+Stones+Bible+1+Peter+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA61Ien4AcyXzl8sUlx2ECtQm9dxcnQCLMHgpSh-jEyoRIy3hzEXOypsIA0xvQHNOFRsc_pImh4CQ7vA9tiH9vvH-v0FWf34lzqVR8A99raeT6_CPeUXzslc-L5IzxtoovpC2wOzFxO7WR/s400/Living+Stones+Bible+1+Peter+2.png" width="400" xsa="true" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">One rock on top of another…is a Charin</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn26" name="_ftnref26" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn26;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[26]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, not a building.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes rock(s) to build a structure.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Building with stone is not like building with brick.</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn27" name="_ftnref27" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn27;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[27]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can’t just pile one on top of the other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a puzzle of fitting different shapes and sizes together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And Peter says, its ok if you don’t ‘fit the mold’…because neither did Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The whole thing this is built on is an exercise in repurposed art.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rejected material became the central building block.</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn28" name="_ftnref28" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn28;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[28]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So I have degrees in geology and biology (geophysics and ecology, but, close enough)…so I know about rocks and stuff that is alive…I mean, I’m kind of an expert on this stuff…so let me break this down with an explanatory ven diagram…</span></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVmhOBsDIhKrEyeKrbhQJyPy6LquAPyNYc_dpTMamOI_2-Scbxj12UiuIrgGEHbYDmzaZDu17g14FDY32X3cLA-onLgUMWdq8JszwAwrEfVdoo_1ZgAJnxvsjVDxjbA4HgyBScpsZP7-z9/s1600/Living+Stones+Bible+1+Peter+2_4-5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVmhOBsDIhKrEyeKrbhQJyPy6LquAPyNYc_dpTMamOI_2-Scbxj12UiuIrgGEHbYDmzaZDu17g14FDY32X3cLA-onLgUMWdq8JszwAwrEfVdoo_1ZgAJnxvsjVDxjbA4HgyBScpsZP7-z9/s400/Living+Stones+Bible+1+Peter+2_4-5.png" width="400" xsa="true" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">They are non-overlapping<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this kind of mind bending metaphor that Peter uses here is a clue to what God is inviting us to build with him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Peter is saying that basic religion where you went to buildings made of hardened magma or deformed earth or prehistoric marine organisms (otherwise known as rocks), that kind of religion is on notice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The religious architecture built around Jesus is biological in nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is dynamic…it can grow and change…but it is still connected and built on a solid unchanging corner stone.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There are two required degrees of connectivity in this passage to build something great…you have to be connected to Jesus…and you need to be connected to other Christians.</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn29" name="_ftnref29" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn29;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[29]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Illustration: Contemporary analog: </span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.michaeljohansson.com/"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">http://www.michaeljohansson.com/</span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"></span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> art – <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Let me close by telling you about an Artist I recently discovered…he is a Swedish artist, named Michael Johansson.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgApqs_eiles9KXbAFr4nn8ZpeG79RU-65HNMuMlvJqUtiDDUVe8gcxX_uazhisvjBOGSYCGAIEoXJpeY0vwxPJTRtXlCwfi3IJo0C5S1G5APQcoXzICaawEYqsuVkttlcVdQxipaEHuiBl/s1600/Michale+Johansson+Emerging+Properties+and+1+Peter+2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgApqs_eiles9KXbAFr4nn8ZpeG79RU-65HNMuMlvJqUtiDDUVe8gcxX_uazhisvjBOGSYCGAIEoXJpeY0vwxPJTRtXlCwfi3IJo0C5S1G5APQcoXzICaawEYqsuVkttlcVdQxipaEHuiBl/s400/Michale+Johansson+Emerging+Properties+and+1+Peter+2.png" width="400" xsa="true" /></a></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Johansen builds large public structures with cast off items.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He takes unremarkable things and makes something beautiful out of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where other people see used up or unnecessary items…Michal Johansen sees art.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His art has what’s called “emerging properties” or, the whole becomes something qualitatively different than the sum of its parts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A pair of old green crocs or a tractor that hasn’t worked for a decade…become just the thing he needs to build something remarkable.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And that is essentially what Peter wants you to know about your ‘college experience’…with this ‘living stones’ building metaphor…<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You are just the piece God needs to make something beautiful… but you need to show up.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…In the thing God is building…you don’t have to fit a mold.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It doesn’t matter your shape or size or history…or even if you work…he’ll build with you.</span></span></span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn30" name="_ftnref30" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn30;" title=""><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[30]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-no-proof: yes;"> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">God is a master at tetris…he’s got a place for you…no matter your size or shape…but you’ve got to be available and patient.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes about 7 months of active, intentional, engagement (and a retreat) to feel like you have become part of a large campus Christian community.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You gotta join one of the Christian communities on campus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It almost doesn’t matter which one (though, we’d love to have you here).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How you join matters more than which one you join.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You see, you don’t just join a Christian community as a club that you can augment your College experience with a little religion…you jump in with the intention to build…to leave the community a stronger wiser witness on campus than you found it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Campus Christian communities are not something you experience…they are something you build.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And that is kind of the whole point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The college ‘experience’ is just the wrong way to talk about your time here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d rather call it your college ‘project’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>College isn’t something that happens to you, it is something you make happen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if you want to make it happen well:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Prepare your minds for action<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Don’t waste time doing what everyone else is doing…and<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Build something with God and his unique and diverse people<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK6;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Your goal…not just to escape here with some sort of faith…it is to build something…it is that in 30 years, there will be people who look back on their years at UCD and realize their life trajectory was totally and positively altered because of you didn’t waste your time…but decided to build and be built into a people while you prepared your minds for action.</span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[1]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Amanda used to say “pick up your skirt” to tell me to man up and get something done.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[2]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Watching a 6 year old get soccer socks on is painful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes the whole morning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this is the image.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hike up the soccer socks of your mind…get ready for action.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do every thing you can before hand to be ready…</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[3]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> I feel like we live in a culture (and sub-culture in the wake of the Charismatic movement) where something can only be authentically spiritual if it is spontaneous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there is really no compelling reason to believe that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Spirituality is often hard, sustained work that takes planning and preparation.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[4]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> The value of your college degree is composed of 2 things ~$40,000 and “sweat equity”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They will all cost $40k plus or minus (and that is the bargain price because you were smart and went to a State School)…but they won’t all have the same value.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You add value with sweat equity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A college education is like buying a ‘fixeruper house’ (in Buffalo, $40k could get you a fixer upper in a transitional neighborhood…in California, it can get you a front porch (Scrubs reference)) </span><span style="font-family: Wingdings; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">à</span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> The value of the house can grow if you put work into it</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[5]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Asking whether or not college is ‘worth it’ isn’t the right question…you need to get a degree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The right question is how will I make it ‘worth it’</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[6]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">Katie – it makes me wonder ‘what was I studying all these years.’</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[7]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Writing, speaking, productivity software, engineering software, statistics </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[8]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Regularly attend a campus ministry and church that will help you integrate your faith with what you are learning in classes.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[9]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Surely there is a more contemporary reference here.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[10]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Some of us will have more to resist than others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A college lifer from a couple years back found himself at a party with an attractive young woman who wanted to kiss him (for starters).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He declined.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her response “You don’t have to kiss me back, just let me kiss you.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a different universe of sensual temptation than I ever experienced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the internet means that you don’t have to be hot to get derailed here.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[11]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> ‘Passions’ get used both positively and negatively in the NT, but Peter always uses it negative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Passion’ is not morally commendable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It only becomes commendable based on the worthiness of its object.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[12]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Surly I can illustrate this with something from my job.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[13]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Everyone is having less sex than you think….Indian student on reflections to America…the women are not as promiscuous as television suggests http://www.businessinsider.com/the-weirdest-things-about-america-2013-8</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn14;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[14]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> This might be a good point to talk about Fritas’ data that almost everyone in college thinks that other people are having all the sex…that there is much less sex going on than everyone thinks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The average college male manages 1-3 hookups per semester (and about half of those are sober).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is the wild college experience you are forsaking by following the Christian rule of life.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn15;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[15]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> I wanted to do a little work on the Greek here, but I was afraid to Google orgy.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn16;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[16]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Which ends up with the boy-men of my generation who are 38 and spend a couple weekends a year in Vegas or the like trying to re-create the ‘best years of their lives’.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn17;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[17]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> I can find almost no cultural artifact that articulates quite so succinctly and sublimely how I feel about being an Xer in a boomer led church.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref18" name="_ftn18" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn18;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[18]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Especially for young men…and so back to back you have metaphors of breastfeeding and building, spanning the range of gendered imagination.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref19" name="_ftn19" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn19;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[19]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref20" name="_ftn20" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn20;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[20]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> OK…this just got weird.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know how a good Sci Fi film…or a cyper-punk Scifi novel will have some crazy observation in the opening minutes to key you off to the fact that ‘you are not in Kansas anymore’…well, that is what is going on here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Old religion where you went to buildings made of dead things or hardened magma or deformed earth (e.g. Limestone of the middele east is made of the calcium from shells in ancient near) is on notice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are getting into some trippy stuff here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The religious architecture is biological in nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is dynamic…it can grow and change…but it is still connected and built on a corner stone.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref21" name="_ftn21" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn21;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[21]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> We need a synonym here…because this is a powerful word…taken right from the LXX psalter…but all we can think about when we here it is Golumn – “highly valued or esteemed”</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref22" name="_ftn22" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn22;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[22]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Grudem: Greek “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">even</i> you yourselves…”</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref23" name="_ftn23" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn23;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[23]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Illustration by counter example: Now I don’t know about you, but when I think of living stone…I think of…the<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>rock giants in the Hobbit…not stone people…people stones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Doesn’t describe their composition but their purpose.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref24" name="_ftn24" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn24;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[24]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Grudem (105): It is hard to think of a static rectangular building made of Christians that are also serving as priests…the ‘living stones/royal priesthood’ metaphors don’t cohere…unless we totally replace our mental image of the temple. “It is better to change our visual image of the temple, so that we no longer think of a rectangular building made of stones, but an amorphous building that continually takes the shape of God’s assembled people.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In essence…the new temple is a liquid…or a gas…the mass is not confined to a static volume.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And its beauty is no longer its concentration of rare geologic materials but in the intrinsic value and purposefulness of the people it is composed of.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref25" name="_ftn25" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn25;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[25]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> He is being a bit of a ‘geologian’: A biblical theology of rocks as metaphor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus is compared to a stone by himself and Peter in Acts…and Peter leverages the rock metaphor in 3 places in the OT </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref26" name="_ftn26" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn26;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[26]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Another metaphore I could use here is ‘glacial erratics’…I grew up thinking that everyone grew up with building sized climbing rocks in their woods/fields.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But many of the old structures in my childhood ‘neighborhood’ which at a rural density is pretty much a county…are made of these rocks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Alone in the field, they are ‘erratics’…an impediment to every agricultural endeavor…but brought together, they are a home.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref27" name="_ftn27" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn27;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[27]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Two of my high school jobs were stacking hay bales and stacking wood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Stacking hay bales was hard work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They would fall from the sky (at the beginning of the job...they could fall as far as 40 ft.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and you would have to quickly grab<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>them and stack them before the next one fell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was 120 degrees and dusty and at the end of the day you had 1000 tiny cuts on your arms. But they were all the same shape and size and while it was hard work it was mentally unchallenging.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But stacking spit wood was another story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It had its own challenges (snakes used to like to make their nests in the wood).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the actual process of stacking wood was a puzzle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You had to make good use of predictably shaped pieces and plan ahead for oddly shaped pieces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But often, it took an oddly shaped piece to stabilize a<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>part of the pile.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is like the difference between building with stone and brick in Peter’s world.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref28" name="_ftn28" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn28;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[28]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Another building illustration…blocks with Xavier.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref29" name="_ftn29" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn29;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[29]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> And if you are curious about Jesus…the best way to encounter him is in the context of the ‘liquid house’ he’s building.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref30" name="_ftn30" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn30;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[30]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> You have to be a ‘certain type of person’ to make a sports team or a fraternity/sorority.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Jesus sepecializes in building a cohesive people with shared purpose out of an eclectic mix of totally unique (and often downright weird) individuals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There isn’t a mold for the building blocks God uses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s awesome at Tetris.</span></div>
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stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-73271168569890165902013-07-23T07:55:00.000-07:002013-07-23T08:06:37.108-07:00The Taxonomy of an Unfamiliar Realm: a Scroll, a Lion, and an Adorable Wounded Septaclopse<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 18pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Taxonomy of an Unfamiliar Realm:<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 18pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">a Scroll, a Lion, and an Adorable Wounded</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #17365d; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 18pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;">[1]</span></b></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> Septaclopse</span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;">(Revelation 5)</span><span style="color: #17365d; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #948a54; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: background2; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Note: This talk started with an exersize where groups were given bins of plastic animals to sort into “mammal” and “reptile” catagories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were some difficult ones (e.g. ichthyosaurus and basilosaurus) but each kit also included one bird.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">So, what was most challenging:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bird.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who sorted it anyway?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhG1acZ46QT1tlmVpfKUziAe2zPNv5oWxuPgxlNe5CNmQJBp7CtLyw0slvsnuikpe43q1f6Ol8cifDAHXHzYFdciVV5gcsq50Ofid7Bno7FXz8E6zp18F91kw6_J_pASKidLuA7mj34FnV/s1600/bird+reptile+clad.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img bba="true" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhG1acZ46QT1tlmVpfKUziAe2zPNv5oWxuPgxlNe5CNmQJBp7CtLyw0slvsnuikpe43q1f6Ol8cifDAHXHzYFdciVV5gcsq50Ofid7Bno7FXz8E6zp18F91kw6_J_pASKidLuA7mj34FnV/s320/bird+reptile+clad.png" width="255" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">You see, one of the stunning findings of recent biology is that birds and crocodiles are more closely related than either of them are to the other reptiles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words…birds are functionally reptiles…they are embedded in that category of creation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span>Human beings are sorters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We try to put new things in categories we already have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fewer categories we have the easier the world is to understand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But one of the first things a scientist has to come to terms with is that the categories in our heads are far to tidy to organize the complexity of our world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the first things you learn in an introductory Biology class is that ‘species’ is actually difficult to define…and in Biological graduate school as debates rage over whether insects are distinct species or just different versions of the same species.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And for a while, it looked like the Polar Bear was going to lose its status as a distinct species.</div>
</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[2]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, that would be like losing Pluto as a planet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But biological sorting isn’t just restricted to enormous nerds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is also the basic task of the 2 year old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Take, for example, my favorite 2 year old.<o:p></o:p></span></span>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Xavier</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[3]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> is obsessed with birds.</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[4]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But he only has two categories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Duck and turkey (which, of course, means we live on the north Davis greenbelt – this is our avian biodiversity).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So every bird is either a duck or a turkey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now this is kind of fun to watch – whenever we encounter a new bird…will it be a duck or a turkey?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My favorite example of this was when we went to the zoo…and encountered the flamingo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There was actual suspense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What was it going to be?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A duck or a turkey?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so I asked, Xavi, what is that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He squinted his little face, thought for a little while, and then said confidently, “Turkey.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Revelation 5 presents a kind of awkward sorting problem</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[5]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> - A problem of taxonomy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John finds himself overwhelmed with unfamiliar beings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A whole range of previously unencountered biodiversity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when humans are presented will new biodiversity, we sort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And before we sort into species, phylum, or even kingdom…we have to sort into earthly or cosmic…but there is a taxonomical division even higher than that…Creator or creature…worshiper or object of worship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John was faced with a sorting game that we will call God-not god.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Slide)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And as a good Hebrew monotheist, whose top commandment is that there is only one god…we’d expect his ‘not god’ category to get most of the action.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">24 elders…easy…not god…</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[6]</span></span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Crazy 6 winged creature with eye covered wings…that one could be tough…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">not god…nailed it<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">How about the one with the human face…not god<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But later in the book things get trickier<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #244061; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Rev 19:9 And the angel said to me…“These are the true words of God.” 10 Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Angel in chapter 19:10…god…ooops…not god <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And then it happens again in 22:8 – he encounters an angel and worships it …god…doh </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…not god (but to be fair, this is a common mistake in the Scriptures – so we need to cut our guide a little slack)</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[7]</span></span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What about the voice</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[8]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> from the throne…easy…that one we sort God!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ok, so far so good…but then we get a being that defies our neatly divide categories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Lamb???<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What kind of thing is this?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How does it sort?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This passage is our introduction to the lamb…and we don’t “meet cute”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There is too much going on in this text to boil down to a few points.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I’m going to spend the first half of our time doing an old school, verse-by-verse running commentary…and then explain how these details combine to help us understand the nature and character of the central character in this text.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Midrash:</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[9]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> But let’s just start by walking through this remarkable text slowly…lingering over its contours and details a little…Starting in verse 1<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;">Revelation 5:<sup>1</sup> Then I saw <u>in the right hand</u> of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written <u>within and on the back</u>, sealed with <u>seven seals</u>.</span><span style="color: #17365d; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1-We start right after the brilliant passage in chapter 4 that Zach talked about last week…John's been taking in all of these strange and overwhelming sights (a glass sea, 4 creatures covered in eyes, a green rainbow?, lightning, and one who is on the throne and the only thing we are told about the appearance of this being is that he is brilliant “like jasper and carnelian” slide)…but now, in chapter 5, John’s eyes kind of focus to the brilliance and he starts noticing detail…and the one on the throne…has something in his hand…it is a scroll.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, this little roll of paper is going to be central to what happens in the rest of the book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And what is actually in the scroll is a little ambiguous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Revelation never comes out and says it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are actually several theories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the most compelling one, and the tact that we will be taking is that the scroll is: God’s purposes to assert his sovereignty over rebellious species and restore his purposes for creation.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But John notices to interesting details about this document.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>…the writing spills out of the classic writing surface to cover the back as well…apparently, it is not a brief document…God has a lot in store…this is going to be a long story.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And the scroll has of:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1 – “seven seals”…seven seals?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> “A septet of marine mammals”…no wonder it is hard to open…seals are heavy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">No, seven seals…it is fastened shut.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Opening the seals will enact God’s redemptive purposes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will unleash the story of God’s rescue of creation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But the one who sits on the throne – he does not initiate these purposes himself - he looks for an agent from among the creatures to initiate this redemption - a hero to emerge from the midst of those to be redeemed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: #17365d; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;"><o:p></o:p></span></sup></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;">2</span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;">And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?”</span><span style="color: #17365d; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2 –First…I love how revelation is always telling us how loud the voices are…it uses the word ‘loud’ 22 X mostly to describe voices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As a parent my first reaction is that “no one in this place knows how to use their indoor voice.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But it is a place isn’t the library…it repeatedly resounds…literally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In chapter 1 and 4 we talked a lot about the overwhelming visual stimulus that John encounters…but the sounds here are big too.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But what is going on here?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well as one commentator put it:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2 – This is <span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">“a herald angel who challenges all comers to offer themselves for the task of opening the scroll.”</span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[10]</span></span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2-3 – the scroll needs to be opened.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it can’t be opened by just anyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has to be opened by someone worthy to open the scroll.</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[11]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is classic throne room imagery where the King is calling for a champion worthy to ride for him.</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[12]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there is a problem…no qualified champion can be found in all creation…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;">3</span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;">And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll <u>or to look into it</u>, <sup>4</sup>and I began to weep… …loudly…because no one was found <u>worthy</u> to open the scroll or to look into it.</span><span style="color: #17365d; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">4– This is a really tense dramatic moment…no qualified champion steps forward… will the scroll go unopened? …what’s in it?…Is the one on the throne just going to let it go unopened? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And there is an interesting theological corollary…we are not worthy.</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[13]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">Wright “John, like the other NT writers, had a realistic view of the deep rooted problem of the human race…Nobody deserves to open the scroll.”</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">One of the first things you need to come to terms with about ‘the one who is on the throne’ is that you are not qualified to approach him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You also need a champion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is a desperate situation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And John senses the full weight of this predicament.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He senses that everything is on the line…all is lost…and in despair he begins to cry.</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn14;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[14]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he doesn’t just sniffle.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We’re not just talking wet eyes at the end of Marley and Me or The Notebook.</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn15;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[15]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He does not try to protect his dignity or some cultural mandate of masculinity…dude begins to wail…he realizes that, somehow, EVERYTHING, not even just for his species, not even just for the earth, but for all of creation (which he suddenly realizes is much bigger than he had thought)…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…it all turns on contents of that scroll that lays there unopened in the hand of one on the throne.</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn16;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[16]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And what happens next…verse 5.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;">5</span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;">And one of the elders said to me, <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">5 – Hold on there, just for a minute…the angelic hosts are not robots…not some kind of automatons that exist for repetitive praise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are responding, empathic beings.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;">5</span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;">And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold…the Lion…behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, (he) has conquered, so that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>he</u></i> can open the scroll and its seven seals.”<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><sup><span style="font-size: 22pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">A so champion emerges…“Behold the Lion…” says the elder </span></sup><span style="font-size: 22pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">5 - Bronwyn…re-reading the Narnia chronicles… “I keep waiting for the Lion to show up”… in each of those books, there comes a point where everything seems lost…where evil has won…and then…the Lion shows up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The elder says…</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU_0GXlyEVPS6OU3HQ_suLoNXSx4jYan_4U11LyAwSf2OvJkotSNXOpFWP7aebzPm9MhXKQxcz6NB3Aj4KtVQxs9rI1zCCyuqktdA0o39lFN3CtWEdMNuwlTDhTb3dukZ9hYrJiUxgahgr/s1600/Behold+the+lion+I+keep+waiting+for+the+lion+to+show+up.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img bba="true" border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU_0GXlyEVPS6OU3HQ_suLoNXSx4jYan_4U11LyAwSf2OvJkotSNXOpFWP7aebzPm9MhXKQxcz6NB3Aj4KtVQxs9rI1zCCyuqktdA0o39lFN3CtWEdMNuwlTDhTb3dukZ9hYrJiUxgahgr/s320/Behold+the+lion+I+keep+waiting+for+the+lion+to+show+up.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">5 – Behold: the Lion of the Tribe of Judah…Root of David…two OT messianic themes…from different OT sources<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">-Prophetic remainder…John is pulling together as many prophetic types, themse, and predictions as he can – tying them all together – finding their prophetic remainder in Christ – One scholar argued that<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Revelation contains more Old Testament allusions than any other New Testament book, but it does not record a single quotation."<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">-The Lion (Gen 49:9</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn17" name="_ftnref17" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn17;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[17]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">)/the Root – is qualified to open the scroll because why…he has “conquered”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">-but notice, the tense “has conquered” – the work of Christ is complete…and we step into it <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">5- Caird “The LOTTOJ and the root of David</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn18" name="_ftnref18" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn18;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[18]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, has conquered, and has <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>won the right</u></b> to open the scroll…”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He’s the King’s champion.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But we are not done with OT images…the main one is next:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;">6</span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;">And <u>between</u> the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Zach covered this but it is worth revisiting, because it is one of the most surprising and important texts in the book<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What does the John hear…”Behold the Lion”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What does he see…”I saw a Lamb”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The description doesn’t match the visual.</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn19" name="_ftnref19" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn19;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[19]</span></span></span></span></span></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn20" name="_ftnref20" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn20;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[20]</span></span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Illustration</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">: Now when I noticed this…I immediately thought…of Monte Python and the Holy Grail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Near the end of the film, the knights of the round table approach a cave protected by a famed beast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are so scared that one of them literally ‘soils his armor.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And here’s what happens:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgj3nZWtOfA"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgj3nZWtOfA</span></span></a></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As they puzzle over the visual that doesn’t match the description – it leads to one of the top three lines in this very quotable movie:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUYGfnK5m35QDzTgnYUlEiqshRDYfVDf9_bhQwkekz1dt7UekJ_ti9Ie8erogtWn8MhiUt_j6dyCJqnKLSMyXoG1aut-so2v4WyqTup-QZwAdpTumoAaLuShgwZHQt4kSQm-mtce7S3I6D/s1600/Monte+Python+bunny+and+Revelation+5.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img bba="true" border="0" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUYGfnK5m35QDzTgnYUlEiqshRDYfVDf9_bhQwkekz1dt7UekJ_ti9Ie8erogtWn8MhiUt_j6dyCJqnKLSMyXoG1aut-so2v4WyqTup-QZwAdpTumoAaLuShgwZHQt4kSQm-mtce7S3I6D/s320/Monte+Python+bunny+and+Revelation+5.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“what’s he going to do, nibble me bumb?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The description does not match the visual reality – it is an inversion. The champion who is coming to stand up to Dominitian to bring God’s just and wise rule into the earth and creation…well it seems like he could be more impressive.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Because it is not just a baby sheep that walks into this throne room full of grand beasts and visual paradoxes and booming voices…it is a baby sheep “as though he has been slain”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the midst of all this power and glory and transcendence…a lion emerges to victory…one expects a victory of violence as the lion of the tribe finally rides</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn21" name="_ftnref21" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn21;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[21]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> …but what emerges is a Lamb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A wounded lamb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even in the midst of all the power and glory, God’s victory is still won through self donation</span></span><span style="font-size: 18pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see there are a couple additional details about the Lamb..what are they?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;">with seven horns and with seven eyes</span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">6 – The Lamb is a septaclopse…seven eyes complete sight…seven horns complete rule<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>-seven – total<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>-4 in all space <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">-Lamb 28 – 7*4 – this book is not just the vision of an ex-fisherman stranded on an island – it is a careful stunning work of art<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">7</span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn22" name="_ftnref22" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn22;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">[22]</span></b></span></span></span></a> <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">7 The Lamb steps forward and says “I got this” – At the pivitol point of the game, the Lamb takes the ball – ‘he put the team on his back’</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn23" name="_ftnref23" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn23;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[23]</span></span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Trope: Only the Chosen may Wield<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">7 – sword in the stone – Thor – the only one worthy</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn24" name="_ftnref24" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn24;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[24]</span></span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The only one worthy to enact the purposes of God is the Lamb who stands among the created beings but does not seem to be one of them…because look what happens next:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">8</span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders <u>fell</u> <u>down</u> <u>before</u> <u>the</u> <u>Lamb</u>, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">8 – The throne room which was worshiping the one on the throne…bowing before him…they pivot…they turn their adoration, their attention, their artistic offerings of worship to the champion…the wounded Lamb.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But let me notice just a couple things about their worship arts…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see humans often use the arts as the medium of our worship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most common is music…and that is on firm grounds…because not only is it supported elsewhere in the scriptures…but music is a cosmic reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It transcends our biology…but you knew that.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">8 – The 4 beasts can probably ‘shred’…they have stringed instruments and 6 limbs<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But the worship arts are not limited to music…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">8 – have you noticed how sensual these passages are:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>-Overwhelming visuals<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>-Loud shouting, singing and instrumental music<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>-Smell worship</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn25" name="_ftnref25" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn25;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[25]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> – the artistic medium of worship is sound and smell<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>-touch – remember the cosmic Christ reaching out and touching John<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">8 - This is far from a disembodied state…so far we have experienced 4 of the 5 senses…this is a richly realized physical reality<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">8 – Oh, and by the way, the ‘notes’ of the olfactory art that they offer to the One who sits on the Throne…our prayers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a sense transposition, as our prayers are transformed from the groans and cries and joyful sounds they are uttered in and become a rising smell to God.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">9</span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">And they sang a new song, saying,<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Worthy are you to take the scroll<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and to open its seals,<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>from every tribe and language and people and nation,<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">6 – as though he has been slain</span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn26" name="_ftnref26" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn26;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[26]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> – One translation put it: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>…bearing marks of slaughter…</u></b>” the art gets weird here</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn27" name="_ftnref27" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn27;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[27]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> (weird art…weird pictures)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But what picture is John trying to invoke here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You see, The Lion of Judah and the Root of Jesse are both Messianic themes from the Hebrew Scriptures (Genesis, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel) that point to a coming Champion of Yahweh who will bring his just and wise rule to earth…but so is the slain lamb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is evoking an image from the Hebrew narrative of God’s redemption.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Where is it from?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Exodous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Passover?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Lamb is the one who was sacrificed to save the Hebrews from wrath and to free them from their oppressors.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">9 – </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God</span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">stark atonement language – the bloody slaughter of Jesus is somehow connected to our salvation…but how…well I will take this up in the fall from 1Peter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But here the word ‘ransom’ is used…another translation says:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Atonement – the mixture of peace and violence in one place…we are purveyors of violence who are at peace with God…the lamb that was slain is the being at the center of that reality.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Innocence placed in the way of violence…that is how God conquered…that is how God’s champion conquered…that is how the first Century Christian’s facing Domonitian’s persecution will conquer…and that is how we conquer.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">and by your blood you <u>purchased</u> a people for God</span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">NIV</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn28" name="_ftnref28" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn28;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[28]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> - “You purchased a people for God…” – He’s got the coin to pull it off – he’s got the venture capital to buy a people…but the word ‘ransom’ is a better translation…because it has embedded in it, the implications of buying a particular type of thing…slaves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But buying them not for a new slavery…but for freedom.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Exodous allusion/but also takes on a new sort of vividness in a Roman city</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn29" name="_ftnref29" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn29;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[29]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> where people would be familiar with the slave market.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Lamb went to the slave market, and said, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I’ll take them all” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You can kind of see the slaver’s eyes get greedy and wide:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“That’s going to be a lot of gold” he says<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And Christ responds…”I’ll be paying in blood.”</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn30" name="_ftnref30" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn30;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[30]</span></span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What makes the Lamb worthy?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Worthy are you to take the scroll<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and to open its seals,<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #1f497d; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2;">for</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">(BECAUSE)…<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In summary it gives 3 answers:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><u><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">His victory over sin and death on the cross<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">you were slain, and by your blood</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"> you ransomed people for God</span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><u><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">His Ransom of a diverse collection of slaves<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">and by your blood you <u>ransomed</u> a people for God</span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">he implications of buying …slaves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But buying them not for a new slavery…but for freedom.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><u><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">His Project of Fashioning that an absurdly diverse collection of former slaves into a cohesive people…..a purposeful people…a people with with stuff to do.<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But look again at what this verse says he redeemed us for:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">and by your blood you purchased <u>people</u> for God</span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He didn’t just purchase us into an individual salvation…he purchased A PEOPLE…he didn’t just buy your salvation…he purchased you to be part of his absurdly diverse people…with a job to do…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I. They are absurdly diverse…this kingdom is not geographic or ethnic <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">you ransomed people for God<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>from every tribe and language and people and nation,<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>II. They are busy…they’ve got stuff to do…both now and later<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">10</span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">and you <u>have made them a kingdom and priests</u> to our God,<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and <u>they shall reign on the earth</u>.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">It reminds me of a scene early in the movie Gladiator.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A group of slaves from all over the world are thrown together to be sent into the Colloseum to be slaughtered by the Roman empire to the glory of a mad king (sound familiar?).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only, secretly imbedded in this hapless collection of slaves, is the greatest general in the history of Rome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he turns this diverse crew of fisherman, and shepherds and laborers from all over the world…into a cohesive unit that binds together to conquer the fighting force meant to destroy them.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmaAOr5EjHuNDJ-MzDAiLSLhKdXERXIxZ0bDviT-LvQR2CzwUNn9z0W2v9TPGrdvGhBzV0WiXshf-YLC503nzxugSrhjWnkfK0Q7s65IGqVkGDuYyjpSFkDXA7MsjFtH2q-DRUtCsTiVE9/s1600/Gladiator+Revelation+5+Carthage+battle.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img bba="true" border="0" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmaAOr5EjHuNDJ-MzDAiLSLhKdXERXIxZ0bDviT-LvQR2CzwUNn9z0W2v9TPGrdvGhBzV0WiXshf-YLC503nzxugSrhjWnkfK0Q7s65IGqVkGDuYyjpSFkDXA7MsjFtH2q-DRUtCsTiVE9/s320/Gladiator+Revelation+5+Carthage+battle.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But look again at what this verse says he redeemed us for:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">and by your blood you purchased <u>a people</u> for God</span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He didn’t just purchase us into an individual salvation…he purchased A PEOPLE…he didn’t just buy your salvation…he purchased you to be part of his absurdly diverse people…with a job to do…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Look at verses 9 and 10 again with me…</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>from every tribe and language and people and nation,<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">10</span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and they shall reign on the earth.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">There are two things to notice about this people:</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I. They are absurdly diverse…this kingdom is not geographic or ethnic</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn31" name="_ftnref31" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn31;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[31]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">you ransomed people for God<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>from every tribe and language and people and nation,<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>II. They are busy…they’ve got stuff to do…both now and later<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">10</span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">and you <u>have made them a kingdom and priests</u> to our God,<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and <u>they shall reign on the earth</u>.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">-Those purchased into this people…they have special rights…and jobs…they’ve got stuff to do </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">both now (to be part of his kingdom of priests) and in his future kingdom (to rule the earth)</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">- American spirituality has largely individualized Christianity…but it has never been a collection of individuals…it has always been ‘a people’ – and a functional people...ransomed for service…priests and sub regents…<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">10 – Note the tenses…have made into a kingdom of priests (that is what we already are) and they shall reign on the earth</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn32" name="_ftnref32" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn32;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[32]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> (future reality)...for now God’s kingdom does not control governments...but we are a community of people who mediate between God and people<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">10 – Not even all Hebrews could be priests…it was not only limited ethnically…but limited to a single family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But now all are priests.</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn33" name="_ftnref33" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn33;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[33]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">11</span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, <sup>12</sup>saying with a loud voice, <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">13</span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">14</span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">13 –This passage is written like a musical score…It feels like a live music performance…that just keeps adding voices and instruments.</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn34" name="_ftnref34" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn34;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[34]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a crescendo</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn35" name="_ftnref35" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn35;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[35]</span></span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Chart the passage as a musical score..hold…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2 Loud solo<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3 silence<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">4 crying from the audience… <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">8 the music starts again with 4 creatures and elders<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">11 add angels forte…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, <sup>12</sup>saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Then in verse 13 <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">13</span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">And I heard <u>every creature in heaven</u> (</span></b><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">add every cosmic being<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">) <u>and on earth</u> </span></b>(add every terrestrial critter)<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: #365f91; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"> and under the earth</span></u><span style="color: #365f91; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"> </span></b>(add the earthworms and soil microbes…voles and groundhogs) <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: #365f91; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">and in the sea</span></u><span style="color: #365f91; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"> </span></b>(add all the fish<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn36" name="_ftnref36" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn36;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[36]</span></span></span></span></span></a> and diatoms)<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">, and all that is in them, saying, <o:p></o:p></span></b></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHv8pWsazgBCBj8KRbHDQ7Oy0cNVcUGFdVTQ1OoukDKZPs2HbYJYBKu0snp9pLRWqkDabbl99kv2NWf4vgMVMBS1u8tHQKc-3Q45vTgtdhimy4YTfv7y6REVosaAJIIVE60JJZnQlTvvyi/s1600/Revelation+5+Scored+as+a+peice+of+music.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img bba="true" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHv8pWsazgBCBj8KRbHDQ7Oy0cNVcUGFdVTQ1OoukDKZPs2HbYJYBKu0snp9pLRWqkDabbl99kv2NWf4vgMVMBS1u8tHQKc-3Q45vTgtdhimy4YTfv7y6REVosaAJIIVE60JJZnQlTvvyi/s320/Revelation+5+Scored+as+a+peice+of+music.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">So that is Revelation 5.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lets wrap up by returning to our opeing question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #5f497a; font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent4; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So what kind of thing is the Lamb?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do we classify it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What language can we use to talk about it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When talking about the Trinity it is best to use as few words as possible to avoid heresey.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But this passage requires us to talk in those terms…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Lamb confronts us with fundamental sorting problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is the Lamb creator or creature?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which Bin does he fall into?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How does he sort?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well there are 4 clues in Revelation that while the Lamb is the agent of redemption for creation…partially by virtue of the fact that he has taken on flesh and become part of it…he is fundamentally classified as ‘God’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lets walk through the 4 clues:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">First, the Lamb ‘classifies as God’ due to:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Their Shared Titles<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">At the beginning and end of the book, Jhon carfully ascribes similar titles which speak to the temporal nature <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">God (1:8) Alpha and Omega<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">God (21:6): Alpha and Omega, beginning and end<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNCKoApE3vYb91z3KH6_6wsK8FVyngi4nwv8_Zn1SWnquiJVgKLv_is_TMoYKKxChXRLDcsSDyVLPWAAOprEzY_D3W0eCoUywDVqArA0cUXgAf-ISfKyBuAiBC1BO6ByHGrTiBwPQFgfRF/s1600/Shared+Titles.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img bba="true" border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNCKoApE3vYb91z3KH6_6wsK8FVyngi4nwv8_Zn1SWnquiJVgKLv_is_TMoYKKxChXRLDcsSDyVLPWAAOprEzY_D3W0eCoUywDVqArA0cUXgAf-ISfKyBuAiBC1BO6ByHGrTiBwPQFgfRF/s320/Shared+Titles.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, some of creation is temporal, some of it, like us, is eternal…but only eternal into the future (we have a temporal beginning)…only the Lamb and he who is on the throne are eternal in ‘both directions.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bauckam<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“The titles he shares with God indicate that he shared the eternal being of God from before creation.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The second line of evidence for the Lamb’s status as ‘God’ is:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">John’s Tortured Grammar<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">John, concerned with including the Lamb in the worship, but maintaining the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">monotheistic</i> nature of Christian worship, resorts to awkward grammar…because theology trumps grammar:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">God and Christ are listed together and followed by singular verbs and referred to with singular pronouns (e.g. God and Chist is)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Examples <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“John, who is very sensitive to the theological implications of language and even prepared to defy grammar for the sake of theology…He never makes them the subjects of a plural verb or uses a plural pronoun to refer to them both.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reason is surely clear: he places Christ on the divine side of the distinction between God and creation, but he wishes to avoid ways of speaking which sound to him polytheistic.”</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn37" name="_ftnref37" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn37;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[37]</span></span></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bauchman – John would rather torture grammer than make he who is on the throne and the Lamb, too distinct or too combined.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Trinitarian Greeting<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Trinitarian greetings are scattered throughout the NT – across different authors, demonstrating the early church’s commitment to the oneness and threeness of God:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1 Peter 1:1-2<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2 <u>according to the foreknowledge of God the Father</u>, <u>in the sanctification of the Spirit</u>, <u>for obedience to Jesus Christ</u> and for sprinkling with his blood:<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">May grace and peace be multiplied to you.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Romans 1:1-7</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn38" name="_ftnref38" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn38;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">[38]</span></b></span></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus…was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the <u>Spirit of holiness</u>…Grace to you and peace from <u>God our Father</u> and <u>the Lord Jesus Christ</u>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And Revelation speaks directly into that tradition.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Revelation 1:4 <o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">John to the seven churches that are in Asia:<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">Grace to you and peace from <u>him who is and who was and who is to come</u>, </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #943634; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191;">and</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"> <u>from the seven spirits who are before his throne</u>, 5 </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #943634; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191;">and</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"> <u>from Jesus Christ </u>the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But the most important clue to how to sort the unfamiliar beings we encounter in this realm of God’s rule is a functional critera.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are they worshipers or are they worshiped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So the most compelling evidence<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">4.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">His Acceptance of Worship<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The four worship sets in Revelation 4 and 5 are addressed to very specific recipients:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Lamb and the Voice from the Throne are worshiped together…they are not rivals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Lamb accepts worship…and the One on the Throne has no objection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are distinct, yet the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Decades later, the early church fathers puzzle over this and articulate the doctrine we call ‘the Trinity’…that the Father, Son and Spirit are one God in three persons…they leverage the language of Greek philosophy…but the tension between oneness and distantness is totally faithful to the picture painted in the scriptures.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoYNnub-TAOfH4fBED9BCijwivywRFCDp79wh8L2PTqyoyB2TOsLjzuCKqv-VHm44-Xgh43P5kuNWoCqCf_Zq9giWKWIimmEbvl_0HftPKO0d0fJH5WMJjO7yTUvOZOC63lGFfFJ2Xq_0F/s1600/What+kind+of+being+is+the+lamb.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img bba="true" border="0" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoYNnub-TAOfH4fBED9BCijwivywRFCDp79wh8L2PTqyoyB2TOsLjzuCKqv-VHm44-Xgh43P5kuNWoCqCf_Zq9giWKWIimmEbvl_0HftPKO0d0fJH5WMJjO7yTUvOZOC63lGFfFJ2Xq_0F/s320/What+kind+of+being+is+the+lamb.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<u><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Conclusion<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, Revelation 5 is like a soundtrack to the introduction to the Lamb…and it crescendos to joint adoration of the Lamb and He who is on the Throne:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It would be like going to the Mumford and Son’s concert in the Berkeley Gardens</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn39" name="_ftnref39" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn39;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[39]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">That concert could be anything I could imagine.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…and there is a sun shower with a spectacular rainbow and the sky is lighting up with lightning…and from your seat you can see the vast waters of the bay<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…and it starts with Marcus Mumford coming out and singing a loud, sad, desperate solo..one of their great songs about the desperation of the human predicament (maybe “Dustbowl Dance” or “Broken Crowns”</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn40" name="_ftnref40" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn40;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[40]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…and he gets to the end of the song but instead of applause and the next song…we are all kind of undone by the realization of our desperate situation… he is overcome with the desperation of humanness...and so are we…so much so, that he can’t bring himself to start the next song and we don’t want him to….and there is an extended, heavy silence…we all wait<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…and then someone starts to cry…and it isn’t a sniffle…it’s a wail…and it is the only sound…and everyone in the crowd notices, but it seems like the appropriate response in that moment…and member of the band comes down off the stage and into the stage to comfort him<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…then something stunning happens<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…Jesus emerges from the crowd and walks towards the stage<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…and suddenly…instantly…the desperation is replaced with relief and gratitude<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…the music starts up again</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn41" name="_ftnref41" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn41;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[41]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…only the rest of the band emerges and starts to sing…but not just M&S but one by one other great bands come from back stage and join them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it is a brand new song of relief and praise…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And then one by one each person in the vast audience begins to sing some of them pulls instrument out and starts to play…the volume gradually grows…and a strange but pleasing smell starts to permeate the place…and then, people start to gather outside the stadium and join in…they begin to climb the hill from all over campus to join the song…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Then it gets werider…the birds start to gather…then they sing …and then all the campus squirrels and the lizards…and then the fish in the bay…and the soil microbes and the earthworms…and more and more until every molecule in the vicinity is singing to the glory and worthiness of him who will rescue creation…who has ransomed a people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Revelation chapter 5 is a crescendo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it ends not just with angels singing…or people…but everything God made.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Lamb has ransomed a people…but by opening the scroll he will also redeem all of creation: cosmic, human, and biological.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">All of creation, carbon based and not…earth bound and cosmic…worship when the champion of the one on the throne steps forward to open the scroll and to he who is on the throne…and reveal the plan of God’s redemption.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[1]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Fluffy Bloody Septaclopse?</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[2]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> <span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 16.0pt;">Who cares?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, actually, a lot of people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You see a few years back…genetic evidence put the polar bear’s status as a distinct species in question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some were arguing that they were essentially white grizzlies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, that would be like losing Pluto as a planet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But again, why would anyone care.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because human beings are essentially sorters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We understand the world in categories.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[3]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> You remember Xavier…my son who underachieves at tantrums…we finally got a picture of one of his adorable silent tantrums…while rock climbing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[4]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Of course he does…they are dinosaurs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dinosaurs did not go extinct…they became birds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Xkcd comic</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[5]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> This could be associated with a mixer or life builders activity where the tables are asked to sort objects into two categories with one object that defies the categories.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[6]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Have a slide with 2 categories and these will populate</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[7]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Wright: “Even John, even at this moment, can slip up, can lapse into idolatry, into worshiping that which is not God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps he tells us this in order to encourage those of his readers who are battling with the challenge of idolatry themselves…”</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[8]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> The non-anthropomorphic descriptions of God in Revelation is one of the ways in which John stresses for transcendence even as he is placing the Lamb </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[9]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> There is too much going on in this passage…too many observations to make…to many questions to answer…to distill it into a couple points.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I am going to experiment with some good old fashioned verse-by-verse midrash.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[10]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Goliath imagery?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who will be Israel’s champion. Especially given the messianic titles that follow.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">But there is also possibly Genesis imagery here: “he looked among the creatures for a suitable partner for Adam and found none.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[11]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Caird: There are 4 possible explanations of the scroll: 1) Lamb’s book of life…names filled the scroll and even ran to the outside (Caird rejects this) </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[12]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Illustration that cuts the wrong way (and is from the wrong source material) – Lady of the Erie looking for a champion to kill the Imp…and the imp calling for a champion in return…but we get Bronn – who is a very interesting character…but not in any way ‘worthy’…as the Imp says “I am more interested in your proficiency for murder.”</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[13]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> “John, like the other NT writers, had a realistic view of the deep rooted problem of the human race…Nobody deserves to open the scroll.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that constitutes a major problem…For God then to say, ‘Well humans have failed, so I’ll have to do it some other way,’ would be to unmake the very structure of his good creation…Someone must be found…God has determined to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">run</i> the world thought <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">humans</i>, and to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">rescue</i> the world through <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Israel</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both have let him down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What will he do now? ”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ad hocery</i> would make it seem like God had blundered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the true human and the true Israelite…the Messiah (Christ)…he’s qualified on both counts.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn14;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[14]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Wright points out that though many people point to this as a static picture of ‘heaven’ it is nothing of the sort…</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn15;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[15]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(cultural artifact – I’ve come all this way and can’t open the thing)</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn16;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[16]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> <span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">(gif – how I feel when no one is found worthy to open the scroll)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">4 – My bosses job – no applicants were qualified – the e-mail deflated me a little</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn17;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[17]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Genesis 49:9 Judah is a lion's cub; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down; he crouched</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as a lion and as a lioness; who dares rouse him?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">1 Kings 10 – part of the imagery of the temple</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">Often used in the Psalms as the enemies of God or the enemies of righteousness…which gets inverted, now the lion is on the side of God and righteousness</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">Isa 31:4</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">Hosea 5:14 For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear and go away; I will carry off, and no one shall rescue. (this one is complicated)</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref18" name="_ftn18" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn18;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[18]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Kings, Jeremiah, Daniel</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref19" name="_ftn19" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn19;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[19]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> <span style="font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Wright – we err on both sides – lion Christians and lamb Christians – those who try to advance the victory by power and those who are just about rescue not remaking and have given up on the idea that <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“God is related to the world not only as the transcendent holy One, but also as the slaughtered Lamb…Christ’s sacrificial death <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">belongs to the way God rules the world.</i>” 65-4</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref20" name="_ftn20" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn20;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[20]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref21" name="_ftn21" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn21;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[21]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">(</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Like we wanted Aslan to just open a can of whoop ass on the White Which and her armies.)</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref22" name="_ftn22" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn22;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[22]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> I feel like there are narratives where people turn into ferocious animals when it is time to do battle…a lion is a good choice…a wounded baby sheep…that is a bad choice. </span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref23" name="_ftn23" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn23;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[23]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Bibby would have worked if we won that game.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref24" name="_ftn24" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn24;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[24]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OnlyTheWorthyMayPass </span></div>
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<a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OnlyTheChosenMayWield"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OnlyTheChosenMayWield</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">•Only Gryffindors can draw Gryffindor's sword in Harry Potter. Or more precisely, someone with gryffindor 'qualities' such as bravery and valor.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref25" name="_ftn25" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn25;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[25]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> We are not an insense culture…but smells have as much emotional resonance as music…the smell of insense imideatly transports me to 1996<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and the streets of Katmandu as easily as “eye of the Tiger” transports me to Junior Varsity Soccer practice in 1989.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref26" name="_ftn26" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn26;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[26]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> My friend Dale and his daughter Courtney used to play a scar game…they would show someone a scar…and invariably it would lead to that person showing them one of their scars…our scars are part of our story.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref27" name="_ftn27" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn27;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 8pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[27]</span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 8pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span>but in all of the post resurrection narratives – Jesus has a glorified (difficult to recognize) body…but still has the scars that purchased our redemption.<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref28" name="_ftn28" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn28;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[28]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> ESV is great for precision…but sometimes NIV just puts it closer to our cultural reality</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref29" name="_ftn29" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn29;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[29]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Gladiator slave market</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref30" name="_ftn30" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn30;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[30]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Cultural artifact where someone doesn’t have money but has something better: “shepherd book buying his way onto Serenity”</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref31" name="_ftn31" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn31;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[31]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> (it isn’t lead by a white dude – or some olive skinned dude…or a duide of any hue…but a scarred lamb with 7 eyes and 7 horns)</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref32" name="_ftn32" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn32;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[32]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell – the slave who became king…is us</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref33" name="_ftn33" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn33;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[33]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Another GOT connection – the diversity of houses and power brokers – it takes a wise king (or a sham marriage) to hold that together…and only a wise, just, and loved (not to mention, powerful) king to hold it together well</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref34" name="_ftn34" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn34;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[34]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> I applied to college as an art major…but I also loved composition.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref35" name="_ftn35" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn35;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[35]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> For you engineers, you might wonder how a a less than symbol functions in a musical score…it has another meaning</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref36" name="_ftn36" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn36;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[36]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> …and the sloths and the groundhogs and the breakfast cereals…Monte Python</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref37" name="_ftn37" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn37;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[37]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> The NT doesn’t teach Trinity explicitly…but it is the only implication that accounts for the data</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref38" name="_ftn38" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn38;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[38]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Paul, unsurprisingly, is not nearly as parsimonious as Peter or John…but builds the same basic idea into his greeting.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref39" name="_ftn39" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn39;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[39]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> Amanda and I had tickets to one of these shows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the middle of an almost indescribably busy spring quarter, we set aside a Thursday evening, got a baby sitter and drove down to Berkeley.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As we approached the Garden, the atmosphere was electreic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was an almost perfect evening for an outdoor concert.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A great venue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The music of the opening band spilled over the wall as we stood in line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then, the woman at the gate scanned our tickets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then she scanned them again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then she looked at them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our tickets were for Wednesday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No refunds or exchanges.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We drove home.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">So, I feel like I can pretty much imagine that concert any freaking way I want to.</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref40" name="_ftn40" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn40;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[40]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> I actually have a theory that “Broken Crowns” and “Below my Feet” are actually paired tracks…with the former stating the problem and the latter, resolving it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref41" name="_ftn41" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn41;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: blue;">[41]</span></span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> F-Bombs optional.</span></div>
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stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-40249963715654025092013-07-23T07:22:00.002-07:002013-07-23T07:22:56.154-07:00Revelation 1: The Pathways and Products of WorshipComing Soonstanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-79301632545668556582013-07-23T07:21:00.001-07:002013-07-24T07:52:58.872-07:00Introduction to Revelation<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 22pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Tools, Themes and Tips for Taking on Revelation<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Let me start with a confession.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t want to do Revelation this summer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, I really didn’t want to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Zach and Dan and I started talking about what to take on and they started to gravitate towards revelation, I dragged my feet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here’s how bad I didn’t want to do Revelation…when they asked me for a counter proposal…I suggested…Leviticus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You know why?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because I would have literally rather done any of the other 65 books.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see even though Leviticus is many people’s least favorite book of the Bible, at its worst, is just dull.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Revelation seems to bring out the crazy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">For any of you who maybe haven’t heard of Revelation, or maybe are new to the Bible all together, it is the final book and without a doubt, strangest, book of the Christian Scriptures and is full of bizarre and often disturbing imagery.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I mean, here are just a few attempts to illustrate passages of this book.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I mean, this text can be disturbing even when it is illustrated in lego dioramas.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And some of us have known or will know perfectly normal people get totally and unhelpfully obsessed with this Revelation…Something I’ve never seen happen with Leviticus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, seriously, when was the last time you heard of someone going to a seminar on the interpretation of Leviticus or when was the last time you read a fictionalized account of Leviticus?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Anyway, how did Dan and Zach respond to my counter-proposal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mockery.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So here we are…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But, I’m not alone in my hesitance to take on this book am I.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dan and Zach notwithstanding, a lot of responsible preachers and students of the scriptures have kept this book at arms length.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">For example, John Calvin, maybe the most careful theologian and Biblical interpreter in the last 600 years, wrote a commentary on every book of the Bible…except revelation.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA3UUYaC6IuyQN5_fLZVnflv8ybGPpXIl8BSw5iDsRYHX47SvmAdOZ_Ghy3ye_aWiUEeWOeJUZC06iQZlh0KoqgA3JWu3xo7fk_lqeCCc1byJlee3LkcXF1qqldA5f4paLCI5I4oYoGluV/s1600/Calvin+no+commentary+on+revelation.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img bba="true" border="0" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA3UUYaC6IuyQN5_fLZVnflv8ybGPpXIl8BSw5iDsRYHX47SvmAdOZ_Ghy3ye_aWiUEeWOeJUZC06iQZlh0KoqgA3JWu3xo7fk_lqeCCc1byJlee3LkcXF1qqldA5f4paLCI5I4oYoGluV/s320/Calvin+no+commentary+on+revelation.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And maybe, some of you feel similar hesitance about taking on the book of Revelation as I did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe you’ve tried to read it and found it bizarre and confusing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think my friend kind of got to the heart of it when she offered this on my facebook page a little while ago…</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And that is really the question…can we answer that question ‘what does this book mean.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before it can be helpful, before we find utility in this text to live better lives (which I believe is something we can expect any Biblical text to offer), we have to understand what John means by all these crazy images.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And that is the problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While the first generation would have easily understood the conventions and recognized the symbols...for us it is going to take a little more work.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But, before we can dive into the question <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“What does revelation mean?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">we have to ask a more basic question. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“How do we decide what any text means?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">_____<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, many of us have websites that we can blow hours on if we’re not careful…one of mine is:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">SongMeaning…I can blow hours on this site.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">People get on this site and debate what songs mean.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And it can get a little heated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A lot of songs contain symbolic language makes it a little difficult to know for sure what they are talking about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems like a few years ago, if you went on this site the discussion surrounding the meaning of almost every song was a debate between:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Iraq war/God/a girl<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">These disagreements were based on vague impressions and mental associations between the words and symbols and the interpreter’s world.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And I always want to ask a very basic question on this site.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What is our criteria for determining the meaning of a song?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What are the criteria of evidence and coherence that are sufficient for me to accept an interpretation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Are there criteria, or does it boil down to a ‘feeling’ of ‘yeah that one feels right and the others don’t.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Are there tools we can use to help us get to a less subjective answer to the question “what does this text mean?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And whenever I hear people talk about what a Biblical text ‘means’, particularly when it is controversial, I have the same question.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Are there any basic criteria that can guide us as when our default method for interpreting texts encounters resistance.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Well, there is one basic principle that Bible Scholars in our movement tend to use as a guide to help them determine the meaning of a text:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A text can’t mean what it never meant. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Before we apply a text to our lives, or speculate what it might mean in our time, we have to ask, what did it mean in its original time, place, culture and context.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">One author described the process of interpretation with a phrase he borrowed from a hobbit...in order to understand the scriptures, we have to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">‘go there, and back again.’</b> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so that is how I am going to organize the balance of our time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First we are going to give you some tools to ‘go there’ and try to figure out how this text might have functioned in the early church…and then we will talk about how, once we are rooted in that reality, we can ‘come back again’ and find application to our time and context.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgowm0fWexKKoYMkMa-dsKG0awCvk38zb4RpXQqCnaZXDgnvpN0IyWwbAqAQUx5fwStq9aJEzugYrewSJZXiiBceqwbSouGAmCOnNnjr1_5GvjPNkqii-Eg1ug5eFJ_oswyrWhzZryt8vyR/s1600/There+and+back+again+a+framework+for+interpretation.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img bba="true" border="0" height="204" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgowm0fWexKKoYMkMa-dsKG0awCvk38zb4RpXQqCnaZXDgnvpN0IyWwbAqAQUx5fwStq9aJEzugYrewSJZXiiBceqwbSouGAmCOnNnjr1_5GvjPNkqii-Eg1ug5eFJ_oswyrWhzZryt8vyR/s320/There+and+back+again+a+framework+for+interpretation.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So first have to GO THERE.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 28pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">I. <u>Going There</u></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 48pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Revelation isn’t some sort of puzzle that you need to figure out to understand future events…it is a gorgeous work of inspired literature…in a genre that would have been very familiar to those who read it… that, when read against its historical backdrop, speaks words of encouragement and correction into every generation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The key to what any Biblical text ‘means for you’ is what it ‘meant for its original audience’. And revelation isn’t somehow a special exception.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Look at the opening sentence:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This is first and foremost a book of God speaking encouragement and correction into current events…for the original audience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">John was a pastor, writing with passionate concern that ordinary men and women (in Asia minor at the close of the first century.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he while he also wrote a remarkable book…Revelation was almost certainly intelligible to the ordinary men and women who heard it read in the time it was written. It isn’t a sort of puzzle written to the last generation that every intervening generation will get wrong because we don’t have the right current events.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So one way people who talk about Scriptural interpretation talk about it is that there are 2 gaps that we have to bridge before we can hope to understand what a passage “means”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><u><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The Literary Gap</span></u><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> (it is a different genre of literature than we have ever encountered)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">II.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><u><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The Historical Gap</span></u><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So let’s start with the Literary Gap.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Literary Gap<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So let’s start with the literary gap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The primary reason that Revelation is so puzzling is that it is a piece of literature that was common in the first century but we are entirely unfamiliar with.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The symbols and literary forms are totally foreign to us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we pick up this text which is an inspired text of God’s self disclosure, but it also a stylized piece of first century art, well it would be kind of like handing our i-pod full of Tupac and Radiohead and the flaming lips handing it to the author of this book as he sat on his desert island.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wouldn’t know where to begin.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">Table Activity</span></u></b><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There are 3 clues in the first 4 verses to what kind of literature this is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can you find them?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1:1 “revelation”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“which God Gave him to <u>show</u>”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“<u>He made known</u> by sending his angel”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1:3 “prophecy”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1:4 “letter”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1:1 “revelation”/Greek “Apocalypse”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Note: Not the book of Revelations – It is the Revelation – or the Apocalypse<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">NPR – the summer of the apocalypse <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“And there's an odd plethora of Comic Apocalypses (this summer)”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9xQuh6DFUaW1Lt6kCISn6Kbd7dcPzJCvY6HYxqHAYeHmU7KqQw9i6h5ontGrKwoDTnRIKeMBa1tsBWN3X4rwtf6Q1nk73mBEMGPhwv-JPLbB-r2Qw9VKxsfMVzMSyHxSKd-zsc8EJMd5l/s1600/summer+of+the+apocolypse+film.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img bba="true" border="0" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9xQuh6DFUaW1Lt6kCISn6Kbd7dcPzJCvY6HYxqHAYeHmU7KqQw9i6h5ontGrKwoDTnRIKeMBa1tsBWN3X4rwtf6Q1nk73mBEMGPhwv-JPLbB-r2Qw9VKxsfMVzMSyHxSKd-zsc8EJMd5l/s320/summer+of+the+apocolypse+film.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Multiple examples of films about the end of the world or about the end of civilization…including the film that came out last weekend…WWZ<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But this is unhelpful because it confuses apocalypse and dystopia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have essentially made these synonyms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A dystopia is a story about the end of the world or the collapse of civilization (either due to disease, or natural disaster, or monsters, or political mismanagement…or in the case of zombies, all of the above) and the social chaos that ensues…or the full on end of the world (e.g. by an asteroid).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now, don’t get me wrong, I am a sucker for Dystopia…in the last couple years I have read no fewer than 10 dystopic novels (including WWZ the novel the film is based on)…this summer is full of dystopic films…and the television is banking on dystopic shows…but my current favorite piece of dystopic art is the Song Tables and Chairs by Andrew Bird<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0XYA9v5MFOh39lDZxnPvQga8bZHLIbQjf6qHl8LNZ25eU-YYqGuqL3-DHgrai1BhJZsdK9_4tpVqmYpk7KzE2mOPOB-gfMSNeaoIfCvhvk7qWqhRYgYIevwRvx93FFTj_0QBJ92Py-l-J/s1600/there+will+be+snacks+apocalypse.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img bba="true" border="0" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0XYA9v5MFOh39lDZxnPvQga8bZHLIbQjf6qHl8LNZ25eU-YYqGuqL3-DHgrai1BhJZsdK9_4tpVqmYpk7KzE2mOPOB-gfMSNeaoIfCvhvk7qWqhRYgYIevwRvx93FFTj_0QBJ92Py-l-J/s320/there+will+be+snacks+apocalypse.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.5pt;">Dystopia and snacks…sounds like every Baptist seminar on Revelation I have ever been to.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We are fascinated with how civilization will fall and how the world will end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when we hear that this book is an “apocalypse” we assume that it is predicting how civilization will fall and how the world will end.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">But </span><span style="color: orange;"><span style="font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Apocalyptic </span><span style="font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">≠ </span><span style="font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Dystopia </span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But Apocalyptic is just a type of literature communicated in symbols that would be easy for insiders to understand but would not get them in trouble with outsiders.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The reason that “Apocalypse” is translated into English as “revelation” is because the purpose of an apocalypse is to make current events clear through a series of highly visual symbols and explanations by transcendent messengers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Reading revelation like it is a straight narrative of the end of the world is like looking at a Picasso painting and coming to one of two conclusions:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">i.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This guy is a terrible artist…or…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ii.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The world is much stranger than I see it<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHOsEIcruUb4L2Rh1OuJgo1BpgV3nYTKXH6ESJUUet4CQDHbR3EJabArz_wDkcw0C1EyAwXWJAHBczdUqBMZn7J1uQIE7kSeoa3wcMi_OPkbjMJCINMSNv1nBp3-8llyTjm4KfM7ECnbc2/s1600/can+picasso+draw.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img bba="true" border="0" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHOsEIcruUb4L2Rh1OuJgo1BpgV3nYTKXH6ESJUUet4CQDHbR3EJabArz_wDkcw0C1EyAwXWJAHBczdUqBMZn7J1uQIE7kSeoa3wcMi_OPkbjMJCINMSNv1nBp3-8llyTjm4KfM7ECnbc2/s320/can+picasso+draw.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This great art is totally puzzling to us until we understand the conventions of the genre.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the same way, we can read revelation as a history document published a few thousand years too early and come to one of two conclusions<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">i.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This guy is a raving lunatic…or….<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">ii.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The future is going to be very very weird<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But if we read revelation as an instance of apocalyptic art…we come away with a much different picture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, this is a brilliant piece of art that was written by a loving pastor to churches that were either suffering or compromising in an artistic genre that they would understand.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1:3 “prophecy”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this <u>prophecy</u></span></b><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This is what most people think of…the OT has lots of prophecy…and the NT has one too.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But most people are not familiar enough with OT prophecy to know what to expect from a NT prophecy – the primary purpose of prophecy in the Hebrew Scriptures is not telling the future…if you were to actually calculate the % of old testament prophecy that talks about the future 5% might be too high…and many of those verses talk about the present and future at the same time.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The primary purposes of prophecy are correction and encouragement.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And as you will see…those are the two big themes of Revelation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This text has hard words of correction for those who are off course and tender words of encouragement for those who are hard pressed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And a couple chapters about the future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, in that way, it is totally in line with the OT prophetic tradition.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1:4 “letter”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Multiple references to the churches stressing this text’s status as a letter.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">-v 4 – “John to the seven churches that are in Asia:”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Letters are to a particular place and setting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To understand what is going on in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, you need to know a little bit about 1<sup>st</sup> century Corinth…which leads us to our second gap.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">These aren’t the ratings of a simple fisherman stuck on a desert island…this is a complex and inspired work of art…inspired by God to speak correction and encouragement into that generation in such a way that it still matters ion ours…it is a work with a rich, complex, web of symbols, that is so deeply conversant with every thread of OT promise that it is impossible to count the connections with the OT…and it is a work that borrows three different genres that appeal to Hebrew and Roman members of the early church.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">-The first rule of biblical interpretation– the Bible can never mean what it never meant
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">-the original context controls meaning – and original meaning sets the parameter for contemporary application – Revelation is not somehow exempt from this process. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This book was written by a pastor in exile to 7 churches that were in what is today Turkey…a region that was firmly under the power of the Roman empire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Roman Empire in the second half of the first century was dominated by two men who were, frankly, crazy: Nero and Domitian.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And part of their madness was not just that they claimed to be God…that was part of the emperor job description…but they demanded to be worshiped on penalty of death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Nero and Domitian were separated by a series of emperors who enacted a kind of a ‘don’t ask don’t tell policy.’ <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you don’t make trouble we won’t come looking for you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the book was written near the end Domitian reign, at kind of the peak of his madness, where he was passing decrees that everyone needed to worship him…or die.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that was going to go poorly for the Christians who, didn’t really feel like that was something they could do.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But the very worst of it was still to come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the next couple hundred years, sporadic persecution would be replaced with empire wide persecution under the reigns of Diocletian.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And so, John writes an apocalyptic, prophetic, letter just as Domitian is about to drop the hammer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which means that there are 4 temporal categories that we can file any of the symbols and passages of this book into:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">How you sort the events of revelation into these bins will determine which of the many possible interpretations you will come to.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So where does this leave us?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well first we have to ask a question, what would this have meant to the original community it was addressed to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it is not enough to leave it there, as a kind of hisotic academic discipline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then we have to…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 36pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">II. Come Back Again<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…and ask, given what this meant to the original hearers, how does it speak to us in our context and our generations.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So how do we come back again.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Why didn’t I want to teach Revelation?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why did it scare our friend?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why didn’t Calvin write a commentary?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Well because better men and women have been wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean frankly, that is what it comes down to.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But why are so many so hesitant to take this book on…well, its because of those who weren’t.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I mean look at this list of what the ‘enemies’ in Revelation have been identified as over the last two hundred years, often by some of the Chruchs’ best theologians:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Date<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Enemy<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Author<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">5<sup>th</sup> Century<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Vandals<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Caesarius of Arles*<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">6<sup>th</sup> Century<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Visigoths<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Apringius<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">7<sup>th</sup> Century<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Arians and Donatists<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bede**<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Reformation 16<sup>th</sup>-20<sup>th</sup> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Roman Church<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Luther, Edwards, etc...<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Early 20<sup>th</sup><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Century<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mussolini and Hitler<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Various<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1960-70’s <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Cold War Figures<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Various<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Early 1990’s<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Gulf War Figures***<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Various (including me)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Current<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Islamic Terrorists, EU, Multinational corporations<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">My interpretation of revelation was deeply affected by seeing books that interpreted it as the events of the gulf war that are signaling the end of the world…in a Christian book $1 table a couple years later<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is enough to make a wise and thoughtful person who handles their Bible seriously a little gun shy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But take a look at that list for a second.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What do all of the armies and movements and figures on that list have in common?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were all pretty terrifying to the person reading revelation in that time.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Anti-European American sentiment has also recently made the EU and the UN prominent characters in the interpretation of Revelation…and of course…the other political party.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I mean, if Caesarius and Bede and Luther blew it and John Calvin was too cautious to even take it on…what makes me think I’m going to get it right?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So let me ask a question, why are intelligent, well adjusted, humble Christians reluctant to take on Revelation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, because many smarter, more spiritual individuals who have seen its symbols in their generation have been wrong.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’m always skeptical of preaching that essentially says “the church has believed this for years…but they are wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You should listen to me instead.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And if they have all been wrong, what are the chances that I am the one who is going to get it right?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But let me pose an alternate way of looking at it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What if they haven’t all been wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What if they have all been right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What if the same terrors that John was warning and encouraging the first century church about recur in every generation?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What if Caesarius was right to see the Visigoths in this text?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And Bede was right when he saw the Donotists in these pages?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And later authors who saw the WWII Axis or Cold war powers, or middle eastern oppressors…what if they were right too?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And what if the developing world Christians who have seen the economic power of America as the villain of this book…what if they have been right as well?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, by respecting John’s historical and literary context…by recognizing that his symbols largely correspond to political, religious, and military realities of his era…it frees us to see Revelation as practical instructions for how Christians are supposed to deal with oppressing power.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And whatever you fear…John is talking about that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever is enticing you or intimidating you right now, in this generation…John is talking about that.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And whatever your children and grand-children will fear in 20, 30, or 70 years…John is also talking about that.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Understanding the historic situatedness of Revelation better prepares us to identify its characters in our generation…and profit from it in our time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who is our Rome – who are the imperial powers that demand our allegiance that we are called to resist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Who is the beast who would compel us with power?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Who is the cultural prostitute who would entice us with bread and circuses?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Who is the liar that emerges from chaos as a parody of the lamb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Who is the monster that emerges from the land full of propaganda?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">You see, if you take it this way, then you escape the precarious position of saying, every previous generation who identified these figures in their generations were wrong…and my generation alone is right…and when the world changes and your identification of these figures is overturned…you lose interest in the book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, all of those previous interpretations were right…and watchfulness is a consistent thing.</span><span style="font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This isn’t a book written just to the last generation…but it also isn’t just a book written o the first generation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a book written to the 7 churches…which is John’s way of representing the entire church.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: red; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Everything after this got cut and isn’t on the MP3<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So let’s wrap up with a case study on how to go there and back again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lets look briefly at what might be the most difficult and controversial text in the book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is so obtuse and difficult, we had actually planned to skip over it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is so difficult that I read no fewer than 8 commentators and no 2 of them agreed on what this was all about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The trumpets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In particular, trumpet 5 and 6.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">Rev 9:3 Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth…</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"> </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">6 And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">7 In appearance the locusts were like horses prepared for battle: on their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces, 8 their hair like women's hair, and their teeth like lions' teeth; 9 they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle. 10 They have tails and stings like scorpions, and their power to hurt people for five months is in their tails. 11 They have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">13 Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God, 14 saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, <u>“Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”</u> 15 So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, were released to kill a third of mankind. 16 The number of mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand; I heard their number. 17 And this is how I saw the horses in my vision and those who rode them: they wore breastplates the color of fire and of sapphire and of sulfur, and the heads of the horses were like lions' heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths. 18 By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths. 19 For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails are like serpents with heads, and by means of them they wound.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now, what do many modern interpreters see when they read these chapters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Helicopters. Drones.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But ask yourself, what might this have meant to the 7 churches.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What are the clues.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, there is a lot of talk about horses….and one very important phrase:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Euphrates was the border between the two great empires: Rome and the Parthians (the ancient Persians</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Parthians lurked as a shadow of fear just beyond the Euphrates for Rome’s near eastern territories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Romans and Parthians battled for ancient near eastern territories for hundreds of years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the terror of the Parthians were their mounted Calvary: <span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Parthians had developed a devastating military innovation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had learned horsemenship from the steppe peoples to their east…those who would become the Mongols…but the learned how to work steal from the Romans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So they fielded an armored cavalry of archers who could fire from armored horseback.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were called the cataphracts, and they were terrifying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A terrifying military power building on the eastern border.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So what about the helicopters and tanks?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well in every generation, these have been read as the ‘building army just beyond the Euphrates.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The specter of a foreign conqueror that strikes fear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In just the last 100 years it has been Iraq, Iran, Communism, and now, it is terrorism we fear…a great army to the east.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So as these threats have come and gone, has every generation been wrong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">One commentator says– John “lavishes detail on the locust”…these almost mechanical locusts – many see modern machines (helicopters)… “We too have seen terrible machines in our day: monsters, whether helicopters or other military equipment, designed…to strike terror into human hearts for the sake of power and empire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who is to say that such machines do not ultimate come, like these insects-on-steroids…from the bottomless pit, under the direction of Apollyon?” 87 <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And are those in our generation who are identifying the riders and the locust as machines of military power wrong?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not really.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John saw the Parthian Cataphract.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there will always be a terrifying army building on our borders with scary new military technology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In essence, every generation, who saw the locus and the hoard in their generation has been right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the military power that causes you to fear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In Roman Asia minor, it was the Parthian riders who had seemingly mystical skills to rain down ordinance from armored horseback.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And X feared the Visagoths, Luther feared the power of the church in Rome, Hal Lindsey feared the communists, Many today fear terrorists, Syrian Christians right now fear both Assad and the rebels…many non-western Christains fear the US and/or China…we fear the other political party…and my children will fear people and armies that I could not conceive of yet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We all have different Parthian raiders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there will always be Parthian raiders…until there aren’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">For us it might be ideological bombers – terrorists who infiltrate our public spaces (or maybe what you fear is the other political party).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And Jesus is saying, yeah, they may run you through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The world is full of powers (cosmic and human and the feedback between them) that can do you damage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But those that belog to the Lamb cannot really be damaged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The lamb wins through self giving to death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His people should not fear natural disaster, , or the Parthian horde.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are not immune to them, but can overcome through the victory of the slaughtered lamb.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Is Revelation about the past or the future…or the present.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span><br clear="all" /><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;"> 247 BC to 224 AD</span></div>
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stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-88155832752461652692013-03-05T07:53:00.000-08:002013-12-27T05:50:23.968-08:00Autonomy, Freedom, and a Giant Ape: John 8<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: #c2d69b; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themetint: 153;">Note: This talk changed considerably between this draft and the actual talk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I posted this draft because of the extended exposition about Jesus’ identity. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">“Who are you?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC6dgtBU6Gs"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC6dgtBU6Gs</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">“No one of Consequence.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">“Really I must know.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">“Get used to disappointment.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">“Who are you?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There comes a point in a lot of narratives, where the identity of the protagonist is ambiguous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We know he or she is special, but we haven’t really put all the pieces together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so the author just has one of the other characters straight up ask “Who…are…you?”</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBFsx54RWUhSUlMpXTE7XBwLLG5MIvS2xwWdmA2YdawwrUznFpeffKRvHp5R6DZXJ-fizBdA7U_7j0WkaSb0h-_0nYMe1pxUfOwZ9zo96O-2h0cBaEtrEjtNQofdx49pSZryondwopNR1R/s1600/Inigo+montoya+who+are+you.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="203" jsa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBFsx54RWUhSUlMpXTE7XBwLLG5MIvS2xwWdmA2YdawwrUznFpeffKRvHp5R6DZXJ-fizBdA7U_7j0WkaSb0h-_0nYMe1pxUfOwZ9zo96O-2h0cBaEtrEjtNQofdx49pSZryondwopNR1R/s320/Inigo+montoya+who+are+you.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">It happens in excellent, quirky, indi, comedies with great sound tracks (Garden State):<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">“Who are you?” “I’m your new friend Sam.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">It happens in big budget superhero pics<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">“Who are you?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I’m Batman.”</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6BIbOdPPygdZ762vlvFX7sTlB4nzaEoe-TlxJQXJMQf6m6AD2eioSFgMKHss5rcTCMUX9IAWpLgIGrRWM2ZIfkzGSGnglYc8eMjplme4sdWVluE6XKProAm2uPTV3asmat_QZDFy0mK2P/s1600/film+who+are+you.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" jsa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6BIbOdPPygdZ762vlvFX7sTlB4nzaEoe-TlxJQXJMQf6m6AD2eioSFgMKHss5rcTCMUX9IAWpLgIGrRWM2ZIfkzGSGnglYc8eMjplme4sdWVluE6XKProAm2uPTV3asmat_QZDFy0mK2P/s320/film+who+are+you.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">And it happens in John chapter 8.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">You see, in this passage, Jesus is being grilled and its not pretty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This would be a little bit like doing a cable news interview with someone who disagrees with you. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIDx672a-rF_S1R0elNaHfJnLN5PpT_t2OnM4dTYCtkJCg6M_xg1shlHSvfem71HsoTUAUjzrP8HKkoX9TxdWDR3l0lmIV-PISywSCHWfRye0xqtUCy2nuv0oNmLTu3Zm6m9pMs5GG8ur0/s1600/aggresive+cable+interviews.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" jsa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIDx672a-rF_S1R0elNaHfJnLN5PpT_t2OnM4dTYCtkJCg6M_xg1shlHSvfem71HsoTUAUjzrP8HKkoX9TxdWDR3l0lmIV-PISywSCHWfRye0xqtUCy2nuv0oNmLTu3Zm6m9pMs5GG8ur0/s320/aggresive+cable+interviews.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">They are him with leading questions trying to get him to say something embarrassing that will become a viral youtube clip.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this chapter, they ask him 8 questions including some dusies…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">I mean right out of the gate the ask stuff that is inappropriate and awkward (e.g. are you suicidal?)…but as the conversation progresses…things escalate:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">“Wow that escalated quickly” </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TKpyCQOKlU"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TKpyCQOKlU</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">For example, in verse 41…they say “We were not born of sexual immorality…”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Ouch...<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you get that… <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you see what they did there… <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">They are saying “hey dude, at least we know our Daddys.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">And then they ask my favorite question…</span></div>
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<span style="color: #17365d; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;">“Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">I mean who says stuff like that?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> That either requires intentional, heedless demegogery for effect...</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcXteGDgkhRL2a88sjWNtsZwM6XccB_YGIGJ3JCy6OcsBEiWI6rGXyW-NsDcwNWO4D5IpUNdD8Q9uGATLiJ5q8aRbMmFWMdu7V4dsaylWQdCeTMkovzv6gMFBTu7ZyLszRj4aikFfMw4n_/s1600/nancy+grace+John+8.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" jsa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcXteGDgkhRL2a88sjWNtsZwM6XccB_YGIGJ3JCy6OcsBEiWI6rGXyW-NsDcwNWO4D5IpUNdD8Q9uGATLiJ5q8aRbMmFWMdu7V4dsaylWQdCeTMkovzv6gMFBTu7ZyLszRj4aikFfMw4n_/s320/nancy+grace+John+8.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>or a total lack of tact and self awareness...</span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">hough Dwight would ask it in a more creative way (Slide)…”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">I love Jesus’ answer: “I do not have a demon…”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can almost see him shaking his head, like, “seriously.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">It is an aggressive conversation which, like so many conversations we see around us and, especially on the stuff that passes for news on television…is more interested in generating a damning sound bite than it is in generating actual understanding.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">But there is one point in the conversation, where Jesus kind of rattles them to the point that they just ask the obvious question…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">“So they Said to him, “Who are you?”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">But the answer he gives them is startling, and complicated, and he doesn’t just answer the who question, but also presses the why and what questions..<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">In John 8 Jesus answers three questions:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">Who he is<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">Why that matters<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">What you should do about it<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Jesus gives two answers to the<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">First he says<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">24</span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">“I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that <u>I am he</u> you will die in your sins?” <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">And so the first cue Jesus drops about his identify is a puzzle. You see, there is a lot that could have elicited a response in Jesus’ words…telling people ”you will die in your sins” is not exactly the road to being voted prom king.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But most commentators agree that the phrase that would have grabbed their attention and drew the identity question out of them is …“I am he” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Um what?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">That sentence has no content.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">The direct object of that sentence is entirely uninformative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">I mean thank you captain obvious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Or at least that is the way we hear it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But a 1<sup>st</sup> century Jewish scholar who would have large portions of the OT memorized in the popular Greek translation of the day would have heard something very different in that phrase.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">The phrase “I am he” (ego eimi) is the exact phrase Yahweh uses to refer to himself throughout the prophetic literature in their Bibles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It makes them pause, squint a little, and ask a real question.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">And then he drops it again in v 28<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">So Jesus said to them, When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that <u>I am he.”<o:p></o:p></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">The religious teachers don’t take this well, as you might imagine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they begin to ask a series of increasingly offensive questions…but eventually, Jesus brings the conversation back from the things they want to talk about to the thing they should want to talk about by dropping this gem in verse 51:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">If anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Well, this time, they aren’t confused, they are pissed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They start ranting at him…and eventually say (v 53)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">Who do you make yourself out to be?</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Essentially, they are saying “Who do you think you are?” which is phrased like a question…it has the punctuation of a question, and the inflection of a question, I mean your voice goes up at the end like it’s a question, but when someone says “who do you think you are?” its not a question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet Jesus answers it…in verse 57 he says:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">Before Abraham was, I am?</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Excuse me, What?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now he’s just talking funny.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean the tenses of his verbs don’t even agree.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">Before Abraham was, I am?</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">I mean I realize in our context, verb tenses don’t matter much anymore…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">“I has cheeseburger” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I am America (and so can you!)” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">But, I mean that sentence doesn’t make sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">Before Abraham was, I am?</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">It seems like some kind of word salad…until you hear it as one of Jesus’ opponents would have heard it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">You see, in the Hebrew Scriptures “I am” is not just a verb…it’s also a proper noun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>When Moses encounters God at the burning bush in Exodus 3…and asks him the “who are you”…how does God answer…I AM.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus isn’t talking funny, he’s saying the most offensive thing he could possibly say, in the most clever winsome way he could possibly say it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Jesus is unambiguously identifying himself as Yahweh, the God of the Hebrew scriptures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It may seem like coded language to us, but it could not have been more stark or plainly stated in the spiritual idiom of that day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if that is not clear enough from the text itself, it is clear from the context, because in verse 59 those listening to him immediately pick up stones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever he said in this grammatically awkward English sentence…it was grounds to get stoned…and not in the fun way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">But the passage is also confusing, because while Jesus is unambiguously identifying himself as God, he also clearly distinguishes himself from “the Father” several times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">The way DA Carson put it…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">And, it turns out, that the answer to the question “who are you” goes waaay deeper than they could have imagined.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You see, if you want to know who Jesus claims to be, you need to do business with John chapter 8…you have to do business with Trinity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">In the history of the church, there have been those who have wanted to stress God’s unity – getting rid of the messy distinctions between Jesus, Father and Spirit, collapsing them to metaphors for the same single reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And there have been others who have wanted to de-emphasize the unity of the three, by making Jesus just a dude who served God in a special way and the spirit some cosmic force between them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But throughout its history, the church has refused both of those tidy solutions…because neither is faithful to the complexity o f Jesus’ self understanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt;">And so, The Chalcedonianian creed, which is recognized by all major flavors of Christianity (Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant) asserts that the Father, Jesus, and the Spirit are God 'without confusion' and 'without separation'.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">SK - <span style="color: #943634; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191;">“He is the paradox that history can never digest or convert into an ordinary syllogism.”</span> p 30[3]</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt;">-Is Jesus Yahweh of the Hebrew Scriptures…YES.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt;">-Is he distinct from ‘the Father’…YES.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Does that cook your noodle…YES.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-Should God be entirely penetrable by the electrical impulses of 4 lb masses of gooey carbon…NO.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">2. Mission</span></u></b><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">So in the middle of this debate, Jesus’ interlocutors stop asking weird questions long enough for Jesus to tell a little parable, which is the most famous part of this passage by a long shot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In verse 31-36 he says:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">31</span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, <sup>32</sup>and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” <sup>33</sup>They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">34</span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. <sup>35</sup>The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. <sup>36</sup>So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Well, it’s because theology matters…because understanding Jesus’ identity is the key to understanding Jesus’ mission…and our response.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">The point behind his identity is that he is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>qualified to rescue</u></i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Disney recently bought the rights to a science fiction novel I finished last month called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Incarceron</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Early reports are that they are going to place the film adaptation in the hands of a werewolf and a wolverine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>But in this story there is a prison from which there is no escape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the slaves in this prison have been there so long that they forget it is a prison and have stopped believing that an outside world exists.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">There is this great line in the middle of the book, where one of the characters describes the situation:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #943634; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191;">"Most men are content to live in their prison and think it is their world." (6:8)</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFAG1On5hMP-Kf9R8vt509HtMX15e2mKRQaYXHcKNSeNA8_ED5IH69gNmvW_gWMre7drYD1yXOJOvry-SwmdOaTcbP73nbuHoSLBWIMzpD3DZEW8nvye4mXoPZJo3STxXCX4mIaHh027ty/s1600/Incarceron+quote+live+in+their+prison+and+think+its+their+world.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" jsa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFAG1On5hMP-Kf9R8vt509HtMX15e2mKRQaYXHcKNSeNA8_ED5IH69gNmvW_gWMre7drYD1yXOJOvry-SwmdOaTcbP73nbuHoSLBWIMzpD3DZEW8nvye4mXoPZJo3STxXCX4mIaHh027ty/s320/Incarceron+quote+live+in+their+prison+and+think+its+their+world.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">And I love this picture, because it is precisely the way the conversation between Jesus and his interviewers goes down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He says <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">The truth will set you free.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">And his opponents get testy and shoot back.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">We have never been enslaved.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Now, Jesus stays on course, because, frankly he loves them, and wants to tell them how they can be free…but if it was me getting interviewed, Right here is the point where I’d start to get sarcastic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d be like, REALLY?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’ve NEVER been slaves? SERIOUSLY?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I’m totally imagining those Roman soldiers standing over there. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And before that, the Seleucid empire…and what about Alexander the great…oh, and I suppose Assyria and Babylon let you do whatever you want when they marched you out away from your family and lands and pressed you<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>into labor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, at this point, the Hebrews had been politically autonomous for precisely 1 generation in the last 1000 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They had been conquered and re-conquered and owned and oppressed…yet they look at Jesus with a straight face, and say…”dude, I don’t know what you are talking about…we’ve never been slaves”…but Jesus presses them…he asks them for some real self examination:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">If you practice sin, you are a slave to sin.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">He argues that most of us are enslaved to the half loves and broken promises of the appetites and authorities we live for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our autonomy is illusion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We dance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We dance for the things, or appetites, or people who have power over us…because…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #943634; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191;">"Most men are content to live in their prison and think it is their world." (6:8)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">And then Jesus leverages the imagery of the Roman slave market…an imagery probably most familiar to us from the film Gladiator…and says<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #365f91; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Jesus says, listen, slaves cannot free themselves…and they can’t free other slaves…but the Son, the co-ruler of the kingdom, he can declare you free…and more than that he can make you the heir to the kingdom you were meant to be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">So, back to the story of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Incarceron</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the world outside the prison, there is a princess, who is the only one with the power and position to enter the prison and free those who have been enslaved.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">So she gives up all of her royal advantages and uses her power and position to go into the prison to extract a boy who has forgotten that he was born heir to the kingdom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only an heir to the kingdom had the power to undertake this transform a slave into an heir.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only an heir to the kingdom could free the slave AND make him an heir.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The other slaves couldn’t break him free.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They couldn’t break free themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of them had forgotten that freedom even existed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only the heir had the power and only the heir had the desire to free the slave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And in the process, the slave was also reinstated as the heir to the kingdom and immediately went to work to free other slaves.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">And this is how the early church Father’s described what Jesus did for us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our liberator could only be a God man says Athanasius…because he had to invade our reality, but he had to transcend our reality to be able to free us from it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only the son of the king can change our status from slave to son.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #943634; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191;">"The Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself." –Iranaus<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #943634; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191;">“He became what we are so that he might make us what he is.” - St. Athanasius of Alexandria<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">We can’t be freed by other slaves…only by the son who takes on the life of the slave and then breaks it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like the prison in Incarceron, our prison can only be solved from the outside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can only be freed by an external invader. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">3. Freedom Sounds Great…How do I get There?</span></u></b><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">So how does Jesus say you access truth that leads to freedom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, in the midst of a bunch of pretty confusing theology and debate, he spells it out pretty simply in verse 31.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">“If you <u>abide in my word</u>, you are truly my <u>disciples</u>, and you will <u>know the truth</u>, and <u>the truth will set you free</u>.”<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">A lot of people press those last six words into service.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have been used to defend or assert nearly every ideology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But look at that whole sentence again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Knowing truth and being set free by it are embedded in a larger process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Being freed by truth has two antecedent conditions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">1) abide <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">2) follow <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">3) know <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">4) freedom<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">We throw around the “truth will set you free” phrase all the time…but it follows other stuff.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Living with and following Jesus precede freeing knowledge. Jesus isn’t just a special forces agent that sweeps in, knocks down the door, and sets you free.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">And that is because freedom requires a transfer of allegiance and a change of address.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Truth doesn’t just happen in the context of dispassionate investigation, but by ‘taking up residence’ in the words of Jesus, of building your home there…and then transferring your allegiance to him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">My oldest daughter is five.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She started pre-school this year, and that means she has a new set of friends and a new measure of autonomy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is just getting used to what that means.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so, after school last week, my wife took her to Rainbow City, the big wooden playground in N Davis to play with her new friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And while the moms were talking they overheard our kids talking…This is what the kids said:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">“Wouldn’t it be great if our parents died?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then we could live in rainbow city.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We could eat as much candy as we want and watch cartoons all day.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Now, you understand the world enough to understand that the world they have concocted in their minds is not freedom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They want autonomy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But autonomy<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>does not equal freedom, because their limitations are not external.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Now, most of you are about 15 years removed from Kindergarten.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are about half way through the School year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which means that the reality of what college is like is dawning on many of you freshman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And maybe some of you upper classmen are at a point of reassessment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You came to college with a sense that your life would be totally changed with all of the new freedom that you would get.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And let me ask you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How’s that going for you?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">I find that a lot of students find that coming to college and losing the constraints that their parents house put on their lives…well it’s not the same as being free.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Autonomy isn’t the same as freedom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because, according to Jesus, your constraints aren’t external.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You bring your captors wherever you go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Because whoever practices sin is a slave to sin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Conclusion: “Stockholm syndrome.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">So why is it that “practicing sin” as Jesus puts it, enslaves us?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">And why is it that transferring our allegiance and really orienting our lives around Jesus (either for the first time or the 10,000<sup>th</sup>) fundamentally freeing?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Let me give you a 3 word answer: “The Stockholm Effect”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Becoming so accustomed to your slavery that you begin to perceive it as benevolent...or even better than ‘freedom.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most recently is the central plot point of the show “Homeland”…but classically it is fundamental to the story of King Kong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know that classic tale of:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Ape abducts woman.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Ape terrifies and abuses woman.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">Woman loves ape.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">I remember the week that the latest version of King Kong came out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was at kinkos and the guy who was helping me was a film nerd and we got talking about it…and he started telling me all the reasons this film (which I thought was borderline unwatchable) was artistically excellent…it was really interesting…but then he said this, “But, my girlfriend just couldn’t get into it…you know the Stockholm effect.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">And that was my experience of the movie…when Naomi Watts was gazing lovingly into the face of this beast who had caused her so much terror and pain…I just thought….REALLY!!!???!!!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">That’s not sweet…that’s a complete loss of connection with reality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">It is self selected slavery through the mechanism of self delusion.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">That is a picture of us…gazing lovingly into the eyes of our violent, ugly captor, forgetting what we were actually made for…we get attached to the things that enslave us that we forget that someone grabing us and dragging us up the empire state building is not loving behavior.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">The ape doesn’t love you…you are its slave.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">The ape doesn’t love you…and neither do your grades, or your crushes, or those naked girls on your computer screen, or you professional dream…they don’t love you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if you serve them, they own you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">If you love your grades and dreams, if you live for your professional aspirations or crushes, if you orient your life around the things you want, they will eventually come to own you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These things can drive our decisions and behaviors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we don’t even notice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They enslave us, and we thank them.[8]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">But Jesus says, Transfer your allegiance to me…and then orient your life around me…follow and abide…and the fabric of reality will start to become clear…the things that are worth living for will begin to become apparent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You will begin to see that the thing that you are living for, that you gaze lovingly at, that it is the big ugly mug of an ape that has no interest in your joy or welfare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> But Jesus does.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">And that truth will set you free.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[1] </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">An interesting phrase with intentionally ambiguous referent (to his death and resurrection).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Carson: “One of the functions of the cross is t reveal <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>who Jesus is.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[2] </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, theologically, you have three choices, First, you can stress the unity of Jesus as God and ignore the distinction…or Second you can stress the distinction and overlook Jesus’ claims to divinity…or you can take both seriously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that is how the early church decided to deal with the tension in this passage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The doctrine of the Trinity doesn’t so much as explain how Jesus and the Father and the Spirit are the all God yet distinct…rather, it simply asserts that they are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And attempts to push them together or separate them<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[3] “It is<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>hard to believe because it is hard to obey.” Also SK This actually gets at a lot of the epistemology embedded in Jesus’ questions in this passage…epistemology that I had to cut.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[4] </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">FF Bruce calls this passage a “parenthetical parable.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems like a diversion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is it doing in the middle of a passage so clearly about Jesus’ identity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[5] <span style="color: #333333;">His body was for Him not a limitation, but an instrument, so that He was both in it and in all things, and outside all things, resting in the Father above. At one and the same time- this is the wonder - as man He was an human life, and as Word He was sustaining the life of the universe, and as Son He was in constant union with the Father” – Athanasius<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">[6] </span><span style="font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now we just wrapped up a series on ‘becoming God’s best version of you’ where we followed what Paul had to say about how to change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if you remember, Paul put the command to:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” along side “Put to death whatever is earthly in you.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: ArialMT;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Shaking lose the degrading habits and practices happens in the context of a rule of life…of abiding with Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: ArialMT;">[7] </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Let him move you from slavery to sonship, both ontologically but also experientially.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif';">[8] AD wrote this, and I couldn’t fit it, but I loved it: </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I may have written this before but I never understood why every time I turned in a test in college I would put the piece of paper in front of the professor and say, “Thank you.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn’t stop myself! I would walk away every time and think, “You idiot. Why did you thank her. She just destroyed you with that test.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And you thanked her for it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But even after a few times realizing this, I would tell myself that I wouldn’t say thank you as I was walking up, but whenever I got there, I always did.</span></div>
stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-49936880592042461262013-02-06T07:32:00.000-08:002013-02-06T21:00:25.454-08:00"Death Match": Grace, Vigorous and Violent (Col 3:5-10)<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“To The Death”: Grace, Vigorous and Violent<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">(Col 3:5) [1]<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/11/22/2659930/Death%20Match%20-%20Grace%20Vigorous%20and%20Violent%20%28Col%203%29.mp3" target="_blank">MP3</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I Made a video montage of Classic Death Matches (MTV – celebrity death match, PBS – robot death match– that bad ping pong movie – Princess bride “to the death…I accept” – Golumn and Bilbo riddle contest - “Are You not entertained?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hunger Games – BLR?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“yay, a goat” – thunder dome)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We love a good death match. There is something about the ultimate stakes contest that captures our imagination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is something about the desperation and sanctioned ruthlessness. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We allow a noble protagonist to exert ruthless violence without moral compromise because his or her life is on the line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The stakes capture our imaginations.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Actual death matches were part of Paul’s cultural world….<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But ruthlessness is not in the Christian vocabulary.[2]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have a command of cheek turning and a tradition of martyrdom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For us, ruthlessness, a win at all cost battle to eviscerate an opponent…giving them not the slightest opening and pressing every advantage until they are beaten and lifeless and pose no threat…it is a non-sequitur…with one exception.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Scriptures use the metaphor of ruthless hand to hand, mortal combat to talk about dealing with one enemy…our sin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When it comes to people…we are to “love mercy”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But when it comes to our self destructive and self centered tendencies…stuff the Scriptures calls sin, Paul calls for violent tenacity.[3]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The scriptures call us to have mercy on all…except for the pernicious aspects of our selves that rebel against God…to those he says, give them no quarter…take no prisoners…press every advantage and land every blow will lethal force until it is lying lifeless, and then keep at it, just to make sure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He says:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK2"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK1"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">5 <u>Put to death therefore what is earthly in you</u>: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have<u> put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, </u>which is being <u>renewed</u> in knowledge <u>after the image of its creator</u>. <o:p></o:p></span></span></b></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Paul says that in this great project, that he describes in this very passage with the metaphor we have used throughout this passage…renewing the image of God in you…just as your greatest ally, the Holy Spirit, resides in the bounds of your borrowed molecules, so does your greatest enemy…your dark nature.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In this part of the passage and series, we move the front of the battle from motivation to method…and ‘battle’ is exactly the right metaphor…because Paul’s metaphor gets <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>violent and ruthless</u></b>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He says, now that those things that seek to destroy you have been disarmed…”put them to death.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">THE classic Christian extra biblical text on change was written about 300 years ago by a man named John Owne…and he based his book on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">this </i>verse and a few others like it a work I’m going to lean on him from time to time in this talk. He gave it an old timy title “Mortification of the Flesh” but essential argues the same thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are in a death match…he says:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK4"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK3"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Be killing sin or it will be killing you.”</span></span></b></span></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> 9 – <o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And while your spiritual destiny and how much God loves you is NOT at stake…it is a battle with extremely high stakes…your joy and spiritual vitality is on the line.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;">“The vigor, and power, and comfort of our spiritual life depends on the mortification of the deeds of the flesh.” 7</span></b><span style="color: #548dd4; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And you know why…because sin will pass on no opportunity to steal your joy and sideline you in the process of image recovery…the enemy is disarmed but relentless…Paul says, don’t be naieve….you are in a death match.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or Owen says:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“the contest is vigorous and hazardous.” 45<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">That idea has captured my imagination recently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The process of ‘putting off’ which is a critical portion of image restoration…it is a sort of vigorous and violent grace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is an aspect of image recovery that generations of Christians, including Paul and Owen, have described as a sort of ‘sanctification street fight.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we should not be fooled into thinking that it is anything less.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But after starting with this evocative metaphor, of a death match with our sin, Paul settles into two lists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He lays out a taxonomy of sin that we could roughly characterize as departures from the image of God that revolve around purity and relationship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first list is sins of self harm…and the second sins of relational harm. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But then Paul kind of gets down to it…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self,</span></u></b><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Your character is the sum total of your habits…”putting off” the old self…is a process of putting off concrete “practices”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He is using the language of habit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Putting on and putting off happen in the realm of habit formation and destabilization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And Owen, in the greatest extra-biblical work of all time on this passage…on how to ‘put to death” also puts our first duty in the language of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">habit</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Now the first thing in mortification is the weakling of this habit of sin or lust.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Lust is strengthened by temptation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It gives it a new life, vigor, power, violence or rage…the first thing in moritifacaion is the weakening of the habit” </span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And this comes into line with what social scientists have demonstrated again and again in the last two decades is that much of our life happens on autopilot…it emerges from habitual practices. Many of the “practices” which compose our life, start as explicit decisions…but if they happen often enough, our brains push them off to a different processor where they can happen semi-automatically and require less of our cognitive resources:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Source: Duhigg, "The Power of Habit"</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In fact, researchers estimate that up to 40% of our behavior is un-conscious…and much of the rest of it is unreflective.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But just because many of our behaviors and thought patterns are semi-conscious doesn’t mean that we are not responsible for them or that they cannot be changed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But here is the question this all poses…and in a sense the question that we have been building up to for 4 weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the question that has come up again and again, in the lunch bunch.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">finally</i></b> to the direct mechanism (put up meta outline).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve had to do the theological work and deal with indirect methods because we are not moralists…we believe in the power of the cross and the Spirit and spiritual practices as the context of change…and so does Paul…but he doesn’t leave it at that, and neither should we.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have to round out Paul’s argument and deal with the direct methods…we have to talk about exchanging practices…we need to talk about going to WORK on our habits.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The question, is HOW?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do I generate new behaviors?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And especially, how do I put off engrained habits? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">If we are in a death match how do you win?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do you kill that which is earthly in you?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do you put to death habits bent on your destruction?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, I’ve got 6 ideas, from the scriptures, classical theology and those who have been doing careful empirical observation of human change….So let’s do it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Start Somewhere<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">First, you have to start somewhere…which means…START…but also, don’t start everywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Focus your <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Roy Baumeister, a professor at Florida state and one of the first psychologists to take up studies of self control in the lab summarizes the literature like this:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“When people have to make a big change in their lives, their efforts are undermined if they are trying to make other changes…For most of us the problem is not a lack of goals but rather too many of them” – Baumeister<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As you will see, I take on approximately one big project of image recovery every 8-10 months.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Right now, I am trying to make better use of my work day, which I will talk about later.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I already have the next one picked out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want to dissect our budget and spending habit to find more margin for generosity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I actually have software tracking our spending as we speak for when I am ready to start.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that is still 3-6 months off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am not taking it on, until the practices I have introduced to make my work day honoring God, my family and my employer become habits.<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><o:p></o:p></u></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And here is one of the great resources that Christian theology brings to the table…because we are a people of grace…because we do not bear the guilt of our failings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It doesn’t all have to happen right now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can take on one death match at a time…and transform it into a new habit…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The other interesting thing that has shown up in the social science literature is that by giving concerted attention to changing one habit, others benefit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The simple process of consciously perusing a single change will spill over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, a study by two Australian psychologists demonstrated that who made concerted progress on money management…also exercise more often and make better use of their study time. And visa versa…those who gave specific attention to making the best use of their study time, had cleaner rooms and <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So choose your opponent…I mean, seriously…do it, right now. Here are some options (Paul’s lists).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Got it…I’ll wait.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Write it down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Abbreviate it if it’s embarrassing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ok, second, it is helpful to:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Understand the Architecture of a Habit<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">That behavior or thought pattern that you wrote down…it is probably entrenched.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has been part of your life long enough that they it has achieved the status of habit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a semi-conscious behavior that occurs in the context of reduced brain activity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Well, the psychological literature seems to argue that habits are extremely difficult to quit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But they can be weakened and ultimately replaced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“You can never truly extinguish bad habits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather, to change a habit, you must keep the old cue, and deliver the old reward, but insert a new routine.” – Charles Duhigg “The Power of Habit”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And a basic model that has emerged that allows us to talk about this is what has become known as the MIT model:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p>(Figure modified from Duhigg, "The Power of Habit")</o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The MIT model suggests that the behavior that we want to change is actually embedded in a system…and to ‘put off’ the behavior, we need to understand “what is the trigger” for this behavior…or in their language “the cue” and what is the fundamental motivation…or the “reward.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By understanding how semi-automatic behaviors are motivated and triggered, we have a better chance of putting them off.</span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Identify a Cue and Swap Out the Routine<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And so, people who talk about habit change suggest that you need to find the trigger…the “cue” in the language of the MIT model.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What unconsciously or semi-consciously initiates the dehumanizing routine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The cue can be:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A Location<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A Time<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">An Emotional State<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A Person<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The immediately preceding action<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">If you can remove the cue…you are on your way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, if the routine is making out with your gf…the cue might be being alone in your room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But you can’t always control an emotional state, and 3:30 pm (the time I like to go buy a coke) comes every day whether I want to or not.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So one of the ways people have made progress is to swap out the routine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Duhigg (who wrote the definitive, popular, meta-analysis on the habit change literature) shared a kind of minor example of this, but it illustrates the idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So let’s look at it, and then upscale to something a little more meaningful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’d get board at work mid-afternoon and go to the cafeteria and get a cookie…8 lbs later, he investigated this routine and found that the cue for the cookie wasn’t hunger, it was boredom and even loneliness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What he really wanted was companionship, which he was finding in the cafeteria.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So he replaced the cookie habit with a mid-afternoon visit to a friend’s desk.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But let me share how this has worked on something bigger in my life, and then show you how it aligns very nicely with Paul’s categories of direct methods of change.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">One of the things I have found, by talking to dudes about their struggles for a couple decades now, is that “lust” is a word with semantic range.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And you kind of get that from Paul’s list.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He doesn’t just say put lust to death…he has a whole taxonomy of lust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that is what I have found.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lust is not a thing, it is a bunch of habits that are aligned to different cues and provide different perceived benefits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, I have never understood the porn thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, I don’t mess around with it, I’m sure it could eventually have power over me if I let it in, but I have never understood what guys get out of 2D images of women they have never met.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For me, the cue and content of this brokenness wasn’t visual, it was the stories that I let my imagination generate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And a few years ago, I was finally tired of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was time for a death match with my illicit imaginations. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This happened throughout the day but was most egregious when I lay down to bed at night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Almost as soon as I lay down to bed my imagination would dive into some, usually illicit, alternate reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so the first thing I tried, was to pray in that time instead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it just wasn’t working.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The classic evangelical traditions of spontaneous, self generated, prayer required more creativity than I had at hand in what was essentially my most depleted psychological state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Prayer required too much effort, and couldn’t compete with a semi-conscious fully automatic, engrained habit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you see what was going on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cue was the quieting of my mind when I laid down…not something I could avoid…unless I actually became a cyborg (pic).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I needed a new routine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Something that could more easily become automatic.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So I decided to start off really simple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead of spontaneous, self generated prayer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I would just work my way through the Lord’s prayer, slowly and methodically, really lingering over each word, until I fell asleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now it took a while.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The old habit was at least 25 years old, but over time, the new habit began to take root and push out the old one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, when I lay down to bed at night, my natural impulse, the routine that that cue invokes is to start into “Oh gracious and merciful father, who resides in a truer parallel reality that is breaking through…your name is Holy…Holy…Holy.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> (you say that prayer 20,000 times and see if you don't take some creative liberties with it) </span>The habit had been replaced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But you know what, I got more than that, it transformed the imaginative content of the rest of my day, because it turns out that I was seeding my imaginations in that time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That was where I was generating the content I my imagination would revisit the next day.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But do you see, in this passage, Paul and his divine co-author were way ahead of the psychological community on this…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">put off</span></u></i></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"> the old self with its practices 10 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>and</u></i> have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>put on</u></i> the new self,</span></b><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Part of putting habitual sin to death, is replacing it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have to pair “putting away” with “putting on”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paul’s direct methods go together.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The other thing that social scientists that study habit tell us to do, is to examine the “reward,” ask ourselves, what are we really getting from the routine and swap out a routine that gives us the same reward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this is where I partially depart from the MIT model...because I think this idea falls short of the recovery of the image of God that Paul offers in this passage. [*]<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But they are right about assessing the actual motivation of the habit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need to ask, what are we really getting out of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I feel like that is what Paul is getting at with his taxonomy of sexual brokenness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The list progresses from easily observable behaviors to subtle motivations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And do you notice where it lands…what is actually at the base of all of these flavors of sexual brokenness…disordered wanting….which is fundamentally idolatry.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, prayer didn’t deliver the same reward as illicit imaginations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It delivered a better one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I had to want it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Early in the process that was a struggle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that is why I find Paul’s metaphor of hand to hand combat so apt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or listen to how Owen puts it:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #548dd4; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">!!! “Mortification is the soul’s vigorous opposition to self.” -Owen<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">On multiple nights, I had to ask myself, do I want Jesus more…do I believe that Jesus is better…I mean, is this story of Christ’s victory in the cross, and his indwelling friendship…is that my story or not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Spirit helped, and the mechanisms helped, but there was an aspect of brut force to this as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a fight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paul’s metaphor is prefect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had to look at my darker self, call him out, and punch it in the face.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Paul and Owen describe an experience that is much darker than the simple swapping of habits…it is a call to battle….it is something vigorous and violent.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">They call us to be people whose live by patterns of generous mercy towards people and but who live by patterns vigorous violence towards our degrading habits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">____<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Let me digress for a second and get back anyone I have lost by talking about…romance<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You have heard: “Don’t marry someone planning to change them.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-True<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But let me nuance that for you:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Don’t marry someone who doesn’t have a track record of self-motivated change.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Women, you want to marry a man who isn’t just going to keep his hands off other women, but for the most part, his heart and thoughts as well…who isn’t going to live an alternate imaginative life with 2 dimensional women on his computer screen or fostering crushes…do you want to marry a man who not only doesn’t watch the hot waitress walk away when he is out to dinner with you but doesn’t want to…then you need to marry a man who is willing to stand toe to toe with his dark nature…and punch it in the face.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not once, in a dramatic spiritual display…but again and again. Acutally, all of you want to marry a someone who wakes up every morning, stares down his or her dark self, not just dark sexual tendencies, but as Dan laid out last week, envy, anger, and X and (to which I would add, bitterness and pride…I’m less sanctified than dan) stuff on both of Paul’s lists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You want to be and marry someone who looks deep into the hidden recesses of the heart where those things live and says, “today, you die.” You want to marry someone who is into vigorous and violent grace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which leads me to…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">5.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Go Ahead and Kick that Dead Horse…it’s Never Totally Dead<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></div>
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<span style="color: #548dd4; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Never think a lust dead because it is quit, but labor still to give it new wounds, new blows every day….Col 3:5” 47 –<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Owen<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">One of the problems that the habit management literature runs into is that the victories it has observed can be devastatingly temporary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this is one of the places I think Christian theology provides an advantage that takes us beyond the social sciences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By understanding what sin is…but recognizing it as a fallen networks of wanting that manifest as dehumanizing habits…we expect it to be a relentless enemy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Keep taking the battle to it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now I had, frankly, an amazing extended zombie metaphore her. ..which I don’t have time for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I think you can put the pieces together yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first rule of battling a zombie is to never assume it’s done seeking your destruction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just because you have shot it full of lead and it is temporarily immobile, doesn’t mean its done coming after you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if you knock one of these habits down, even if it seems at an end, you keep on the offensive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You can never be satisfied with your victory over a dehumanizing habit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have to come at it again and again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It becomes easier when you have replaced it with a new habit, but times of emotional stress can destabilize the new habit and set you into new patterns.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">6.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Don’t do it alone<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But back to points of agreement between the social sciences, there is not so overwhelming as the role of community in change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Study after study demonstrates that there are two things that increase the success rate and persistence of change:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Monitoring<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There have been a number of famous studies on this, but the most fun one was a famous experiment published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology [4.5] where the researchers put out a range of excellent unsupervised candy (I mean, we’re not talking about the cheap house that gives out dum dums or those hard candies from the 70’s…this was premiere candy) with the classic instructions to “take 1” on Halloween and then secretly monitored the behavior of 379 children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only variable was that there was a small mirror behind the candy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And sometimes the mirror was facing the children and the candy and sometimes it was turned around to face away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the mirror was facing the children, there was a significant increase in the number of children who took only one piece of candy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And this is part of the repertoire of our brokenness...one of the things that makes sin so insidious….part of what makes what paul calls ‘our old self’ such a formidable enemy…it is a master of stealth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If so much of our life happens semi-consciously, then sin can hide undetected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so sometimes, to really get at the dynamics of a behavior, as well as the cues and motivations, we need to do a little monitoring.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need to move it from an semi-conscious activity in which sin can hide, <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So as I said, I take on a new major project of image restoration every 8-12 months or so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And right now, I am trying to order my work day so that it honors God, it honors my family (by getting more done at work and needing to put in fewer hours outside of the office), and brings complete integrity to my interaction with my employer and clients.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the first thing I did, was try to figure out where my work day went.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I loaded a tracking software which kept track of how much time I was wasting, which tasks were taking too long, and which projects were getting more attention than they had paid for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Change sometimes requires this level of self awareness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So whether it is changing your eating habits, or exercising, or money management, internet use…success rates sky rocket if you monitor, record and review your behavior. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But for a Christian, there is an additional effect to explicitly monitoring behavior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is an act of confession to God. Self awareness demands repentance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that plot, pink is wasted time (this was a pretty effective day).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And at the end of each day, the amount of pink on the plot pushes me to call out for grace and go to work on the habits that <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But maybe the most unequivocal finding in the habit change literature will surprise no one that has even a passing familiarity with Christian theology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Success rates increase dramatically when habit change is undertaken in the context of community.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We throw around the word ‘accountability’ so often that it has lost some of its meaning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the benefits of perusing your projects of recovering the image of God with friends who are doing the same, is not only well established in the ancient Christian scriptures, it has been empirically vindicated again and again in double blind studies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So in my case, the next step is to find someone willing to track their time and meet with me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this is why software like covenant eyes can be really helpful …<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And in your case, talk about the thing you are taking on in growth group this week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want you to actually break out this loop, and not only identify the behavior, but also the cue and fundamental motivation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then work with your allies to figure out the better motivation and an ennobling habit to swap in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if you aren’t in a growth group, come on, you are in a freaking death match, you don’t want to do that thing alone…you need a team.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if you are skeptical about the Christian story, but still look at your life and see habits you’d like to be free of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The overwhelming conclusion of science is that you have very little chance of significant change unless you comitt to a community that is actively trying to change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The psychological literature argues that going to a growth group may be the best thing you could do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of the evidence of the scriptures and the social science literature declares that with one voice – community is the currency of change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You will find a list of ggs on the back of your hand out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Make gg part of your rule of life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">(I often preach in an old Boston red sox cap. I wore it this night.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, when it comes to Paul’s direct methods (put outline up)…after we center our quest on Christ’s work on the Cross and the Sprit’s power…after we set up a rule of life that increases practices that are hospitable to the spirit and diminishes those that make him awkward in your skin (like the guy at the party nursing a drink in the corner because it is clear to him and everyone else that he is out of place and mostly not welcome).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paul says we have to put off and put on habits.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We have to take off the losers rags (take off the hat) that bears the emblem of disapointment, shame and sadness and put on the cloths of the champion (Tyler handed me his Giants cap and I put it off).[5]<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is the Mr Rogers metaphor of sanctification – take the make believe s*^$ off and put on your going out and getting crap done cloths.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But it starts with taking off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It starts with vigorous and violent grace against our disordered wanting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And replacing them with better habits.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There are things that will derail your attempts to ‘put on’ new habits and behaviors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Putting on kindness is tied to putting off bitterness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Taking on healthy sexual intimacy is linked to putting off disordered sexual wanting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Living a life of just action and generosity begins with putting away self serving affections.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Footnotes<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[1] Alternate titles:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The Hunger Games, the Thunder Dome, and John Owen</span></b><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Going to war against your darker self</span></b><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Death match, Vigorous Grace, Sanctification Street Fight <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Becoming God’s Best Version of You (Part 5): A Call to Violence<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">[2]</span></b><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Ken Burns – Civil War letter: “I think I would like to kill a Yankee, but I am afraid that this is not in line with the principles of Christian charity.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[3]We are like that guy in “a history of violence” – kind, attentive, unassuming, but capable of swift, decisive, targeted violence<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[4] For anyone in a work environment…the person who just drops by your office to chat – without respect to your “flow” or productivity, is not always welcome…whereas someone who is in the cafeteria is, by definition, at a convenient stopping point.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[*] I don’t disagree in the sense that I think the work is not empirically attested, but that it does not share the goals of Christian image recovery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the heart of Christian ethics is the idea that the behavior is not the real problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you swap out a new behavior that satisfies the same degrading motivation, you have, (as Tim Keller would say) “hot wired your heart” to be more socially presentable, but you have not really dealt with spiritual decay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or as Owen says:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[4.5] http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=1981-01088-001<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[5] I preach in 9ers country.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I wrote this before the game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If they lose, I’ll have to do it with my red sox hat (which works because they were not just terrible, but unlikable this year) and a giants hat.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-71704151503252456082013-01-23T08:15:00.000-08:002013-02-06T21:02:25.197-08:00Avoiding the DNF (Col 2:13-3:3)<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So I ran track in HS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Really it was just something to do to keep in shape for soccer, but it was fun, and we had some of NY state’s best sprinters, so I make the varsity team as a freshman (and won the only league title of my athletic career) just because they needed some warm bodies to throw at the distance events.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we had a rule.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We wouldn’t train outdoors if the temperature fell below zero…F.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, in upstate NY, it could stay below zero for long enough to totally fall out of shape.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So when I got my license I started making the 30 minute drive into the nearest town several days a week to run at a gym.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then, I’d go to the public library to work on my homework.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But usually, at some point, I’d take a break and do one of two things…I’d either read a chess book or flip through runners world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Yes, ‘study breaks’ looked different before facebook….or maybe that is just what they looked like for social tweeners who couldn’t decide if they were a jock or a nerd…which I’ve found describes the HS years of a surprising number of UCD students).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyway, that first winter was just before the Barcelona Olympics and runner’s world began covering a building story that we started just calling “Dan vs Dave”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The gist was that the two best decathletes in the world were both Americans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They excelled at different events, Dan was young, cool and sleek (you know, much like our Dan), and Dave was older, pasty, and had creepy 80’s hair (which wasn’t as big a deal since the 80’s had only been over for a year or so)…but my allegiance was obvious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a classic youth culture vs old school conflict that made my generation youth culture which had been defined by MTV and Nirvana, tick…I was a Dan guy. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">But both these guys were beasts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone agreed and they were going gold and silver…the only question was in which order.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I got obsessed with this matchup and started reading everything I could get my hands on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this was the first and only time I was “into something before it was cool.” </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">You could say I a proto-hipster…I was into being into something before it was cool before it was cool to be into something before it was cool.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other news, I was a nerd before it was cool.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seriously, it used to be a lot harder to be a nerd.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People actually did beat you up and take your lunch money…but I digress.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because Rebook, who at the time was Nike’s only real competitor, caught wind of the story and built a multi-million dollar marketing campaign out of the building competition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Check out a few of the micro-commercials they started running:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(I’m planning to cut this down to 3):<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But then several months before the actual Olympics the commercials which had become ubiquitous just suddenly stopped.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was curious…but you have to try to imagine a world in which google didn’t exist (I mean, think about what that would be like for a second)…there was a pop culture event that occurred and I had no idea why and I had no way to find out…I had to wait for the next issue of runner’s world to come out….I had to wait a month for a periodical to be published…on paper…and sure enough the next issue covered the US Olympic trials had a inset box article on how Dan led the field after the first day…but then in the second day…during the pole vault...he triple faulted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Dan had been disqualified.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>He wouldn’t be going to the Olympics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of the training, all the hype, a multi-million dollar marketing campaign and a great showing in all the other events…simply didn’t matter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was disqualified. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I read that article audibly gasped there in the Watertown library…20 years later I remember exactly where I was sitting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But you see for track people, that is the great fear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We feared that we would open the newspaper (which, for those of you who don’t know, is another quaint artifact of my 20<sup>th</sup> century childhood) the next day and find three dreaded letters next to our name DNF…Did Not Finish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>We were haunted by the fear that all of our training, all of our effort…in the end it just won’t matter…that it would all be rendered irrelevant because of a tactical error…that we would be disqualified.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And that is the picture that Paul uses at the front end of the Bible’s most comprehensive and practical passage on ‘How to Change.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Look with me in 2:18.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He says:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Let no on disqualify you…”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Paul, like a good track coach, says, before we talk about how to do this thing…before I tell you how you need to train and compete…before I lay out all of the work it is going to take to do this thing right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before we go into training “to become God’s best version of yourself” let’s make sure you understand how to avoid the DNF…Lets make sure you don’t get yourself disqualified.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the last two weeks, Dan (our Dan) has made a case (a theological case in week 1 and a pragmatic case in week 2) for why we should be serious about change…call it by whichever biblical, sociological or theological term you’d like:</span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK12"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK11"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK12;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> transformation, growth, sanctification, holiness, human flourishing, </span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">or one of Paul’s favorites that we have chosen for this series ‘recovering the image of God.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dan answered the Why question…now in the next 4 weeks, we are going to turn to the central passage on this topic, and ask the question…How?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>How</u></i></b> do we change?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well Paul has organized the series for us by using 4 simple verbs In Colossians 2&3 that can be classified into direct and indirect methods for the process of becoming the best version of you:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(put passage up and highlight them)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But before he tells us to “put on” new habits that restore God’s image in us, stuff like “compassionate hearts, kindness and humility” (which Dan will talk about in 3 weeks).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And Before he tells us to “Put off” the stuff that is corroding our affections, capacities and relationship – which he describes as a kind of “sanctification street fight” (which I will talk about 2 weeks).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And Before he tells us to “Let the word of Christ dwell in us richly”, which Dan will talk about next week…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Before he tells us to put on or put off or let…he starts with an admonition…“Don’t let”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>- “Don’t let anyone disqualify you.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t put in all that effort and training without understanding the parameters of what you are trying to accomplish and how God’s transforming work and human effort fundamentally interact.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Don’t let anyone disqualify you.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so in the final 7 verses of chapter 2 he lays out two methods of change that frankly, just don’t work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then in the first 4 verses of chapter 3 he lays down the foundational principles and the first step of the one that will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So let’s get started with:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 20pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 20pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Avoiding the DNF: Two Approaches that Don’t Work<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Paul starts out his discussion of how to change…with some pointed words about how not to change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He looks around him at the religious and moral landscape, both in the church and outside, and sees some methods that he describes like this:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2:23 “These have indeed, an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><u>appearance of wisdom</u></i> in promoting self-made religion…but they <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>ARE</u></b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>OF</u></b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>NO</u></b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>VALUE</u></b> in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.”<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">He seems to be legitimately concerned that there are a range of unhelpful, illicit approaches out there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He describes them as having… </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“the appearance of wisdom”…but being “without value” to actually affect change.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Do you follow his concern?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not everything you hear about how to change is helpful, true or useful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of it is counterproductive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some methods will take all the effort you sink into them and use that effort against you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he warns us against two approaches in particular: which we’ll call Moralism and Mysticism. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see as Dan framed in the first message…the real paradox of Christian transformation….of becoming the best version of you…is the question, how much of it is human effort and how much is just flat God’s job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Getting the balance of human effort and divine help right is the key to avoiding the DNF.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And Paul suggests that you can err in either direction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And unsurprisingly, Paul’s two[2] methods that don’t work [3] include one that stresses human effort too much and one that stresses it too little.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And these are the pitfalls of moralism and mysticism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">-<u>Moralism</u> – (Col 2:16-17) underrates God’s transforming action<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">-<u>Mysticism</u> – (Col 2:18-17) underrates the importance of human cooperation<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And both have proof texts (that aren’t in the Bible)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><u><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Moralism</span></u><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> – “God helps those who help themselves”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">-I think I remember what verse that is sqrt(-1)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But Mysticism (underrating human cooperation) has a proof text of its own that doesn’t exist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At the heart of mysticism is the sentimental advice to:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><u><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Mysticism</span></u><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> – “Let go and let God” [4]<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And Paul rejects them both as “without value”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In v 16-17 Paul dismisses moralism – “Let no one pass judgment in questions of food and drink, or with regard to new moon festivals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Paul is warning us about trying to change by compulsive rule following or by lining up the right religious tricks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he is warning us about assigning ourselves value by a religious or moral check list.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And s o he says: “If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why AS IF YOU WERE STILL ALIVE in the world, do you submit to regulations…” 2:20<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The first phrase that jumps out at me in that passage is “Elemental Spirits”…it<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>makes me think of this:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Throughout chapter 2 Paul builds a complicated argument against moralism and mysticism (the greek in this part of this passage is netoriously tough sleding).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here is a text map that shows where he hits them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Now I don’t have time to walk through each occurrence, put them in their historical context, and make a connection to a modern equivalent… <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">That is something you could dig into with your growth groups this week if you like…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background: yellow; font-size: 16pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">But his basic argument is that some people underrate God’s role in our transformation, chasing morality or lining up the right religious tricks and others underrate our role, by chasing spiritual experiences and thinking that if they accumulate enough mystical street cred they’ll advance to a higher spiritual plane and their behavior will automatically change.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And he summarizes this idea in verse 20<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">“If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why AS IF YOU WERE STILL ALIVE in the world, do you submit to regulations…”</span> </b>2:20<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But this is the core of Paul’s argument in chapter 2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When he looks around at the moral and religious landscape of his day, he sees a lot of people trying a lot of stuff that has no real correlation with reclaiming the image of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">And some of the particulars are different in our time (there isn’t a lot of call for new moon festivals (well, at least untilthis happened), </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">...but the elemental spirits are the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, Paul deals mainly with religious moralism…trying to check off the right religious check boxes to become good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that is still something we struggle with…but in our culture, there is also a powerful secular version of moralism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most people I know are really committed to this kind of vague notion of “being a good person.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>They will try to change their behavior or to change their definition of “good” until they can convince themselves and others that they are “a good person.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The social pressure to be and be seen as a “good person” is an extremely powerful psychological and sociological force in our culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And advertisers and politicians manipulate us based on the guilt we feel about being good…or not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it is still a kind of sentimental moralism…a quest to feel value because you are good enough…because of your moral performance…and Paul warns us it is “of no value” in the actual process of image recovery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">Illustration</span></b><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">: Sanctification Zombie<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">V 20 – <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Do you fallow what Paul is doing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is saying dude, you died to the standard forms of human valuation and moralism, you should not be poking around where you used to live...you know what we call dead people who wander around where they used to live...ZOMBIES...Paul is saying that if you don't move from faith to change you are a spiritual zombie.</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> – And Zombies are awkward – they don’t belong in this world or the next…they are kind of hanging on to an expired existence like that high school football player who never left town.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paul is saying, don’t be like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t evaluate with the criteria of your old life – a religious check list or moral comparison.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t be a moralist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t be a Sanctification Zombie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t be disqualified.</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But in v 18 he talks about those who make vague mystical experiences the focus of their spirituality…people who focus on “angels” and “visions”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then he gets at the problem with both of these approaches…they make us “puffed up without reason.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thy mystic isn’t really interested in character development, but chases the supernatural…underemphasizing not only their role in growth, but the centrality of growth to Christianity.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But Paul says you have to be careful of both Mysticism and Moralism, both hyper-spirituality and rigorous rule following, can make you proud…and put you more in slavery to your ”flesh” than the sin you were trying to target.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They “pander to your pride” (HM Carson)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You trade whatever brokenness you are after for pride. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He uses the phrase ‘puffed up.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both moralism and mysticism can disqualify you because they “puff you up” - they are pride inducing – pride is like gas – painful to you an d unpleasant for those around you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But that is the problem, collecting ‘spiritual merit badges’ to impress God and others or collecting ‘spiritual experiences’ both have the same result.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The irony<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>here is that they mystic and the moralist don’t generally get along.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The person who puts too much emphasis on human agency and the one who puts to little generally don’t like each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But they are doing essentially the same thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Evaluating their value by collecting religious stuff: just in one case its rules and in the other case its experiences.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In fact, Paul says in v 18 they puff up the “sensuous mind.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are forms of religious sensuality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>NT Wright puts it like this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;">“You will merely be giving up a worldly self-indulgence of a sensual kind for a worldly self indulgence of a spiritual kind.”</span></b><span style="color: #76923c; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"> </span>And, frankly, the worldly kind is more fun, at least on the front end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And this is why these methods of change disqualify.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We exchange a hedonistic sensuality for a religious sensuality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it is still about us.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Paul argues that a strict Christian moralism or a sentimental Christian mysticism won’t cut it<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">They have “the appearance of wisdom” but “are of no value”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They disqualify.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They end with the DNF.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that is because they are results of the thing, not the thing in itself.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">To wrap up this point I am just going to let Paul illustrate this himself. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, we’ve already observed that Paul uses a sports illustration (he is an urban guy – and Roman urban life was obsessed with sport – sports illustrations may be Paul’s favorite kind…So Zach is in good company) – and tells us “let no one disqualify you…”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But he decides this idea is important enough that a second illustration is in order (so I’m going to follow his lead):<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A couple months ago a friend of mine that doesn’t post a lot of images on facebook put this one up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought, wow, that is a very ‘middle eastern’ scene of camels in the desert, but I kind of wondered what attracted him to this image enough to warrant posting it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSVmaNj-ZOW5Iir9LvtrIEEsQyMF1CxCaEtOGq6I73vXZkkyIV7ToNkmSewiccCyYbAP2Hxzzxrss8U8dsy7ygIJxKg2NaKw82-coPB5RVehmfxU7H6onfXH04Fc6vvx73kn_Bwtn7Pg6X/s1600/camel+shadow.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" oea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSVmaNj-ZOW5Iir9LvtrIEEsQyMF1CxCaEtOGq6I73vXZkkyIV7ToNkmSewiccCyYbAP2Hxzzxrss8U8dsy7ygIJxKg2NaKw82-coPB5RVehmfxU7H6onfXH04Fc6vvx73kn_Bwtn7Pg6X/s320/camel+shadow.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I actually stared at it for a while to try to figure out why he was so taken by this image…Do you see it?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It actually had to show up in my feed a couple times before I realized, my eyes had fooled me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had mistaken the camel’s shadows for the camels themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had mistaken shadow for substance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this is what Paul is getting at:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Not everything that looks like wisdom is wisdom…sometimes<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it’s a shadow<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #38761d;">“These (illicit<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>forms pursuits of change) are a <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>shadow</u></b> of the things to come, but the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>substance</u></b> belongs to Christ.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You know who mistakes shadows for the real… the world’s most ridiculous creatures…cats.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When I was writing this talk (which I am happy to report, is the first time I used the internet for one of its most common purposes…looking at cat pictures).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #943634; font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Visual gag: ‘is there an alternate universe where cats look at pics of us’ meme<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Yes…Yes it is totally normal… because it’s a cat…and cat’s are ridiculous creatures…they are pumas with 100% of the things that makes a puma cool bread out of them…and Paul is saying don’t be like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t chase the shadow…chase the real thing…don’t start by chasing the experience or the behavior…start with Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Pauls says…Don’t make that mistake…don’t disqualify yourself…don’t start by chasing the experience or the behavior…start with Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">At first sight, we might mistake the shadow for the real thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because, here’s the thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Behavior change and mystical experience are the results of Christianity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are real things that we experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But they are EFFECTS of something more REAL.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are SHADOWS of a truer SUBSTANCE.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we chase behavior change or spiritual experience for their own sake…which is the error of moralism and mysticism, (which Paul calls ‘self-made religion’) we are going after the effect of the thing, not the thing itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are chasing shadows. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You want to avoid the DNF…you want to start out by following Paul’s advice to “Let no one disqualify you…”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>you have to learn to distinguish “Shadows” from “substance”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And Paul says, behavior change and experiences…they are shadows…projected from something more Substantive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which leads us to the first principle of image recovery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do we avoid the DNF…how do we ‘get out of the blocks clean’…we start With Christ.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 22pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 22pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Getting out of the Blocks Clean: ‘With Christ’<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He contrasts those things with someone who “grows with a growth that is from God”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that has always been a little hollow for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I’ve been a Christian a long time…and I’ve been in a lot of Bible discussions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it seems like a lot of them go the same way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just about the time we are starting to get practical…just about the time we are getting to some verbs…some thoughts on what we can do…someone will sit back, and using their most pious voice, say “well you know, its not something we can do, God has to do it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that stops the conversation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because it argues that ‘a growth from God’ is independent of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that’s not what Paul believes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He ties our actions to a ‘Growth that is from God.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the action he offers: is “Hold onto the Head” – his metaphore for Jesus<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK4"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK3"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="color: #76923c; font-size: 20pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Illustration</span></span></span></a><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">: This reminded me of the only Hitchcock film I’ve ever seen…North by northwest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the climax of NbN Carey Grant and (famous 60’s blonde) are being chased and end up inexplicably in one of the facial orify of the Mount Rushmore statues (like the gecko in that Geicho commercial).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then of course, they slip.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the only thing between them and their destruction, is to “hole fast to the head”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But this is a helpful illustration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because, they are not doing much…but they are not doing nothing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are just holding on as hard as the can.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It starts with us holding on to Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, the reason that it has to start with Jesus is that the stuff that degrades you, the brokenness that keeps you from reflecting the image of God (mirror image) has power over you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are not strong enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Jesus is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so listen to how Paul describes what Jesus does to start this process off for us.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>If</u></b> then you have been raised with Christ.” – if you aren’t in on new life in Jesus, we don’t have much to offer you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-there are some things you can learn about monitoring glucose levels and being careful of ‘ego depletion’ – but you will have to be content with self management and it is likely that you will exchange success for pride.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Look at how he describes these attempts to approach the Christian life by following an arbitrary set of rules or by collecting supernatural experiences:</span></span></div>
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<span class="text"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 16pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">2:13 </span></sup></b></span><span class="text"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 16pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,</span></b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 16pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"> <span class="text"><sup>14 </sup>by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.</span> <span class="text"><sup>15 </sup>He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.</span><o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jesus had defeated (not only defeated, but flat humiliated) those ‘powers and authorities’ that are dehumanizing you<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The cross is a victory over those things with power over you.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Your pursuit of restoring god’s image has to start there.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And so we have to ‘hold fast to the head’…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But Paul actually gets more practical than that in the opening verses of chapter 3:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“seek” (3:1) –“set your minds”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“One of the main things that Paul longs for new Christians to realize is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">what is already true of them ‘in Christ.’</i>” –Wright<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Change begins with apprehending the new reality of who you became, are and will be in Christ, and then focusing your attention on these realities rather than the shadows of this world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that is called worship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Change begins with new wanting, new desires, new mediations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It starts with <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>seeking</u> </b>and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>thinking</u></b>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It doesn’t start with visible action.[6] <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It starts with what you “Let in”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And a good place to start that thinking is the sublime theological foundation for change that Paul starts this whole passage out with. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Do you understand what he is saying?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cross is a victory over those things with power over you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus had defeated (not only defeated, flat humiliated) those ‘powers and authorities’ that are dehumanizing you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Your sin has been defanged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your brokenness has been declawed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The things you are battling have been disarmed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So hold on to Jesus<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But now we come to an awkward part of my talk…you see, the best illustration I could find of this comes from a movie that I was effectively and happily pretending didn’t exist…you see, I think a really good illustration of Colossians 2:25 is the most disappointing creature in the star wars universe: I am talking, of course, about Jar Jar Binks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jar Jar appeared in the first prequel…and he was annoying, useless, dim witted and entirely without narrative value.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And those are the nicest things people say about him. But at near the end of that first movie, everyone’s least favorite Gungan finds himself in the midst great climactic battle <u>against an army of droids</u>…and there is Jar Jar just totally hapless…he has no skills or talants or tactics to offer …anything good he may add is the unintended consequence of a bad choice…he is basically without value in the conflict …until, someone blows up the droid control ship (or something like that, I refused to go re-watch the movie to get the facts right).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But anyway, this leads to a scene, where the droids have all stopped working.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The menacing droid army that had been bearing down on them suddenly froze…without power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then, Jar Jar finds that even he can take on disarmed droids…he turns to the droid next to him and goes to town, knocking it over…that someone else had actually defeated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that is what it takes for someone as ineffective and absurd as jar jar to be effective in battle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A total disarmament of the enemy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once the enemy was disarmed, Jar Jar’s efforts were effective.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">That is the picture that Paul is painting here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are absurd and ineffective against our sin and brokenness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are the spiritual equivalent of Jar Jar Binks. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But when our enemy is disarmed, even our flailing efforts can be effective.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is why we have to start with holding on to Jesus…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We have to claim the victory Jesus on and then partner with him to carry it out…in actually knocking over those disarmed droids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or as Paul puts it<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The first front on the battle for your behaviors is on the level of your affection and meditations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the level of stirving and wanting and thinking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this is the space of worship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is why, once you make sure your car is pointed the right way, the first verb of change, the first thing that you need to do, is seek Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we call that worship.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Dan will take this up the details of this next week.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But to get out of the blocks cleanly, to avoid the DNF, to not be disqualified…we need to hold fast to the head…we need to actively press into Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This doesn’t preclude stratagies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Method of change is very important and we are going to get there…but the process starts with motivation and power.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that comes from recalibrating our perspective…aligning our reality with actual reality…that Jesus hasn’t just defeated the things that humiliate us…he has EMBERASSED them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And recalibrating our reality with his, holding fast to him…we call that worship.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Conclusion:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">_________<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Let me close with a little story<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As many of you know, after 34 consecutive years of formal education and 5 degrees, I am in my final quarter of school, wrapping up my ecology thesis with a little bit of hydrodynamic habitat modeling (pic).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now one of the requirements for the Ecology graduate program is a ‘field class’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You see I have a full time job and a family...and this thing I do…whatever we want to call it.[7]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Going into work early so I can step out for a 1hr class is one thing, but finding time to do a field class is another.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But last spring break, a joint geology and ecology class was offered that was built on a 7 day rafting trip through the grand canyon…well, I guess if it’s a requirement.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The trip was fun (I ended up in the only flipped raft – video<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>pic “my foot”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Video <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I had to lecture that night on sediment transport and joked that I had conducted an experiment on the “Lagrangian<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>turbulent dynamics of large organic particles” – which you will just have to trust me…is hi-larious.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It was, scientifically engaging and was spiritually enobling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But one of the interesting things that happened is I got to know a couple of my classmates REALLY well, particularly during the 35 hours we spent in vans enroute.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can cover a lot of topics in 35 hours – and we did – and by the end, whether I wanted to or not, I was pretty well known.[8]<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Near the end of the trip, one of my closer friends in the program, a kind, and thoughtful young woman (who was one only other students I have encountered in the program that you could describe as spiritually curious, and who, for the most part had followed that curiosity into Buddhist thought) started to put the pieces of my world view together and had a question for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You see, my friend had gathered that my worldview had some major tenets:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I am broken.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, I am so broken that I do not even have good apparatus for detecting my dysfunction.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I expend a lot of thought and effort on becoming less broken…how to exchange dysfunction for flourishing…or in our language, how to recover the image of God.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And as she put this together, she got legitimately concerned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her question wasn’t an attempt to undermine my worldview or to justify hers…I honestly think it was out of concern for my psychological health.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And here it was…she said:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Honestly, that sounds exhausting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is it healthy to always be dissatisfied with yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Doesn’t that lead to guilt and even self hate.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And that is the big question with religion isn’t it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is all this focus on our brokenness and all this talk about change injurious of our self esteem and emotional health.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so I affirmed her question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not only a really good question but a really kind one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I said:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“You know, that’s a great question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The big problem with religion is that if we constantly evaluate ourselves value (especially, if the Christian proposition is true that we have a spiritual entropy that draws us simultaneously towards self centeredness and self destruction) <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But the story of Jesus has one key feature that makes it different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Cross.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We believe that we have been rescued from our self centeredness and self destruction and that our value and standing with God is not contingent on our behavior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But do you see what that does with respect to behavior.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The cross creates mental and emotional space to fail, and fail catastrophically…without affecting our value or position.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that makes psychological and sociological space to strive and strive vigorously without the emotional baggage of guilt or judgment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cool thing about Jesus is that because my brokenness does not count against me, I can own up to it, and then go to town on it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I am not guilty of the crap I am carrying, I can stare it down, I can recognize my sin without it diminishing my value, and I can chase it into every dark corner of my heart it tries to hid in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can be ruthless in my pursuit of its new hiding spots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because uncovering new sin is not a liability against my value, its an opportunity to grow.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Or to use Paul’s language in Colossians…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 16pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“<span class="text">God made us alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses,</span> <span class="text"><sup>14 </sup>by canceling the record of debt that stood against us…<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>nailing</u></b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>it</u></b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>to</u></b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>the</u></b> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>cross</u></b>.</span> <span class="text"><sup>15 </sup>(God) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">dis-armed</i> the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in (Christ)…<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span class="text"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 16pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Your value and standing in God are not in your hands…they are not contingent on your moral performance…but if then, this reality becomes the foundation of real, substantial, efforts to recover the image, which starts with aligning your thoughts and affections with these realities..<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span class="text"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 16pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">“If then, you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the fight hand of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span class="text"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 16pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">You are hidden in Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are not exposed to judgment. Your failings do not count against you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your value is in him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are in a safe emotional and psychological space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it isn’t just a safe space to stay broken.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a safe space to go to town on your brokenness with all the vigorous effort you can muster.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But only because he has disarmed them.</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 16pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The first step in recovering the image of God…’Don’t be disqualified’…don’t go in for the twin myths of:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Let go and let God” or “God helps those who help themselves”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But start with the work of Christ. Start by recalibrating your thoughts and wants with him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Start with what you seek and what you set your minds on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first step in recovering God’s image is developing a lifestyle [10] of worship.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[1] BTW – the first parking ticket I ever got was because I got so engrossed in a chess strategy book that I forgot to feed the meter…and yes I know that sentence could have started “You know you are a nerd if…”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[2] I think a full taxonomy of this passage would be asceticism/mysticism/legalism – “severity to the body” is a little different than “self made religion” or “do not handle/taste/touch”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>- but grouping “asceticism” and “legalism” is helpful to contrast with “mysticism”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[3] NT Wright– “what Paul is talking about here is a system imposed by a certain sort of teacher, who goes on an on about visions he or she has had, living in a fantasy world in which only the one type of spiritual experience really ‘counts’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such people – and they-re as frequent in the modern world as in the ancient – may try to disqualify…others who haven had their type of experience.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[4] Pushing Tin Illustration<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yfb_usoubg"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yfb_usoubg</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> – if you just let go and stop trying to manage your life, the good life will happen to you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is dumb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we Christianize it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[5] And this is the sense in which Paul uses it here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Behavior change and spiritual experiences are not illicit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes rules and experiences are legitimately helpful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They both have their place in Chrisitainty and God’s restoration of his image in us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Paul calls them shadows – in a technical sene.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are not the thing in themselves, they are the evidence of something else…something real and with substance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And before we get on with ‘how to change’ Paul wants to make sure we have distinguished between the ‘substance’ and the ‘shadow’…‘the thing’ and ‘the evidence of the thing’… and the “The Thing” is Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[6] The first thing most Christians change (including me back when this thing started for me) is to stop cussing, because that is an easy, obvious, external change to make.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, I am convinced that this is why so many Christians object so deeply to evocative language…a behavior that, in comparison to the range of diabolical self violence and violence to others we concoct seems astonishingly trivial.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was one of the first identity factors they associated with their new faith…because it was easy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[7]No one ever really knows.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I visited a former student in Cambodia recently he described me in three different ways to three different people…as “my pastor, a mentor, a friend.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And some mix of that is probably about right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>http://stanfordincambodia.blogspot.com/<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">[8]</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> It is always interesting to be “the Christian.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, I really appreciate being in communities where people don’t unreflectively claim Christianity as a kind of cultural heritage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in a decidedly post-Christian community, the shock and wonder that friends experience when they put the pieces together is pretty fun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But sometimes I feel like skeptical communities like having a “Christian friend” (as long as he/she votes democrat) in the same way that people like to have a “gay friend” or, in previous generations, a “black friend” as a king of badge of their open mindedness.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[9] It is an art studio.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a place that you can wreck as many canvases as you need to to recover the image…but it is a studio, where you get up each morning, and try again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[10] Listen, we are not going to offer you a silver bullet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In your life, you will go through seasons of spiritual laziness where you expect God to do all the work and you will go through seasons of legalism where you are performing for God’s affection<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-64922529713777573382012-12-23T07:29:00.001-08:002012-12-23T07:30:11.394-08:00Four Kegs of Wine, an Impromptu Seafood Picnic, and Seven Spoiler Alerts: John’s Theology of Miracles<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When it comes to sports stories, I have what I call ‘the wife test.’ The ‘wife test’ is when a sports story gets so big and so surreal that I think it would be interesting enough to explain it to my wife…who really isn’t that interested in sports that don’t involve our favorite member of “The Blue Kitties.”</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw9QT3ltsMtQaq9-tS-zn2Rm4cQu8ZiijOlFIEocimEvrdNxEGFGPoLHG2_N9MAff0oi6pJT7hViWgpSV9sKF1h1011hPh7fc9JMsfUy2mqbMGmAtLGT4-zh52q_rQsZmXDXbWGbdwtW7e/s1600/blue+kitties.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" eea="true" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw9QT3ltsMtQaq9-tS-zn2Rm4cQu8ZiijOlFIEocimEvrdNxEGFGPoLHG2_N9MAff0oi6pJT7hViWgpSV9sKF1h1011hPh7fc9JMsfUy2mqbMGmAtLGT4-zh52q_rQsZmXDXbWGbdwtW7e/s320/blue+kitties.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To pass the ‘wife test’ a story has to transcend sports, it has to connect with the basic themes of what it means to be human.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A few things have passed the wife test…Shilling’s bloody sock …Armstrong’s cycling ban…it’s not a long list...but last year was expanded to include Tim Tebow. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">For those of you who don’t follow sports, here’s the ‘wife version.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tim Tebow, was one of the most outspoken Christian college athletes in recent memory. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He used to write verses on his eye black...</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvBgz1gUvUr12godBAWnQ3hmquVwptjL8XHVyTjgb6B2mGKLC2-sbOrf8eNzejqxTZhpx_b0VzsjpzKTrJCNtHtgkzniFE18a5kFFxEo8iubw109qI1rY1t_QLby8YlAI1JwsGRvitmzgF/s1600/tebow+eye+black.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" eea="true" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvBgz1gUvUr12godBAWnQ3hmquVwptjL8XHVyTjgb6B2mGKLC2-sbOrf8eNzejqxTZhpx_b0VzsjpzKTrJCNtHtgkzniFE18a5kFFxEo8iubw109qI1rY1t_QLby8YlAI1JwsGRvitmzgF/s320/tebow+eye+black.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">...and entertainers made a living out of his admission that he was a virgin.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6nkSZ_CT93RzyUCC-FYfgEkBR8TfxhHJBv38BeEuXSy9qZP6tuOQOH4Y3_yUMR9uhuEDebBvAbr7njVCCWDB-NUKTELB6FjoFhk7n9tETUFmsjRPyzzt-S4CeK7CYkClLHjbxZE7O8p64/s1600/Not+tonight+ladies.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" eea="true" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6nkSZ_CT93RzyUCC-FYfgEkBR8TfxhHJBv38BeEuXSy9qZP6tuOQOH4Y3_yUMR9uhuEDebBvAbr7njVCCWDB-NUKTELB6FjoFhk7n9tETUFmsjRPyzzt-S4CeK7CYkClLHjbxZE7O8p64/s320/Not+tonight+ladies.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But most experts thought that even though he had won the Heisman trophy for the best player in college football, he simply didn’t have the skills necessary to succeed in professional football…In particular, they argued that professional quarterbacks routinely find it useful to say be able to throw a football, which he was famously bad at. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But despite his weaknesses, around the middle of last season he ended up starting for the Denver Broncos who were terrible and everyone had counted out…and then something weird happened…the team started to win.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But not just win…they reeled of a sting of an improbable last second come from behind wins...It was so dramatic that week after week literally seemed like was scripted…like every week was the last 3 minutes of a Disney sports movie.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was uncanny.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I remember watching the end of one of these games in the gym…and the Broncos were badly behind when I got on the treadmill, and I thought, well this is the week it finally ends and we don’t have to hear it any more…and when I got off the treadmill there was Tebow and his team celebrating yet another win as time expired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And no one really knew what to make of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was talking about this with a friend of mine this week and he told a story about how one of his skeptical friends sent him a text after one of these wins that read “OK, I believe in God now.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It was weird.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Listen to how Chuck Klosterman (who would not self identify as a person of faith) described his experience of watching one of these games:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The score was deadlocked at 32 and the Broncos were kicking off with 1:33 remaining…Did I believe Denver would win? I shouldn't have. Minnesota was getting the ball with multiple timeouts. It'd been the better team for most of the afternoon…Yet I believed Denver would win.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">My reasoning?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I had no reasoning. And I did not like how that felt, even though I'm trying to convince myself that it felt good<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The story culminated with the Broncos improbably making the playoffs where Tebow threw an 80 yard touchdown (that, in fairness, he only threw about 20 yards) on the first play of overtime to beat heavily favored Pittsburgh team.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But after the game, the Twitter started buzzing because it turns out that Tebow (the guy who regularly wrote John 3:16 on his face during games in college) threw for a season-high 316 yards and set an NFL record with 31.6 yards per completion.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK11"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK10"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK9"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK10;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK11;"><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now, here’s my question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was any of this miraculous?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was God a Denver Bronco’s fan…and if so, is he cheering for Paton Manning now, or is he a Jet’s fan this year (…and wouldn’t that be a fundamental problematic for a good God).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think Klosterman got to the heart of this…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #0070c0; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I doubt many Christians believe that God is unfairly helping Tebow win games in the AFC West...However, I get the impression that especially antagonistic secularists assume (that the belief that God is making him win) infiltrates every aspect of Tebow’s celebrity, and that explains why he's so beloved by strangers they cannot relate to.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But I think this all gets at an important misunderstanding between Christians and skeptics…as well as a fundamental misunderstanding among Christians…what the heck is a miracle anyway?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What are our criteria to declare something a miracle?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If something improbable happens to a Christian, is that automatically a miracle?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How improbable does it have to be before we get to call it a miracle?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or does it have to be impossible before we call it a miracle?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What if something improbably bad happens to a Christian…is that a miracle?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then there is the question of importance?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can something as trivial as football be the arena God’s miraculous intervention, regardless of the probability?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="color: #0070c0;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I think most of us are pretty confused about what miracles are and how they are supposed to function.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But as I studied the book of John this summer, while many of us in this room tonight were asking God for some pretty big stuff, it became clear to me that I knew one person who is not confused about what Miracles are or how they are supposed to function…the author of the book of John.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So tonight, I just want to do a little sequel to my John 2 talk, and briefly pose one question to our text…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What’s the deal with miracles?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What is a miracle, and what is it for?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And how does that affect how we ask for or expect them?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">To tackle this question, I want to look at how John uses stories of miraculous intervention throughout his book to tell the story of Jesus…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So let’s start by looking back at the water to wine passage in chapter 2 that I talked about a couple weeks ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you recall, Jesus was at a small town wedding…and his mom comes to him and tells him the hosts have run out of wine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, the exchange between Jesus and his mom is a little cryptic and a lot hilarious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, why does Mary come to Jesus with this problem…and why does she have so much confidence that he has the resources to fix it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have got to figure that even if she doesn’t fully understand who her son is, living with him for a few decades has made her confident in his resourcefulness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And so even though Jesus expresses respectful hesitance she acts like she doesn’t even hear him…and tells the caterers to ‘do whatever he tells you.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And…Jesus rolls with it…he tells them to fill some big jars with water and, before anyone knew it, those jars contained about 4.5 kegs of really good wine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if you think much about it, this is kind of weird, for a number of reasons…but here’s the one that I thought about all summer: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Running out of wine would have been embarrassing…it would have brought shame on the family…the situation was sub-optimal…but surely it was not the most desperate situation in Israel or even Cana that day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It defies our miracle math…IF the purpose of miracles is to make things better.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Or take another of the signs that shows up a little later in John…the feeding of the 5,000.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean you are trying to tell me that in Roman occupied Palestine the best use of Jesus’ magic talents at that moment was to host a big seafood picnic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Surely the grumbling tummies of a crowd that had skipped out in work to go see the crazy preacher (which is what passed for entertainment in an age before youtube or hulu) was not as pressing as the horrific oppression or illness that ravaged the ancient world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It defies our miracle math…IF the purpose of miracles is to make things better.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You hear this all the time…why would God care about your petty crap when there are other things he’d certainly be more interested in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like why would you pray about your test you have understudied for when dozens of people died this week in escalating Gaza violence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that is a reasonable question…if the purpose of miracles is to make things better. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But miracles are not meant to make everything better…they are signposts of reality…they are signposts that point our attention to a parallel, truer reality...that is in the process of breaking through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They don’t tend to fix terrible situations…they tend to remind us of God’s presence and care in the midst of those situations…and remind us that the dark details of the world we see around may seem like the final reality...it may seem like darkness wins…but it isn’t and it won’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">To understand the impact of the water-to-wine event you have to realize that even though the wedding in John 2 was a celebration…it is a celebration under duress…it was a wedding occurring on the backdrop of Roman oppression.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So in that way, the wedding in Cana in John 2 is kind of like the wedding scene in Braveheart.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>People were dancing and enjoying themselves… forgetting for a day that they were ruthlessly owned by the most powerful empire the world had ever known before rulers tended to debate abstract ideas like ‘inalienable human rights’…they drank and laughed, but at any minute the stark reality of their Roman overlords could break through and remind everyone, that everything is NOT ok. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This miracle wasn’t fundamentally about running out of wine…it was a sign to those who were trying to celebrate under a shroud of fear that Rome might own you now…but liberation beyond your wildest hopes is coming…and its coming through Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And this turns out to be the basic argument of John’s whole book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, I know that John who wrote the story of Jesus we are working through this year, and other beloved sections of the new testament…sometimes can just seems kind of adorable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He talks pretty but can seem simple…even naïve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sometimes you just want to pat his little head when he starts rambling on about love and love overcoming the world and flowery stuff like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">John is like someone you meet at a party who is affable, likeable and kind…and you thoroughly enjoy the conversation, but leave feeling like “that guy is adorable…but I’m not sure he gets how the world works.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then the next day you go to an lecture on campus on string theory by a Nobel Laurite and when the speaker steps to the podium you realize…it’s the guy you met at the party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And you realize not only does he understand ‘how the world works’ better than you do…he got really unique insight on how the world works…and yet, he still says stuff like ‘love overcomes the world.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is the experience I had studying this book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John isn’t some back woods yokel who got his hands on a crayon and started scribbling a quaint story…he is a theologian and artist. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Let me try to lay out some of what he does for you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You might have noticed a few weeks ago that John starts out this book with an oddly familiar sentence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Listen to how he opens the book: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #943634; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191;">“<u><strong>In the beginning</strong></u> was the Word …All things were made through him...”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Is that familiar?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Does that remind you of any other famous opening sentences?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How about: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="color: #943634; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191;">“<u><strong>In the beginning</strong></u>, God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">His opening words are an exact match of the opening words of Genesis. John starts out the story of Jesus in a way that parallels the beginning of the story of everything.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But that turns out to be really important key to understanding the whole the book…starting in chapter 2.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Look with me at verse 11:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #943634; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2:11 This, the <u><strong>first of his signs</strong></u>, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, in the story of the miracle in John chapter 2 John doesn’t exist by itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John initiates the sign counter…he starts up a kind of miracle odometer…which ticks again in chapter 4 (which Peter will walk us through in a couple weeks).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Look with me at 4:54:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #943634; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">4:54 This was now the <u><strong>second sign</strong></u> that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">then he stops counting…but we’re not supposed to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By initiating the sign counter he is letting us know that we might want to just go ahead and keep on counting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And how many signs do you think there are </span></span><span style="font-family: Wingdings; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Wingdings;">à</span></span><span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Seven!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Do you follow this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John opens with a verse that parallels the opening of Genesis, and then tells the story of Jesus around the framework of seven signs which most commentators agree are John’s way of arguing theologically and artistically, that there is a parallel between what God did in creation and what is unfolding in Jesus…</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…the way John tells the story, Jesus has come to do more than say a few wise things, or to start a rebellion, or even to just to die for sins…he has come to re-order reality… turning creation itself upside down…he is setting a trajectory that will undo everything terrible, unjust and sad… and it begins with seven acts of RE-creation…that culminate in Resurrection… <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…and in that context, it begins to become clear, this miracle is not about wine, it’s not about refilling the glasses of some wedding guests who have already drained the host’s kegs…it is about the dramatic act of cosmic remaking that is just getting started at this little wedding in an unremarkable town…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is a signpost of a truer reality…And John underlines this perspective with the language he uses to describe these seven startling acts that Jesus performs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I took the time to count, categorize and plot the words he uses throughout his book to talk about these things, and found something kind of surprising.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He doesn’t even use the word miracle…he prefers the words like work and, especially - sign.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because both of those words have the connotation of being about something bigger than the acts themselves…signs point to something beyond themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A sign is never there to direct attention to itself. That would be stupid… and a waste of tax money.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A sign that attracts attention to itself is characterized by dysfunction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>And this makes more sense of the way John wraps up the story of the water to wine.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #632423; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2:11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and <u><strong>manifested his glory</strong></u>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Glory is funny word that doesn’t carry the juice in our culture that it used to…partially because we have subjected the word to abuse…we have treated the word badly…</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">...but I think that in part, we are all culturally just too ironic and clever to care about or even believe in anything as substantive and grand as glory or duty or honor or holiness…but all that verse is saying is at this moment, Jesus tipped his hand…and we see, he’s holding aces…like seven of them…he’s foreshadowing what this whole thing is about and where it is going.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">___<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now those of you who have been part of this community for a while know that we have had a pretty dark few months.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sarah Johnson mentioned it a few weeks ago, but at the beginning of the summer one of our friends suffered a sudden bout with severe mental illness and then one day in June she walked away from the clinic she was being treated at and didn’t come back…she just disappeared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In the weeks that followed, members of this community spent countless hours, sacrificing sleep, grades, time with family and taking some non-trivial safety risks handing out flyers in tough neighborhoods, walking into homeless camps in the woods and trudging through the American River Parkway in the middle of the night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now we have not talked about this much up here since school started, I think, in part because we want to move forward and I think in part because we want to be hospitable to new students who aren’t carrying these events around with them.’ But this was our life for weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I know that for some of you Linnea and the horror of the search and the hurt of her absence are still very much part of your daily existence. I know I still think about Linnea every day, and I had exactly one conversation with her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We looked and prayed and asked God for a miracle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of you prayed harder than you have ever prayed…and literally never wanted God to do something more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then, near the end of the summer, during a large search effort, her mom found her body in the Sacramento green belt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that…that sucked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then, it got worse…and more confusing…the next day we learned that her mental illness had grown so severe that she had actually taken her own life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We had asked for a miracle and it felt like what we got was worse than we had feared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But at the memorial service Linnea’s mom said something really wise and lucid and, in my opinion, was a succinct, poignant summary of John’s theology of miracles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At one point in her words to the hundreds of people who had gathered she said something like this:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #31849b; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent5; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“We didn’t get our big miracle…but all along the way there were signs, signs that we were not alone”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What’s the deal with miracles…THAT is the deal with miracles!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The purpose of signs isn’t to make things all better…we live in a beautiful but broken world…a planet that is full of wonder and terror...and belonging to Jesus is not some sort of force field that will protect you or the people you love from that. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The purpose of miracles isn’t to make things all better…that’s the purpose of resurrection…that’s the purpose of God’s the project of re-creation that he initiated with his covert invasion of our world in Jesus…which he inaugurated by making some wine at a small town wedding and which he assured by defeating death itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As John sees it…to the point that he structures his book around this insight…the signs that Jesus did then…and the signs that occasionally and surprisingly punctuate our lives now…are reminders of his intention not only personal salvation…but a total second-creation…to remake the broken world.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The purpose of signs is to redirect our attention on hope that is really hope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, God’s plan of liberation and renewal that breaks through in Jesus is bigger than we often give it credit for…it is not only about saving our souls…or whisking us away to heaven from a doomed world…it is not about God giving up on his creation and just saving us from it…When the reality of God’s kingdom breaks through it will be a total remaking.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The wine is not about wine…the fish is not about fish…for John, each of these are sequential steps pointing to a bigger reality…resurrection…and the breaking through of God’s rule…a reminder that what you see is not all there is…that liberation is coming…and its coming through Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I feel like when we get a hold of a theology of ‘signs’ closer to that, it changes our expectation of what ‘counts’ and we start to see that God is punctuating our lives with signs declaring a truer reality than our broken world, a text like this starts to make more sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A sign doesn’t have to dramatically alter the laws of physics it just has to startle us out of the impoverished assumption that this world is the realest reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I feel like Peter Berger, a professor of sociology at Boston University, kind of gets at this in his book ‘a far glory’.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Reality is haunted by (an) otherness which lurks behind the fragile structures of everyday life. Much of the time the otherness is successfully held at bay, seemingly domesticated or even denied, so that we can go about the business of living. From time to time we catch glimpses of transcendent reality as the business of living is interrupted or put in question…” Peter Berger – a far glory <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">That is what signs are for…they call BS on “the fragile structures of everyday life”…and remind us that reality is haunted by a transcendent otherness…that is breaking through in Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Signs do not fix things, they remind us that the fix is coming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And even when they do offer a measure of fix…the fix is always temporary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even the culminating sign in John…the resurrection of Lazarus…wasn’t a solution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lazarus found himself re-dead again in a couple decades, max.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even the resurrection of Lazarus wasn’t a actually real solution…it was a sign…of something actually real and actually a solution.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Let me wrap up with a little story.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The week my grandmother died, we didn’t pray for a miracle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My grandmother was sick and old and just a few months before she had just lost her only child (my dad) in a car accident that happened while he was driving home from visiting her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She didn’t want more days on this earth and we didn’t ask God to give her more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But as her death followed my dad’s death in close succession, our family was in a dark season where the forces of death and chaos were pressing hard on us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The day of the funeral, I remember I was on a business trip in Jefferson City, Missouri, and I caught a flight to western NY after work, and drove through the night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it was a standard funeral, though it was smaller than I expected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember realizing at that funeral the older you are, the fewer people show up at your funeral.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It struck me that the more funerals you attend, the smaller yours will be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that day, something happened that always dominates my memories of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My grandfather had given my grandmother a plant many many years earlier…and a close family friend said it hadn’t bloomed in 10 years..but on the day of the funeral it suddenly flowered…for one day. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It was a small thing…easily explained by natural causes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I have always kind of thought of that flower as an ‘instance of punctuating beauty,’ a sign that the gritty, fallen, broken natural realities of car accidents and old age and mourning lost dads and dead sons are not all there is to this world. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We tend to want Jesus to fix things when we ask him to intervene supernaturally, to alleviate some sort of suffering.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Jesus’ signs are about ‘revealing the glory of God.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are instances of punctuating beauty that are symbols of the truth that even though this life is hard and kicks our butts on a regular basis, and that the powers of decay and death will eventually have their victory over all of us and those we love…THAT IS NOT the FINAL reality. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">They are a Spoiler Alert.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">They remind us how the story ends…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…it ends resurrection and re-creation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Death and decay lose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jesus wins.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-69408120782367812932012-11-09T07:03:00.002-08:002012-11-09T07:04:40.740-08:00When Jesus Mixes the Drinks (John 2:1-11)<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%202:1-11&version=ESV" target="_blank">John 2:1-11</a></span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2012/1/18/3251976/When%20Jesus%20Mixes%20the%20Drinks%20%28John%202%29.mp3" target="_blank">MP3</a> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Just one more week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seriously, one week from tomorrow morning, this freeking election will be over, and maybe, just maybe I can open my facebook for a few months without it making me sad…without my liberal friends and my conservative friends saying terrible things about each other…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I mean is anyone else ready for this to be over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was hanging out with several work friends the day after one of the debates and one of them told us that he had watched the whole thing all the way through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another one of my friends kind of looked at him weird and asked: “On purpose?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How did you pull that off?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">His answer…”Gin, lots and lots of gin.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">(Yeah, you know you’re old when your friends don’t drink PBR anymore but drink sophisticated stuff like gin).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But it turns out a lot of people have been mixing politics and alcohol.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A few weeks a debate drinking game meme popped up on my feed…where you drink every time the candidates use catch words or signature phrases like “let me be clear” or “obamacare”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[1]<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But when I tried to google it I found out that there were so many of these that Time ran a feature called “Which Presidential Drinking Game is Right for You”, [2] where they featured no fewer than 9 attempts to translate the debates into liver damage and brain cell loss.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">My Personal Favorite Rule? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Drink and dance <i>Gangnam Style</i> if any candidate mentions gun control.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Actually, sometimes I feel like College life would make a pretty fun drinking game<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…every time Ryan says ‘Dude’…drink<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…every time Zach illustrates a talk with a 49ers story…drink<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…every time Stanford creatively re-imagines the pronunciation of one of these words (Question, Christian, Egypt)…drink <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK2"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK1"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…every time Stanford has laughs at one of his own jokes…drink…and if he’s the only one…drink again<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></a></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…or Dan says “Now what is the point?”…drink…and if he also moves his hand like he’s knighting someone in the front row while he’s saying it…bottom’s up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Anyway, ‘Now what’s the point?’ (hand motion)… From Jim Belushi to Hank the Tank, alcohol is part of the College narrative.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And part of Christian discipleship on a campus has to include figuring out how to interact with an alcohol fueled culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a complicated question that a lot of Christians wrestle with…and then we turn to John chapter 2…and Jesus does not appear to be particularly helpful…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Because, there Jesus is, making wine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And not just a glass…he makes 50-55 gallons…which in a unit of measure you might find more intuitive, works out to ~3.5 kegs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And I feel like this whole story poses an obvious question…WHAT?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seriously, What?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What the heck is going on here? What is the deal?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have so many questions...but I feel like the obvious question that emerges reading this story in general is something like:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK11"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK10"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK11;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">How do the Scriptures in general and this passage in particular help us negotiate the alcohol soaked culture we find ourselves in?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></b></span></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Well tonight I want to look at three ideas from this text and the scriptures in general offer to help us think about our relationship to campus drinking culture:<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">First, you need to recognize that :<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, there are a few passages of the Scriptures that people who don’t read the bible like to cite[3]…and this is one of them. [4] <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The simplistic theological deduction people make when they invoke this narrative goes something like this:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Jesus made wine = Bring on the Jell-O Shots (QED)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But the really surprising thing about John chapter 2 is that Jesus turns out to be neither a prude nor a libertine. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see the chapter opens with a picture of Jesus and his friends at a party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a pleasant, gregarious scene.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then, they run out of wine, which would have been deeply humiliating to the family…and as Dan pointed out to me would have complicated the groom’s relationship with his new in-laws for years to come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And Jesus has compassion on this guy’s social predicament and makes a bunch of wine…really good wine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But chapter 2 is really interesting, because there is a really stark jump cut between this gregarious compassionate scene to what comes next…look back a chapter 2 with me as I read just a bit further (starting in verse 9):<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">9 When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">12 After this he went down to Capernaum, with his mother and his brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there for a few days.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">13 The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. 15 And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Just as we catch Jesus making wine, just as we make the point that he is no prude, just as we are ready to suspect him a libertine…some sort of pot smoking Berkley hippy who wears Birkenstocks and one of those knit caps that covers his balding ponytail and listens to a lot of Grateful Dead…and is really into Jonathan Livingston Seagull or the Fountainhead, depending on what kind of libertine he is (it’s election season, I need to give equal time to both kinds of crazy), John does a hard jump cut to a very different picture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To the point that I thought about titling this talk…</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK5"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK4"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK5;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The incredible thing about these two narratives that John juxtaposes in his second chapter is that it is as if he is saying…whatever little picture you have of Jesus in your mind…whether it is the mild mannered miracle worker or the virulent champion of justice…that little picture you have of Jesus…it is going to need to get a lot bigger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever you think he is…he’s more than that.</span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK7"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK6"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK7;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, Jesus may be the life of the party, but he does not lack moral seriousness.</span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is the image of God, and so we find in him, side by side in these two stories, enjoyment of creation and people and anger at those who distort his creation intent.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And so the picture we see in John 2 is that Jesus is neither a prude nor a libertine…and with respect to alcohol in particular he neither condemns wine nor does he unreservedly permit it…Which puts him in line with the rest of the scriptures:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which leads us to our second big idea:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 22pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">II.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 22pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Scriptures paint a Tensioned Picture of Alcohol Characterized by Celebration and Caution<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">To put Jesus’ action in context we need to do a very brief biblical theology of alcohol.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are no fewer than 240 references to wine alone in the Scriptures…not to mention references to beer, fermented drink, and drunkenness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they can all roughly be organized into two overarching categories:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Celebration and Caution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">First, there are several types of references to alcohol that celebrate it as a good gift from God.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">First:</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 22pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> Celebration</span></u></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">1. First, </span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%;">there are dozens of verses that list wine as <u>one of the things God gives as part of <a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK3">agricultural blessing.</a></u><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is actually the primary context in which the Scriptures</span></span><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> refer to alcohol</span></span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Check out Psalm 104:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Psalm 104:14-16<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">14 He makes grass grow for the cattle,<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and plants for people to cultivate—<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>bringing forth food from the earth:<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">15 wine that gladdens human hearts,<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>oil to make their faces shine,<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and bread that sustains their hearts.<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Second: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In other words, you were supposed to share with the religious professionals<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Deuteronomy 15:14 <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Supply them liberally from your flock, your threshing floor and your winepress. Give to them as the LORD your God has blessed you.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><u><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">3. Alcohol was an accepted part of mandated religious festivals:</span></u><u><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Deuteronomy 14:26<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">“Use the silver to buy whatever </span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">you like: cattle, sheep, wine or other fermented drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the Yahweh your God and rejoice.”<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">One of the things I feel like people miss out on in the pedantic detail of the Old Testament is that a lot of those pages describe the festival character of Yahweh worship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Israel’s God mandated huge and frequent parties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even a cursory reading of the Hebrew Scriptures reveals that Yahwehism was pretty freeking fun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<u><span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">4. Jesus <o:p></o:p></span></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But wine wasn’t just part of first testament mandated religious observance…it is also central to Christian symbology and worship.[5.5]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is the central worship event Jesus left his missional community…hint, it wasn’t singing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a corporate sacred meal that included bread and…wait for it…wine.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When you superimpose this reality with John 2 and the well known gospel references that Jesus hung out with drunks…and ate in their houses…we see that Jesus wasn’t afraid of a little fermentation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But, that is not the whole story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a second category of passages that deal with alcohol in the Scriptures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And these urge:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 26pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Caution<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></div>
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<u><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1. Narratives of drunkenness gone very badly: <o:p></o:p></span></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Noah – Genesis 9:21<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #17365d; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;">“When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent”<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now you have to respect Noah’s commitment to drinking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not like he could just go down to the 7-11 post flood an pick up a couple 40’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The text said he planted a vineyard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is some advanced planning for getting drunk.[6]<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Listen…in our undergrad you could live in the dorm all 4 years…and I did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I am acquainted with drinking stories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(public service announcement, if you are going to get so drunk you puke, please DON’T EAT CORN…my least favorite part of getting up early to study on Saturdays was the floating corn kernels in the sink…every Freeking Saturday for 4 years…there were corn kernels floating in my sink while I brushed my teeth.) And I’ve seen and heard bad drinking stories…stories of personal injury and humiliation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had one written </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[7]</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> and I cut it because it was just too crass…even for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I’m sorry, you are just not going to one-up the bible on bad drinking stories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You see, Noah is not as bad as it gets.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Lot - Genesis 19:32 <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #17365d; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;">“Let’s get our father to drink wine and then sleep with him and preserve our family line through our father.”<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, this is one of the ways the scriptures instructs: by narrative counter example.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, there is no law against polygamy…but every where it occurs in the scriptures it goes catastrophically poorly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Same thing with alcohol:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And in this way, the Scriptures treat drinks like wives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One is a great thing…but too many and things start to get complicated. [8]<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><u><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">2. Alcohol can undermine relationships and productivity</span></u><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Wisdom Li</span><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">t)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Proverbs 20:1<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler; whoever is led astray by them is not wise.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Prov 23:19 <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Listen, my son, and be wise,<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and set your heart on the right path:<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">20 Do not join those who drink too much wine<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>or gorge themselves on meat,<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">21 for drunkards and gluttons become poor,<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and drowsiness clothes them in rags.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span class="text"><u><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3. There appear to be some ways to serve God that do not mix well with drinking:<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></span></div>
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<span class="text"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A voluntary, temporary vow of association with a special ministry team…most famous example: Samuel (Jud 13:14)<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="text"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Numbers 6:20<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span class="text"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">‘If a man or woman wants to make a special vow…as a Nazirite,</span></b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;"> <span class="text"><sup>3 </sup>they must abstain from wine and other fermented drink…</span></span></b><span class="text"><span style="color: #365f91; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">”</span></span><span class="text"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<u><span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">4. Pauline ethic:<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ephesians 5:17-19<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. 18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit,<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Alcohol makes us more of what we are…the question is, is more of you a good idea?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Part of the Christian quest involves working really hard to combat our darker tendencies and make more room for the spirit to expand places for love and kindness and other things that don’t come real naturally to us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure you might not be in a ton of danger or making really bad choices with your safety or sexuality (or not)…but you could also choose incautious words that could wound people and complicate relationships.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Romans 14:21<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall.” <o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I don’t have time to go into Paul’s full theology of Christian freedom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Dan and I were exchanging e-mails about this last week and he summarized it pretty well:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Scriptures allow for wise enjoyment. But again, for any enjoyment to be wise means that it has taken the spiritual well-being of other people with deadly seriousness.”</span></b><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, alcohol isn’t a special kind of thing…it’s just a thing, like any other thing, like romantic affection, visual media, facebook, politics, string cheese or gamma functions…it is not forbidden not unreservedly permitted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It is good but has weird negative feedbacks with our brokenness…it is a gift that we can distort and transform into something thin and sad by exploitation and use outside of wise protective boundaries.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And so a Christian theology of alcohol is precisely the same as a Christian theology of all things that are good…but potentially damaging.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There isn’t really an easy answer of total restriction or total license…Jesus is neither a prude nor a libertine…and you shouldn’t be either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK9"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK8"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK9;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Christian ethic for all things is wise freedom.</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You get to exercise freedom in proportion to your wisdom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And you enjoy good things within the boundaries that they were meant to be enjoyed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Let me wrap up this point by telling you about one of my closest friends, Tyler Thomas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>OR for our purposes lets pull a Don Miller and call him, my friend Tyler the winemaker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I met Tyler several years ago while he was getting his second graduate degree here at UCD’s Viticulture program which is perennially the #1 wine making program in the nation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He made these little <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>grape sensors that measured the pressure exerted by a growing grape…which is the first thing I thought of when I saw this:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Anyway, my friend Tyler the winemaker, lives in Napa now and is a big shot winemaker (cool picture) adding to the list of my friends that are way cooler than me…oh, well, at least there is Dan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And actually, he is kind of a big deal…recently, out of the blue, a shoe maker liked his wine so much, they named a shoe after him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s right, a shoe:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.fluevog.com/code/?w%5b0%5d=item:tyler_thomas&p=1&view=detail&colourID=3630" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: 'Tahoma','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">http://www.fluevog.com/code/?w%5B0%5D=item%3Atyler_thomas&p=1&view=detail&colourID=3630</span></a><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now Tyler is a smart dude into the hard scientists, but he is also something of an artist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I asked him why he got into winemaking because it requires a unique mix of scientific and art…technical craft and artistic endeavor…so he thinks it makes perfect sense for the first public act of the creator of the universe that to dramatically make something useful and beautiful..something that brims with both scientific wonder and aesthetic wonder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the perfect first fruit or appetizer of a new creation that is just starting to break through.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Anyway, Tyler loves wine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To him, wine is craft and agriculture and art.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And as part of his job and passion, he goes to a lot of work functions were people are totally smashed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But he’s not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that is of the ways he declares the Kingdom is to enjoy the good that God gives without slipping into distortion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He inhabits a drinking culture as neither a prude nor a libertine…but with wise enjoyment. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This is like the relationship talks…students want me to spell out a bunch of rules…and I can’t, because God doesn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christianity doesn’t work that way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Following rules for their own sake is useless in our worldview.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the scriptures do offer guidance to craft a wise life of love and worship…like, hey, getting drunk is a pretty terrible idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus offers the principle of wise enjoyment with a measure of self skepticism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Personally, I have a one drink policy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think my work buddies appreciate that I will have a beer with them when we play poker or go out after a soccer game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is an act of care.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But I pass on the second round…and the third…and, well, you get the idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of the older students in this community decided that the Scriptures’ call to respect the laws of your land (as long as they do not violate your conscience or the gospel) meant they didn’t drink until they were 21.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think there is a lot of wisdom in that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So what do the scriptures teach about Alcohol?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A tension between celebration and caution that should manifest as wise, cautious, enjoyment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But back to the passage, there is one more detail that I’d like to linger over to round our reflection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, finally, this story unsubtly asserts that when it comes right down to it…it really is in our interest to, as Mary says in v 5:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 22pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">III.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 22pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Do Whatever He Tells You.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Note: I totally re-wrote this point just before the talk. see the <a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2012/1/18/3251976/When%20Jesus%20Mixes%20the%20Drinks%20%28John%202%29.mp3" target="_blank">MP3</a> if you are interested.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see this passage taps into my experience of every party I’ve ever been to.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The way Tim Keller puts it: The wine always runs out…the party is almost always disappointing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This passage taps into a fundamental human experience things we look to for happiness and fulfillment whether secular or religious never really deliver…with one exception.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">For those in the know, those who understood what happened…the quality of the wine was not the point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The story moves the attention away from the wine to the wine maker.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No one in the know just goes on drinking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because for those who know what just happened, the fact that great wine was served to drunk people was not the most interesting thing that just happened.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And that is really the heart of a Christian theology of alcohol…or anything really.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you are looking to excuse self interested behavior, you’ll be able to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Jesus isn’t about rule following for its own sake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The way Christianity works is that Jesus gets our attention…and suddenly, 3.5 kegs of great wine aren’t the point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this is what Christian’s call ‘faith’…something the text says that the disciples began to experience that day when it say “And the disciples believed in him.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It </span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK13"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK12"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK13;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">is to realize that Jesus understands reality and me more intimately and more exhaustively than I do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if that is the case</span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;">, Mary’s comment [10] starts to make sense<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2:5 “Do whatever he tells you”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Once you start to come to terms with who Jesus is…once you, in the language of this passage, “believe in him”…It fundamentally changes the alcohol question…and every other question of human behavior.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want in on this thing he’s doing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus is more interesting, more beautiful, more compelling than any of the good things I could over use to try to find meaning or diversion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so, when it comes to behavior details like if and how much I’ll drink…I’m inclined to ‘do whatever he tells me.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">____________<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[1] Seriously, how could they have foreseen, “Big Bird”, “Binder of Women” or “Every time Obama looks like he is about to fall asleep.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[2]<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b></span></span><a href="http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/10/03/obama-vs-romney-which-presidential-debate-drinking-game-is-right-for-you/"><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/10/03/obama-vs-romney-which-presidential-debate-drinking-game-is-right-for-you/</span></span></a><span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[3] Brother’s K Passage<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[4] Others include “don’t judge” and the shellfish passage in Leviticus.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[5] I was talking to a friend who is planning to go into the ministry about this…and his response was…dude, when I’m done with school, I need to go to a church that is Biblical.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[5.5] Where it is a symbol both of joy and of wrath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[6] This is a Driscoll bit.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[7] …my friend found one of his friends passed out buck naked in a bathroom stall one morning with the contents of his stomach and bowels still in toilet….with his arm…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[8] Ester trusted God, but she also waited for Xerxes to ‘have a few’.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[9] I hated cutting this, but it just didn’t fit.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mary has so much confidence in this young man’s resourcefulness (despite a total lack of resources) that she tells the servants ‘trust this guy, he’ll fix your problem.’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…which means that Mary treats Jesus like he’s the wolf in Pulp Fiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You have no idea how he’s going to fix your problem…but you have total confidence that he will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’ve got to believe that having the creator of the universe come around on the Sabbath for dinner had become pretty useful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can almost see the list waiting for him on the table.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, after the wolf showed that he can handle stuff…Vincent was willing to do what he said…they believed in him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They trusted that he knew what he was talking about and that they would do what he said even if it was counter intuitive.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">[10] One of the confusing aspects of the English translation is when Jesus calls his mother ‘woman.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bruce – “The English word ‘woman’, used thus in the vocative, carries with it the flavor of disrespect which is not present in the original.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Suggests something like ‘dear woman’ or If he was from the south it would be ‘madam’ and if he was old English ‘my lady’<span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 16pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[1]</span></span></span></span> – it is a strange thing to call his mother, but not a pejorative or dismissive term – the point is that that if she wants him to do something ‘messianic’ that she needs to recognize the complexity of their relationship – she is not drawing on the relational capitol that comes from her being his mother, but from him being her creator</span></span></div>
stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-67960186932341181282012-10-19T16:53:00.000-07:002012-10-19T16:55:27.124-07:00What is College For? (Part 3): Living in Grace and Truth in your Relationships<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2012/1/18/3251976/Grace%20and%20Truth%20for%20Healthy%20Relationship.mp3" target="_blank">MP3</a> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">From Deconstruction to derivation you have to deal with a lot in college that is hugely complicated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKkVtIztYOVzZV1u1v3UtuSkJZNu2UKCyvr9PAKMkW2ZQW-2Z3V-jm-v02mQzSZIYjaPHQ5KOGyHJuhzK9CeUEtdKmc9RSmWlBcPwYr3z2MvVWEbF6DNn1UCd2D58xrG6H6HQSfCQNCLkx/s1600/deconstruction+to+derivation.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" nea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKkVtIztYOVzZV1u1v3UtuSkJZNu2UKCyvr9PAKMkW2ZQW-2Z3V-jm-v02mQzSZIYjaPHQ5KOGyHJuhzK9CeUEtdKmc9RSmWlBcPwYr3z2MvVWEbF6DNn1UCd2D58xrG6H6HQSfCQNCLkx/s400/deconstruction+to+derivation.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>But stuff like this, while tough, will probably not be the most complicated thing you will negotiate in college…or the most rewarding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most complicated thing you will negotiate in college will almost certainly be your relationships.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because people are REALLY complicated: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Today we are taking up the question “What is college for? One more time…</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6UzrdXcpbWUzrJpZ-WoZiasIBhIrcqlzbc0NxMLpLLa0orenDMvlSNpKUH4HWGkU-mHC1y0J8pHQLnY_ud1lsuzhw-8Ht2vs_2Ta9z_EenaQETqDkocCjuVb-ZJdvMdqhbKrHTluFMtpL/s1600/What_Is_College_For_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" nea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6UzrdXcpbWUzrJpZ-WoZiasIBhIrcqlzbc0NxMLpLLa0orenDMvlSNpKUH4HWGkU-mHC1y0J8pHQLnY_ud1lsuzhw-8Ht2vs_2Ta9z_EenaQETqDkocCjuVb-ZJdvMdqhbKrHTluFMtpL/s400/What_Is_College_For_.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">...If you remember the answer we proposed from John 1…”college is a time to grow in grace and truth.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we are going to zero in on growing in grace and truth in a second specific arena …moving from your studies to your relationships<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">No that is a huge topic, so tonight we are going to zero in on three spheres of human relatedness: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1. Friendship<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2. Community<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3. Romance<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And it will shock you to learn that I have a lot to say about these…so we are going to get right to work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s start with friendship:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Friendship<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Interestingly the big findings in the recent psychological and sociological research on friendship are seemingly incongruous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first finding is that the value of friendship is grossly underestimated in our culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And John Green – my favorite vlogger agrees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Check out this clip from his thoughts on Valentine’s day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">(0:44 – 1:30)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma9AnIfaE30"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma9AnIfaE30</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’m convinced that one of reasons that long term romantic relationships struggle is not because multi-decadal monogamy is impossible, improbable, or disappointing …it is that we expect our romantic relationships to carry too much relational freight in our culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The bottom line of a lot of the recent research is that friendship really matters.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Recently researchers at Virginia Tech recruited a bunch of students and fitted them with weighted backpacks at the base of a steep hill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">(OK, first of all…Seriously?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, I love the hard sciences…but sometimes I feel like social scientists have more fun…hey, here’s a heavy backpack, go climb a hill)<span style="color: #8db3e2; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 102;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Anyway, they asked the students who were wearing the heavy packs to estimate the steepness of the hill…but here was the variable…some of them stood alone and others simply had a close friend standing next to them. Listen to how they reported the results:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The students who stood with friends gave lower estimates of the steepness of the hill. And the longer the friends had known each other, the less steep the hill appeared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text1;">When Dr Karen Roberto, the director of the center that conducted this study was asked about the results here’s what she said: </span><u><span style="color: #17365d; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themeshade: 191;">“Friendship is an undervalued resource. The consistent message of these studies is that friends make your life better.” <o:p></o:p></span></u></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, friendship matters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now I don’t think that’s a really controversial hypothesis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not sure it takes a ton of peer reviewed research to convince you of that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if it is self evident that friendship makes your life better, it is a little hard to make sense of the second big finding on friendship in recent research in the social sciences. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that is that friendship is on the decline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Recent studies [1] in both the US and France demonstrate that we have fewer, less substantial relationships than they use to<span style="color: red;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>Now why is that, if friendship does, as Dr. Roberto claims, make your life better why is our culture characterized by a decline of friendship?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Well, it’s because real friendship with real people with real drama turns out to be hard…because, if you recall, people are really complicated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And while college is supposed to be a really easy place to make friends, it might not be as easy as it seems.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">College is set up for disposable relationships.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You will get a new set of beautiful, interesting people in your life every 10 weeks…so relationships can become expendable, especially if they get just a little hard…instead seeing a little friction as an opportunity to grow in grace, you can just trade in a growing friendship for a new acquaintance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so college can become a series of …”single serving friends”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And so, friendships that last, that have the chance to do the work in your life that they were intended for, have got to be characterized by Grace and Truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Grace for the other and truth about yourself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In particular, Jesus offers us two resources to help us forge our friendships in grace and truth:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Self Skepticism and Shared Purpose:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The first resource Jesus offers to help you forge friendship in grace and truth (and frankly the one I’ve found most helpful self skepticism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Because a little self skepticism is the only way we can really get at self knowledge in with so much self interest swirling about us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And that is why Philippians 2 is one of the texts I have found most helpful in building long term friendships:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><sup><span style="color: #943634; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191;">3</span></sup></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #943634; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191;">Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. <sup>4</sup>Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. <sup><o:p></o:p></sup></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">We are predisposed to prioritize our own significance and our own interests…but becoming a good friend requires the active practice of being skeptical about both our significance and our interests to try to clearly see the interests and significance of our friends. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And so the active cultivation of forgiveness, generosity and repentance (which are the tools of relational grace and which emerge out of holding loosely to our own interests and significance) are the only real way to cut through the drama that erodes friendship…and they are the only real tools to move friendships from disposable alliances of mutual convenience to long term enriching fixtures in your life.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I corresponded about this with a student who recently graduated a couple weeks ago…listen to what he said: <span style="color: #365f91; mso-themecolor: accent1; mso-themeshade: 191;">My living situation sophomore year and was awful for this reason exactly. There was no grace, whatsoever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So everyone kept score, “selfless” acts were only really attempts to get ahead and strong arm someone into cleaning the dishes the next time, or something like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By contrast, my living situation junior and senior year was fantastic because there was grace and forgiveness when people messed up and also real acts of selfless love.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So to grow in grace and truth in our friendship we need to cultivate a little self skepticism and actively seek the interests of our friend…and secondly we have to realize really significant friendships have to be built on something bigger than the desire to have friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Friendship has to be built on a shared purpose:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">CS Lewis tackles this idea in his book: The Four Loves <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;">“That is why those pathetic people who simply “want friends” can never make any. The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends…(Otherwise) there would be nothing for the Friendship to be about; and Friendship must be <u>about something</u>, even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice…Those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travelers.”<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In college most people try to build friendship based on <strong><u>Affinity</u> - </strong>am I like or do I Iike this person…do they seem likely to make my life better.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But robust, meaningful friendships tend to be built on common <u><strong>Purpose</strong></u> – the way this works out practically is that you will end up with friends you might not have chosen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A relationship built on shared purpose can generate affection and affinity pretty quickly, but the opposite isn’t nearly as true.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And that is why war buddies have more enduring friendships than drinking buddies…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And that is why, if you belong to Jesus, your most meaningful friendships will emerge from: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Community<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Community is mostly an association of purposeful friendship…friendship oriented in the same direction…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfIj7cY8NvEIw7vLO-vBhKSdgXvioP0KoVcnDl2GAF_wS61xQTqUTqn-cetHGC07Ek46nmKv-AlOYylURK5rjxyILUVdO7TBWEFfIG41v09wBBW5uPt4PgNmbOZtIYm5B4mgaTBtF5iGJ_/s1600/community-friendship+ven.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="336" nea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfIj7cY8NvEIw7vLO-vBhKSdgXvioP0KoVcnDl2GAF_wS61xQTqUTqn-cetHGC07Ek46nmKv-AlOYylURK5rjxyILUVdO7TBWEFfIG41v09wBBW5uPt4PgNmbOZtIYm5B4mgaTBtF5iGJ_/s400/community-friendship+ven.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;"> [3]<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">The topics of friendship and community overlap but not entirely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You will have friends who are not part of your Christian Community and there will be members of your Christian community that matter to you but aren’t really friends. [4]<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it is that middle area, where purpose and affinity converge…that will be the building ground of the relationships that will define your life.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">Jesus following is irreducibly corporate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now I could have gone a number of places to demonstrate this in the Scriptures<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #c00000; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">“they continued to meet together”</b> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black;">Acts 2:46… But actually, it is silly to proof text this principle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because the truth is that every meaningful expression of Jesus following in the NT is in community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus following is irreducibly corporate.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">Dan, Laeya and I have done this long enough that we can tell you with real confidence, that the quality of your college experience will be correlated with how soon you integrate into a Christian community and how committed you are to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The benefits of Christian community to you are numerous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I say this all the time and I don’t intend to stop saying it any time soon: “If you spend your time here on the margins of Christian community, you are ripping yourself off.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Getting into a Christian community is in your self interest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But here’s the thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That the social and spiritual benefits you will accrue by being part of a Christian community in college are not the best reason to do it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">The best reason is more fundamental…<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK1"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK2"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK1;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Calibri;">When you join a Christian community, you are not just signing up for a club that will enrich your life…you are enlisting in a cosmic mission.</span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">A Campus Christian community is an extension of Church…which is more than just a few socially awkward people going into an ideological bunker to escape the scary secular world…it is an outpost of Jesus’ kingodm…think about that…we are more than just a few people struggling to figure out calculus and chemistry who meet in a cold lecture hall after hours to sing a few songs and listen to some dude who has too many degrees and appears to cheer for an unlikable east coast bb team…we are an colony of Jesus’ kingdom…an outpost of God’s purposes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">Christian community is about more than making friends or fitting in or meeting your felt needs…it’s about being in on the mission.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">Growing in grace and truth in community begins with understanding the theological reality of what Christian community is…and having grace for the broken people that God uses to cobble together that grand reality.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Soon or later those of us who follow Jesus find ourselves in the company of men and women who also want to get in on it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it doesn’t take long to realize that many of these fellow volunteers and workers aren’t much to our liking, and some of them we actively dislike….Jesus doesn’t seem to be very discriminating in the children he lets into his kitchen to help with the cooking….I often found myself preferring…the company of my sovereign self.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I soon found that my preferences were honored by neither Scripture nor Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t come to this conviction easily, but finally there was no getting around it:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>there can be no maturity in the spiritual life, no obedience in following Jesus, no wholeness in the Christian life apart from an immersion and embrace of community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am not myself by myself.” (“Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places” 226)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[5]<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">But here’s the thing, it is going to take a little tenacity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Communities have an intrinsic paradox… More valuable social circles are more difficult to penetrate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shallow social networks with loose connections are easy to get into but do not have the pay off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So if you are new to CL (or maybe you’ve been around for a little while, but still don’t feel like you belong here)…I want to make you a deal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">We are committed to try to make room for you in our lives…but you have to be a little tenacious about finding that room.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">And the most important aspect of that tenacity is to join a SMALL GROUP.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not too late.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pick up a list in the back and just take the risk to show up this week.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">Which brings me to a question…what is the difference between a Clique and a Community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Clique is a pejorative…but surely a small network of close relationships isn’t a bad thing…so what is the difference between a clique and a community…a community is a clique with open doors.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">And for those of you who might be trying to break into this or another community, realize that if the first couple people you run into doesn’t have open sites on their relational lego, it doesn’t necessarily make this community cliquish or unwelcoming.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>[6]<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">There are a lot of great Christian communities on campus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We would love it if you chose to make college life your home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But frankly, IV, Cru, and a number of others are fantastic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know I said this a couple weeks ago, but I’ll say it again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What you need to know, is that more important than which one you choose is how committed you are to the process of belonging.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Really get in there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Join a small group…and and you will find that you will not only get in on one of the outposts of God’s kingdoms…but before long, you will make some of the best friends in your life…which leads me to:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u><span style="font-size: 18pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Romance<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">When I was talking to my wife about this talk and about how much ground I needed to cover, she said: “Come on, there’s really only one thing they want you to talk about in a ‘relationship’ talk.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So let’s get on with it:<u><o:p></o:p></u></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">Romance is a special instance of friendship and community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To think it is a totally separate category is to miss the point of it all together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is in the deepest part of the overlap of friendship and community…of shared purpose and shared affinity that you should be looking for romance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span><span style="color: black;">The problem is, that that is not where most students look:</span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggesXPgn5AQPYN4ZKPYrMA5uxq8jea0ZrbwDeUcB7AMbAQn4Hg6MFn5eA9Nfl2xT3LY5vH-6IxAc-m397QrigWZYL9URInKpTTecdOb6_UFwr5fb2rIHx_q4PSGKjWh2NTSMK4AJoCvEYx/s1600/where+most+students+look+for+romance.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" height="291" nea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggesXPgn5AQPYN4ZKPYrMA5uxq8jea0ZrbwDeUcB7AMbAQn4Hg6MFn5eA9Nfl2xT3LY5vH-6IxAc-m397QrigWZYL9URInKpTTecdOb6_UFwr5fb2rIHx_q4PSGKjWh2NTSMK4AJoCvEYx/s400/where+most+students+look+for+romance.png" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">And we are not getting a lot of help thinking about this well from our pre-eminent cultural story tellers:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">And our campus culture isn’t really helping either.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN8GPJyNfGcZk7CuRVgYQG-eLXaV20H_oo30WNiMmUp91jSkNUvkSeSUxa-t2YKZcB3EYRp5CJ1huEHJqLGkoBKS5VW7IfpInlyZO2H_ck7HrrUhk1xxNI7NdF5xo0E2J3ZSbwkA7XViuG/s1600/Sex-and-the-Soul-Freitas-Donna-9780199747610.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" height="200" nea="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN8GPJyNfGcZk7CuRVgYQG-eLXaV20H_oo30WNiMmUp91jSkNUvkSeSUxa-t2YKZcB3EYRp5CJ1huEHJqLGkoBKS5VW7IfpInlyZO2H_ck7HrrUhk1xxNI7NdF5xo0E2J3ZSbwkA7XViuG/s200/Sex-and-the-Soul-Freitas-Donna-9780199747610.jpg" width="132" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">As part of her PhD research a few years ago Donna Fritas surveyed >1000 college students from 7 different institutions and conducted >100 face to face interviews to collect their thoughts about love sex and romance on campus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She recently published the results through Oxford Press in a book she called “Sex and the Soul”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And here is one of her big findings:[7]<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“In public, women maintain a lax attitude about no-strings-attached hookups, but in private, they express ambivalence and even dismay that they allow themselves to be pressure into sexual behaviors that often make them feel used an unhappy.” 99<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“When pressed, few students express a desire to hook up randomly on a regular basis – though most accept that hookups are the most likely way to find a long-term romantic partner…and even greater number wish for more respect and awe about sex from their peers.” 156<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">It turns out that when left alone with a journal or one-on-one with a researcher, the vast majority of students are dissatisfied with the sexual economy on our campuses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">But they play along…because they are afraid to be left behind…and because there isn’t really an alternate script.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">Back to the original question “What is college for?” which I argued is just a sub question of “what are you for?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let me suggest…not for that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do we do our romantic relationships as part of our pursuit of growing in grace and truth…well, we have to start by saying “not like that.”[8]<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">And our text is pretty emphatic about this:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="text"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #943634; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent2; mso-themeshade: 191;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.” Eph 5:3<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;"><span class="text"><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">…in other words, that is not what you are for…and despite all the messages you will hear from peers and mentors in this place…that is not what college is for.</span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">But just because we know how not to do it doesn’t mean that a Christian approach to romance is self evident.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact the more Dan and I watch Christian romance play out the more we have come to believe while a few students do figure it out, our movement on the whole has no idea how to do this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it can lead to some awkwardness…which has been recently captured in the website: Hey Christian Girl.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">I was talking about this with a good friend recently who is closer to your age than mine …and we agreed that this is hilarious and kind of gets at the weirdness of Christian dating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But we also felt like it only told half the story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So we decided to start a website of our own…one that collected Christian break-up lines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are calling it “Good Bye, Christian Boy.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here the first post we worked up:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">Now I don’t have time to do romance justice in 7 minutes – in the back there are CD’s with the last two talks I’ve given on this topic and the MP3’s are at the link in your handout (http://stanfordmp3.blogspot.com/).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But let me just give you two big ideas and if you’d like to hear me make the full case for these you can grab the cd’s or go get the mp3’s online.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">If I was going to condense the 120 minutes or so of talks I’ve done on this topic in the last few years into a couple ideas I’d go with these two:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong><span style="color: black;">-Romance is the means by which we transform a friendship into a missional community.<o:p></o:p></span></strong></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">Now, I realize that this is a huge departure from the sitcom/romcom model we were raised on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Dan and I really believe that the best building ground for a romantic relationship is a friendship that is characterized by a shared driving <strong><u>purpose</u> </strong>and mutual <u><strong>affinity</strong></u><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><strong> </strong>In that order</i>…<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;"><strong>-Major on the friendship </strong>(don’t be in a hurry to label it – or kiss it)<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">The healthiest relationships Dan and I have observed over our years in college ministry are the ones who prolonged the friendship stage of the relationship and postponed labels and physical exploration.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">And so the best thing you can do to negotiate romantic relationships with grace and truth is to develop a number of friendships with young men or women that you admire based on shared purpose and shared affinity in that order…and over time…real time…months to years…see if one emerges as unique and reciprocal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The best romance emerges out of really good friendship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes patient evaluation and gradual self disclosure…don’t short circuit it by prematurely exchanging labels or saliva.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">And to pull that off, you are going to have to grow in grace and truth.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">____________________________<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">[1] According to a study documented in the June 2006 issue of the journal American Sociological Review, Americans are thought to be suffering a loss in the quality and quantity of close friendships since at least 1985<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">[2] Which incidentally why the Scriptures uses the metaphor of family instead of friendship.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Becoming a person of grace and truth requires doing that in the context of others who are doing the same, who can provide us access to truth and opportunities to extend grace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that is going to require some self forgetfulness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is going to require the active discipline of decentering.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">But your life will be enriched on a long enough time scale by the diversity…affinity can be boring and is a personality feedback…by surrounding yourself with people like you, you tend to think that the world is (or at least should be) composed of people like you…Diversity also can challenge you to grow in grace and truth.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">[3] In my first version of this diagram I had a typo – under ‘study groups’ was ‘Lap Partners’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>- there has got to be a joke there<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">[4] This includes mentoring on both ends<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(finding a mentor and being a mentor).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mentoring relationships can turn into friendship (which has been one of the unexpected benefits of college ministry for us) but doesn’t have to be valuable. Not all valuable relationships are reciprocal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our culture is obsessed with egalitarian relationships..where all relationships are equal partnerships.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that’s just not always the way it works best.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of the most valuable<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>relationships are asymmetrical…with a clear direction of giving and receiving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Benefiting from these relationships requires humility and self skepticism.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">[5] I actually find Peterson pretty helpful on this topic:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Many Christians find church to be the most difficult aspect of being a Christian.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And many drop out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There may be more Christians that don’t go to church or go only occasionally than who embrace it warts and all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And there are certainly plenty of warts…So why church?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The short answer is because the Holy Spirit formed it to be a colony of heaven in the country of death. …Church is the core element in the strategy of the Holy Spirit for providing physical presence and human witness to the Jesus inaugurated kingdom of God in this world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not that kingdom complete, but it is a witness to that kingdom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Practice Resurection)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Church is difficult.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sooner or later, though, if we are serious about growing up in Christ, we are going to have to deal with church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I say sooner…many Christians find church to be the most difficult aspect of being a Christian.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And many drop out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There may be more Christians that don’t go to church or go only occasionally than who embrace it warts and all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And there are certainly plenty of warts…So why church?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The short answer is because the Holy Spirit formed it to be a colony of heaven in the country of death…Church is the core element in the strategy of the Holy Spirit for providing physical presence and human witness to the Jesus inaugurated kingdom of God in this world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not that kingdom complete, but it is a witness to that kingdom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it takes both sustained effort and a determined imagination to understand and embrace church in its entirety.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Casual and superficial experience with church often leaves us with an impression of bloody fights, acrimonious arguments and warring factions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are more than regrettable, they are scandalous, but they don’t define church. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Church is an appointed gathering of named people in particular places who practice a life of resurrection in a world in which death gets the best headlines.” (Practice resurrection)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4f6228; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%; mso-themecolor: accent3; mso-themeshade: 128;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“People can think correctly and behave rightly and worship politely and still live badly – live anemically, live individualistically self enclosed lives, live bored and insipid and trivial lives.” (229 CPITTP)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">[6] Listen, freshman, Jesus doesn’t redshirt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are no redshirt freshman in College Life, Cru or InterVarsity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the kingdom, freshman play.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">I thought of this the other day when I was talking to Ryan Gross.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ryan is a freshman who grew up in Davis and went to First Baptist in high school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He got recruited to UCD for soccer and I asked him if he was going to red shirt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He said…”our coach doesn’t really red shirt”…and it turns out to be a good decision because through four games he was leading the team in points.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">And this is not unlike several of the CURRENT freshman…During welcome week there were several new freshman young women who actually got out and pounded pavement with Sarah Johnson. They were among our early season stat leaders.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because Jesus doesn’t red shirt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Freshman play.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Calibri;">[7] I wrote an extended piece about this book which is here </span><a href="http://stanford-gibson.blogspot.com/2012/01/relationships-part-4-sexual-snapshot-of.html"><span style="color: black; font-family: Calibri;">http://stanford-gibson.blogspot.com/2012/01/relationships-part-4-sexual-snapshot-of.html</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: black;">[8] When I was young, all the progressive people were saying, ‘Why all this prudery?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let us treat sex just as we treat all our other impulses.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was simple minded enough to believe they meant what they said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have since discovered that they meant exactly the opposite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They meant that sex was to be treated as no other impulse in our nature has ever been treated by civilized people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All the others, we admit, have to be bridled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Absolute obedience to your instinct for self preservation is what we call cowardice, to your acquisitive impulse, avarice.” CS Lewis - <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We Have no Right to Happiness</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Calibri;">[9] One of the best variations on this theme is the one where the hey girl/boy approach is applied to Foccault photos and quotes:</span></span></div>
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stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-66117745415293278122012-10-02T17:35:00.000-07:002012-10-04T09:31:35.602-07:00What is College For? Finding Grace and Truth Between Russell and I80<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2012/1/18/3251976/What_is_College_For_%28John_1%29.mp3" target="_blank">MP3</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br /><a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%201:1-18&version=NIV1984" target="_blank">John 1:1-18<o:p></o:p></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, your college choices have brought you to this little town where you are going to spend 60 to 80k and 4 of the most energetic years of your life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And tonight I just want to pose a simple question …”Why?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seriously, why would you do that? Why would you drop that kind of coin and that many years (not to mention the opportunity costs) to spend a few years reading Foucault, going to Football games and doing 8 page Fourier Transforms? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The question I want you to consider tonight is really fundamental, and how you answer it will affect your experience…the question I want to ask is ‘What is College For?’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You see, it is pretty important to understanding what a thing is for BEFORE you try to use it: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And what you’ll find if you start looking into this question is that a lot of smart people have thought about this and come up with very different answers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example Gary Gutting, a NY Times opinion columnist and a professor at Notre Dame recently posed just that question in a piece called “What is college for?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He starts out:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK2"></a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK1"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK2;"><span style="color: #000099; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“the raison d’être of a college</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #000099; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">(ok, you already know this is going to be REALLY practical– I mean, who talks like that – but I digress)<span style="color: #548dd4; mso-themecolor: text2; mso-themetint: 153;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now that sounds very elegant and grand…But he got eviscerated in the comments by people who argued that the huge cost and debt burden is not worth this kind of flowery abstract purpose…so he wrote an unprecedented sequel called “What is College For: Part 2” where he got more practical<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">In other words going to college proves to the corporate world that you are good information age cubicle fodder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When he really got pressed on it, he admitted that college is essentially a 4 year endurance sport that will signal to perspective employers how responsible you are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kind of like a white collar version of ‘Survivor’ where as long as you don’t get voted of the island, you’ll win the fabulous prize of getting to work a dull job….well at least that’s what you would have won in a good economy…now you might get a dull unpaid internship…if you’re lucky. </span><span style="color: #000099; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Are you inspired yet?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So far it’s pretty grim.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now I found a bunch of attempts by smart people to answer this question, ‘what is college for’ that were exceptionally diverse…and I had to cut most of them for time…But surprisingly, possibly the best answer I found out there was from the famously scholarly website, known for its incisive analysis and depth of insight: “Cracked.com” Seriously, this was right next to the “you might be a zombie internet quiz.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which makes me wonder, who’s taking that quiz.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, if you are a zombie…are you really not self aware enough to realize it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And are there non-zombies who wake up wondering if they are one?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have so many questions…Anyway the article starts out:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 14pt; font-weight: normal; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">But then it delivers this answer to the question ‘What is college for?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #000099; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It's Not About Getting a Degree, It's About Becoming a Person<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And here’s the thing, I think they totally got that right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the problem is that it just poses another question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It moves from the why question to the how question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, here is the method that the article gives for ‘Becoming a person’ in college:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #000099; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“College is the ultimate self-discovery school, a Brownian personality-builder that bashes you off other people to help you all stop sucking.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Essentially they argue that college is a string of random events in which a homogenous group of people bash into each other aimlessly and randomly and somehow acquire wisdom and character in the process…and honestly, that strikes me as optimistic…that a bunch of random encounters with other people is going to automatically build wisdom and character…when it could just as easily go the other way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">It makes you wonder…is there a better way to take on this project of ‘becoming’ without aimlessly bashing into other people who have dignity and nobility of their own, in a kind of chemically fueled, sexually charged, random number generator.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is there a way to optimize the acquisition of wisdom and character…and maximize the ‘becoming’ while minimizing the damage you do to yourself and others? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And for that Cracked.com may not be the best source of wisdom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because as one of the commenter’s on this article said:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #000099; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Honestly people, if you are taking advice from a site that specializes in Batman and (penis) jokes you are beyond help.”</span><span style="color: #000099; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><span style="color: #000099; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But, if college is, in fact, not primarily about getting a degree or making social contacts but about becoming a person…the question of ‘What is college for?’ is just a version of the question “What are you for?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The answer to the little question “Why are you here (at UCD)” is also the answer to the Big question “Why are you Here (existence)”…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…and the answer can be found in a text more ancient but more helpful than Cracked.com or even the NY Times opinion page. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So tonight we are going to look at the first 18 sentences of one of the ancient narratives that tells the story of the life of Jesus…the New Testament book of John…a text that we are going to spend roughly 20 of the Tuesday nights we get together this year walking trough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And tonight’s passage gives a concise yet profound mission statement for your project of “person building.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Twice it points to two distinct yet intertwined pursuits that are at the heart of “the process of person building”: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #c00000; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">John 1:14 “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of <u><strong>grace and truth</strong></u>.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #c00000; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">John 1:17 “For the law was given through Moses; <u><strong>grace and truth</strong></u> came through Jesus Christ.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">What is college for?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is an opportunity to grow in grace and truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a time to build a foundation of grace and truth that will set a trajectory for the rest of your life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so we are going to look at what these opening sentences of the story of Jesus has to say about each of these in turn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tonight I am going to focus on the truth component by looking at 2 big ideas and 3 implications…we are going to do a little theological heavy lifting with the two big ideas and then bring that to bear on our college experience with the 3 applications…and then will briefly turn to grace as an introduction to what we will be doing in the next 3 weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So, What is college for?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, unsurprisingly, it is a time to grow in “Truth”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> Grow in Truth</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see the people who say college is all about forming advantageous relationships and that what you learn doesn’t really matter miss part of the point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>College is a time to uncover and discover “Truth”.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But, you will find that around here, before you can ask a question like ‘what is the truth?’ you have to answer the question ‘is truth even a thing?’<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Most of your academic mentors here will be skeptical about the existence of a Truth capitol “T”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And you know what, they should be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The academic tools you will be offered, both in the sciences and the humanities, are valuable but fallible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And your academic mentors will have spent their careers embroiled in debates where highly intelligent and educated people come to fundamentally different explanations of reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you spend enough time trying to squeeze ideas into words you realize the simple fact is that words are slippery… <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">If you think about it little symbols on a white background might seem to be a pretty thin medium for transmitting something as grand as truth…yet, there they are the main currency for the process by which we engage ideas. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But here’s the incredible thing about this text…God totally seems to get that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God realizes that words are complicated, but that does not mean that truth is unattainable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK3;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK4;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, the big idea of this passage is that when he wanted to give us Truth…he didn’t just put it in sentences…he didn’t just use text…he also showed up…he spoke AND embodied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The passage makes the counter-cultural assertion that “truth” comes through Jesus…it argues that if you want to grow in truth, the process needs to include Jesus…and it makes that case by introducing us to two big theological ideas: incarnation and illumination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So let’s take them in turn: The first reason that Jesus should be central to the process of growing in truth is The Incarnation:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<u><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: blue;"><strong>Big Idea 1:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Incarnation<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></strong></span></span></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Incarnation is just a fancy word for the idea that Jesus is simultaneously God and human. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so, the reason that Jesus is the interpretive key to reality is that he fully inhabits empirical and metaphysical reality…the material world and the spiritual world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was an agent of creation and also a participant in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so he has unique insight on how it all works together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Here’s how GK Chesterton puts it: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #000099; font-size: 14pt;">“For orthodox theology has specially insisted that Christ was not a being apart from God and man, like an elf, nor yet a being half-human and half-not, like a centaur, but both things at once and both things thoroughly.” </span><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Chesterton – Orthodoxy 138<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Which reminded me of 90 of my favorite youtube seconds of all time…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><a href="http://youtu.be/oJGgJmnKS_k"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">http://youtu.be/oJGgJmnKS_k</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-small;">(Note: I cliped the trapper keeper joke for the talk.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, most people think that Jesus is a lot like a unicorn…99% person and 1% more awesome person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But JESUS IS NOT A UNICORN.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he isn’t a centaur </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">…this kind of awkward half person and half god entity with all the mental gymnastics that requires…he is a unique entity in all of reality…all God and all human…simultaneously bipedal primate with a nervous system and brain chemistry and yet the creator of carbon itself…he has fully experienced material and metaphysical reality…and having walked and lived in both, he has unique insights into how we can live as little carbon creatures which also have spiritual reality…he becomes uniquely qualified to guide us into truth.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Which brings us to that obtuse opening sentence of this passage.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s look at it:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #c00000; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“In the beginning was the Word (Logos) and the Word (Logos) was with God and the Word (Logos) was God.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-John 1:1<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Um..What?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Um…let’s try that again:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #c00000; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“In the beginning was the Word (Logos) and the Word (Logos) was with God and the Word (Logos) was God.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">OK, good thing it is early in the quarter, because that one is going to take some work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You see the Greek word used in the original, ‘logos’, is one of the most difficult to find a good English equivalent for.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Here’s what my favorite commentator, FF Bruce says about it…just a little Braveheart joke there…:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #000099; font-size: 14pt;">“No doubt the English term ‘Word’ is an inadequate rendering of the Greek <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">logos</i>, but it would be difficult to fine one less inadequate.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Here’s what’s going on here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You see, John who is a follower of Jesus as well as his biographer, has also kind of gotten into Greek philosophy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He digs it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And at that time The big questions in Greek theology was what is the thing that makes senses of everything else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they came up with all sorts of ideas about this…some said it was water…others said it was spirit…but in John’s time, this central thing in Greek philosophy that made sense of reality and human relationships, was called ‘the Logos.’ <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And John kind of looks at the state of philosophy and says, ‘you know’ that’s totally the right question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a logos, a central interpretive truth that gives coherence to the rest of reality...but what it turns out to be is a little surprising.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, it turns out that the Truth, capitol T does exist, but it is not a what, it’s a who.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a plot twist so shocking that he loads it into his opening sentence…truth is not a something, it’s a someone…Jesus <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There was a movie that came out a couple years ago called ‘Stardust.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now everyone I have talked to about this film has said essentially the same thing “You know, that wasn’t half bad.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is one of those films you go into with no expectations and turns out to have likeable characters and engaging plot and at one point, Robert Dinero is dancing around in a dress and Ricky Jerveis gets his voice stolen by a witch because he is being annoying (and honestly I’m not sure which moment I enjoyed more)…I mean just good times all around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But at one point, the protagonist is trying to impress this kind of vapid pretty girl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Dude really needs to come to a good CL dating talk...but we will talk more about that in 2 weeks.) Anyway, while they are talking, a shooting star flies over their heads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so the girl, played by Sienna Miller tells the young man that if he can return with the falling star in a couple days, she will marry him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So like a total tool he takes off looking for this falling star and he gets to the crater and looks into it…there in the middle of the crater…is Clare Danes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>And that’s the central plot twist of the film.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It turned out that the object of his quest was not something…it was someone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And that is essentially the central plot twist of our narrative as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The preeminent object of your quest for truth isn’t a something…it’s a someone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that will fundamentally alter how you go about trying to grow in Truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The one thing that gives the right context and scope by which all of the other ideas are to be organized and evaluated…the Logos…is the one who was God from the beginning, who made everything, yet has done the whole ‘living on earth and being made out of carbon thing’ and has unique insight on how to integrate material and spiritual realities… In the words of the passage:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><sup><span style="color: #c00000; font-size: 14pt;">14</span></sup><span style="color: #c00000; font-size: 14pt;">The Word (Logos) became flesh and made his dwelling among us.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">its Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So you want to grow in truth…you need to get to know Jesus, and come terms with the incarnation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And, briefly the second big idea this passage gives for why Jesus needs to be involved in your pursuit of truth is:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<u><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong><span style="color: blue;">Big Idea 2: Illumination<o:p></o:p></span></strong></span></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, the word “Light” is used six times in this passage. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><sup><span style="color: #c00000; font-size: 14pt;">4</span></sup><span style="color: #c00000; font-size: 14pt;">In him was life, and that life was the light of men. <sup>5</sup>The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it…<sup>9</sup>The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And this is a familiar one if you have given any attention to the UC Davis seal: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Light is a metaphor for the conditions of truth seeking both in the Scriptures and in UC Davis’ symbology…because, we are not objective perception machines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How we see the world has a lot to do with how it is lit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To illustrate this idea I am going to have to roll out a clip I know a few of you have seen before, but it illustrates the point so I’m just going to run with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a clip from The Office where Dwight and Michael are getting ready to have a party in their hotel room and they decide to test the black light. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Office illustration: </span><a href="http://youtu.be/aKCS49wfdpE"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri;">http://youtu.be/aKCS49wfdpE</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Semen, blood or urine.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You see, Michal learns a very important lesson in that clip…he learns that there are aspects of reality that can only be perceived with the right light.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which, in a sense, is exactly what John 1 says.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are aspects of reality - both disturbing and lovely - that you can only see with the right light….which is Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This text argues that Jesus is instrumental in growing in truth, because he illuminates reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You see, Jesus might not be a unicorn, but he is the blacklight of reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">He gives perspective and context that you need to put the puzzle together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And so, that is the theological heavy lifting…Jesus can help you grow in truth because he brings Incarnation and Illumination to the table.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But these kind of abstract theological ideas have a couple practical implications for how you ‘grow in truth’ here in this place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><u><strong><span style="font-size: x-large;">First</span></strong></u><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></strong>of all, <u>All truth is God’s truth</u>…and so you can take your studies seriously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You see, the passage argues, that every aspect of the natural world, artistic expression and human interaction fundamentally emerge from Jesus. Look back at those opening sentences: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #c00000; font-size: 14pt;">“In the beginning was the Word (Logos) and the Word (Logos) was with God and the (Logos) was God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was with God in the beginning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Through him all things were made.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without him nothing was made that has been made.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Here’s the idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All truth is God’s truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God cares about your studies, wants you to see the world of art and science and philosophy in light of Jesus…and see Jesus in them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is not confined to religious studies classes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He made it all, so we can expect to find him there, if we look for him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, just look at our text…the apostle John obviously found non-Christian philosophy interesting valuable…but he studied it with and for Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So Jesus people should be the most intellectually curious and academically adventurous people on campus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I mean if John could find Jesus in greek philosophy, you can find Jesus in anthropology, entomology or etymology.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John found Greek philosophy useful…but he did not allow it to define his reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which lead us to the second application:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><u><strong><span style="font-size: x-large;">Second</span></strong></u><span style="font-size: 14pt;">, <u>Not everything you hear in college is true</u>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<u><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But not everything that challenges your world view is false<o:p></o:p></span></span></u></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Not everything you learn in college is true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tim Keller likes to say, 1 book will make you annoying, 2 books will make you confused, 100 books will make you wise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The same is true with classes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this was captured perfectly in that iconic bar scene in Good Will Hunting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know the scene…but I’ll play it anyway. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Don’t go all in on the first idea you hear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maintain a little healthy academic skepticism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the time you are a senior you will realize that most of the tidy materialist theories you learned in your intro classes are not nearly as tidy as they seem. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A lot of people come to college ready to be skeptical about their faith, to reject the advice and wisdom of their parents and youth pastors, only to uncritically embrace a new narrative from a tenured professors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What you have to understand is that these students haven’t become skeptics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have just transferred their allegiance to a new set of clerics.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And so you have to realize that not everything you learn in college is true.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But just because not everything you learn in college is true, it does not follow that everything you find challenging to your faith in college is false.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The honest pursuit of truth will require reassessment of a wide variety of things you believe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So study whatever interests you…but also throw yourself into a Christian community and spiritual disciplines to help you process the new ideas…which leads to the third application…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><u><strong><span style="font-size: x-large;">Third</span></strong></u><span style="font-size: 14pt;">, <u>Add Jesus to your Course List</u>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Don’t limit your investigation to the material realm.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, I’m a scientist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I love science.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seriously, I freeking love it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Science is the means by which we unlock empirical and material realities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it’s really good at that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But science only claims to access to observable and repeatable phenomenon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And here’s the mistake people make…they make the mistake of thinking that because science is really cool and these are the only things science can know, they are the only things that humans can known.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And that is an epistemology fail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s just bad philosophy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Growing in truth has to include the pursuit of material AND spiritual realities…and they need to happen in parallel, because they inform each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So you need to add God to your course list.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">If you already follow Jesus…if you recognize that he is indispensible to the process of growing in truth…then you need to keep office hours with Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Choosing the right major is not as important as choosing the right tutor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You need to get into a Christian community as quickly as possible and develop spiritual disciplines that will keep you connected to Jesus while you process all the amazing things you are going to learn.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">If you aren’t really committed to this narrative but are fundamentally a truth seeker…I would encourage you to add one more line of investigation to your inquisitive portfolio this year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You see the Christian story says that if you want to know what God is like you need to get to know Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see a lot of people start with a fuzzy picture of what god is that they got from sit coms, music and film and then figure, well if Jesus represents god, Jesus must be like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But that is exactly backwards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And the passage tells us why.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #c00000; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;">John 1:17-8 “…grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.”</span><span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, the central insight that Christianity getting to know Jesus is the means God set up for getting to know him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it just so happens that we have an opportunity for you to do just that. You see, we are going to spend 20 Tuesday nights this year walking chapter by chapter through this story of Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So join us for Tuesday nights this quarter, and test the hypothesis I just offered you…see if Jesus doesn’t bring an unexpected clarity to the fog of ideas and facts you learn in your classes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Ok, so let me just say a couple words about grace before I wrap up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<strong><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Grow in Grace<o:p></o:p></span></span></strong></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Even with its considerable deficiencies the university can be an ally in your pursuit of truth…but the hard cold fact is that this place has no interest in growing you in grace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This place will build your collection of facts, it will build your capacities and it will build your capabilities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this institution will not build your character…not on purpose at least.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>College can be a catalyst for character formation…but the actual process of character formation is on you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You will receive no grade in humility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Generosity will not be computed in your GPA.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your transcripts will not include a line reporting your self forgetfulness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Just stockpiling truth can make you an unbearable person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The way my brother puts it is that… ‘Love is the stabilizer of knowledge.’ Or Grace is the stabilizer of truth.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Your time here needs to be a two-pronged quest…a quest for Grace AND Truth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">So you need to pair your academic exploration with a robust pursuit of the person of Jesus…and you need to take this time as season of serious character formation in the context of Christian community.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And so over the next few weeks we are going to get really practical with a topical series where we will talk about how to grown in grace and truth in college in the context of:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Your Studies (next week)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Your Relationships (the week after)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3.</span><span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Your Spiritual Development (at retreat)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see I could not be more committed to this idea that our projects of person formation should revolve around these two poles of “grace and truth”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And so let me wrap up with a brief illustration that will seem like a total non-sequiter but you’ll just have to trust me that it isn’t…I want to wrap up by introducing you to my daughters… Charis and Aletheia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are great (and truth be told, occasionally bizarre) kids…and one of the things that we love about college ministry is Audri, Michelle, and Haley are among their favorite people.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now let me go back and read our central verses again…and just like I did with ‘Logos’ I’ll leave a couple key words un-translated: <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="color: #c00000; font-size: 14pt;">John 1:14 “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of charis (grace) and aletheia (truth).”</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #c00000; font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">John 1: 17 “…charis (grace) and aletheia (truth) came through Jesus Christ”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You see, my wife and I are all in on this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We named our first two kids Charis and Aletheia…‘Grace’ and ‘Truth’…because we can think of nothing that we want more for them…and we can think of nothing that we want more for you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-56446604676758250642012-07-10T14:07:00.003-07:002012-07-10T14:09:20.273-07:001 Thessalonians Chapter 1: Imitation and ExampleNote: This material is from the ‘summer style’ gatherings of our campus ministry. Unlike my other talks that are 25-35 minutes long, these have a 7ish minute intro, a 40 minute small group discussion (that I write a leader guide for) and a 12ish minute summary. I cut a lot…so I put most of it back in here as footnotes:<br />
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<strong><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Introduction: The Unsatisfying Allure of Originality</span></strong><br />
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So let me start with a question: Why is ‘Simon Says’ a thing? That game should not be very hard. Why is it? I mean, Why is Simon Says a thing? Lets table that question for a minute and read today’s passage.<br />
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<span style="color: #990000;">Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #990000;">2 We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, 3remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 4For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, 5because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. 6And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, 7so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #990000;">8For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything. 9For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.</span><br />
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Well before we answer my original question, let me ask you a question about today’s passage. Was there any part of the passage that bugged you? Anything that maybe just made you a little uncomfortable? Well, if not, let me suggest something:<br />
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<span style="color: #660000;"><span style="color: #990000;">6"And you became imitators of us</span>,”</span><br />
Do you feel uncomfortable with that? Well if you do, let me make it worse. You see, it turns out that the Apostle Paul, who wrote this book, says that sort of stuff all the time:<br />
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<span style="color: #990000;">Cor 4:16 I urge you, then, be imitators of me.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #990000;">2 Thess 3 7 For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us,</span><br />
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<span style="color: #990000;">Phil 317 Brothers, join in imitating me</span><br />
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To call someone an ‘imitator’ in our culture is usually not a good thing. Because imitation smacks of unoriginality[1], and in our deconstructing, post-everything , hipster culture where you can things can only be enjoyed ironically, the only real sin is to be unoriginal. We all want to be original. We want to believe we are special little snowflakes…unlike anyone else. And an imitator by definition is unoriginal. <br />
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But in response to this, let me ask again…why is Simon Says a thing? Why is this very simple game challenging?<br />
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Well there is a biological explanation: because we are not fundamentally auditory or verbal creatures…we are fundamentally imitating creatures. Anthropologists will tell you that we learn primarily by watching how other members or our species solve problems.[2]<br />
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We’re all compilations of imitations. Someone who seems totally original is probably either imitating a person or subculture that you are not acquainted with[3] or he or she has cobbled together a life of piecemeil imitation from several sources. And, frankly, originality is a cruel, punishing idol…constantly betraying those who chase her with belated information about the derivative sources of their ‘originality.’<br />
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So, we can either cautiously and intentionally select who we are going to imitate, or we can let that happen unconsciously or by accident.[4]<br />
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And that is why Paul argues that imitation is a helpful tool in sanctification. And I edited him a little bit when I read those verses. Here are the whole verses:<br />
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<span style="color: #990000;">Phil 3:17 Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #990000;">1Thess 1:6 And you became imitators of us and of the Lord</span><br />
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We can look to historical Christians, like Paul, we can look to each other, and because Christianity is an incarational faith where God actually showed up, we can look to God himself for examples of how to do this human life thing.<br />
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The vocabulary of Faith and Life cannot fundamentally be totally transmitted abstractly.[5] I mean have you ever tried to define faith. How about hope? And don’t even get me started on love? The theological dictionary that Christianity uses to define these things for you isn’t just a text…it’s also a people. You want to know what love is[6]…the Scriptures will give you the boundaries of what the word can mean…but they (point to the people) will show you how to do it. The basic ideas of Christianity are always embodied. And that is why the Christian life is learned by imitation. If you don’t chose who to imitate, you won’t be original…you will just unconsciously and passively unoriginal.<br />
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And that is why the Biblical authors talk about ‘doing Christianity well’ with the term ‘discipleship’. The Christian life is an apprenticeship. We are all padawans, so to speak (at least the nerdier of us). And there are at least 4 ways in chapter 1 that Paul suggests that the Thessalonian church has apprenticed well. <br />
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<span style="color: blue; font-size: large;"><strong>Group Study</strong></span><br />
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At this point the students went to small groups where they used <a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/11/22/2659930/Thessaloninans%201%20Leaders%20Guide.pdf" target="_blank">this guide</a>.<br />
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<strong><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">Summary: The Temporal Orientation of the Christian Life</span></strong><br />
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Christianity deals with reality…in its temporal entirety. Faith, hope and love point respectively to the past, future and present, meaning that at its core, the Christian life seeks a temporal balance of meaning and purpose.<br />
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If you focus on the past you are a sentimentalist, if you focus on the present you are an existentialist, and if you focus on the future you are an escapist… Putting too much emphasis on either the past, present or future truncates reality. <br />
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But at the center of the Christian life are three disciplines that guide healthy and helpful interactions with the past, present and future. <br />
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We are people who take the past seriously. We are people who look back to a moment when we took our stand with Jesus and reinterpret the rest of our lives through that event…and the events that it points to. We are people of faith. We are people who care about the commitments and stories of the generations before us…realizing that moderns may not have a monopoly on interpreting reality.<br />
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We aren’t stuck in the brokenness of our past mistakes or mired in nostalgia for past joys. And likewise by living out of faith, hope and love, we are not obsessed with the future. We don’t fear it either. Our future is secure…it is hopeful. We have a hope that we can look to when the brokenness of the present gets oppressive (as some of you have experienced in the last couple weeks). But the future does not consume us. Rather, looking back in faith and forward in hope…gives us energy to fill the present with love.<br />
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Those for whom the present is everything often find the present to be too valuable to fill with love. But people of faith and hope who understand the past and future rightly and, therefore, do not overvalue the present, have energy to work and labor, steadfastly…in caring for others. <br />
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But let me end with the a final thought. One question I pose was <span style="color: #38761d;"><strong>‘What is the difference between hope and optimism?’ </strong></span>What did you say?<br />
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Optimism is the delusion that everything will turn out ok…soon. It doesn’t. The world is a beautiful but terrible place. Sometimes things turn out horribly. Sometimes a miracle doesn’t fix things. Hope requires a cosmic temporal scale. Optimism covers our eyes and wishes for the best. Hope deals with reality as it is and perseveres good or bad because of a confidence in the resurrection (one of the themes of the rest of this book). The role of miracles is not to make everything all right. You are going to die. And it is probably going to be horrible. And terrible things will happen to people you love. If you expect miracles to be the answer to that reality, you will be disappointed. If when you say ‘God is good’ you mean ‘he won’t let terrible things happen to me or those who I love, your faith will be deeply tested. But if you recognize the Biblical role of miracles as ‘signs’…indicators that through the pain and brokenness, there is a deeper, realer, real. There is a resurrection that is going to restore and rewrite. Their purpose and the Christian hope comes into focus.<br />
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Which leads me to the final verse of the chapter, the transition to the rest of the book:<br />
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For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.<br />
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[1] Actually, there is a second reason these verses make me uncomfortable. They seem like Paul is being an arrogant (fill in pejorative noun of your choice). But this is anachronistic. Imitation was the core of Roman pedagogy. The fact that Paul called them not only to imitate him, but ‘us’ (Timothy and Silas), and ‘each other’ (in the Philippians verse, see below) and the Lord demonstrates that he is not entirely comfortable with the cult of personality that could emerge from that model and is trying to diffuse it…while at the same time recognizing that imitation is helpful pedagogy.<br />
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[2] I took a human evolution seminar last quarter which had a fair number of primate specialists in it. I learned a couple of very interesting things about what distinguishes us from the other primates. One professor made the case that chips are actually more rawly intelligent than humans. But humans out perform chimps because they don’t resolve on a final solution to life’s problems. Humans are social animals that watch each other carefully for solutions to life’s problems that could upgrade their current state. Humans did not emerge because we were the most innovative…but because we transmitted innovation through imitation.<br />
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[3] Now, those who have heard me speak will recognize some dissonance with the idea that I often teach that ‘creativity’ is the rare human the image of God. Most innovation is an act of integration rather than raw inspiration. I do love innovation and strive for it. But I do not define myself by it and make most of my intellectual, social, professional and moral progress by apprenticeship (careful, critical, teachable, imitation). Innovation happens a the surprising intersection of observations. Actual inspiration is so rare that it seems that if it becomes one of our highest societal goals, the vast majority of us are sentenced to be disappointing or self deceiving. Also, if inspiration is not built out of former materials, where does it come from.? It is either an accident of brain wiring or a gift of God…and neither are meritorious.<br />
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[4] We used to learn trades by apprenticeship….a personal relationship of careful imitation. Now we try to teach the professions through class room learning. Now I don’t talk much about my job. I have a ‘one minute rule’. If someone asks about my job, I try not to talk more than one minute before I change the subject, to keep from boring them. Because I understand, I may love sediment transport modeling…but most people find it dull. But here’s the thing I have realized recently…sediment transport modeling may be dull…but its also REALLY hard. There are not a lot of people in the world who can do it really well. So if a young engineer calls me up and says they are going to try it and asks me to teach them about it…I tell them to move into my office for a month. Because anything complicated has to be learned by imitation. Apprenticeship is more effective than instruction.<br />
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[5] <span style="color: #38761d;">Fun Quotes: “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.” - T.S. Eliot (I like this quote because it demonstrates that self-awareness of the derivative nature of the created process – and hence, our fundamental indebtedness – is the maturation process of the artist).</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;">“Imitation is not just the sincerest form of flattery - it's the sincerest form of learning.” ― George Bernard Shaw</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;">“We even talked like Hemingway characters, though in travesty, as if to deny our discipleship: That is your bed, and it is a good bed, and you must make it and you must make it well. Or: Today is the day of the meatloaf. The meatloaf is swell. It is swell but when it is gone the not-having meatloaf will be tragic and the meatloaf man will not come anymore.” ― Tobias Wolff, Old School</span><br />
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[6] Love is a word…it is a verbal signifier of an extremely complex reality. So is hope. In fact, so are a lot of our central big ideas in Christianity. They are very abstract…but we also belong to a faith that believes truth is always embodied. And it is transmitted by discipleship, or apprenticeship which is a form of careful imitation.stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-16182436993854384462012-05-29T19:25:00.000-07:002012-06-01T06:39:42.135-07:00Navigating the New Normal:Thoughts on Life After College<br />
<a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/11/22/2659930/Life_After_College.mp3" target="_blank">MP3 Here</a><br />
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I was thinking a couple days ago about the first quarter I started teaching regularly here at CL. The freshman girls that year had formed a special bond. As I was just kind of learning how to do this, giving my first, uneven messages, they all sat together every week, right across the front…and they all dressed alike…and wore their hair in identical side ponytails…and frankly, I found them mildly terrifying. And for the first few months there was only one freshman guy, a seemingly quiet, introverted boy who sat all the way in the back. Well, those women are graduating in a couple weeks…and so is Kiho. And they don’t wear side ponys any more (at least Kiho doesn’t)…and I’ve come to call many of them friends…my life, the life of my family, this ministry and this campus have all been substantially enriched by their years here. And that little core group has been joined over the years by a number of fine men and women who will also graduate this year and have also had remarkable runs. And we are genuinely thrilled for you. Graduation is a really fun, exciting time and you totally deserve to celebrate and be celebrated. <br />
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But graduation has always reminded me of friend who once told me about his last day in the Army. He and a handful of other guys who were also done that day went to a one hour seminar on how to integrate back into the civilian world…and then they simply weren’t in the army any more. Reflecting on that day, he looked at me in disbelief and said, ‘It takes 6 months to join the army and only 1 hour to unjoin.’ After 4 years of a rigorous but counter cultural lifestyle, they were going to face a new-normal, and the army thought that the least they could do is provide them an one-hour of thoughts on that process.<br />
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I have often thought about how finishing up college is a similar shocking experience of plunging into a new normal…except without the one hour exit seminar. You don’t even get an exit seminar. And that’s not ok. Now, we are way too late in the quarter for me to stand up here and talk for an hour…So I’m going to give you 25 minutes. These are a few of thoughts that I have compiled over last few years of watching people make the transition well and poorly and from over a dozen substantial responses I got from a request I sent out to last year’s seniors. As usual, I have a lot of thoughts and quotes from last year’s class that I couldn’t squeeze into the talk. So I have put them <a href="http://www.stanford-gibson.blogspot.com/2012/05/life-after-college-deleted-scenes.html" target="_blank">online</a>.<br />
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You see, there are two big transitions in our culture where the church is just getting killed. The first and toughest, you have made it through. The transition from high school to college is strewn with carnage of faith. It is like the banks of Normandy…many just don’t make it...they walk away from Jesus for good. This is why Amanda and I do what we do. That’s why we have joined the effort on this front.<br />
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But the second big transition is more subtle. It is the transition from college to church. And here the losses are not to unbelief…but to ineffectiveness. Fewer people take themselves out of the faith, but many take themselves out of the game. So there are three big ideas I’d like to offer you about how to Navigate the New Normal. First…<br />
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<strong><u><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">I. Learn to Work with God</span></u></strong><br />
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Many (maybe most) of my friends who were serious about their faith in college went into full time (usually support raising) ministry. There was a perception that only second class, materialistic Christians get ‘secular’ jobs. And while that is great, I soon realized that I had not been given any theological resources for how to do anything else without feeling like a spiritual failure. I had no theology of work.<br />
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Usually, if you hear work talked about in church it is an exhortation to not work too much. I have heard the value of work generally pitched in three ways in Christian circles (in order of increasing compellingness):<br />
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<u>1. People Like to Eat</u>: The verse you hear get kicked around is the one where Paul says: ‘Anyone who doesn’t provide for his family is worse than an unbeliever’ – So man up and go to work. It is an unfortunate consequence of the fall so push thorough it. It sucks, but the world is fallen and you need to keep your family in Top Ramen.<br />
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<u>2. Pastors Like to Eat</u>: You see, by working hard, you produce excess resources that you can use to fund full time ministers who can devote their energies full time to the work of the gospel (the real work). You have the responsibility and privilege to become silent partners in their ministry by getting out of bed and going to the cube farm year after year. <br />
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<u>3. You are a Missionary</u>: Full time Christian workers lose most of their connections outside of the Christian community pretty quickly. They have the training but no access. This is actually the primary frustration of most of my friends who are in full time ministry…they got into it to introduce people to Jesus, but their circle shifts so that they know very few people who don’t already know him. By getting a secular job you are a ‘secret agent,’ you ‘infiltrate’ the secular world, you have the access. Your work is a platform for ministry. By working with integrity and looking for opportunities for the gospel to take root, work provides you with spiritual opportunities.<br />
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Now, there is an element of truth to each of these, but they are all fundamentally flawed. Even together, they paint a fundamentally impoverished picture. That honestly sounds like a pretty terrible way to spend your life. These motivations are not going to do it. Just a couple weeks ago, I had a student ask me ‘how do you do it? How do you go to work?” You are going to have to find meaning in those 50 to 60 hours per week or it is going to diminish you. You need a theology of work.<br />
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Remember, Adam and Eve they had jobs in paradise and I believe we will have jobs after the resurrection. Our culture has adopted the Roman and Greek view of work: Leisure is good and work is bad. But the Hebrew, view of work could not be more different.<br />
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As I said earlier this year: Work is a pre-fall ordinance. It was part of God’s good creation BEFORE the fall. Work is normative…full time ministry is the exception. We were made to work. We were made to join God in bringing order out of chaos. To join God in his initiative of making things and caring for the people and earth he made. God made work, the fall made it hard. But good, useful, diligent work is part of God’s intent for human flourishing. So you have to learn to make your work into worship. What is it about aerospace engineering that brings order out of chaos? What is it about occupational therapy that rolls back the effects of the fall? What is it about working in a coffee shop while you look for something in your field that declares the coming kingdom?<br />
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You have to learn to work with God.<br />
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<strong><u><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">II. Become the Church</span></u></strong><br />
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You’ve got to get in a church. The local church is the basic functional unit of Christian life and practice is the ‘missional community.’ Whether or not you flourish in this transition really depends on how soon and well you integrate into a missional community. As I mentioned, last year’s seniors had lots to say about this transition, and I am going to quote them throughout this talk, starting with Monica, who said:<br />
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<span style="color: blue;">“Find a church and get involved ASAP.” </span><br />
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Christianity simply cannot be done alone. It wasn’t deigned to be done alone. But getting in on the community and the mission is harder in the next phase. It is harder for a couple reasons. First, because there are a lot of weird churches out there:<br />
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Joey and Laura ‘Welcome the Birds’ video<br />
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You have to find a church that is serious about the Scriptures and the big ideas that have been important to the Church always and everywhere. And you have to find a church that translates these into action. Finding a church that believes true things, (that majors on the majors) and puts them into action is non-negotiable. But too many wander for too long looking for a sort of ‘College Life for grown ups…” Here’s what Natalia said about this process:<br />
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<span style="color: blue;">“It took me soooo long to find a church because I was being (obnoxiously?) picky. Don't get me wrong, I think it's important to find a church where you're being challenged, however, I had a bad habit of writing off most churches I went to because it was "too this" or "too that"... and then realized that the church is made up of imperfect human beings and I was looking for perfection.”</span><br />
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But once you find a good church, your job is not done. The harder part is to become part of that church. And that is surprisingly difficult. You see most local churches are pitched to the leading/giving generation…the forty and fifty something crowd. Here is the sad truth. Churches are run by middle age people with money to give, children to care for and limited energy for innovation. A 22 year old does not fit their paradigm…shoot, a 28 year old hardly fits that paradigm. So most churches are ignoring our most energetic and creative people leaving them on the sidelines until they make some money and make some babies and fit the paradigm. <br />
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The question is, do you have the discipleship level to make community and mission happen anyway? You have got to find a way to get in on 1) Community and 2) Mission. And so let me take those in turn.<br />
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<u><span style="font-size: large;">1) Community</span></u>: Finding and maintaining community will take more intentional effort on your part outside of the college environment. This frustrates a lot of people. But the #1 piece of advice from last year’s seniors was that you have GOT to make community happen…because dominant theme that emerged when people talked about their struggles transitioning to life after college was loneliness.<br />
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<span style="color: blue;">“…feeling lonely and wishing you were still in college…”</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">“… season of loneliness …”</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">“…extended loneliness…”</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">“…it seemed like I was wandering into the future alone, defenseless…”</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">“…I began to feel lonely “</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">“...In the loneliness…Sometimes if feels like you've fallen off the face of the earth…”</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;">“…every single person in our class (yes, even the ones who are engaged and married!) has talked of feeling lonely post-college. I mean, even if you stay, everyone else leaves…I don’t think I have ever been as lonely or felt as much like a failure as I did in the 6 months immediately following senior year. ”</span><br />
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And this was my experience, and the experience of my friends when we graduated almost 15 years ago. Now, most of those quotes were followed with thoughts about how loneness was an opportunity of a new kind of spiritual growth…and it is, I also experienced that, but that is a special temporary sort of grace…God’s normative environment for our flourishing is community…<br />
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Now, this is kind of a downer. Why would I tell you this? 2 Reasons<br />
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1) It helps to know you are not weird when it happens…and…<br />
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2) To press upon you that you have GOT to make community happen<br />
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Listen, one of the reasons I am a Christian, is because Jesus seems to get me. He seems to understand what human beings need in a deep and insightful way. And one of those things is other people.<br />
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New York Times columnist David Brooks was surveying some recent psychological research in a column a few months ago and marshaled an impressive amount of evidence that significant relationships with ‘other people’ (of the non-digital variety) is the most important factor in human flourishing.<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;">“According to one study, (he says) joining a group that meets even just once a month produces the same happiness gain as doubling your income.” – David Brooks – New York Times</span><br />
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But here is the thing, until now, there has been a generational ministry set aside for you in the church…a structural mechanism in the church for grouping the other people like you together for natural community. Community was there, you just had to find it. That ends now. In college, we have urged you again and again…”Find Community.” <strong>But in the next life stage, community isn’t found. It’s forged.</strong><br />
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Now as it turns out, I never had to learn to be very good at that…because I married someone who was amazing at it. We lived in 3 cities (slide - map) in the first 5 years after college…and we developed close friends in each place (not as close or ubiquitous as our college friends, but close enough for us to smile nostalgically every time we think of them – slide - pics). How did she do it…she was constantly inviting. Constantly taking risks of rejection. Constantly asking people to do stuff together. And here is the crazy thing. My wife is an introvert. She loves being alone. But she knows she needs people even if she doesn’t feel like being with people. <br />
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So she was constantly cooking meals, inviting friends to concerts, running around after church and inviting all of the people anywhere close to our life stage to lunch EVERY SUNDAY, creating every opportunity she could manufacture for connection. Because after college, community isn’t found, it’s forged. <br />
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But here’s the other thing about friendship. The very deepest friendships that we have had since college have not simply emerged from our desire to have friends…they have developed from sharing a common passionate purpose. Community emerges from mission. Which leads me to the second part of getting into the Church which is harder after college than it was in college:<br />
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<u><span style="font-size: large;">2) Mission</span></u>: You will probably have to start ‘at the bottom’ in ministry. When I was in undergrad I was the student leader of our campus ministry (that was roughly half the size of College Life). Junior year our campus pastor had a brain aneurism and the para-church staff worker was pulled from campus because he couldn’t raise enough support. When I came on as the student leader my Junior year, we suddenly went from 2 adult leaders, to zero. So for a year and a half I essentially ran a Christian ministry of over 100 students. But Amanda had the really distinguished college ministry. Amanda led small groups every single semester after her freshman year, most of them for spiritually curious students with no spiritual background and she walked with nearly a dozen people as they found faith in Jesus during her time in college. Then we graduated, got married, joined the church and looked for a ministry. We went to the leaders and asked them to put us to work. They looked at us, their eyes lit up, and they said, “You know what we really need, we need bodies to staff the nursery for the early service. We can’t seem find people willing to get up that early.”<br />
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This is not uncommon. Because of the insane pace and turnover in campus ministry, it provides students great opportunities to do REALLY significant ministry and many of you have developed fantastic ministry skill sets. Some of you have led small groups, developed kingdom projects, imagined exciting new initiatives, some of you have preached, others have led worship or…I mean, Tony, Alex, Deiter, Lenna and Kiki have made these events happen every week (and these events that are bigger and take more planning than 80% of American church services). But these skills and gifts are generally not recognized quickly by the local Church. They often look at you and see your age. So Amanda and I had a choice. We could do what needed to be done, or we could take our ball and go home. <br />
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So we staffed the nursery, and before long we ran the nursery, and after a couple years we were asked to lead a small group, and after a couple of years we were asked to run a ghetto youth ministry, and a full decade and a theology degree later we were asked to serve on an elder board and I started teaching sporadically in different ministries…and finally, a dozen years after college, Dan Seitz took a risk on us, and finally here we are in a great ministry, doing the kind of thing I pictured us doing right out of college. But it started with earning trust by playing blocks with Evan, a 3 year old who used to come to church so sleepy, dazed and confused, he was still holding his cold buttered toast…and would just stand there holding that toast watching me build block towers until he finally pulled it together enough to actually take a bite of the toast like 20 minutes later. But some of my college friends were offended by ‘starting over’ in ministry…and they never started. Most of them were taken out of the game.<br />
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The local church requires patience and humility…but I really believe that with all its flaws, it is God’s primary vehicle for his kingdom. So find a good local church (actually, forget that, it doesn’t exist, find a tolerable church and learn to love them), stay at it, and prove your value to them by doing whatever they need done as well as you can.<br />
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If you wait for the church to discover how productive, innovative and creative you can be…you will wait a long time. They will inadvertently waste your 20’s, unless you refuse to let them…so refuse to let them. <br />
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So you are going to have to forge a community AND a ministry (while lovingly submitting to, learning from and esteeming the leadership of that church). The sooner you stop seeing the old people in the church as your adversaries and start embracing them as mentors…the sooner they will embrace your contributions…Because you need the perspective and vision of the older generations But they need your energy and innovation. Win them to that understanding by your humility and eagerness. Finally…<br />
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<strong><u><span style="color: blue; font-size: large;">III. Build or Venture</span></u></strong><br />
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I remember one morning my senior year. I was walking to a final deeply sleep deprived (which, unfortunately, described most mornings of my undergraduate experience). And as I was trudging up the steep hill our little campus was built on I thought of all the people who told me to enjoy college because they would be the best days of my life. And I remember thinking “Shoot, I hope they are wrong.” And you know what, they were. Once we made it through those rough first couple of years transitioning to the church, ministry and marriage…our 20’s were better than our college years…and the ministry and family years of our 30’s have been better still.<br />
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I actually feel really bad for the people who told me that college would be the best days of my life. It means they got stuck. They failed to embrace and enjoy the blessings and challenges of each life stage for what they are…they just processed them through the lens of ‘less freedom’ ‘fewer friends’ ‘more hours in a cubicle’ ‘more poo on my shirt’ (which happens when you have kids, or before that if you are an agg major).<br />
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If college turns out to be the best days of your life…your life sucks. You need to get a life. But the transition between life stages whether it is HS-College, or College-after college or to suddenly becoming responsible for tiny human beings, it shakes you up and asks you what you’re really made of.<br />
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You don’t have to know where you are going to make ground. Who you become is a function of what you try. You won’t know where you are headed until you try a path.<br />
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<span style="color: blue;">“Be content with your season of life and maximize your time in it.”-Monica</span><br />
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And your post-college twenties are your chance to either set up future decades to be reliable foundational members of your community and church or to take on risky ventures that won’t be available later on. So don’t waste them. Whatever you choose to do, make sure you move forward. It doesn’t have to move you towards a particular goal, but this is either a time to build or it’s a time to venture. You either need to be building for the long term (save for a house even if you don’t have a girlfriend, get the hard degree you will need so you don’t have to go back when you have kids, build a career you love, get the theological development and skills you need for lifetime of fruitful lay ministry), or it’s a time for venturing (get in on a church plant, join a mission initiative, start a business)…venture on a risky, exciting initiative that could fail, but it’s ok if it does, because no one is counting on you to eat. But do something. It is a time to build or to venture. Which of those you choose has a lot to do with your personality and your gifting. But floating is not an option.<br />
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I don’t do long quotes often, but Shauna Niequist, an author from Chicago, put this pretty well:<br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;">This is the thing: When you hit 28 or 30, everything begins to divide. You can see very clearly two kinds of people. On one side, people who have used their 20s to learn and grow, to find God and themselves and their dreams, people who know what works and what doesn’t, who have pushed through to become real live adults. Then there’s the other kind, who are hanging onto college…with all their might. They’ve stayed in jobs they hate, because they’re too scared to get another one. They’ve stayed with men or women who are good but not great, because they don’t want to be lonely. They mean to find a church, they mean to develop intimate friendships…But they don’t do those things, so they live in an extended adolescence, no closer to adulthood than when they graduated.</span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;"> </span><span style="color: #38761d;">Don’t be like that. Don’t get stuck. Move, travel, take a class, take a risk. There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is about becoming. Don’t lose yourself at happy hour, but don’t lose yourself on the corporate ladder either. Stop every once in a while…with your journal. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;">Ask yourself some good questions like: “Am I proud of the life I’m living? What have I tried this month? What have I learned about God this year?...Do the people I’m spending time with give me life, or make me feel small? Is there any brokenness in my life that’s keeping me from moving forward?”</span><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d;">Now is your time. Walk closely with people you love, and with people who believe God is good and life is a grand adventure. Don’t get stuck in the past, and don’t try to fast-forward yourself into a future you haven’t yet earned.</span><br />
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This is in line with what Gail, one of last year’s seniors said was the most helpful thing for her in the transition. She said that loosing the 10 week evaluation cycle left her drifting, overwhelmed by the new time scale of her ventures. She said that disciplining herself to set and revisit a series of short and long term goals that was really significant to help her get a handle on the life stage. So, you want to Navigate the New Normal of life after college? 1)Learn to work with God, 2) Become the church and 3) Build or Venture…<br />
…and that is fine for seniors. But what about the rest of you? Well, we probably won’t give this talk again next year…so you should probably consider this your exit seminar. But there are a couple ways that these ideas can inform your college years.<br />
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<span style="color: #351c75; font-size: large;"><strong><u>Thoughts for Underclassmen</u></strong></span><br />
<u>1. Hit the Summer hard. </u><br />
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Its good training. Get in a church, work hard, keep up the disciplines, set aside the video game console and find something useful to do whether or not you get paid, make intentional contact with CL friends in your area and practice making new friends outside of the campus environment.<br />
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<u>2. Get Momentum into the transition. </u><br />
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Several people told me that having that next thing already lined up when they graduated was the most helpful thing for them in the transition. So, Juniors, spend THIS summer deciding what grad schools or internships you want to apply to (even if you have NO IDEA what you want to do or if grad school is even for you). Set aside a couple hours a week to prayerfully surf these web sites. Take initiative in the process of deciding. And find a vocational mentor early on who can help you think about it (btw Natalia, Michelle was just telling me how you are doing this for her). The deadline for many grad schools and missions opportunities is January 1 and it comes and goes before many seniors even notice. How might you want to build or venture...you need to think about this early if you are going to get momentum into the transition. Don’t give up on the year after undergrad until it is upon you because it seems overwhelming. Put intentional thought and energy into what you want to do...and then send out a variety of applications that will help you build or venture. <br />
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Because you will NEVER have more energy or capacity than you do right now. Seriously, I fall asleep most nights at 9:30 whether I want to or not...it is currently past my bed time...I am on the verge of falling asleep right now mid sentence...and I'm not even THAT old. Now is the time to do the ‘hard thing’ whether it is grad school, or peace corps, or missions, or to taking a REAL, sustained shot at an artistic dream, or to do a ministry internship in Wisconsin with Adam Darbonne (which is a possibility – if you’re interested come talk to me). Years in your early 20’s – before you have kids - are incredibly precious in retrospect. You WILL wish you did more with them. Get purposeful momentum into the transition. <br />
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Finally, undergrads…<br />
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<u>3. Leave it on the Field at College. </u><br />
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I think the best predictor of how this transition will go for you is how you handle your senior year. If your senior year is largely spent looking ahead, you may be the kind of person who does a lot of ‘looking back’ once you are out of here. <br />
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I want to close with a quote from one of the funniest people I know…Bronwyn Murphy. I am convinced that the Murphy’s could be a sit com…I’d watch that. They are hilarious. And there would probably be so much sports talk in that sit com, that it could probably air on ESPN. But it would also be the one of the most insightful things on television. So Bronwyn weighed in on this transition for me, and it got real…listen to what she said.<br />
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<span style="color: blue;">One of the biggest tragedies I have witnessed is graduating seniors refusing to finish strong (classes, ministry, relationships) in the present because they are so focused on the future. Once they graduate, they become inefficient and frankly joy-less in the present as they long for what was in the past (roommates, fellowship, relationships, DC late night)…Both miss entirely the blessings of God in the present. </span><br />
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But if you embrace your senior year for all of its complexity and melancholy and ‘leave it on the field’ in your classes and ministry, then you are probably the kind of person who will find God’s best in a new, totally different situation. If you practice thankfulness, if you wage contentment…you will build the spiritual muscles that will help you through this transition…and the ones coming…the joys and boredoms of parenthood…the estrangement and grace of a difficult season of marriage…the terrors and beauty of adult children…the horror and adjustment of a serious illness…the melancholy and faithfulness of getting old. <br />
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It starts now…with embracing THIS season…like a grown up…balancing vocation, community, family and ministry when you come back in the Fall. I’ll see you then.<br />
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Note: I have accumulated footnotes and deleted sceens from this talk in a seperate <a href="http://www.stanford-gibson.blogspot.com/2012/05/life-after-college-deleted-scenes.html" target="_blank">post</a>stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-17257387084155422392012-05-08T23:43:00.000-07:002012-05-14T12:02:36.873-07:00Brother from Another Mother: Judah, Joseph and the Story of Self DonationNote: This talk covered 12 chapters of Genesis, so it is mostly story telling with a little preaching at the end. To make the story telling a little easier to take, I co-taught this with two students (Landon Ellis and Peter Nittler) who wrote and performed monologues, videos and dialogs as Joseph and Judah. So this talk has a non-traditional format. It takes the form of a play in 4 acts, and I jump in between them for comment. <br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/11/22/2659930/Brother%20from%20Another%20Mother%20%28Judah%20and%20Joseph%29.mp3" target="_blank">MP3</a> </span>(right click - save as)<br />
There are some questions have obvious answers… <br />
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But there are other questions that have obvious answers…that are wrong. <br />
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For example, who did the US hockey team defeat in the gold medal game in 1980? <br />
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<br />
Well this event is famous for ‘the miracle on ice’ where the US beat a superior Soviet team at the peak of the cold war…It is a question with an obvious answer…but it is an obvious answer that is wrong. The famous game against the soviets was a semi-final game. I had to go on Wikipedia to find out that they beat Finland 4-2 in the gold medal game.<br />
<br />
Or what about….Who won the Oscar for best film in 1998?<br />
<br />
Well the most memorable film moment of 1998 was Spielberg and Hanks collaborating for that epic D-day scene and one of the finest films in years…Saving Private Ryan. It’s the obvious answer…but it’s an obvious answer that is wrong. In one of the most inexplicable moments in Academy history, they honored a totally forgettable film that year called “Shakespeare in Love?”<br />
<br />
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<br />
So, let’s do one more:<br />
<br />
“Who are the 4 Patriarchs in Genesis?”<br />
<br />
Well after we’ve spent the whole year studying Genesis, that is a question with an obvious answer. We have spent most of this year talking about 4 dudes: <strong><span style="font-size: large;">Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph.</span></strong><br />
<br />
It is a question with an obvious answer…an obvious answer that is wrong. You see, Joseph gets most of the 4th generation press. We’ve been talking about him for several weeks. More pages of your bible are dedicated to his story than Abraham, Isaac or Jacob.<br />
<br />
And as we have seen for the last couple weeks, he was an impressive guy – you could even argue that he is the most impressive of the four. But the rest of the story does not go through him. The Genesis story of God’s plan of human rescue and redemption goes through one of Jacob’s other sons…It goes through Judah. <br />
<br />
So tonight I want to ask a very basic question. Why Judah? <br />
<br />
After his birth, (which Alyssa already told us was kind of special) Judah is only mentioned 4 times in the Genesis narrative…but he is mentioned nearly 800 times in the rest of the Bible.<br />
<br />
When the prophets talk about the divided kingdom years later they use a short hand referring to the northern kingdom as Israel, Joseph or Ephraim (Joseph’s son) and to the southern kingdom, the one that persists, the one that produces Messiah as Judah. <br />
<br />
But that seems a little like saying Wow, Steven Baldwin is my favorite actor, or Cooper Manning is my favorite quarterback. In both cases there is a brother (or two) that seem like more obvious choices.<br />
<br />
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<br />
So what we are going to do with most of our time tonight is just tell Judah and Joseph’s intertwined stories. It unfolds in the latter chapters of Genesis as a play in 4 acts. <br />
<br />
But to do this, I want you to imagine the story with me. Sometimes I think people find the scriptures dull because they read them dully. They do not read with their imaginations. Sometimes I feel like we find the scriptures dull because we’re dull these ancient texts burst at the seems with story….but you have to be willing to read slowly enough. <br />
<br />
Sometimes, in ancient literature, a single adjective carries a lifetime of hurt or joy and decades pass in the space of a period…and the text often just reports the facts leaving it to you to reconstruct the emotion, tension and drama. So tonight, I’ve asked a couple of friends to help us imagine thee intertwining stories of Joseph and Judah that unfolds in 4 acts… <br />
<br />
…and it starts with Act 1 where Judah and his brothers selling Joseph to slave traders and pretending he was dead. Most of the brothers just wanted to leave Joseph to die, but it was Judah that had the idea to sell him into slavery. <br />
<br />
<strong><u><span style="font-size: large;">Act 1: A Crass Calculation</span></u></strong><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">JUDAH (Played by Peter Nittler)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">No! No! Is that? Is that Joseph?! Oh COME on, this was supposed to be a Josephless outing. And why is he running like that? (waves) ya we see you, ya we hate you, and your coat doesn’t help.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">He’s probably coming to tell us his latest HILARIOUS dream… that sometime in the future, someone will make a musical about his life, and his amazing technicolor dreamcoat. </span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">Something tells me I’m not the only one who would rather greet Joseph with a holy fist than with open arms. Who can blame us though, I mean the shear ARROGANCE of this punk makes me want to vomit on his coat just to say, “I thought it could use more color”… </span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">And to make it worse, our father LOVES Joseph…I’m serious. It’s inconceivable. </span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">I’m not sold on this whole “let’s kill the dreamer thing” cuz like… Murder’s… like… kind of a big deal… but I wouldn’t mind seeing him gone… so here are some pros and cons</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">Pro’s… well, no more Joseph, no more OBNOXIOUS coat, I could live the rest of my life in the sheer euphoria knowing that none of his “dreams” came true. </span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">Con’s… if there need be any… murder’s bad I guess, APPARENTLY he is family, I guess there’s potential for guilt at some point in my life, and it will cripple my father but most importantly, his murder gives us nothing in return, yes there will be no more Joseph, but there will also be no extra fortune in it for me if he dies…</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">I say we sell him. He can live the rest of his life in captivity bowing down to all while no one bows to him, while I can live the rest of my life in utter freedom and bliss with Joseph only as a memory I can surely suppress!</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">Speak of the serpent, are those Midianite traders?! Guys wait up, do I have the man for YOU?! What’ll you give me for a potentially crazy youngster with rockin abs and a fierce imagination… 20 shekels… SOLD.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">JOSEPH (played by Landon Ellis)</span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Oh, those brothers of mine. It’s just like them to pull this kind of stuff. They think they’re so hilarious trying to rile me up like this. Pretending to throw me in a pit and leave me there to die, then getting my hopes up by pulling me out of the pit, only to have a VERY convincing acting troupe stage a fake transaction where I’m sold into slavery! I mean, imagine if they weren’t pretending, imagine what kind of trouble I’d be in…</span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">You really gotta hand it to ‘em though. It must’ve been a huge project. And THAT’S probably why they left me at home when they went out to “tend the flocks”…they had to finish scheming their big plan!</span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">You know, I actually thought they might’ve been mad at me. I know, I know, it sounds ridiculous; who could be mad at the youngster in the cute colorful coat? But seriously, they’ve all been acting a little weird ever since I had my dreams.</span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Ah, but they don’t know that I know what they’re up to. So the jokee becomes the jokER! I’ll show them; I’m going to remain calm, cool, and collected.</span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">This is taking a while though. They’re gonna kick themselves when we have to walk back in the dark. If they were smart they would’ve gotten me back before bedtime.</span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">I wonder…noooo…you don’t think…they might’ve actually…SOLD me? They didn’t ACTUALLY want to get rid of me…they weren’t ACTUALLY going to KILL me, were they? I mean, Dad might’ve showed me a little favoritism here and there, but…I’m the obvious choice! I…if this is real…oh crap.</span><br />
<br />
Which brings us to Act 2. If you’ve been coming to these talks, Act 1 is familiar… but Act 2 is a little less talked about…you see Act 2 includes the sex scenes Genesis 38 and 39. You all heard Adam’s talk about Joseph’s sexual purity in Genesis 39. But what you may not know is that Genesis 38 is a strange story about Judah’s sexual brokenness. Genesis 38 never made much sense to me. It occurs in the middle of the Joseph story…and does not really move his story forward. But I’m convinced that its narrative purpose was to set Joseph’s sexual purity against Judah’s sexual brokenness and to show us the turning point for Judah. The author is keeping us up to date with Judah…and is brutally honest about his failures. This is where Judah hits bottom. <br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;"><u>Act 2: A Sexual Contrast</u> </span></strong>(video)<br />
<br />
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<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Judah </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Ok doc let me catch you up… So if we’re keeping score I fathered 3 lads within 5 verses.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">My first born got SMITED by God for wickedness… can you believe that? SMITED, I sold my own brother into slavery, what in the world could this have done that was THAT much worse than that.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">And so now I gotta deal with his poor widow, Tamar…anyway, so I try to the noble thing and tell my second son, Onan… you know… do your brotherly deed if you know what I mean, become acquainted with your brother’s wife.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">But Onan, poor poor Onan. I loved that boy. But that’s exactly what he was, a boy trapped in a man’s body (not like in a costume, just immature)... He pretty much just used her for sex. Well I don’t think that pleased God too much cuzzzz he got smited too… </span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">So back to our score keeping, we’re down to one… and that number is rapidly approaching zero… And I didn’t want Tamar to have to deal with yet ANOTHER dead son of mine so I told her to wait until Shelah had grown up before they became… one…</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">Now… umm… doc, remember I was lonely, I had just lost two sons and I’m still reeling from the loss of Shua. Ah doc, she was a beauty...a little outta my league, you know how that goes… Anyway, I was heartbroken and looking for some… companionship… </span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">So I’m out there looking for my friend for the evening and I see this gorgeous young lady who’s hair looked like a dark waterfall and who’s eyes looked at me like they already knew me…</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">Problem is doc, she did know me… she knew me well… she knew me well enough to get exactly what she needed from me and then disappear in the morning.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">You see, my friend that night wasn’t REALLY a prostitute, she was ummm...The one I THOUGHT was a prostitute and who I (cough) ...laid with…. Was actually... Tamar, my firstborn’s wife.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">Mmhmm… swallow that one for a second. I guess she was mad I didn’t give her Shelah… Heck of a way to get back at me, huh? And then I forced her to go public and realized …she really is “more righteous than I” </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Doesn’t stop there Doc oh no no no no no (shaking head)… She got knocked up. YUP, gotta add two more youngsters to the list… Perez and Zerah… tainted children forever… the sons of my sin and the sons of my shame</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">The final score? Three.. a tragic tragic three.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">JOSEPH (video)</span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">What am I in for? What am I in for??</span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">I’m in for being “handsome in form and appearance”. THAT’s what I’m in for. What, what…doesn’t make sense you say? Ah, yes, well let me explain.</span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">This dingleberry I was working for, Potipher—he’s got this real treat for a wife. Can you believe this? Whenever I see the woman she comes up to me and starts begging, “Joseph, Joseph, lie with me”.</span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Well, I am a man of principle, and one whom the Lord has blessed thank you very much, so I responded, “Potipher’s wife, you are very beautiful and I’m flattered, and, well, not surprised by your desires; however, your husband has kept nothing back from me in this house except you. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?”</span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Well, one day she got a little physical and she tried to grab me. Luckily, I’m elusive enough that she only got a hold of my garment…but I gotta say, first my rainbow coat gets stolen and now this! Maybe I just shouldn’t wear clothes and save everyone the effort of stealing them! But I digress.</span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Anyway, once she got a hold of that, she lied to her husband and said I tried to sleep with her! And what’s worse, he believed her. After years of my faithful service…</span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">And so that’s it, that’s why I’m here with you in prison. No due process, no lawyer. The only real criminal is HER, for stealing my clothes. </span><br />
<br />
And that’s Act 2. Genesis 38 not only makes the story of Potipher’s wife look tame it makes the plots of most soap operas look tame. Judah has sex with a prostitute, only it isn’t a prostitute…it’s his dead sons’ wife (and yes, sons’ plural). And she gets pregnant with twins. And Judah is about to have her burned alive, when she reveals that he’s the daddy. But then we get, what I believe, is Judah’s turning point. He comes to a point of realization and repentance…the text is pretty clear that after Onan died he never really intended to take care of Tamar…But in that moment, he stops blaming Tamar or God saying “she is more righteous than I.” Act 2 ends with Judah repenting of sin and providing for his daughter in law. Which brings us to Act 3. <br />
<br />
Years later, Joseph ends up reunited and reconciled to his brothers who sold him but they still have a dark history between them and they’ve been separated for decades, so they are practically strangers. The text gives us a climactic reconciliation scene. But real reconciliation is a long difficult process. Forgiveness takes a moment reconciliation is hard work that takes time. <br />
<br />
I imagine that Joseph must have eventually had some intense times with the brothers…including Judah. Imagine what it would have been like for Joseph and Judah to sit down after decades of separation and both of them still carrying the memories of the dark events that separated them. Maybe, let’s say, at Benjamin’s wedding. <br />
<br />
Eventually Benjamin would have gotten married and Joseph would have thrown him an elaborate Egyptian wedding. You see, old people experiences weddings differently than young people…get reflective and sometimes melancholy, especially if there is an open bar…and they think about the big events that have set the trajectory of our lives…So let’s set Act 3 at Benjamin’s wedding after the brothers have been reunited.<br />
<br />
<strong><u><span style="font-size: large;">Act 3: A Complicated Reunion</span></u></strong><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Judah: Is anyone sitting here? (gestures at an empty seat)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Joseph: Looks like you are!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Judah: So Joseph, an Egyptian wife eh? And your boys are almost the same age as Perez and Zerah. Boy, they grow up fast, don’t they?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Joseph: They sure do. Your boy’s mom was a Canaanite from what I hear!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Judah: That’s right, you’re not the only one in the family into exotic women. I wish you could have met Shua…Man, I miss her. Anyway, its great you threw this big wedding for Benjamin…but your boys are the only ones who have any idea what to do at an Egyptian wedding.</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Joseph: Well, I was 17 when I ‘left home’ (air quotes) – I’ve had some time to acclimate. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Judah: Yeah, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. Um…I’m sorry I sold you to slave traders. (dead pan)</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Joseph: Yeah, that sucked.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Judah: You know, I REALLLLLLY hated you. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Joseph: Is that so? You know, I’m not sure you understand how apologies are supposed to work.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Judah: Remember that night at the Jabbok River? When we first came into the promise land? </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Joseph: Jabbok River? Uhh, I don’t think so.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Judah: You couldn’t have been older than 4 or 5. You might have even slept through it. But I was a teenager. I knew that Dad thought uncle Esau had brought an army to that river to slaughter us. And what does he do? He sends me, my mother and my brothers first to face our deaths. And he hides you and your mom – the loved wife and her precious son - behind us…hoping that Uncle Esau would be so distracted slaughtering us that you could sneak to freedom. You were too young to understand. But Rueben, Levi, Simeon and I…we knew what was going on… the thing is, we were ALREADY bitter about the way Dad favored PERFECT Joseph and Rachel. But that night... as we crossed that river... Terrified... our fear turned to hatred…we hated you. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Joseph: Judah, that was out of my control.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Judah: Yeah, but that didn’t matter. When we sold you into slavery, I didn’t even think twice…I thought with you gone, Dad would have more time and interest for us.. The unloved sons. But Reuben slept with his concubine and Levi and Simeon slaughtered a village and, really, Benjamin became the center of Dad’s world. Same old same old. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">But then, decades passed. And then I lost sons. And the nights began to get long. And I had time to think… how horrible we were… how horrible I was. And I began to imagine where you were and what became of you…and it haunted me. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Joseph: Judah…What you meant for evil, God meant for good. I’ve already forgiven you. We’re cool. (awkward silence) …Hey I think it’s time for the Egyptian chicken dance. </span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">Judah: Oh, yeah, totally, chicken dance, for sure!</span><br />
<br />
(Landon and Peter do a couple steps of the chicken dance which transitions to ‘walk like an Egyptian’)<br />
<br />
<strong><u><span style="color: #999999; font-size: large;">Act 3 intermission</span></u></strong><br />
<br />
But to really understand how complicated the brother’s reconciliation would have been, we have to talk about the story of their reunion. You see decades after Joseph is sold, a famine hit the entire region, and Jacob sent the brothers down to buy grain from the only place that had it…Egypt. Where Joseph was in charge. And he recognized them, but they didn’t recognize him. And the stuff Joseph does is really weird. <br />
He accuses them of being spies, jailed them for three days, eavesdropped on their conversations by pretending not to know their language, he took Simeon, one of Leah’s sons hostage and had him tied up in front of the brothers and told them if they ever wanted to see him again they had have to come back with Benjamin (the youngest of the brothers and Joseph’s only full brother who his mom, Rachel, died delivering – and who their father loved too much to send on the dangerous journey to Egypt). But then he sent them home with food and their money which totally messes with their heads. When they ran out of food they went back with Benjamin and Joseph welcomed them but then he framed Benjamin for stealing palace treasure, pretends to have figured it out by magic and takes Benjamin as a slave.<br />
<br />
Bottom line of this story, Joseph used his power to toy with them. A lot of people will try to justify Joseph’s behavior here. One theory is that he is trying to lead his brothers into repentance. But I don’t think that is what’s going on here. Joseph might be the most admirable of the patriarchs, and as we’ve seen over the last few weeks has heroic moments…but he is not a hero. One of the themes of Genesis we have hit again and again this year is that the Bible only has room for one hero, Jesus. The people in his story are a total mess. Joseph has some great moments, but this isn’t one of them. When he messes with his brother he is being a jerk.<br />
<br />
You see Mirolslov Volf who is a Christian theologian from Serbia, and witnessed some of the genocide there, says that the greatest violence that an oppressor does to the oppressed is to fill their hearts with hate. So that when the oppressed get power, they become oppressors… he says <br />
<br />
<span style="color: #741b47;">“One of the most insidious aspects of the practice of evil (is that) In addition to inflicting harm, the practice of evil keeps re-creating a world without innocence. Evil generates new evil as evildoers fashion victims in their own ugly image.”</span><br />
<br />
That is what I think is going on here. Joseph brother’s betrayal has festered in him for years …And so he just messes with them. And he does a lot of crying …he literally leaves the room crying 4 times in the passage. Dude is a mess. Until Judah steps up and puts an unexpected end to it all.<br />
When the brothers face Joseph's charge against Benjamin, it is Judah who does the talking. He tells Joseph how fragile their father is and how losing Benjamin will kill him. And then says this:<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Genesis 44:33 Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my lord, and let the boy go back with his brothers. 34 For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that would find my father.”</span><br />
<br />
And Joseph immediately reveals himself and embraces his brothers. So, with that let’s get back to the wedding <br />
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Joseph: Well while we are repenting…I guess it is my turn.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Judah: Your turn? What do you mean?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Joseph: So you know when the famine hit, and dad sent you and the brothers down to get some grain?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Judah: Yeah, and we showed up asking you for food…except we had no idea it was you.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Joseph: Yeah, well, I recognized you from the moment you walked in. And I basically toyed with you.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Judah: Yeah, that sucked. I mean, you called us “spies”! “Spies?” was that the best you could come up with? Real creative.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Joseph: Well, maybe it wasn’t my most inspired work, but it all led to framing Benjamin, and forcing you to leave him behind as my slave.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Judah: I knew it! I knew it was you!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Joseph: What can I say? I hated you. Those long nights with the welts from the Midianite whips against the Sainai sand as I marched for months to my new life of slavery…unending days in an Egyptian prison eating garbage and living within 10 feet of my own excrement…years of loneliness…decades of homesickness…I had some time to think about what you guys did to me…and then you just show up, out of the blue, and need me…but have no idea it’s me. And so I messed with you.</span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: blue;">Judah: And we did whatever you asked…because we needed food.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Joseph: Until I forced you to leave Benjamin behind. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I was certain that Benjamin, my mom’s only other son, would be the new favorite. And knowing how you guys got rid of me—I figured that you’d just cut your losses with him. But not this time. At least not you, Judah.</span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">I couldn’t believe it. Leah’s son, the son of the unloved wife, offering himself in place of my brother…Rachel’s kid. Your love for Dad was bigger than your bitterness toward my mom. That changed everything, Judah. That act healed our family. Decades of mutual anger, hate and violence…undone with a selfless act. You were the very one who sold me into slavery because I was Rachel’s son, and yet you offered to sacrifice yourself to free my replacement.</span><br />
<br />
Which leads us to Act 4 and the scripture Rebecca read. You see, at the end of Genesis, as Jacob is dying, and he prophesies over Joseph’s sons. And he blesses Joseph’s younger son Ephraim. <br />
<br />
And then he turns to the rest of his sons. And he has very terse and biting words for some of them. Reuben, Levi and Simon each get blasted rather than blessed. But after Joseph’s sons he has the most to say to Judah. And I imagine what he had to say to Judah must have been confusing to everyone.<br />
<br />
So let’s go back to our characters for one last scene. For Act 4 imagine Joseph and Judah, who over the years became friends as well as brothers, passing their last days as a couple old coots on the banks of the Nile…and they try to make sense of this. <br />
<br />
(costume change – old dude cloths) - suspenders, socks/sandals<br />
<br />
<strong><u><span style="font-size: large;">Act 4: A Confusing Prophecy</span></u></strong><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Joseph: Dude, we got old!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Judah: Hmm? What’s that you say?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Joseph: (shakes his head) Do you ever wonder about Dad’s prophecy over us?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Judah: From time to time…BRUTALLY awkward event, all of us brothers in one room while pops either tore us to shreds or drowned us with affirmation... You were definitely Dad’s favorite right up until the end there, weren’t cha?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Joseph: Yeah, but your blessing was different. The more I think about it, the more I think you’re the one of us that’s really going to be great. You’re the one who’s going to matter. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Judah: Oh, stop it!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Joseph: Seriously! I mean: “Your brothers will praise you,” “Your father’s sons will bow down to you” – those were MY dreams…and then the kicker: “The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet.” I might’ve gotten some nice blessings from Dad, but your descendants will rule. Abraham’s story goes through you, Judah. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Judah: But that’s what makes no sense … Yahweh’s covenant going through the line of the brother-seller?!</span><br />
<span style="color: blue;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Joseph: Through you and the son you made with your sons’ widow who you thought was a hooker. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Judah: (winces) Yeah, weird right? I totally don’t get it.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Joseph: I didn’t either…for years. But now I have an idea. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;">Judah: Oh do you? Well, please…elaborate!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #38761d;">Joseph: I keep coming back to that day…that day you healed our family with your offer to sacrifice yourself. I wonder if that isn’t the kind of thing that our story is all about…if self donation isn’t precisely the kind of thing that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would make his story about.</span><br />
<br />
You see, the story goes through Judah. And not just Judah, but Tamar and Perez. Genesis 38, the tawdry sex scandal with Tamar, seems like a totally unnecessary passage, until they show up 44 words into the New Testament. As Matthew is laying out the genealogy of Jesus it reads:<br />
<br />
1 This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham: <br />
2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, <br />
Isaac the father of Jacob, <br />
Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, <br />
3 Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar, <br />
Perez the father of Hezron, <br />
<br />
And so this whole story leads up to a very simple question…Why? Why Judah? Why Tamar? Why did God send his story of redemption through them? Let me conclude with two thoughts about why this is precisely the kind of thing the God we have learned about throughout Genesis would do: <br />
<br />
<strong><span style="color: purple;">1) Because the story of Jesus is a story of God bringing beauty out of hopelessness and degradation. </span></strong>The story of Judah and Tamar is HORRIBLE. It is sad, and sick, and entirely without heroes. But it ends with repentance. And so it is exactly the kind of story that the God of the Bible would use to knit into his cosmic narrative of redemption. And if he can use that kind of story…if Judah and Tamar are not out of reach to live lives of purpose and worship…neither are you.<br />
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2) Second, <span style="color: purple;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri", "sans-serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><strong>Because Judah’s act of self donation is precisely what The Story is all about.</strong></span><span style="font-family: "Calibri", "sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span></span>Judah and Joseph do not know where their story is heading. They just know that Yahweh has chosen their family to somehow bring his grace and favor to the whole world. But we know how that story goes. We know that the climax of that story is that the cycle of evil and vengeance is undone by an act of God’s self donation. In Jesus, the God of Genesis steps up, in a confusing but fundamental way, to sacrifice himself on our behalf. And so, despite his checkered past, Judah’s act of self donation is what the story is all about. <br />
<br />
The story is about Jesus reconciling people to God and each other by sacrificing himself. <br />
<br />
And so that is how we can live as children of the covenant to. We look for ways to diffuse vengeance and speak grace by self donation. We follow Jesus just as Judah prefigured him in self giving love even for those who are mistreating us…and especially for those we have wronged.<br />
<br />
Note: This message started its life as a <a href="http://stanford-gibson.blogspot.com/2011/07/judah-joseph-and-role-of-self-donation.html" target="_blank">blog post</a>stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-58170254314904908392012-03-15T08:59:00.000-07:002012-07-10T14:12:14.808-07:00Genesis Fight Club: Jacob Wrestles with God (Part 2): Three Versions of YouThe <a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/11/22/2659930/Genesis%20Fight%20Club%202.mp3" target="_blank">MP3</a> of this talk is available <a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/11/22/2659930/Genesis%20Fight%20Club%202.mp3" target="_blank">here</a> (right click, save as)<br />
The <a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/11/22/2659930/Jacob%20Wrestles%201.mp3" target="_blank">MP3</a> and <a href="http://stanfordtranscripts.blogspot.com/2012/02/genesis-fight-club-jacob-wrestles-with.html" target="_blank">text</a> of Part 1 are also available. <br />
<br />
Fight Club Clip<br />
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“If you wake up at a different time, in a different place, could you wake up as a different person?”<br />
<br />
Now, those of you who were here a couple weeks ago know I love this film? But why? Why did this film resonate so deeply when it came out? And why does it still resonate with so many, particularly young men and women? Well, what is Fight Club actually about?<br />
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It’s a movie about being sick of being you. It is about a boring guy who gets pushed around and whose deepest passions are trivial…who desperately wants to live a different kind of life. It is a story about something we all experience…a deep sense of dissatisfaction with self. <br />
<br />
None of us are really who we want to be. And so in the next ten minutes or so I just wanted to revisit the pivotal verse the Jacob story which, as it turns out, poses precisely the same question: What do you do when you are dissatisfied with who you are? You see, Jacob really doesn’t care for being Jacob…he never really did…his story seeths with his dissatisfaction with who he was…and he tries two different ways of dealing with this dissatisfaction which align with two different approaches that are generally on offer in our culture...First he tried to:<br />
<br />
<strong><u><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: x-large;">1. Be someone else.</span></u></strong><br />
<br />
I mean, let’s be really honest for a minute…have you ever wished you were someone else?<br />
<br />
Well you are not alone. I have. I think we all [2] have.[3]<br />
<br />
This is the direction Edward Norton’s character takes this in Fight Club. At one point Brad Pitt’s character tells him…<br />
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And this is exactly how Jacob initially tries to deal with his dissatisfaction with who he was…<br />
<br />
You see Jacob spends most of his early life trying to be someone else. [4] Jacob’s spent most of his early life trying to be his more impressive older brother…trying to be Esau. We get three stories about their early life and each one is a story of Jacob trying to supplant Esau…trying to be someone else: <br />
<br />
i. Jacob’s struggle to be Esau start’s literally at birth. He comes out grabbing his brother’s heal. That is how he gets his name ‘the grasper’. Literally from his first breath he’s not going to be second without a fight. He wants Esau’s <strong><u><em>position</em></u></strong>. <br />
<br />
ii. In the second story, Jacob shows that his brother may be strong and masculine…but he’s not that bright. So Jacob uses his cleverness and his mad kitchen skills to make a play for Esau’s <strong><u><em>role</em></u></strong>. <br />
<br />
iii. Then, in the final youth story, Jacob actually puts on an Esau costume. He literally tries to become Esau so he can trick his blind dad into giving him Esau’s <strong><u><em>stuff</em></u></strong>…which leads to one of the strangest verses in the Bible: <br />
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Two things have always startled me about the Genesis narratives. 1) they are brutal honest with characters that ring true in their complexity and brokenness and 2) these stories resonate with our self understanding and the best insights of human psychology…in these ways, you could say they read like a Dostoevsky novel. Because the characters ring true and the psychology rings true, it is easy to see ourselves in these pages…we are Jacob…we are the struggler. We’ve all wanted to be someone else. And many of us have even tried to pull it off…but it never works…not really.<br />
<br />
And we all know that. In fact, it is a relatively ubiquitous insight. Our culture’s poets and story tellers are almost unanimous on the idea that trying to be someone else is a flawed solution to the problem of our dissatisfaction with ourselves. And so they offer the alternate solution<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #274e13; font-size: x-large;"><strong><u>2. Be yourself</u></strong></span><br />
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<span style="line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I found dozens of quotes that illustrate this but let’s just go with three that capture the phenomenon:</span></span><br />
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The ubiquity of this idea I think is captured in the fact that it comes to us in mediums as diverse as the wrings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Step it Up 2 (which I feel the need to clarify, I have not seen). [5] <br />
<br />
A couple weeks ago, I was exploring this idea I sent an e-mail to a bunch of friends asking them if they could think of cultural artifacts that revolve around this idea of ‘just be yourself’ and they put together a long and diverse list. The list included films from Cool Runnings, to Forest Gump, to Space Jam…it included lyrics from Pink and Audio Slave...<br />
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…it included children’s books and of course it included recent inspirational facebook posts. Which was just the tip of the iceberg. I did a image search on “Be yourself” and found page after page of crafted images that package this idea for viral inspiration.<br />
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Our cultural teachers and story tellers are unanimous on this one…well almost.<br />
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Trying to be someone else is a mistake. The key to a happy and meaningful life is, above all, to ‘be yourself.’ It is to embrace who you are more completely, more authentically and with more abandon.<br />
<br />
‘Be yourself’ may be the first commandment of our cultural cannon.<br />
<br />
And that is exactly what Jacob does next. After his episodes in trying to be Esau he moves to Haran and undertakes a 20 year experiment in being himself. And he learns something very important…something, I suspect if you’ve given it any thought, you’ve also learned. <br />
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<u><strong><span style="color: #990000; font-size: large;">‘Being yourself’ is waaay overrated.</span></strong></u><br />
<br />
Here’s the problem…our cultural obsession with ‘being yourself’ has, frankly, always confused me. I mean what does that even mean? A couple years ago Amanda and I stumbled on a high school drama called My So Called Life. It was a flawed series [6] and only ran for about a dozen episodes…but it had periodic flashes of substantial insight…but my favorite line of the whole thing was <br />
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Implicit in the idea that you should ‘be yourself’ is that the self is discovered rather than formed. <br />
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It makes the process of character formation a passive rather than an active process…you are at the mercy of the raw materials of ‘you’ placed there by capricious, random biological and cultural processes.<br />
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But you are a project not a puzzle. For the most part ‘you’ are something you become not something you find. Christianity uses the metaphor of ‘spiritual formation’ much more than ‘self discovery.’[7]<br />
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And that is really good news for most of us, because the person I see when I reflect on my decisions and behavior is not the person I want to be. I am petty, bitter, materialistic, selfish, apathetic, deceitful, lazy, self serving.[8] When someone tells me, ‘just be yourself’ – my response is ‘um, no thank you.’ So the cultural injunction to ‘be myself’ doesn’t make a lot of sense as a solution to the problem that Jacob faced, that Norton’s character in fight club faced and that most of us face…dissatisfaction with self. <br />
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You see, dissatisfaction with self is a healthy impulse. The alternative is narcissism. [9]<br />
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And Jacob found the same thing. After his attempts to be his brother ended and ended poorly, he moved to Haran for 20 years, where he decided to ‘just be Jacob’ – and you know what, ‘being Jacob,’ got him rich. [10] But his 20 year experiment in ‘being himself’ resulted in hurting not one, but 4 women, raising over a dozen deeply damaged children, and essentially leaving a wake of professional and relational destruction. It turns out, that Jacob wasn’t someone worth being. He spends 20 years ‘finding himself’ on a ranch in Haran, only to not like what he found.<br />
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You see, you are not a toaster. If you are going to become someone worth being, you can’t start with trying to be someone else…and you can’t start with something as shadowy and self serving as your whims and desires. <br />
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But if we can agree that being someone else is a horrible way to form your identity and that ‘being yourself’ is way overrated…where does that leave us? There has got to be a path that is better than just ‘discovering’ our disappointing selves. Is there a third option? Well, Genesis 32 suggests there is. You can:<br />
<br />
<strong><u><span style="color: #274e13; font-size: x-large;">3. Become God’s Version of You</span></u></strong><br />
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Instead of ‘wanting to be someone else’ or ‘just being yourself’…we can cooperate with God to become His version of us. <br />
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And so there is this little dialogue after the wrestling match that goes on all night. Jacob says something about as profound as my 4 year old would say…’I won’t let go until you give me something.’ But as I talked about 2 weeks ago something fundamentally changed during the fight. Jacob’s encounter with Jesus changed his character. [11]<br />
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And so God looked past the stuff that Jacob thought he needed…and went all the way back, to the thing he wanted most from the very beginning. Jacob wanted to be someone else. He wanted to be someone who mattered. So God asks him:<br />
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‘What’s your name?’ [12]<br />
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‘Jacob’ comes the reply. And that is more than just his name, for decades it has been his identity: “Grasper, deceiver, betrayer, manipulator…” The smartest guy in the room.<br />
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And then God says – no more. You are someone else now. You are my man for my purpose and my covenant. “Your name will no longer be Jacob…but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.”<br />
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Jacob is stunned. Suddenly he starts to realize that this encounter was much more than he thought. And there is a moment like in the batman films where he asks ‘Who are you?”<br />
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The wrestler doesn’t answer…but it is clear. Yahweh himself has given Jacob a glimpse of who he could be…something better than being his brother…and something better than continuing to be himself…he could become Israel…he could become God’s version of him. <br />
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The alternative to wanting to be someone else is not to ‘be yourself’…it is to become the you who God sees…to become God’s version of you. <br />
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But here is the thing. You can’t do that. And neither could Jacob. By the end of the chapter, Jacob is already back to his old tricks, pulling one over on Esau …there is a lot of Jacob still there and there will be through his entire story. <br />
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But do you know what Israel means? <br />
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Israel means ‘God strives for him.’ When Jacob surrendered to God, God took the lead in his process of becoming. <br />
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You see, this is the turning point of the story not because Jacob magically changes or because he has a new surge of willpower but because he has entered a relationship with a transforming God. This passage is a turning point in Jacob’s identity not because Jacob has changed, but because Jesus has taken his case. And that is what happens when you surrender to Jesus, when you trust him and make that surrender public through baptism…and when you walk with him in the gradual process of becoming his version of you. Jesus takes the lead in establishing your identity and guides you along the uneven but hopeful road of transformation…of becoming his version of you.<br />
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Tonight we are going to hear three ‘Jacob stories’ – stories not of wanting to be someone else…and stories that are not satisfied with self discovery…but stories of the uneven road to becoming who God the you God sees.<br />
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-3 student testimonies of transformation and becoming – recognizing how god sees them and trying to live in that reality<br />
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Other talk MP3s available <a href="http://stanfordmp3.blogspot.com/2010/09/stanfords-mp3s.html" target="_blank">Here</a><br />
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[1] I almost always write two talks and then cut one of them…this time Dan and I decided that I should just give them both.<br />
[2] There is a whole commandment that revolves around the assumption that it is a fundamental human impulse…more than one if you include theft as an attempt to assume someone else’s material identity.<br />
[3] AD: When I was a kid I desperately wanted to be an NFL QB, but I was 5’10 and 101 pounds- I just wasn’t an NFL QB Now I want to be Michale Westen- smoother, less flusterable, more of a rule breaker, etc.<br />
[4] I owe this insight to Rob Bell. <br />
[5] I had a much longer list, but went with these three because they represented the range of high brow, middle brow and low brow cultural voices.<br />
[6] It took itself a little too seriously…but, come on, this was the same era in which “Saved by the Bell” ran for like 18 seasons. <br />
[7] Stuff Adam Darbonne Says: There was a fight in college basketball a couple months ago (I think Cincinnati). In the press conference the guy who started fighting said something to the effect of “I’m really sorry. That wasn’t me- it’s not who I am” Whenever I hear something like that I always think, “Apparently that is you. It may not be who you want to be, but it does reveal something about you.”<br />
[8] People say all the time ‘well no one’s perfect’ – but that’s a smokescreen…no one’s close. What they are really saying is, “I grade myself on the curve and I hate other people, so I seem pretty good to me.”<br />
[9] And it is no coincidence that our culture who celebrates ‘be yourself’ as its canonical insight, is also characterized by narcissism.<br />
[10] …and it got him laid…a lot. –yeah, I wrote that…then I cut it. So at least there’s that.<br />
[11] Assault became clinging. And that was God’s plan Jacob. The grasper became the hugger.<br />
[12]AD: There’s a great scene in the movie Miracle that illustrates this perfectly. Early in the movie the coach asks all the players who they are and they say their name and school. Then this clip happens after a terrible game. It’s 8 minutes but it’s worth watching- you could use a piece of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9AajQn7b18&feature=related<br />
[13] Alternate ending: Now, the process of becoming Israel doesn’t happen instantaneously. Before the chapter is even over, Jacob is already doing something deceitful. There is still a lot of Jacob there, and there will be throughout his story. But he has been introduced to his true identity…who God sees that he can be. And it is the turning point in his story. <br />
The wrestling match leaves Jacob no longer wanting to be Esau…he doesn’t want someone else’s story…but he also doesn’t want to be satisfied with Jacob…his story of self making…he emerges from that wrestling match, broken, limping, but with a picture of how God sees him.<br />
This passage is a high noon showdown (whistling high noon music) – except it is in the middle of the night - between Jacob and God…Jacob doesn’t survive, but he gets what he always wanted…to be someone else, someone significant. You see it took him longer, but before he could be …he had to become like Abraham in at least one way…he had to become an alter builder…someone who’s best confidence is not in his or her own abilities, but in their alliance with God.<br />
God wants Jacob to give up on being Esau, and to recognize that Jacob is a d-bag not worth being…but that when God sees him, he sees Israel…he sees a better Jacob…a Jacob transformed by wrestling with God and finding love in the face of God…a Jacob that isn’t living for himself but who is part of a mission and a purpose.stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-9484955141106677572012-02-28T07:05:00.000-08:002012-02-29T07:41:41.471-08:00Genesis Fight Club: Jacob Wrestles with God (Part 1) -How To Lose a Fight…and WinMp3 (<a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/11/22/2659930/Jacob%20Wrestles%201.mp3" target="_blank">here</a>)<br />
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I often find it awkward that my favorite movie is a film that I can’t really recommend in this setting. [1] It is full of violence, mayhem, disturbing sex, and all manner of objectionable content. So, you need to know that I do not remotely recommend Fight Club…but it also happens to be my favorite movie. So I guess it makes sense that [2] as I was preparing a two part message on my favorite narrative in Genesis I kept thinking of this film…and so I eventually just went with it and titled the talks:<br />
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In two weeks we are going to re-visit this passage and that talk will get its own introductory clip from the movie, but tonight, in part 1 I want to look at what I think is the dominant theme in Genesis 32: <br />
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<span style="color: #274e13; font-size: large;"><strong>How to Lose a Fight…and Win.</strong></span><br />
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Fight Club Clip – Your Assignment: Start a Fight and Lose<br />
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I’m just going to go with the metaphor and organize tonight’s talk like it is a pay per view MMA fight.<br />
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I’m going to give you the pre-fight analysis…we are going to tell the back story of the fighters…then we will go to the octagon…we’ll watch the fight unfold…and then we do a little post fight analysis….and tune in for the awarding of the prize purse…so first:<br />
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<span style="color: #0c343d; font-size: large;"><u><strong>I. Pre-Fight Analysis: Introducing The Fighters</strong></u></span><br />
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So before we watch at the Fight, I feel like we have to introduce the fighters.<br />
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First, we have ‘the challenger’…actually, let’s do this Sports Center style and throw it to our ring side analysts for a bio <br />
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Frankly, I think Jacob is the most interesting human character in Genesis…which is probably why this is my favorite passage. </div>
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Jacob has been gone for 20 years. That’s longer than some of you have been alive. He never saw his mom again. She’s dead. But in chapter 32 it’s been 20 years and he wants to go home. [3]</div>
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This fight will be the climax of Jacob’s story. Up until tonight’s match Jacob has lived a life of oblique, passive aggressive conflict with everyone he encountered, his brother, his family, his wives, his uncle and mostly, his Father’s God…twenty years earlier, as he left the promise land, he had this crazy mystical vision as he left the land of a stairway from heaven…but there is absolutely no evidence in his story to date that he gives any allegiance to Yahweh. <br />
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The reason Jacob is my favorite patriarch is because he is easily the most disappointing patriarch. As Alyssa showed us so well last week, he has messy relationship with multiple women, he is pretty much a total failure as a father, and, we have no evidence that he has thought of God in the twenty years since he left home and saw the cosmic vision of the angels from heaven. Basically the story of those twenty years is a story of a man disappointing women, stealing from relatives, cheating employers, and dabbling in Mesopotamian goat sorcery. But now he is scared. He wants to come home…but his brother is waiting for him at the river. <br />
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You see Esau is the reason Jacob left in the first place. Jacob had cheated his brother and Esau had vowed to kill him. And you get the sense that this would not have been difficult for Esau. Now maybe the first description of Jacob’s twin brother doesn’t get this across:<br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><strong>25:25 “The first came out red, all his body like a hairy coat, so they called him Esau.</strong></span><br />
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Honestly, red and hairy, four letter name that begins with E…you get the picture that baby Esau looked something like this [4] <br />
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But Jacob is picturing something far more imposing. Listen to how the text describes the twins:<br />
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<strong><span style="color: blue;">25:27 “When the boys grew up, Esau was a skillful hunter, a man of the field, while Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in the tents. [5] Isaac loved Esau…but Rebekah loved Jacob.”</span></strong><br />
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In the original Hebrew this means…Jacob was a bookish mommas boy who liked to cook and stay inside and probably listened to a lot of Taylor Swift…and his brother was more of a monster truck and fire arms guy. You get the sense that if Esau wanted to kill Jacob, it would not be hard. And Jacob’s mama apparently felt that way because when she learned that Esau wanted to kill Jacob her advice to her boy was…<span style="color: blue;"><strong>”Run away”</strong></span> – Genesis 27:43 (Also Monte Python and the Holy Grail)<br />
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Jacob’s memory of Esau is big, strong, and proficient with weapons...[6] (Taylor)<br />
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The passage describes Jacob’s response as <strong><span style="color: blue;">‘great fear and distress.’ </span></strong>You see, you get the sense throughout the Jacob story, that his whole life he’s always been the cleverest guy in the room.[7] I mean in some ways, he’s Michael Weston, but with less noble motivations. Like Weston Jacob always had a plan and was always smarter than the other guy…and given the number of cows and goats he owned, he probably ate a lot of yogurt. [8] But there was one way he probably wasn’t like Weston…Jacob never really learned to fight. He was the schemer, his brother was the fighter. <br />
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And now, after all he had been through, Jacob was staring across the river at an army that he imagined had been assembled to disassemble him. So Jacob goes into scheming mode. He opens his cleverness bag and hatches a plan to minimize the damage. Commentators go nuts describing the tactics of Jacob’s plan. Everything he does is clever and calculating, the way he divides the party, the way he uses the river, his tactics were flawless…and fundamentally useless. Half way through his planning, he realizes, that his best efforts will not prevail against Esau and 400 of his best men (Sesame Street Monster pic…um I’m not sure that exactly the picture Jacob had in his head…maybe something more like this…that still might not be imposing enough….how about this). Jacob is understandably terrified…Which brings us to verse 9.<br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><strong>9: “Then Jacob prayed.”</strong></span><br />
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You see, up to this point, Jacob lived by cleverness and guile and probably felt like he’d done pretty well for himself. He got himself the woman he wanted…and three others. He had 12 sons. He built a flock through clever selective breeding and shadowy Mesopotamian agri-sorcery.[9] There is no doubt, Jacob had become ‘something’…but in this moment, by the river, it looked like all of that was for nothing. His cleverness and trickery had finally come back to find him…so Jacob does something that we have no record of him ever doing before…<br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><strong>9: “Then Jacob prayed.”</strong></span><br />
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The prayer starts out a little underwhelming… Jacob essentially says…hey God, listen, you were the one who told me I had to come back here…If this goes badly it’s on you…but then we see the first crack in Jacob’s self will and self reliance...and this is how prayer generally goes…it starts out critical of God, but in his Holy presence quickly turns to critical introspection…we often come to God angry about his shortcomings and leave aware of our…and so eventually the prayer gets to a more self aware, vulnerable space…<br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><strong>“I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan [10], and now I have become two camps…” </strong></span><br />
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And that’s one of the remarkable things about prayer, once you get to a space where you are being honest with God, you stop trying to deceive yourself…and you often get to the bottom of the matter…and for Jacob, the bottom of the matter is that he was scared. He goes on:<br />
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<strong><span style="color: blue;">“Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him…”</span></strong><br />
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This is a really intimate, honest, moment…but it’s brief. Jacob immediately goes back to planning. Only this time, the point of the planning isn’t escape…its damage control. He splits up his family (slide) and then[11] in a phenomenally cowardly act, he sends them ahead of him to face whatever revenge Esau has in mind. <br />
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But his plan does something else…it isolates Jacob and leaves us with one of those really poignant moments the Scriptures are full of if you take the time to linger over them…Jacob finds himself standing on the far bank of the river in the middle of the night, his family scattered so in a best case scenario, only half of them would be slaughtered. He is facing an army of 400 ready to inflict a 20 year vendetta on him. He stands on the far side of that river, still cowardly, still bitter, and totally alone. The passage lingers on it…<br />
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<strong><span style="color: blue;">V24 “So Jacob was left alone…”</span></strong><br />
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There is a volume of poetry and silence that rests in the pause half way through verse 24. Jacob is at the end of himself. He is standing alone in the dark. It is quiet. He might hear the distant sound of his herds across the water, he can probably hear the river eddies bubble and flow past him. It’s a terrible, viscerally, stark, lonely, moment…<br />
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<strong><span style="color: blue;">V24 “So Jacob was left alone…”</span></strong><br />
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Only he wasn’t. Look at the rest of the verse:<br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><strong>V24 “So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.”</strong></span><br />
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What? I mean, was he alone or not? And who is the man? Which brings me to the other fighter. So, let’s send it back ringside:<br />
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ii. The Champion: ???<br />
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Note: The guys assure me that those aren't their bare butts, that they were wearing gold shorts and in the blur it just looks like they were naked. This seems like an odd disclaimer in the middle of a talk. I showed the edited version on Tuesday night. ‘Who is this guy that Jacob wrestles?’ The text frankly is coy. It’s abrupt. Honestly I wish verse 24 was like 5 times longer. The author spends 33 words detailing precisely how many of each ungulate Jacob set aside for his brother. (Shoot, these verses are so detailed you could do a biomass calculation on the gift…X lbs if you are interested). But here it only gives us: <br />
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<strong><span style="color: blue;">V24 “So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.”</span></strong><br />
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The verse calls him ‘a man’[12] , elsewhere the Scriptures[13] call him ‘an angel’ but neither of those can be the whole story, because at the end of the smack down…when everything is said and done…there is a moment of recognition. It is like those final moments of a movie with a great twist ending, a film like the Sixth Sense of The Usual Suspects where someone we thought we had pegged is actually not even close to who we thought they were. <br />
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Jacob realizes that his opponent was not just a man or even a cosmic messenger…at the end of the fight Jacob realizes that he has in a confusing but indisputable way…fought God himself.<br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><strong>V30 “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” </strong></span><br />
<br />
You see, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a God who in a confusing but indisputable way tends to show up…I mean actually show up…in a corporeal, physical, form, from time to time…usually at the climax of the story.[14] This happens several times in Genesis. It is actually one of the surprising themes of the book but we haven’t really dealt with yet. Theologians call these appearances ‘theophanies’ which essentially is a fancy word for ‘times that God shows up’. Historically, Christians have interpreted these as appearances of the second person of the trinity…previews of the incarnate Word…or, in other words…Jesus shows up.[15] To describe how this works, let’s go back to Fight Club…<br />
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<br />
In Fight Club, before we meet Brad Pitt’s character, he shows up five times …which is a clue to how the story will play out. Now you probably won’t notice it the first time…most people don’t even notice it the third time. In all but one case he just blips on the screen for a single frame…but if you watch this film as many times as my wife and I have, you eventually notice that Tyler Durden makes shadowy and indisputable appearances before he is introduced as a main character. <br />
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That is what I make of these theophanies…the places where God ‘shows up’ in an ambiguous but undeniably corporeal form…it is a preview of the coming main character…it is a hint that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is predisposed to enter time and space as a corporeal human figure at the climax of the story. It foreshadows the incarnation (Caravaggio slide)…it foreshadows the climax of the story (cross slide)…it foreshadows the reality that God will ultimately wrestle with evil and with us in Jesus (gethsemene slide) [17] …and he will win…and if we lose to him, we’ll win to. [18] Which leads me to the fight… <br />
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<br />
<strong><span style="color: #0c343d; font-size: large;"><u>II. The Fight: Now We Take You to the Octagon</u></span></strong><br />
<br />
And so, Jacob, ‘the grasper’, is a man who has cheated and worked his way to what seems like success, but who has struggled with the God of Abraham and Isaac his whole life…and now its on…he finally throws down with that God.<br />
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The way I picture this is like Lieutenant Dan in Forest Gump<br />
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Like Lieutenant Dan, Jacob has spent decades struggling with God quietly, it was been a subtle, passive aggressive struggle…but now if finally comes to a head…both of them are sick of the subtle struggle…tension has been building between them for decades…and finally, it’s time do this thing. [19]<br />
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<br />
But then it gets weirder. They wrestle all night [20]…and Jacob will not be overpowered. He continues to stubbornly resist God. And Jacob continues his assaults. So his opponent does something that changes the nature of the fight and reveals a little of his identity. HE just touches Jacob on the leg, and Jacob is undone. And now the nature of the conflict has changed. Jacob can’t fight any more. The single offensive touch renders him unable to fight. <br />
<br />
I imagine a wave of realization crashing over Jacob. He probably thought he was holding his own in the match…<br />
<br />
“Are you messing with me…I wanted you to think you were doing well.”<br />
<br />
But he suddenly realizes that he is hopelessly overmatched…<br />
<br />
“Because I know something you don’t know” “I am not left handed either.”<br />
<br />
It is suddenly clear that he cannot win this fight. He is going to lose. At this point he could have done what he had always done[21] …he could have run (or, I guess, limped)…but he could have sulked and retreated in defiance. He could have retreated in terror. But he doesn’t. <br />
<br />
But dawn breaks Jacob is still struggling, only he isn’t fighting any more…his leg won’t let him. By the end he’s just holding on as hard as he can.[22] He’s broken, he’s beaten, he’s fought as hard as he can, but he has lost…he’s totally undone by the slightest touch of his opponent…but he won’t let go.<br />
<br />
<strong><span style="color: blue;">V 26 But Jacob says, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”</span></strong><br />
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And, finally, Jacob, wounded, broken, and at the end of himself, has learned how to fight with God. You don’t wrestle with God by assaulting him or by landing blows, you wrestle with God by holding on as tight as you can…and that’s how you lose a fight…and win.<br />
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When I was a kid, my parents bought an old farm house with the idea that they would re-do it. Worst decision they ever made. Twenty years later, the house looked great, but their marriage was a catastrophe. <br />
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But the living room was the last room they re-did. So when my brother Nic and I were little, there was this raggedy old couch and a piece of stained red shag carpet that only covered about 85% of the plywood floor and had burn marks from a fondue accident. And this is where some of my best childhood memories happened. This is where my brother and I would wrestle my dad. <br />
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Now these little matches would always play out the same way. We’d run at him from every direction, and fly through the air at him[23] , trying to knock him over. But it never worked. He’d always catch us flying at him and toss us effortlessly through the air into that old couch, which hadn’t been comfortable since the Nixon era. It was like that scene in Lion King where the hyenas jumping Mufassa and he throws them off practically without effort …or the scene in Jurrasic park where the TREX opened a can on the little velociraptors that had been wreaking havoc the whole movie (<a href="http://xkcd.com/87/" target="_blank">xkcd cartoon </a>- reveal shirt). <br />
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And so it would go on like this for a while…dozens of times we would come at him, and dozens of times we would end up careening through the air…but it always ended the same way. After we finally got tired of being thrown into the couch Nic and I would each grab one of my Dad’s legs and hold on as tight as we could…and this would somehow always result with my Dad toppling on the couch to our delight and total satisfaction. Now for years, I thought we had used physics and cleverness[24] to beat my dad. And some people read this passage like that.<br />
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But I know better now. I’ve been ‘defeated’ by Charis and Aletheia enough times to reinterpret those memories I have of taking my Dad down. I mean they excell at being adorable, but they suck at fighting...they can't take me, unless i let them.<br />
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If you wrestle someone out of your weight class but who loves you, you don’t win by landing blows...you win by holding on as tight as you can. You win by holding on and going for the ride. Which leads me to the…<br />
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<strong><u><span style="color: #0c343d; font-size: large;">III. Post fight analysis: Awarding the Purse</span></u></strong><br />
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Verse 26 is actually a pretty comic picture. Jacob and God wrestle. God tries to win Jacob over but he will not be won. Jacob continues to resist God throughout the night with everything in him. So God literally ‘lifts a finger’ in offense…he just touches Jacob and Jacob is totally undone. And so Jacob just holds on and goes for the ride. Day comes and God makes to leave…but Jacob is still clinging to him…he’s beaten but the nature of the conflict has changed. Now he is not trying to beat God…he’s trying to hold on to him to get what he needs. He knows he needs something from God and asks for ‘a blessing.’ Most commentators believe he is asking, in particular, for help with his Esau problem. He asks this powerful opponent who undid defeated him with a touch to save his family and his cowardly butt from the lynch mob waiting for him across the river. <br />
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And then something weird happens…God blesses him. He gives Jacob two things.[25] You see here is the cool thing about losing to God, when you wrestle with God, the prize purse goes to the loser. But God doesn’t give Jacob what he is asking for…like God usually does, he gives Jacob something better than Jacob asks for. He goes beyond the immediate need the external circumstance that Jacob sees as his problem…and gets at the fundamental reality of Jacob’s problem…which is Jacob. He offers Jacob a new, God centered, missional identity oozing with meaning and purpose that his life has always lacked. He re-writes Jacob into his story of redemption…Telling him ‘you shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel.”[26] Now there is a lot to say here, so I’ll take up this theme of identity change in two weeks when we re-visit this passage<br />
<br />
But I want to wrap up with the second thing God gave Jacob… you see the Belt that is counter-intuitively conferred upon Jacob as the loser of that battle…the greatest spoils of losing to God…is God. <br />
<br />
When you lose the struggle against God…you win…you win God. <br />
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And if we think about the rest of the story, that shouldn’t surprise us. This is the same wrestler that said “whoever should lose his life for my sake will gain it” (Mark 8:35)…and this is the same wrestler who, when he found himself in a cosmic battle with evil and death himself, lost the fight and won.<br />
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And because of the way Jesus lost that battle to win it…surrendering to Jesus, clinging to him and going for the ride, changes everything. Jesus is qualified to accept our unconditional surrender to God, and if we lose, we win, we win God…Jesus immediately turns adversity and enmity into reconciliation and acceptance and we begin to see who God really is. Surrendering to Jesus draws back the shroud covering reality to reveal the face of God which, because of Jesus, is unexpectedly for us.[27] <br />
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And this is precisely what Jacob experienced in his surrender. Jacob lost to God and won…and his prize was that he, the most pathetic of the patriarchs, got to do something none of them did in their lives…he got see God and he got to see a God who was unexpectedly for him. And this is precisely what his new name means ‘Israel means ‘God struggles for him.’ But there is more direct evidence in the text. <br />
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<strong><span style="color: blue;">32:30 “So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel (God’s face), saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”</span></strong><br />
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…which I feel like leads to a very obvious question…what does God’s face look like? He doesn’t immediately say…but then we get a really curious verse in the post script. You see, the next day, Jacob still has to get up and face Esau. [28] And he does, only Esau is not interested in killing him…Esau has come to be reconciled to his estranged brother. Verse 4 in the next chapter says:<br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><strong>33:4 But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him.[29] And they wept.</strong></span><br />
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And after their reunion, Jacob tells Esau:<br />
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<strong><span style="color: blue;">33:10 “For I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God, and you have accepted me.”</span></strong><br />
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At first this seems weird…God looks like Esau’s hairy red mug? (back to the elmo well) Probably not. But what is it about Esau that reminds Jacob of the God he just met.’ Forgiveness, reconciliation, and acceptance despite a dark history of offense. He expected violence from Esau and found reconciliation. That is what God’s face looks like. Wrestling with God, struggling with Jesus, throwing down with your creator…it will bring you to the end of yourself. And the only way to win, is to lose.<br />
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I was talking to Dan about this passage last week and he said something that stuck with me. He said “one of the really interesting characteristics that emerges from this passage about the God we worship is that, from time to time, he’ll mug you.” And it doesn’t matter if you have known him a long time like Abraham or if you have fought him off most of your life like Jacob, there are times in your life where he’ll come after you and he’ll come hard. <br />
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You see the process of spiritual formation is not composed entirely of placid times of quiet reflection…it’s not all stained glass and singing…sometimes spiritual formation takes a violent turn. You can reach a point of stubbornness and self will that Jesus will mug you to foil your self destruction…he’ll throw down. And if Jesus comes after you hard to save you from yourself…you best let him. And then in a counterintuitive plot twist, the final result of God throwing down with you…is that you get to ask for a blessing…but we will take up the topic of the blessing in two weeks.<br />
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So your assignment, is if you start a fight with God…lose. Some of you have been wrestling with God for years…and what you really need to do is change your tactics from assault to embrace. Quit trying to beat him…hold on as tight as you can and go for the ride. Some of you may be going through something really difficult right now…and it may be that God has just touched your hip. He wants to use the difficult circumstance to change you from a fighter to a clinger. Lose the fight…and win. You will almost certainly come out of the experience wounded…but you will also come out having ‘seen God face to face’. [30]<br />
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[1] I am also contemplating an intro that revolves around the idea that “I have never won a fight.” <br />
[2]At this point in writing this intro…this exact word…”Where is My Mind?” by Pixies came up on Pandora. If I was just a little more of a mystic I’d consider that Divine sanction for using a fight club metaphor.<br />
[3] He saw a camp of angels twice…once when he left ‘the land’ and once when he re-entered<br />
[4] This is Driscoll’s joke. I stole it.<br />
[5] AD: He was the “artist” of the family…the “sensitive second child”<br />
[6] maybe something like this:<br />
"imposing picture of Aaron in hunting gear holding a weapon"<br />
And, he shows up with an army. Esau shows up with 400 men…and I’m guessing these dudes are more like Esau than Jacob (aaron Beiber – or add Taylor with a gun picture, maybe Kiho with a gun). <br />
[7] I feel like there is a ‘if I only had a wheelbarrow’ joke here….or ’what I would give for a holocaust cloak’<br />
[8] Was a fan of dairy products.<br />
[9] The agri-sourcery is only one indication that Jacob and his family were not exclusive Yahwehists in Haran. The most interesting one is Rachel’s successful attempt to swipe an idol (and then hide it by feigned menstruation – no wonder Jacob loved this woman, or maybe proximity had conformed her character to his) on her way out of town. Feeling like you needed daddy’s household idol for your trip back to the promise land is a sign that your family is not “all in” on the covenant. Actually, in naming Judah “This time I will praise Yahweh,” it is Leah who shows the most devotion to the God of Jacob’s fathers’.<br />
[10] There is something about this stick - Hebrews 11<br />
[11] I want to say “like a little bitch” here.<br />
[12] He may have thought it was Esau.<br />
[13] Hosea<br />
[14] Pearl: JesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesusJesus<br />
[15] This seems to be John’s assessment when he says: “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.” Jn 1:18<br />
[16] There is a clip that slows them down here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbFEpFSRHVs<br />
[17] Pearl: “He was with God in the beginning” (John 1)<br />
[19] Zach: This clips covers what you’re talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNzPsfnN3sU<br />
Of course the problem is that it’s another clip…But I happen to love this scene… and it’s action packed and has excellent one-liners <br />
[20] Stuff Adam Darbonne Says: Usually when a preacher talks to college students about two people wrestling all night it’s not in a positive light <br />
[21] BL: I feel like perhaps you should add a further description of what happens in Jacob's head once his hip is touched. He is not just "undone" (which you mention a few times). At the point of being undone and realizing the TRUE superiority of the one he thought he could defy, he is then faced with another choice - to let go and cower from the mighty One, or to cling to Him. I think his choice to submit rather than just lie there defeated or slink away is noteworthy... for Jacob and in our experience of God too: once we realize who He is, will we walk away in denial? or will we then choose a new way of relating to Him, clinging to him dependently and longing for his blessing?<br />
[22] The grasper learns a new form of grasping.<br />
[23] Back in the day this used to be called ‘Jimmy Superfly Snooka’ style…but I suspect that that is a reference that most college students would miss.<br />
[24] AD ““Because we were nerds, even as 5 year olds…”<br />
[25] And so, Jacob is wounded and helpless, finally overcome, finally beyond his resources…but he holds on to this mysterious figure…beliving that he is the only hope to And so he asks for help…despite his sorry position he asks for a reward…and<br />
[26] Ps 30:5 “For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”<br />
[27] The Esau narrative below is evidence of this, but so is the name change which I am going to deal with in 2 weeks. Jacob goes from ‘Jacob’ – ‘the grasper’ to ‘Israel’ – ‘Yahweh struggles for him’<br />
[28] This is what Peter Berger calls mysticism’s “morning after problem.” Encountering God changes you, but it doesn’t always change your world, – “even if an angel appeared to me last night…this morning. I get up, I brush my teeth, I have breakfast…and with each of these actions the memory of last night’s angel begins to fade.” –Peter Berger “A Far Glory”<br />
[29] Every commentator, without fail, recognizes the parallels here between this verse and Luke 15 (the prodigal son). It is more than a coincidence. This is what Evans would call an ‘echo’ – Esau’s counterintuitive acceptance when condemnation was expected is the picture Jesus takes up to describe ‘the face of God.’<br />
[30] …you will come out reconciled and accepted…and you will come out a different person. But we’ll take that idea up in two weeks.stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com0Davis, CA, USA38.5449065 -121.740516738.495230500000005 -121.8194807 38.5945825 -121.6615527tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-31880976535774951382012-02-19T14:22:00.000-08:002012-02-19T14:24:24.170-08:00Failure Mode Analysis: Disaster Proofing Your Romantic RelationsipThe MP3 of this talk is <a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/11/22/2659930/Failure_Mode_Analysis-Relationships_part_3.mp3">here</a><br />
<br />
So this is the last night of our relationship series…tonight we move from friendship and family to talk about romantic relationships. And I may strike you as an odd choice for tonight’s topic…but you see…I might not have Christian’s warm family background or Dan’s modeling career (come on, Dan is so good looking that one person who looked like that wasn’t enough)…but I have something to offer that neither of them do…You see, I’m an engineer…<br />
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Now, I understand if maybe you don’t immediately connect engineers and romance in your mind. <br />
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Yep, that would be understandable…<br />
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But here’s the thing… there is a reason societies keep Engineers around despite our famed inability to have a conversation that is not awkward…Engineers figure out how things fail…and the really remarkable thing is that engineers usually figure how things fail BEFORE they fail. And that is why normal, well adjusted people like you keep us around.[1] We are odd, but useful (pic). <br />
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Some failures are pretty obvious and mildly comical.<br />
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Others are difficult to predict and have more devastating consequences. <br />
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But catastrophic failures like this are relatively rare…because of engineers. <br />
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Engineers predict how things fail…before they fail. It’s called ‘Failure Mode Analysis.’ <br />
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And when it comes to bridges and buildings, we can be happy to outsource failure mode analysis that to a community of superheroes with thick glasses, stained ties, and low social intelligence. But it seems like we could all use a little ‘failure mode analysis’ when it comes to our romantic decisions…because the world of Christian dating and romance is strewn with wreckage. People may not agree on the solution, but most people agree that the failure rate[2] is unacceptable. We do this thing poorly. [3][4] In particular, we spend too much time and energy as a community working through relational wreckage…that someone should have seen coming. <br />
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You see, we all eventually learn how relationships fail. [5] But there are two ways to learn this. You can learn it experientially, you can have a careless romantic relationship or four that you end up regretting…or you can learn how things fail before they fail. And you see figuring out the how relationships fail before they fail and then avoiding those regrets is what the Bible calls ‘wisdom’.<br />
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Now a dating talk on dating is a little hard to do…because the Bible doesn’t really talk about it. Dating as we think about it didn’t exist when the Bible was written. It’s a novel cultural artifact. <br />
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Beth Bailey wrote a scholarly book on the history of dating in the United States…a scholarly book with a fun title. From the Front Porch to the Back Seat: Courtship in 20th Century America – dating and even courtship are historically novel cultural artifacts. We have only been dating as a culture since automobile ownership became prevalent. It’s only been a couple of generations…so in a sense it is a grand social experiment, that, incidentally is not going particularly well. And so it is not surprising that the Bible does not have a lot to say on an obscure cultural practice limited to part of the world for a small fragment of history.[6][7][8]<br />
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But what’s another novel cultural artifact that Bible doesn’t talk about? Here’s one…pants. (CLer reading the bible thinking about pants) The Bible is almost entirely silent about pants…but I still need to decide if I’m going to put some on before I leave my house….and in that decision, I am guided by what the Bible calls wisdom. You see, on topics that the Bible does not explicitly speak on, where we have to apply Biblical thinking to novel cultural situations, the Scriptures do not leave us adrift. They tell us again and again and again to seek wisdom. [9] <br />
<br />
Proverbs 4<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">5 Get wisdom; get insight; </span><br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">do not forget... </span><br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">6 Do not forsake her, and she will keep you; </span><br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">love her, and she will guard you. </span><br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">7 The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, </span><br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">and whatever you get, get insight. </span><br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">8 Prize her highly, and she will exalt you; </span><br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">she will honor you if you embrace her.</span>[10]<br />
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To kind of bring back the engineering language…modern relationships are prone to failure.[11] But many of us aren’t doing the kind of rigorous assessment of them that comports with the importance of the decision. Many of us are putting more rigorous analysis into that life altering decision between a droid and an iphone.[12] We have bought the cultural falsehood that romance is something that happens to you…that love is something you ‘fall into’…like mordor or that creepy pit creature in Return of the Jedi.[13] <br />
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You hear people say all the time ‘you can’t choose who you love.’ Now, there is a mysterious aspect to attraction…BUT…people hide behind that idea to absolve them of the huge responsibility is attached to their romantic choices.<br />
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And so I have used the engineering metaphor of ‘failure mode analysis’ to organize this talk. Engineers talk about 'failure' modes, because there are multiple ways that a structure can fail and each possible 'failure mode' requires careful planning, analysis and reflection before you can have confidence in the integrity of the design. And so I am going to assert that contemporary Christian romantic relationships have at least 4 failure modes. You need to assess each of these and make a plan:<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><strong><u>Failure Mode 1: Motivation </u></strong></span><br />
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The first thing you have to get right is the motivation for romance. You absolutely must have a theology of romance and sexuality before you do romance and sexuality. If you don’t understand these aspects of your humanness theologically, you are not likely to experience them the way they were indented. And so let me pose the question: What is Romance For? What Function Does it Perform? What is the Purpose of Romance? <br />
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In other words, What is a sound motivation for pursuing or entering into a romantic relationship? If you haven’t given substantial reflection to this question you may need to put the brakes on getting into one. [14]<br />
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If you get this wrong, the whole thing is distorted. And it can end up distorted in equal and opposite ways.<br />
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Some are too eager for romance and marriage and some of you are too scared of it. <br />
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The reason it is hard to write a talk like this is that some of you want marriage too much and others want marriage too little – some of you have a marriage idol and some of you have an independence idol [15] But you see, the person who is too eager for romance and marriage and the person who is too scared of it have something in common. They are both thinking about how romance and marriage will affect their happiness. <br />
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I occasionally get questions like ‘how high should my standards be…are my standards too high or too low’ – well, it depends what kind of heart sickness you tend towards. Do you look to marriage to fulfill your longings or do you fear marriage as an obstacle to your longing? <br />
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They aren’t actually two separate idolatries…they are two symptoms of the same idolatry. Marriage is perceived as either a means or an obstacle to happiness. It is neither. <br />
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Both motivations are consumptive. They ask the question: “How will I benefit from getting into or not getting into a relationship?” How will it augment or detract from my happiness. They are both self involved. <br />
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<span style="color: blue;">“Destructive to marriage is the self-fulfillment ethic that assumes marriage and the family are primarily institutions of personal fulfillment, necessary for us to become "whole" and happy.” </span>[16] Hauerwas <br />
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Marriage, like the rest of your life, is not fundamentally about your happiness or your misery…it is about Jesus and his Kingdom. [17]<br />
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So happiness is a mistaken motivation (though, like so many things in the Christian life, it can be a frequent incidental side effect of a relationship that is built on better things). Viewing romance as a vehicle or obstacle to happiness or fulfillment makes people simultaneously too terrified and too eager. But, what is an appropriate motivation. What is the purpose of romance?<br />
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The purpose of romance is to move turn a friendship into a family…it is the process by which we turn a friendship into a (missional) family. (which is the smallest functional unit of that God uses to build his missional community). Genesis tells a story of generations because God tells his story in generations. <br />
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The reason we are doing a romance talk in the context of friendship and family talks is that you can only understand romance theologically if you understand friendship and family theologically. <br />
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Thesis: <br />
<strong><span style="color: #a64d79; font-size: large;">Romance is the means for turning a friendship into a family. </span></strong><br />
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This is the thesis of the whole series.<br />
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Romance doesn’t exist for itself or by itself. It has the purpose of family building and is constructed from the raw materials of friendship. If you abstract romance from either friendship or family, If you don’t start with a robust, well developed friendship or have a goal that is something short of a God honoring family that is part of His multi-generational purposes, you distort it. <br />
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Because Romance is the means for making a family out of a friendship. <br />
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You see, here’s the thing. The whole dating thing, the process by which you choose who you are going to spend your life with…It is a relatively brief life stage (2-4% of your brief life) yet most of our cultural narratives are obsessed with it. Sit coms, film, novels…they all focus on this relatively brief life stage. [18][19][20][21] It needs to be a time when you build something real.<br />
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Now, if the purpose of dating is to turn a friendship into a family…then what’s the Goal of dating? Well – friendship and character assessment – It’s the process by which you answer the question ‘do you want to build a community of faith with this person?’ But HOW do you do that? The ‘how’ question leads us to our second ‘failure mode.’<br />
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<strong><u><span style="font-size: large;">Failure Mode 2: Method </span></u></strong><br />
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The second way that this can go poorly is method. If you get the motivation right, you have a better shot at getting the method right…but it is not a given. You can understand the why, and still totally blow the how. [22] How do you get there from here? <br />
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Now there are some methods that we can dismiss pretty quickly. [23]<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7YV3mBo2Bw">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7YV3mBo2Bw</a> <br />
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I don’t have a lot of time here, so I’m not going to waste a lot of it by telling you that the <a href="http://www.stanford-gibson.blogspot.com/2012/01/relationships-part-4-sexual-snapshot-of.html">campus hookup culture is a terrible method</a>. I mean if the purpose of romance is to turn a friendship into a misisonal community, to build something real that will echo for generations, you do not have to wonder very long if getting drunk, having sex with a stranger, having a vague recollection of liking it, doing it a few more times until you develop a kind of complicated sense of obligation to each other end up calling yourself a couple is a successful method for this. <br />
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But in evangelical culture the ‘method’ question has become a pretty heated topic of late. There is a bit of a raging debate that pits ‘dating’ against ‘courtship’. Then there are even a few proponents of something called ‘betrothal’ but to be fair, those people are mostly just weird. And there may be a few of you whose parents are mature and admiral Christians of non-Western decent, who have to deal with the fact that ‘arrangement’ is in the mix.[24]<br />
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<span id="goog_1159451310"></span><span id="goog_1159451311"></span><br />
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Now, if you are just checking Christianity out, maybe you are a visitor with us tonight, or maybe you are new to Christian community and you hear something like ‘the dating/courtship debate’ and it sounds like something out of the 1920’s…maybe the 1920’s on ANOTEHR PLANET. It just sounds goofy. Here’s the thing. I totally agree. These debates are mostly a matter of semantics. <br />
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But here is what they are all essentially getting at. <br />
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There has GOT to be a better way to do this thing. <br />
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There has got to be a way to move a relationship from a friendship to a family that is not as wrought with spiritual peril…that is more honoring to God and the friend who you have decided is sexy (looking for a synonym-or and enabler). [25] <br />
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You cannot just take the sitcom/romcom model of this, Christianize it by subtracting pre-vow sexuality and run with it. You have to forge a counter cultural method that honors God and honor’s the friend who you are auditioning for the role of ‘lifetime companion.’[26] I can’t spell out a method for you. I don’t have enough time and I’m not sure I could if I did. You are going to have to forge it out of the raw materials of respect for your friend and obedience to God. But here are a few things that really need to be part of the package.<br />
<br />
<u>i. Your Method has to Include a prominent role for family and community </u><br />
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You see, Christians believe that wisdom requires the practice of ‘self skepticism.’ It requires a cautious distrust of our own motivations. Our hearts are not to be trusted. And if our hearts are not to be trusted in baseline states, it is even more true when they are surging with dopamine and serotonin (comic). Dopamine is not the friends of wisdom. Its purpose is to make you forget how hard it is to raise a child so you will heedlessly engage in the activity required to make one.<br />
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Wise friends and ESPECIALLY family are great ‘blind spot mirrors.’ If you let them, they can be really helpful at being skeptical for you when you are not capable of being skeptical about yourself.<br />
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You need to outsource some of the authority to assess your relationship to qualified and wise individuals, including some who have been married a long time, whose assessment apparatus has not been chemically compromised.[27][28] <br />
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<u>ii. Major on the Friendship.</u><br />
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<span style="color: blue;">“Marriage is not basically romance garnished with friendship…it is basically friendship garnished with romance.” </span>Keller[29]<br />
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Every married couple eventually figures out the kissing thing. But lots of them never figure out the friendship thing. Romantic exploration has to major on the friendship. <br />
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<u>iii. Recognize that life unfolds in season</u><br />
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“A Time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing.”<br />
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Things are enjoyed in seasons. (Don’t awaken love before its time) which leads to [30] <br />
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<u>iv. Avoid dating that is either too casual or too obsessive </u><br />
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– replace these extremes with cautiously purposeful. Don’t leave a wake of flirtation and false hopes…but don’t give yourself too fully too soon.<br />
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<u>v. Don’t disappear from Christian community and mission.</u><br />
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It always bothers me when a newly formed couple falls off the map – it is a sign that they are putting too much hope in the connection – and that they misunderstand the purpose of coupling. Because the whole romance thing is the fun but important first step in building a missional community. [31] If you are assessing a partner with which to build a missional community, it seems like community and mission would be a good context to do that assessing. Don’t fall off the map.<br />
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<strong><u><span style="font-size: large;">Failure Mode 3: Momentum</span></u></strong><br />
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I have met with a lot of students over the years to talk about relationships. And I have talked with a lot of married couples about how they feel about their dating years looking in retrospect. I have heard a lot of crazy stuff. But there is one thing I’ve never heard. I have never met a couple that said “you know what I regret...going too slow in our physical relationship" [32]<br />
<br />
You see, once you DTR you are in a race...it is a race to effectively evaluate if this is a person who you want to build a misisonal community with before physical and emotional intimacy make that evaluation impossible.<br />
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Tim Keller, who wrote an excellent new book on marriage and relationships which I highly recommend [33] put it like this:<br />
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<span style="color: blue;">“Don’t let things get too passionate too quickly….physical exploration can engage romantic obsession…(which ) tends to preclude a realistic assessment of who the person really is.”</span>(Keller)<br />
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You need to pace the physical and emotional intimacy. And here is the deal…you are not going to go too slow. So take whatever pace you were planning on…and slow it down…then slow it down again…then slow it down again.<br />
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Now, I am going to give you a couple of examples…and they are going to sound absurd. <br />
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<u>First</u>: Don’t be in a hurry to give it a label. If the goal of romance is friendship and character assessment…then you can do that pretty effectively as friends…or as friends with a confessed shared interest. <br />
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<u>Second</u>: You don’t want to be kissing for more than a year before you can take your clothes off. So if marriage is a couple years off, so is kissing. <br />
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<u>Third</u>: The L-bomb. Telling someone ‘I love you’ is a little arbitrary, but it has a ton of cultural power. That thing should be within a couple months of clear dense carbon. <br />
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<u>Finally</u>:, everything is better in Christianity is better in community even – especially romance. (I feel like there is a potentially tasteless/dangerous joke here) Friendship and character assessment do not require closed doors, rooms that have beds in them or a lot of intense alone time. In fact, interacting with other people will help with the character assessment.<br />
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If public romance doesn’t appeal to you, question your motives <br />
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Let me summarize this point for you…SLOW THE FRICK DOWN!<br />
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Listen, better men and women than you have failed at this. Many Christians think that as long as they are spiritual enough they won’t be derailed by sexual sin. It is not enough to have passion. [34] Loving Jesus is not enough to avoid sexual entanglement. You have to have a plan. Set your ground rules before you get in a relationship and then call upon your friends to hold you to them.<br />
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<strong><u><span style="font-size: large;">Failure Mode 4: Materials</span></u></strong><br />
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But there is one final important failure mode. Method, momentum, and even motivation are meaningless if you aren’t building with the right materials – you can hire the best structural engineer in the world and it won’t matter if you try to build a skyscraper out of jello. You know it would be really convenient and cost effective if we could build bridges out of dog poo [35] – but that doesn’t make it a good idea…I don’t care how much that would delight my 4 year old…or Zach Evans…or the author of my favorite bathroom blog. <br />
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And this is why the goal of romance is friendship and character assessment.<br />
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The primary building material of a romantic relationship is character.<br />
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I pitched the outline of my talk to a friend who is a pastor and his response was, your whole talk should be about that last point. Well, 2 years ago that is exactly what I did. I gave a talk called –“Three things that are more important than hotness”- I’ve burned some CD’s, available in the back and the <a href="https://rapidshare.com/files/1886386631/Three_Things_More_Important_Than_Hotness__e_.mp3">MP3 link </a>is in your handout…but let me tell you the ONE thing that I think is most important to the long term success of a friendship that elects to transition to a family. <br />
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The goal of romance might be friendship development and character assessment…it might be to determine if this person who has caught your attention has the stuff to stand by your side as you try build a family…if this is THE friendship you want to turn into a family. But that is actually not the most important character question in your romantic life.<br />
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The most important character question in your romantic life is YOURS.<br />
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You see, when it comes to the long term success of your relationship, "who you become is more important than who you marry." <br />
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Last year in both fall and spring retreats, we had speakers…Impressive and thoughtful Christian pastors…who both told us stories of their evangelical fairy tale marriages...that went horrifically and catastrophically wrong…both of them coming dangerously close to ending. I think this terrified a number of students. Now, it is only fair to tell you that not all marriages have those kinds of dramatic crises. Amanda and I have never teetered on the edge of divorce…not yet at least. But we’ve had hard times and I don’t know any couples who haven’t. So one of the things a number of students asked Amanda and I after the retreat talks was ‘why is marriage so hard.’ And here’s the answer. It is hard because marriage forces you to face yourself…and what you see is not pretty.<br />
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Keller – <span style="color: blue;">“the conflict that marriage creates is not conflict with your spouse but with yourself…you cannot run from yourself…in the past if someone revealed your flaws, you could always leave -marriage isn’t hard because it is hard to live with someone else, it’s hard because it is difficult to face your true self”</span><br />
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You want a head start on a successful marriage. You don’t need to learn how to be a good kisser. You need to learn how to face hard truths about yourself and change. You don’t need 10 dating tips, you need spiritual formation.<br />
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Both parties need to get really good at two things: -repentance and forgiveness – CH “a marriage is not 50/50…it is 100/100” Marriage requires self-skepticism and self giving grace.<br />
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But let me end with the good news. This can be done. I’ve known many couples who transitioned from a rich friendship to a thriving missional family without spiritual wreckage or major regrets. The thing about failure mode analysis, by giving careful consideration to how things fail, you can avoid it. You can turn a rich friendship into a productive missional family that honors God and as a side effect (rather than a goal) provides you a lot of joy. But you are going to have to get the motivation, methods, momentum and materials right. And you all are going to have to help each other do that.<br />
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________________<br />
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[1] Anecdote about Roman Bridge engineers? - AD comment: Roman bridge engineer anecdote? Say that out loud…. Probably not =)<br />
[2] ‘failure’ is not a relationship ending. It is regretting a relationship.<br />
[3] And, Dan and I are tired of it kicking our collective ass.<br />
[4] Incidentally, this is part of why you never see Dan or I ‘like’ changes in relationship status to dating on Facebook. It doesn’t mean that we don’t like the match, or that we don’t think the people involved are remarkable. More often than not we do. But we know that there is a lot of peril that awaits them and potential spiritual wreckage. <br />
[5] It’s okay if a relationship fails, and that not all relationships can or are supposed to work out, even if your methods, motivations, etc are all right. <br />
[6] you could be led to believe, because it has been this way for a couple of decades – because your parents did it this way and their parents did it this way = that this is normal. Instead, we are the product of a grand (and failing) social experiment. We are just beginning to understand the failure modes.<br />
[7] I mean, just look at your parents. AD “This line is either brilliant or terribly ill advised. I’m leaning towards brilliant…but you should probably ask someone wiser than me.”<br />
[8] ZE “. I think people struggle with physical boundaries even more so BECAUSE of a failure of emotional boundaries. I think the attraction of emotional vulnerability causes clothes to come off in a directly related way”<br />
[9]<span style="color: blue;">“Intelligence and education are only raw materials for good judgment…Wisdom is a reality based phenomenon. To be wise is to know reality, to discern it. A discerning person notices things, attends to things, picks up on things…the wise accommodate themselves to reality.” </span>Plantiga<br />
[10]16:16 <span style="color: #6aa84f;">How much better to get wisdom than gold! </span><br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">To get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver.</span><br />
[11]And by that I don’t just mean that relationships end. A romantic relationship that ends isn’t necessarily a failure. But one that ends with regret is. <br />
[12] AD: “I think there’s an idea out there that relationships need to start and be “completely organic” for them to be true love or for them to work long term. The irony is that it’s the opposite. That’s probably why arranged marriages work and divorce rates are so high for “organic” marriages” - <br />
[13]I think there’s an idea out there that relationships need to start and be “completely organic” for them to be true love or for them to work long term. The irony is that it’s the opposite. That’s probably why arranged marriages work and divorce rates are so high for “organic” marriages<br />
[14] Or motivation as in, do I just need a significant other as an identity-reinforcer or arm candy to boost the street cred?<br />
[15]<span style="color: blue;">“…the same idolatry of marriage that is distorting their single lives will eventually distort their married lives if they find a partner.” </span>Keller <br />
[16]The assumption is that there is someone just right for us to marry and that if we look closely enough we will find the right person. This moral assumption overlooks a crucial aspect to marriage. It fails to appreciate the fact that we always marry the wrong person.<br />
[17] This is easy to fake and deceive yourself of, especially if you’ve been a Christian for a while and can speak the language well<br />
[18] <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma9AnIfaE30">John Green</a>: <span style="color: blue;">“If you spend your life singularly obsessed with romantic love you will miss out on a lot of the things that are fun about being a person.”</span><span style="color: black;"> </span><br />
[19] You see, romantic love is fantastic, but it is not fantastic enough to carry the emotional freight of our happiness, or to do the work that platonic friendship and community were intended to do.<br />
[20]Dan: the goal of friendship is, <span style="color: blue;">“coming up with imaginative ways to resource our friends for doing the work that God has commissioned them to do.”</span> – when he said that I thought, that’s not a bad definition of the goal of marriage<br />
[21]Ash Quote?<br />
[22]But here is the thing about Christian’s talk about method…how do you go from friends to family…what wisdom and practices do you employ? We talk more about what you don’t do than what you do do?<br />
[23] Big bang theory: The ‘he must be very skilled at coitus’ clip <br />
[24] The guy who was president of my undergraduate InterVarsity chapter after me eventually married a woman his Christian parents selected for him. At first I really objected to this. But the more I learn about marriage and the Bible, it is certainly fraught with complexity…but not moreso than ‘dating’ or ‘courting’. I don’t find it any more objectionable to how we do it any more.<br />
[25] Forensic analysis of the cultural model many of us are uncritically accepting. Maybe use the forensic analysis of Katrina as an illustration of how this works.<br />
[26]<span style="color: #6aa84f;">Eph 4:17-20 17Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. 18They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. 19They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. 20But that is not the way you learned Christ!</span><br />
[27] I feel like there is a zombie film illustration here. No one can be trusted to assess if they are becoming a zombie…you need a friend to decide if you need your head splattered. Um…or something like that.<br />
[28] (takes time – making out doesn’t help) My brother likes to say that it is easy to predict the benefits of marriage but difficult to predict the liabilities. Conversely, it is easy to see the disadvantages of having kids but almost imposible to predict the benefits. So, you see, the decision to have a baby requires temporary madness. So the stuff that leads up to sex is designed to make you temporarily insane…not a great environment for clear character assessment.<br />
[29] Also, to think you are “good enough” or above falling to the hormones that making out produces, you have an insufficient view of your own depravity<br />
[30] Unusable but Hilarious Stuff AD says: :A time for friendship and a time to f- err, being more than friends”<br />
[31]This is one of the things I have found encouraging about B&A’s relationship.<br />
[32]Stuff Adam Darbonne Says:”If only we had gone faster dating! Our marriage would be so much better! We could’ve had sex a whole year earlier than we did! Which in the context of our 50 year marriage is incredibly significant.” <br />
[33] Now is definitely the right time to read a good book on marriage. A good theology of marriage is one of the best tools you can have in making the transition from friendship to family.<br />
[34] AD: Uhh. Passion is actually the problem =)<br />
[35] <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRmko7VxEwo">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRmko7VxEwo</a>stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-29145897308018714552011-11-07T20:00:00.000-08:002011-11-09T09:18:37.252-08:00How to Make a Name That Will Last: The Engineers and The Listener (Gen 11 and 12)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGa4Hx5aThyVQGpVR9ioU7ETbfIsJ1iR6Tpnk54qHL6nUpF1LvUQaCNpePCGDzua7ierwZoze2onH05p_93xYyzxtDAnSeI0e4lCEK2YNQbObWgB1R5vu0GaEZlC0MJ-f0eI1qHNsM_o2n/s1600/cover.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672475574946470434" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 312px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGa4Hx5aThyVQGpVR9ioU7ETbfIsJ1iR6Tpnk54qHL6nUpF1LvUQaCNpePCGDzua7ierwZoze2onH05p_93xYyzxtDAnSeI0e4lCEK2YNQbObWgB1R5vu0GaEZlC0MJ-f0eI1qHNsM_o2n/s400/cover.png" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The MP3 of this talk can be found <a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/11/22/2659930//How%20to%20Make%20a%20Name%20that%20Will%20Last.mp3">here</a>.<br /><br />The two most polarizing contemporary comedians right now are Louie CK and Dane Cook. You are not allowed to like both these guys. You are either a CK person or a Dane Cook Person.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a> But they both have bits about naming kids:<br /><br />Dane Cook – “I want to a bunch of (my kids) after transformers…That would be great just to say Optimous Prime, come hear, you sit next to Megatron, we are going to have a little chit chat.”<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a><br /><br />Louie CK – “You can name your kid anything you want. There are no laws…there should be a couple of laws.”<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3">[3]</a><br /><br />And this makes sense because naming kids is way too big a responsibility for most of us to execute appropriately. But, it turns out that in some countries there are laws. Recently Sweden rejected the following names.<br /><br />Metallica, 4Real, Lego, Google<br />(pronounced ‘Albin’)<br /><br />It turns out that Denmark rejects 20% of all names. Sadly, because my name has been in my family for like 8 generations ‘stanford’ would not have been rejected even if it peaked in popularity in 1910 and fell to <1 in one million babies a decade before I was born. <a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4">[4]</a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXpFlHAB1TPCV5e2K-VAUVLXgfXqj5orgfeYmE0ObZGPwu9cJpOVB_uY_25l3LsaAk_ssft0NoPzQywk_5H_MYYAL6Tvt5g3AUCh3DcOp_9T1jNVFAmQFtTvQ_zk0JmKUbA33oSLxyMfwD/s1600/stanford.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672476052993011890" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 276px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXpFlHAB1TPCV5e2K-VAUVLXgfXqj5orgfeYmE0ObZGPwu9cJpOVB_uY_25l3LsaAk_ssft0NoPzQywk_5H_MYYAL6Tvt5g3AUCh3DcOp_9T1jNVFAmQFtTvQ_zk0JmKUbA33oSLxyMfwD/s400/stanford.png" border="0" /></a><br />The reason that there is so much pressure in naming a kid is that that name will last a long time. But, will it really. I mean a lifetime is too long to be named ‘Google’ but even these memorable names will be forgotten pretty quickly.<br /><br />The truth is, that names are exceedingly forgettable. http://theoatmeal.com/comics/brain<br /><br />No one remembers my great grandparents. No one. When my dad died…they passed from history as if they never existed.<br /><br />This is part of what makes cemeteries compelling and a little creepy. They are a collection of names without narratives. The names are preserved…but the stories are lost…they are quixotic monuments to our fundamental forgettabilty. Disembodied names floating in granite…futile attempts to be remembered.<br /><br /><a href="http://youtu.be/0X6q7nt15uk">http://youtu.be/0X6q7nt15uk</a><br /><br /><br /><object height="315" width="560"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0X6q7nt15uk?version=3&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><br /><br /><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0X6q7nt15uk?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="560" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object><br /><br />We are haunted by the idea that our names will someday pass into the abyss of obscurity. That no one will remember who we are. <a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5">[5]</a><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6">[6]</a><br /><br />Why do you and the people around you work so hard? For some, it is the fear of failure, or the desire to achieve a modicum of comfort or security or power<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7">[7]</a> but for some, it is the existential dread that no one will remember my name…that your existence will be unremarkable and that your name will be lost in the relentless march of time…relegated to the abyss of history’s ruthless forgetfulness. So you study calc and write papers and mess around with your organic chemisty playset in the hope that you can do something that will make you memorable. But you won’t.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8">[8]</a><br /><br />Genesis 11 and 12 contrasts two possible paths to for a memorable name…two visions to forge a name that will outlast your heartbeat…a you that will last longer than your little carbon collection:<br /><br /><span style="font-size:180%;color:#009900;"><strong><u>I. A Critical Contrast<br /></u></strong></span><br />The main thing I want to bring out in this text is that Babel and the Call of Abraham demonstrate two approaches to ‘making a name’…two contrasting approaches on how to matter.<br /><br />Genesis 11:4Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”<br /><br />Genesis 12:2And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWnXf3M1rU2Us3xUacIi0-A7hY8aHt-sR5Fg5Wc_AGqORb7fTPucODV6Pz3eht9UQ75nzA1eRIJsXS8PiaMfenWcHoQ17pXNWou8DESEfsnWDgczJ8T7NZF85SFI5Enx4TSrDjIfWoo6jS/s1600/3+acts.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672475552733078850" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 273px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWnXf3M1rU2Us3xUacIi0-A7hY8aHt-sR5Fg5Wc_AGqORb7fTPucODV6Pz3eht9UQ75nzA1eRIJsXS8PiaMfenWcHoQ17pXNWou8DESEfsnWDgczJ8T7NZF85SFI5Enx4TSrDjIfWoo6jS/s400/3+acts.png" border="0" /></a><br />Babel is the last Scene of Act 2 and Abraham’s call is the first scene of Act 3. It is a contrast that straddles the transition from back story to story.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9">[9]</a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHUn4TpWdESTMaLfS9TH8fXOeFgt6_i81q8qVxCX3zpTCfKQ05RobDvCatp9v-eo0EEHs7UfpzaZkPD39XBX5zUKCQwYBrySF-mueIUcWIjW3ey1X-QyMkIQVnoRcC4rYevrG_KKafOgyR/s1600/2+acts+SW.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672475548389584866" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 248px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHUn4TpWdESTMaLfS9TH8fXOeFgt6_i81q8qVxCX3zpTCfKQ05RobDvCatp9v-eo0EEHs7UfpzaZkPD39XBX5zUKCQwYBrySF-mueIUcWIjW3ey1X-QyMkIQVnoRcC4rYevrG_KKafOgyR/s400/2+acts+SW.png" border="0" /></a><br />You see Act 2 usually ends really poorly and Act 3 usually provides a glimmer of hope for the final solution. Consider the final moments of the most famous Act 2…the protagonist just had his paw hacked off by his conservatively dressed daddy who he just learned annihilates innocent planets for fun.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10">[10]</a> The story of the Bible really starts with chapter 12 because the rest of the story is about how God brings blessing to all people everywhere for all time all starts with this promise he makes through Abraham.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11">[11]</a><br /><br />Four insights emerge from this contrast<br /><br /><strong><u><span style="color:#000099;">1. Choose Venture over Huddling </span></u></strong><br />(What kind of Community?)<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12">[12]</a><br /><br />So why did the men of Babel really take on this project? They wanted their names to ring out…yes…they wanted to be rememberd…yes…so you could say it was motivated by pride. But look beyond the bravado, and you find something surprising:<br /><br />“Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”<br /><br />They were afraid. And so they looked to technology to give them the means to huddle together with those like them. Look at how this contrasts with God’s promise to renew the world through Abraham.<br /><br /><br /><br /><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO66ev-kG0ANTWoKX5UET-fQclv0agySRX5rNB48JxqLoz7N94TKOs-1rP_OAHYfpRQT_thh6GFuWbG69RTh3QbC4OUYuqZGM-sVyTMMwzKigpaT5eJ4EKUURj2IIkXVy0he18ZA4ySDlJ/s1600/venturing+chart.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672476062113876690" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 91px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO66ev-kG0ANTWoKX5UET-fQclv0agySRX5rNB48JxqLoz7N94TKOs-1rP_OAHYfpRQT_thh6GFuWbG69RTh3QbC4OUYuqZGM-sVyTMMwzKigpaT5eJ4EKUURj2IIkXVy0he18ZA4ySDlJ/s400/venturing+chart.png" border="0" /></a><br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13">[13]</a><br />You see, the problem here is not urbanization…the Bible is decidedly pro-city. Cities tend to be metropolitan mixtures, hotspots of diversity and because of this the gospel tends to thrive in cities. The Babel project was the opposite, it was an experiment in homogeneity.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn14" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14">[14]</a> It was an attempt to undo the fall through technology and social planning. And we still do this. We look for security in technology or visions for social transformation coming from the either the political left or the political right. But God’s plan to restore and renew the fractured social fabric is not in huddling with those like you and trying to implement a technologically or politically driven utopia.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn15" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15">[15]</a> It is in trusting him in his risky ventures. It is in a willingness to be dispersed for the good of others and do life with people very different than you.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn16" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16">[16]</a><br /><br />Application: Be willing to Venture. For some of you, you are still coming to terms with the fact that God has dispersed you to UC Davis…others of you have gotten comfortable here and are looking with nervousness to your next dispersal.<br /><br />Now it is time for the segment of my talk called:<br /><br />Stuff Adam Darbonne Says:<br /><br />But this week it is different – This week we here from ‘serious Adam’ rather than silly Adam.<br /><br />(I miss) being near family. And being near good friends, and the familiarity of the place I grew up, of the restaurants, and roads, and the culture… its having more than 4 months out of the year where I where I see the sun and its swimming in outdoor pools…being around people I’ve known for more than 3 months and who have known me for more than 3 months…I miss home. But God has been really clear that he has called me to Wisconsin right now and I have no promise that he will bring me back any time soon and so I have to be willing to give all that up. I have to be willing…to love Jesus more than California<br /><br />Davis and CL can become really comfortable places…but God will send you somewhere<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn17" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn17" name="_ftnref17">[17]</a>…and you best go.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn18" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn18" name="_ftnref18">[18]</a><br /><br />Grad school aps due in January – Missions agency apps due soon<br /><br /><strong><u><span style="color:#000099;">2. Build Alters instead of Ziggurats </span></u></strong></p><br /><br /><br /><p>(What kind of Religion/Monument?)<br /><br />The second big contrast between these passages is the kind of religious structures that the men of Babel and Abraham build.<br /><br />Genesis 11:4 “Come let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves…” -Charis – ‘touch the sky’ (NIV)<br /><br />Genesis 12:7-8 “So he built an alter to Yahweh, who had appeared to him…and there he built an alter to Yahweh and called upon the name of Yahweh.”<br /><br />Most commentators believe that the tower is a Ziggurat which means that it was an elaborate temple that invited god to come and live in the city. Meanwhile, Abraham just piles up a few rocks a couple times. Surely the men of Babel are more religious.<br /><br />But the contrast between Babel’s impressive ziggurat and Abraham’s modest alters is the contrast between respectable religion and walking with God in faith.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUMIM4nlBZRu_xyyvJMlGanJDZFA1ZBnG4BdwxTsLVNxg9vTw-0TKYUAKpHA5cPCPKVvGGJrDJc_1_MZBgWrilUYTKkPmMksNqARCOqJfDoY44b5mrIc-1XGI3iPZG_qIboYmq3eyzdDro/s1600/alters+chart.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672475560176669810" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 109px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUMIM4nlBZRu_xyyvJMlGanJDZFA1ZBnG4BdwxTsLVNxg9vTw-0TKYUAKpHA5cPCPKVvGGJrDJc_1_MZBgWrilUYTKkPmMksNqARCOqJfDoY44b5mrIc-1XGI3iPZG_qIboYmq3eyzdDro/s400/alters+chart.png" border="0" /></a><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn19" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn19" name="_ftnref19">[19]</a><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn20" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn20" name="_ftnref20">[20]</a><br /><br />The men of Babel have a closed conversation (‘let us’) and take on their project…and they include a really impressive and prominent feature of their project for God. They figure, if build a sufficient religious infrastructure, God will have to get involved in our project. And this is what religion is all about. It is the idea that if I do enough for God it will put him in our debt and force him to sign off on our personal projects. But here is the thing…Yahweh does not play that game. Throughout the Bible he rejects that kind of religion. He will not be managed as a part of your life or won over by impressive religion. He wants you to listen. And that is why the little alters are more satisfying than the impressive zigeraut…because they are monuments to listening…they are monuments to one who seeks God’s guidance instead of trying to bribe or appease him.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn21" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn21" name="_ftnref21">[21]</a><br /><br />The first alter was a monument of thankfulness that Yahweh had invited him into relationship:<br /><br />“So he built an alter to Yahweh, who had appeared to him.” 12:7<br /><br />And the second was a monument of his dependence on his new God for guidance<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn22" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn22" name="_ftnref22">[22]</a>:<br /><br />“And there he built an alter to Yahweh and called upon the name of Yahweh.” 12:8<br /><br />The alters are monuments of dependence and a willingness to walk with God in his project of cultural transformation. They are monuments of relationship…like the ring Brant just gave Anda (which incidentally he made…himself…which is pretty great). Brant didn’t give Anda a ring so that she would marry him, but as a recognition of the bond that had grown between them and that was growing deeper.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn23" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn23" name="_ftnref23">[23]</a> That is the difference between religion and faith.<br /><br />One of the most important themes of the Bible is that God cannot be impressed. Religion is an attempt to domesticate God…I’ll build him an impressive tower, but he has to stay in it. Yahweh wants us to enter into a loving relationship of worship and listening where everything is on the table.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn24" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn24" name="_ftnref24">[24]</a><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn25" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn25" name="_ftnref25">[25]</a><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn26" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn26" name="_ftnref26">[26]</a><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn27" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn27" name="_ftnref27">[27]</a><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn28" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn28" name="_ftnref28">[28]</a><br /><br />Application: Build alters not ziggurats. God doesn’t need you to build him an impressive religion. He wants you to listen, to engage in relationship with him.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn29" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn29" name="_ftnref29">[29]</a><br /><br /><strong><u><span style="color:#000099;">3. Transform from Blessing Consumers to of Blessing Transmitters</span></u></strong><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn30" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn30" name="_ftnref30">[30]</a><br />(To What End?)<br /><br />The great irony of this passage is that Abraham’s name does ‘ring out’. He becomes one of the most famous men in history. And the men of Babel are never named. Their names are lost on the scrap heap of history. And that is because making your name is an issue of ‘First and second things.’ The question ‘How do I make my name’ is the wrong question<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEighGWEzDm_XBR1S95FQdtAQfhEJMsewJCcAMC7ojHNkEp8HPwdgajO-Y0fSvUZS9pjTboG4fpTMlWVtqgzdkoA19olpfjVeOcaVZQ0cdSQyAwpUflp84GXkiNTndlPUUk0NWdwINnMeEhB/s1600/blessing+chart.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672475567431051778" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 42px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEighGWEzDm_XBR1S95FQdtAQfhEJMsewJCcAMC7ojHNkEp8HPwdgajO-Y0fSvUZS9pjTboG4fpTMlWVtqgzdkoA19olpfjVeOcaVZQ0cdSQyAwpUflp84GXkiNTndlPUUk0NWdwINnMeEhB/s400/blessing+chart.png" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Why does God say he will make Abraham’s name great?<br /><br />12:2 “I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing…and in you all the families of earth shall be blessed.”<br /><br />God’s care and interest never stop with you. We were not designed to consume blessing…we were designed to transit it. Bronwyn: You are not the final person in God’s receiving line.<br /><br />“Whenever someone sees God for who he is they loose their consumer mentality…God is a spiritual tornado, he will never bless you except to be a blessing.” -Keller<br /><br />Consider how similar this is to the passage I taught out of 2 Cor last year:<br /><br />2 Cor 5:15 “And Jesus died for all, so that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”<br /><br />Application: Leayah is going to talk more about this next quarter, but you have to take note that listening to Yahweh and receiving his blessing ALWAYS leads to passing that on.<br /><br /><strong><u><span style="color:#000099;">4. Consider generational timescales </span></u></strong><br />(What kind of Timetable?)<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn31" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn31" name="_ftnref31">[31]</a><br /><br />Notice one final contrast:<br /><br />Babel Abraham<br />“our names”. “to your offspring”.<br /><br />The men of Babel wanted to make their names great. It was all about them and their generation. But one of the themes of Genesis is that God’s plans unfold on multigenerational times scales. Abraham will never get to see most of God’s promises.<br /><br />12:7 – “to your offspring” – God builds things on generational time scales – you may never see his promises – you are building something bigger than yourselves.<br /><br />Change your time scale. We want to see all of God’s promises right now. But you might be a mess. I am. Your parents might have really messed you up…because theirs did…because theirs did. And so God’s promises to you might be that he will walk with you through the painful process of redeeming the sin bucket your parents handed you so that your kids and their kids their kids don’t have to deal with that crap and will have more freedom to be conduits of Yahweh’s blessing.<br /><br />It is not about you…It is about your grandkids.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn32" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn32" name="_ftnref32">[32]</a> This is hugely counter-cultural. It is why many of you are like I was at your age…unable to even understand why anyone would consider having kids. But God sees your story as a chapter in a story of generations. It is not your story – your actions affect your children and are affected by your parents.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn33" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn33" name="_ftnref33">[33]</a><br /><br />Application: Set yourself up to raise children who are listening venturers. That means you need to marry one. More on that in January.<br /><br /><strong><u><span style="font-size:180%;color:#009900;">II. A Confusing Complication </span></u></strong><br />(A Confusing anti-Climax)<br /><br />So we see in the contrast between Genesis 11 and 12 two paths to an unforgettable name. And it could seem like the point is “Don’t be like the men of Babel, be like Abraham.” It might seem like I am saying “Abraham is the hero of this story, be like him.” And that would make sense, if what came next wasn’t totally deplorable.<br /><br />You see God’s road to a great name starts out hard and badly – the opening story of Abraham’s new life of purpose is both difficult and tragic. It is a story of hardship and failure. It is our story.<br /><br />So in the opening verses of chapter 12 God initiates his program of species redemption…his great act of undoing the fall and reclaiming us. And what happens next? Abraham has been God’s point man in his cosmic plan for precisely nine verses, before it gets REALLY hard:<br /><br />10Now there was a famine in the land.<br /><br />Really? This is how God rewards Abraham’s venture of faith? Really? This is God’s idea of blessing? Famine? I thought of this a couple weeks ago when Lindsey was sharing her testimony and talked about how her life got really difficult about the time God was calling her to follow him in his project of redemption.<br /><br />“A loving God would not put this much on the new person.” –Lindsey Valdalez<br /><br />But apparently when God says he will bless us to be a blessing he does not mean that your life is going to be easy. So then we get the story of how Abraham totally gets it and handles this new challenge really well.<br /><br />Except we don’t…he handles it terrible. In 9 verses Abraham’s remarkable courage evaporates into a puddle of cowardice and fear. So many people read this opening story of God’s brand new plan of redemption and say…What?!? This is the best God can do?!? This guy horrible! He is pimping out his wife like a high end hooker!! <a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn34" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn34" name="_ftnref34">[34]</a><br /><br />What happened to the courage we saw 8 verses ago.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn35" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn35" name="_ftnref35">[35]</a><br /><br />But here is what you HAVE TO understand about Abraham if you are going to understand the spiritual life. God may have made Abraham’s name great – but it isn’t because Abraham is great.<br /><br />This guy is mentioned like 70 times<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn36" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn36" name="_ftnref36">[36]</a> in the NT but within X words of meeting him he is pimping out his wife. If you are going to read Genesis without getting yourself totally confused, you have to come to terms with the idea that these guys are not heroes…they are horrible…just like you and just like me. The Bible only has room for one hero…his name is Jesus.<br /><br />“The Bible is not about good people and bad people…it is about bad people and Jesus.”<br /><br />But that is the amazing thing about the Abraham path to greatness…you don’t have to be great. You can be a total shmuck…in fact, failure is required…But God responds to you not in accordance with what your actions deserve…but in accordance with his promise and his purpose.<br /><br />Illustration<br />Armegeddon is a horrible movie with one great scene - Armegedon – “And they don’t want to pay taxes…ever.”<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn37" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn37" name="_ftnref37">[37]</a> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0vy33Br_3s">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0vy33Br_3s</a><br /><br /><br /><object height="315" width="420"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/V0vy33Br_3s?version=3&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><br /><br /><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/V0vy33Br_3s?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object><br /><br />The opening story of Abraham is supposed to serve the same narrative function as this scene in Armegeddon. We are supposed to say ‘the fate of the species is in the hands of these guys? Really? I mean, can’t we do better than that?’<br /><br /></p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9Dtty4pcOf8xCZs7mv-I0BGEq7g00ozUorlTRggOmEhdv68kokbMaYc5lRu7F0VMxP-v8aeQO5LsLX_ae1xELj_8_OFWUxoXRSrOXpjayj-4iTlPrXLOuSOqCWbyeOrSz1m9WeyIVS8tG/s1600/sarah+and+Abraham+in+Egypt.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672476044935896930" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 388px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9Dtty4pcOf8xCZs7mv-I0BGEq7g00ozUorlTRggOmEhdv68kokbMaYc5lRu7F0VMxP-v8aeQO5LsLX_ae1xELj_8_OFWUxoXRSrOXpjayj-4iTlPrXLOuSOqCWbyeOrSz1m9WeyIVS8tG/s400/sarah+and+Abraham+in+Egypt.png" border="0" /></a><br /><br />If you look at Abraham and say ‘this is the best God’s got’ – that is exactly the way you are supposed to feel. This is not the story of a string of heroes who each advance God’s purpose. This is a story of God’s cosmic rescue plan in Jesus that he enacts through broken people…but who negotiate that brokenness in relationship with him. Abraham is not a righteous man…he is a man of faith.<br /><br />You see, the Abraham story is littered with errors and brokenness…but the rest of the Bible still points to him as someone of note…why?<br /><br />Well it is not because he was righteous. It was because despite his great moments and his deplorable lows, he always came back to a lively attentive trust in Yahweh. He wasn’t a good guy…he was a believer. At the center of Pauline theology is the idea from the Prophets that<br /><br /><br /><p>“Abraham believed and it was credited to him as righteousness.”<br /><br />And that's what made Abraham special. Despite the famine, he still believed God. Despite his deplorable actions, he still believed God.<br /><br />Abraham is nothing special. But Abraham+Jesus is something God could utilize to initiate his story of human redemption.<br /><br />And likewise, you are nothing special. But You+Jesus is something God can utilize to write the next chapter in his story of human redemption.<br /><br />The contrast here is not between the bad people of Babel and the righteousness of Abraham. It is between a life of self reliance and a life of faith. It is trusting Jesus that will allow you to be a venture, to build alters instead of ziggerauts, and becoming conduits rather than consumers of blessing.<br /><br />If you are trying to make your name like the men of Babel…if you are trying to work hard enough to matter…you need to know that you won’t. Give up the tower…build alters. Come into a listening, trusting relationship with God through Jesus. And if you are already trying to be an alter builder but are just sick and tired of the hardship and failure…recognize that God’s promises are stronger than your failures. Trust Jesus again. Build another alter tonight. Call upon the name of Yahweh, re-engage him in relationship, and get back in on being the next flawed but meaningful chapter in the story God started in Genesis 12.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbizDXhKksgAEwc9d5z6PWcdWgINBKHBGH1LyASAIwbvoH0CjLGsKjxsdSCkLeuHOXpoj6ShStADPDdVtub4S5xp_zd8O-kMix5oAZ8ywmQU3FMl6k75HKiw6hg7Uz8LTzvIiUEu7_egEf/s1600/outline.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5672476039533900770" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 303px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbizDXhKksgAEwc9d5z6PWcdWgINBKHBGH1LyASAIwbvoH0CjLGsKjxsdSCkLeuHOXpoj6ShStADPDdVtub4S5xp_zd8O-kMix5oAZ8ywmQU3FMl6k75HKiw6hg7Uz8LTzvIiUEu7_egEf/s400/outline.png" border="0" /></a><br /><br />____________________________________<br /><br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> For the record…I am with CK. I love the insight, the honesty, the humility, the real attempt to get into the perspective of people he should hate and humanize them and, frankly, the despair.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2">[2]</a> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98vZuid_744<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3">[3]</a> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNSf-KQORRk">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNSf-KQORRk</a><br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4">[4]</a> I thought about expanding my mockery of my name here and do my ‘The Rule of Stan’ bit: You see I have this theory about my name. It is not a very cool name. In fact – it is anti-cool. So, if you are writing a story or script and need a character who is a geek, a nerd, or a tool, don’t have the narrative space or motivation to develop the character, you just name him Stan and the audience will tap into an unspoken cultural expectation that ‘this guy has some glaring personality flaw.’ I have collected evidence for this theory from sources as diverse as Harry Potter, Three’s Company, Sex in the City and Second Hand Lions. But when it came to Gibson boy names…I actually came out the winner. My brother and I were both named after our Grandfathers…I was named after grandpa Stanford…my brother was named after the Italian grandfather…Nicola<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5">[5]</a> Cut a Wire Illustration here: “People do crazy stuff to make their name memorable…for just a little longer. Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell. The compelling antagonists of the first couple seasons of The Wire…They are the perfect team…the business man and the gangster. But then they start to grow apart…Stringer wants to leave the heroin game and make piles of cash in Baltamore real estate…”we could run this town” he tells his friend. But Avon isn’t satisfied being silently wealthy and powerful…he wants a memorable name. Stringer wants to silently control Baltimore…but Avon is content to rule a piece of it, as long as everyone knows whose it is…as stiringer puts it…he wants his name to ‘ring out on some ghetto corners. From Avon’s perspective, his name is going to be lost to the scrap heap of history…at least it is going to ring out now. Russell 'Stringer' Bell: You know, Avon, you gotta think about what we got in this game for, man. Huh? Was it the rep? Was it so our names could ring out on some…ghetto streetcorner, man? Naw, man. There's games beyond the…game.<br />Avon: Maybe I’m just a dumb gangster…but I want my corners<br />One of the greatest scenes…If I could only use it…as they reminisce they are planning how they will betray each other: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91CpbRq9Tiw">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91CpbRq9Tiw</a> I need to stop wishing I could play wire clips…since it is likely the highest rate of cussing per minute of any show I can think of in recent history.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6">[6]</a> Unusable clip: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDMoKfvPe70">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDMoKfvPe70</a> Then comes marlo…the coldest, most emotionless villain you will meet…he looses his cool exactly once…when his name is disrespected leading to the chilling ‘my name is my name clip.’<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7">[7]</a> Some of us are like stringer..we want to matter. Others are like Avon…we want people to know we mattered.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8">[8]</a> “And you are slowly realizing that. And we are very, very pissed off.”<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9">[9]</a> It is the last in the sequence of offense narratives…and shifts into covenant narratives -Walton<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10">[10]</a> Language credit to Klosterman SD&CP<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11">[11]</a> The fall does not culminate in the flood…the pre-flood world is not as bad as things get…Babel is the climax of the fall narrative…Humans seeking greatness through self effort and self made religion is as bad as we get…the desire to create the ideal society has resulted in more human violence against other humans than any other motivation.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12">[12]</a> Become a venture instead of a huddler.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13">[13]</a> Jerome – Their scattering is for their own welfare[13] to protect them from their escalating idolatry. Sin has a positive feedback<br />Both Babel and Abraham are stories of dispersals motivated by grace – The men of Babel are dispersed by grace of protection/preservation from their escalating idolatry and Abram is dispersed by grace of promise/purpose<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn14" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14">[14]</a> You could say that Babel was the first suburb…if you wanted to be cheeky.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn15" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15">[15]</a> Attempts a cultural solution to the sin problem – we will build and organize our way out of the brokenness – we will even plan god’s role – optimism of the 1800’s – but it turns out that technology just amplifies our beauty and our brokenness<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn16" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16">[16]</a> Bruggerman – Abraham’s multicultural purpose is the immediate response to Babel’s experiment in homogeneous community<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn17" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17">[17]</a> 12:1 – Go from your country – for some of you – you are still coming to terms with the terrifying reality that God has scattered you here – others of you are looking forward to another scattering – your 20’s are a gift – you should either put yourself in a position to be a pillar of a church and family – or you should try something crazy –<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn18" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref18" name="_ftn18">[18]</a> Walton – be careful of focusing too much on the leaving – “We need to examine the God side of the equation more than the Abram side of the equation.”<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn19" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref19" name="_ftn19">[19]</a> Interesting but ambiguous implications wrt technology – hey, the way you are making houses is crazy…lets try this new fired brick thing…then we can finally have some security…we can build a wall to keep our enemies out and build a tower to let the gods in<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn20" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref20" name="_ftn20">[20]</a> 11:29 – Family with tragedy – “Haran died in the presence of his Father Terah”<br />11:30 – Sarah was barren – (with Haran dead and Sarah baren, it seems to a casual reader that this will be a story of Nahor)<br /><br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn21" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref21" name="_ftn21">[21]</a> “When we treat God as a child to be cajoled or a tyrant to be appeased the Babel syndrome is surging in our veins…it is ‘God abuse’…Needy Gods can only be oppressive Gods.” -Walton<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn22" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref22" name="_ftn22">[22]</a> Goldengay – God speaks to Abram about every 25 years – I haven’t even been serving God 25 years – I’m roughly on pace and I’m not even a mystic - ‘God is indeed economic with interventions.’ – says the guy who’s wife has been unable to communicate with him and required constant care for years – God is not chatty – because of the compressed narratives we get the idea that the patriarchs were just chatting it up with God – but only Adam and Eve had that kind of access<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn23" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref23" name="_ftn23">[23]</a> I feel like there is a Beyonce joke here about God wanting you to ‘put a ring on it’ -<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn24" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref24" name="_ftn24">[24]</a> If we do all this for god he will come down and bless our project. If we build a temple as part of our city, he will be in our debt become part of what we are doing. This is the heart of religion. I am going to live my life with my agenda, but I am going to do these things for God so he owes me and blesses my project…I’ll build him an impressive tower, but he has to stay in it.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn25" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref25" name="_ftn25">[25]</a> If your religious system somehow limits God’s claim on you by compartmentalizing him…it doesn’t matter how elaborate it is…it is offensive to him.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn26" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref26" name="_ftn26">[26]</a> –Walton – Up to chapter 11 humans are morally corrupt – they are violent towards each other and forgetful of God. But now, they have done something new. They have begun to re-create God in their own image. We have the beginnings of idolatry and human effort to ‘achieve’ god’s favor, to domesticate god and put him into our debt. The ziggurat of Babel stand in for all our attempts to domesticate god by instinutionaliszing him and putting him in our debt by rendering impressive acts of self selected devotion.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn27" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref27" name="_ftn27">[27]</a> And here is the thing, the men of Babel were way more impressive than Abraham. They were an impressive team of planners and engineers and God really should have been impressed. I mean they built an enormous ziggurat in the middle of their city so that he would get involved. They made sure god’s part was the most impressive part of their project…surely they deserved his involvement (or at least his disinterest) in their project to make their names great.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn28" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref28" name="_ftn28">[28]</a> They were engineers (which we all know is super impressive)…Abraham was a wandering Mesopotamian herdsman. But one of the most important themes of the Bible is that God cannot be impressed. You cannot earn his favor. You cannot put him in your debt through your efforts. Abraham’s alters were the better monuments because they were monuments to listening. They recognized that God takes the initiative in our relationship with him.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn29" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref29" name="_ftn29">[29]</a> The irony is that the men of Babel thought their god required maintenance and care…The revolutionary idea in this passage is that the true God does not require maintenance, care or appeasement…the true God provides care but requires open listeners. Do your gods require maintenance and care? Consider trading them in for one who will care for you.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn30" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref30" name="_ftn30">[30]</a> Make Others the Focus of Your Quest<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn31" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref31" name="_ftn31">[31]</a> I might save this material for the relationship talk<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn32" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref32" name="_ftn32">[32]</a> Lilies – Updike’s 4 generations remind me of Genesis<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn33" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref33" name="_ftn33">[33]</a> The only story we get about Isacc is that he repeated the habitual sin of his father.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn34" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref34" name="_ftn34">[34]</a> Love the Kidner insight that we think it is weird that Sarah would be so old yet considered hot…but that we are far too preoccupied with the idea that beauty is co-equal with youth while ancient cultures may have been able to see a striking beauty in the stark wisdom and poise of a seasoned matriarch.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn35" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref35" name="_ftn35">[35]</a> I love this clip as an illustration (or attention re-set) for what is going on with Abraham and Pharoh…but I don’t think it has broad enough appeal to warrant the time. Thoughts?<br /><a href="http://a.espnradio.com/espnvideo/maynestreet/com_091102mayneSt_kimmel_revised.mp4">http://a.espnradio.com/espnvideo/maynestreet/com_091102mayneSt_kimmel_revised.mp4</a><br />She felt like the only grown up in the room.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn36" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref36" name="_ftn36">[36]</a> I found numbers between 68 and 72<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn37" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref37" name="_ftn37">[37]</a> I also like the Decemberist’s Castaways and Cuttouts as a picture of God’s call to unremarkable ‘heroes’ but think I will leave it on the table: “We're calling all bed wetters/And ambulance chasers/We're lining up the light-loafered/And the bored bench warmers/Castaways and cutouts,</p>stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-70576973951537399482011-10-17T22:21:00.001-07:002011-10-24T23:01:59.834-07:00‘But it’s the Other Way’: How Things go Wrong, Why Thing Suck and A Foreshadowed Rescue (Gen 3)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSHRkDi-7gl28pweTlAkjxtI9zHsHWzdkG1qxwdeRC6gpad9Pz1GcRxVkpCwilJWskA9nsDvpmxQd46DryPbiISPjWnmtACdGBNaDEAcn9IIjGEnNa41dhwDVBJKFRPrCy1xZ6hODMISiU/s1600/But+it%2527s+the+other+way.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5664711914004947842" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 293px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSHRkDi-7gl28pweTlAkjxtI9zHsHWzdkG1qxwdeRC6gpad9Pz1GcRxVkpCwilJWskA9nsDvpmxQd46DryPbiISPjWnmtACdGBNaDEAcn9IIjGEnNa41dhwDVBJKFRPrCy1xZ6hODMISiU/s400/But+it%2527s+the+other+way.png" border="0" /></a> <span style="color:#000000;">art from <a href="http://awardtour.deviantart.com/art/The-Wire-Marlo-Stanfield-145704336?moodonly=69#comments">here</a></span><br /><br />Talk <a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/11/22/2659930//Honey%20Badger%20Gen3.mp3">MP3</a><br /><br /><br /><p><span style="color:#993399;">Note: The talk I ended up giving differed significantly from this manuscript, to the point that the title changed. But I am posting this because I think there is some valuable stuff in here that got cut.<br /></span><br />There are a number of things that make me odd…but one of them is that I love to fly. I had to travel a lot for work this summer, and found the days I spent on the plane to be among the summers most relaxing, productive and restful. So a good chunk of this talk was written on planes while I flew over the random rectangular states. I spent so much time thinking about this passage in my little window seat with my little tray table that I thought about calling tonight’s talk “Snakes on a Plane.” I was excited about the tag line:<br /><br />“There are bleeping snakes on the bleeping campus”<br /><br />But I actually knew what my title for this talk would be before I had written a word. There was a show several years ago called ‘The Wire<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a>’ which was about the Baltimore Heroin scene. I am going to show you a clip. In this clip, Marlo Stanfield the newly undisputed king of the corners and just about the coldest dude you could imagine. Now Marlo just got taken by a smooth old dude in a high stakes poker game. He ends up in a convenient store to buy a bottle of water, and decides to exert a little power to remind himself that he is still the king:<br /><br /><br /><br /><object height="315" width="420"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Id8My4ib6dM?version=3&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><br /><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Id8My4ib6dM?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object><br /><br />In the next scene Marlo’s muscle disposes of the security guard’s body.<br /><br />I remember seeing this and thinking, “That is the story of Genesis 3.” Marlo just explained Act 2 of the gospel narrative as well as I have heard it explained.<br /><br />“You want it to be one way…but it’s the other way.”<br /><br />Marlo’s assessment of reality resonates with our own empirical assessment. For some reason, we feel like the world should be one way…but it’s the other way. We desperately want to live in a world where children aren’t orphaned by AIDS and the mentally ill don’t sleep under bridges and a few self interested institutions can’t topple the world’s economic system and come out of it rich…but it’s the other way.<br /><br />And even in our little worlds, we want to live in a world where upper level mathematics is tractable, and parents are still deeply in love<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a> and boyfriends don’t cheat and there are plenty of good jobs when you graduate and professors use just, non-arbitrary criteria to evaluate you and, I don’t know, maybe just once a College Life speaker would go short…but it’s the other way.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3">[3]</a> Marlo’s right. The question is why.<br /><br />Genesis 3 claims to answer this question.<br /><br />But, the interesting thing about Genesis 3 is that it actually addresses this question in several ways. There are at least three ways the church has historically interpreted this text. First have looked to it as essentially a manual to understand and survive temptation – to personally negotiate the brokenness in our world. Second, we have read it as the Act 2 in the cosmic narrative of creation-fall-redemption; the big answer to the question ‘why isn’t anything the way it is supposed to be’. And finally, we have seen in it the foreshadowing of God’s solution to the problem the passage itself explains. You see, Genesis 3 is a multi-scale story. It has personal, cosmic and temporal scales which tell us (respectively): How things go wrong, Why things suck, and a foreshadowed rescue. So let’s take those in order:<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#000099;"><u>1. Personal Scale: How things go wrong.<br /></u></span></strong><br />The first answer to the question of why things are not the way they are supposed to be is you…and me. We are supposed to see ourselves in this story. The story of how Adam and Eve fall is the story of how we fall.<br /><br />“Genesis is not a story of what happened, it is a story of what always happens.” Mark Driscoll<br /><br />“When we read Genesis 3 we find the same dynamics of temptation and disobedience as we ourselves experience.” John Goldengay<br /><br />And so, this passage has historically been read as a temptation survival guide.<br /><br />Now, survival guides have been pretty popular recently.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha7lSPBVZPaOLA3h_ORkB3TH4BIapTzfcnlfm2GvAVglDklHm0vJAclmuI5Zz0kotTdnkAXtpuy3hUOiMx4QTQVXOW7X2t0SVvZh7tYb-Xl05TKOXgoz7AGSo1qBz5KpXQKxygcKiPHuym/s1600/temptation+survival+guide.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5664924889170662754" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 267px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha7lSPBVZPaOLA3h_ORkB3TH4BIapTzfcnlfm2GvAVglDklHm0vJAclmuI5Zz0kotTdnkAXtpuy3hUOiMx4QTQVXOW7X2t0SVvZh7tYb-Xl05TKOXgoz7AGSo1qBz5KpXQKxygcKiPHuym/s400/temptation+survival+guide.png" border="0" /></a><br /><br />This one for example, includes such useful tips as: I am trying to get a hold of the zombie survival guide and glean a couple fun tips from it.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTqe5wrH7WDxfwn19TPobJKZk8wHu2OMDXRg8Mrfb2ukIcdVoxBKH_fZzcoSL8-7bbureUklVbTrLHghIEHj7Hn6GR6lA-jLEfhmsmRRMyyWJuSksMdeyzLb3JySHVkY7tLbp0Wf0vsiDM/s1600/Blades+don%2527t+need+reloading.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5664711926316680690" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 293px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTqe5wrH7WDxfwn19TPobJKZk8wHu2OMDXRg8Mrfb2ukIcdVoxBKH_fZzcoSL8-7bbureUklVbTrLHghIEHj7Hn6GR6lA-jLEfhmsmRRMyyWJuSksMdeyzLb3JySHVkY7tLbp0Wf0vsiDM/s400/Blades+don%2527t+need+reloading.png" border="0" /></a><br /><br />But the first fourteen verses of Genesis 3 is a survival guide you can actually use against an enemy that actually exists and regularly kicks the crap out of you like the second grade bully who waited for me every day at my locker. So let’s briefly look at 5 insights for surviving temptation from the first thirteen verses.<br /><br />A Temptation Survival Guide<br /><br /><span style="color:#009900;">1. Don’t Underestimate Your Enemy: “the serpent was more crafty”<br /></span><br />The passage starts out by introducing us to a cryptic enemy<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4">[4]</a> and does not linger to identify it. But in the first 6 words we learn 4 important things. 1) God has enemies. 2) Their aggression against God is waged through people. 3) They are not in God’s league. 4) We are not in their league.<br /><br />By depicting God’s enemy as a serpent, the most earthly<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5">[5]</a> of his motile creatures, the passage is intentionally opposing dualism, the idea that we are in a situation where good and evil are embattled and have roughly equal power. God’s enemy is just another created thing…and has to resort to guerilla warfare against the other things God made in order to do any damage. God’s enemies are not in his league. But by saying that ‘the serpent was more crafty’ it suggests that we are not in its league. God’s enemy is terrified of God, but is clever enough that we must not underestimate it.<br /><br />So, my job often takes me places where my employer feels there is a kidnapping risk. In the last few years I have been to Kabul, Kenya, Paraguay and Guyana. And before each trip, I have to take “kidnapping training.” Now ‘kidnapping training’ is not nearly as cool as it sounds. It is not training on how to kidnap people or training on how to rescue people who have been kidnapped….it is training on how to survive being kidnapped. The training starts with the assumption that you have a bag over your head.<br /><br />Anyway, what I have always found most interesting about this training is the part about being interrogated. They tell us that the interrogator has every advantage. He is eating well, getting sleep, is not fearful for his safety and generally has a lot of experience interrogating. He is likely really, really good at his job. What they tell you is to not to try to outsmart him. You won’t win. It is just stacked against you. We were told ‘Interrogation is not a battle of wits…it is a battle of wills.’ Don’t underestimate your enemy…and don’t get pulled into his games. But have a plan in place to resist him.<br /><br />And I thought of this as I read in the first words of this chapter how clever God’s enemy is. Don’t underestimate the enemy, don’t get pulled into its games and have a resistance plan in place.<br /><br />But, the serpent is an intentionally ambiguous figure.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6">[6]</a> Historically the church has believed that it was the devil, but by using this cryptic creature as the tempter it could stand in for any of God’s enemies, either the chief cosmic tempter, subordinate cosmic tempters, or anyone really who set themselves against God…including us.<br /><br />The identity of the tempter is left a little ambiguous so we could see in its place any voice that asks us ‘Did God Really Say?’ Because some temptation is cosmic and some is very earthy. The serpent can stand in for anyone who asks you ‘did God really say?’ Anyone who says ‘come on, you don’t really believe that? ‘That’s just goofy.’ ‘Surely you won’t die.’ ‘Surely God wants you to be happy and successful, so he can’t be serious about all those restrictions.’ Which leads me to the second page of the temptation survival guide:<br /><br /><span style="color:#009900;">2. Temptation is fundamentally an assault on God’s truthfulness and generosity<br /></span>“Did God actually say?”<br /><br />Genesis 3 rests on the command in Genesis 2 where God said “You may surely eat of every tree in the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” And the tempter uses a two pronged offensive against this command…first he questions its veracity…temptation calls God’s truthfulness into question:<br /><br />“Did God really say?”<br />And this should sound familiar to you…because every day on this campus, there are voices saying to you “did God really say?” But this was just the first step in a two stage assault. The tempter followed up questioning God’s truthfulness by questioning his generosity.<br /><br />Now, the most obvious thing that emerges from a casual acquaintance of the command is that there is a dramatic asymmetry between God’s permission and prohibition. There is WAY more permission than prohibition. If you look at this command and find it somehow ungenerous, it says more about you than it does about God.<br /><br />But the genius of the tempter is to convince the humans that God hid all the best stuff<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7">[7]</a> is not in the plentiful permissions but in the single prohibition.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8">[8]</a> Questioning God’s truthfulness laid the groundwork…but the real temptation emerged from getting the humans to question God’s generosity.<br /><br />But then something really interesting happens. Eve plays along. In verse 1 the serpent makes God more restrictive than he actually is. And then in verse 3 Eve does the same, relating God’s restriction with an additional limitation. This is the first recorded act of ‘legalism’ – which is adding arbitrary human rules to God’s protective boundaries. But here is the thing we see. Legalism is complicit with temptation…because it aids and abeds the lie that God is not generous.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9">[9]</a> (This is one of my favorite ideas of the talk – it used to be its own point - but I could cut it if it is a distraction)<br /><br />But as I said a couple weeks ago…it turns out that God’s prohibitions are as generous as God’s permissions. God wants us to know the difference between good and evil without having to experience the evil. By trusting that God is truthful and his generous we gut temptation of its power.<br /><br />You see, the serpent told a kind of half truth – their eyes were opened…their eyes were open to horrible horrible things.<br /><br />Every once in a while a clip shows up on Youtube. It is a famous cartoon that is designed to get parents to show the clip to their kids while they do dishes or pay a couple bills. The cartoon plays for a little while, but then, a few minutes in, it suddenly switches to a grotesque and terrifying scene from a horror film. It moves without warning from elmo to chuckie. Sin’s promise of meaning or adventure carries a payload of fear and shame.<br /><br />This was what Adam and Eve experienced. One commentator called their experience ‘a grotesque anticlimax to the dream of enlightenment.’ They got the sophistication they craved, but it came with a payload of fear and shame. Which leads to the third insight…<br /><br /><span style="color:#009900;">3. Temptation Specializes in False Advertizing 10-11<br /></span><br />Plantinga “People do sometimes rebel literally for the hell of it, but this is rare. Usually they are after peace of mind, security, pleasure…freedom, excitement. Evil wants good…” 90<br /><br />Walton – “Adam and Eve accept something illicit because they have been persuaded that it is for their own good…Temptation is most effective when it dangles something before us that can be easily interpreted as good.” 213<br /><br />Temptation specializes in false advertising. Most people want the true the good and the beautiful. We are wired to long for these things and rarely, initially chase evil or self destruction for its own sake.<br /><br />The serpent promised wisdom, insight and sophistication.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10">[10]</a> And what was it that finally drew the humans in? It was the commoditization of insight. “she saw that..the tree was desired to make one wise.” Now, we know Wisdom is valuable, how could this be a corrupt motivation. But she didn’t want wisdom…she wanted to be wise. That is a huge difference. We do a lot of crap to e perceived as smart. A lot of people reject the faith because they don’t think they can love Jesus and be perceived as intelligent. Jesus following is insufficiently sophisticated.<br /><br />The fall out was fear<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11">[11]</a>, shame, and a loss of spiritual intimacy and it still is. Their rebellion turned them on God and each other…it made them see God and their lovers as the enemies<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12">[12]</a>. The worst that sin does is not making people bad but making God distant and fragments relationships.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13">[13]</a><br /><br />While fear and shame are devastating payloads that sin sneaks into our lives attached to something we thought would be good…by far the most devastating impact of sin is diminishing intimacy with God. Adam and Eve shrink from his presence<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn14" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14">[14]</a>…and we have been that way ever since.<br /><br />So your temptation survival guide has to include the recognition that sin specializes in false advertising. And that is a truly counter-cultural assertion. We have been led to believe that the good is safe but dull while rebellion is risky, but stimulating, engaging and fun. But temptations great lie is that the good is boring and evil is exciting.<br /><br />“Nothing is so beautiful and wonderful, nothing is so continually fresh and surprising, so full of sweet and perpetual ecstasy, as the good. No desert is so dreary, monotonous, and boring as evil.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn15" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15">[15]</a> This is the truth about authentic good and evil…With fictional good and evil it is the other way round. Fictional good is boring and flat, while fictional evil is varied and intriguing, attractive profound, and full of charm.” - Simone Weil On Science, Necessity, and the Love of God<br /><br /><span style="color:#009900;">4 Keep Repentance Drawn and Blame Holstered</span><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn16" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16">[16]</a><br /><br />Both the man and woman blame shift when God comes on the scene. One of the central ideas in the Christian theology of human falleness is that, not only do we tend to act in self interested, God dishonoring ways…we tend to convince ourselves that we are not culpable. No one sees their own sin clearly.<br /><br />“Clashing perspectives give rise to a glaring incongruity: in a world so manifestly drenched with evil everybody is innocent in their own eyes…Yet all know and agree that somebody must be guilty; somebody’s eyes must be deceiving them badly. But whose eyes?” (79) Volf EAE<br /><br />The Genesis 3 answer is yes. Your eyes are deceiving you and my eyes are deceiving me. The world is this way because we are this way.<br /><br />GK Chesteton is said to have written a letter<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn17" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn17" name="_ftnref17">[17]</a> wrote a letter to the editor to a periodical that ran an article titled “what is wrotng with the world”. He letter was brief:<br /><br />“Dear Sirs,<br />Regarding your article ‘What is wrong with the world?’<br />I am.<br />Yours Truly, GK Chesterton”<br /><br />I thought of this idea when this image showed up on my facebook feed<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn18" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn18" name="_ftnref18">[18]</a> last week:<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOL4EM6akmwKgNcMwAqNXT0KEMvNV4ZNwS-wAd3a_za-Q517Atbab1KYGqR3h4dtsf5PwNgh9WZ16M4PPem5mROtRCGiIFHdCfslC6xuq8HiVfzz2kYp70T1KpPA6FOyGoluU-0mwNh_z1/s1600/you+are+traffic.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5664711919387487266" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 272px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOL4EM6akmwKgNcMwAqNXT0KEMvNV4ZNwS-wAd3a_za-Q517Atbab1KYGqR3h4dtsf5PwNgh9WZ16M4PPem5mROtRCGiIFHdCfslC6xuq8HiVfzz2kYp70T1KpPA6FOyGoluU-0mwNh_z1/s400/you+are+traffic.png" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The Christian story, including Genesis 3, includes the unsettling but deeply helpful insight that the problem with the world isn’t ‘out there’…it is ‘in here’. The Christian call to make repentance rather than blame our first impulse is based on the radical insight that it our eyes that deceive us badly.<br /><br />Just like our spiritual parents, we are self justifying creatures and generally bear more fault than we own.<br /><br />And so, one of the insights in the ‘Temptation Survival Guide’ is to “Keep Repentance Drawn and Blame Holstered.”<br /><br />Make a parallel between an asset and a liability in fighting zombies. Something like, Repentance is your sawed off and blame is human attachment. That doesn’t work, but you get the idea. Maybe just a pic of a famous zombie hunter with a sawed off brandished (labeled repentance) and a holstered side arm (labeled blame).<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCkNDx8Uu_u4uAyDClHeGRGbQ8hyphenhyphen8Ftn3ylaqvEeTYcqVrRo14s1JDKJyolEIQAw3sp4zXfwkzeAgt2Zm3wQ10vjf9w3gBC6yoqFo481IEo-TColTLzVGyxpe9hQNHgjHHqARLkfMNw1w6/s1600/5+guidelines.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5664924890898811938" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 189px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCkNDx8Uu_u4uAyDClHeGRGbQ8hyphenhyphen8Ftn3ylaqvEeTYcqVrRo14s1JDKJyolEIQAw3sp4zXfwkzeAgt2Zm3wQ10vjf9w3gBC6yoqFo481IEo-TColTLzVGyxpe9hQNHgjHHqARLkfMNw1w6/s400/5+guidelines.png" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#009900;">5 God is Still There to Walk You Through the Mess</span><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn19" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn19" name="_ftnref19">[19]</a><br /><br />So shame and fear work their way into this beautiful picture of human flourishing…and it is ruined. And Adam and Eve try to deal. They try to patch up the mess. They make themselves these pathetic little cloths out of the biggest leaves<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn20" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn20" name="_ftnref20">[20]</a> they could find. And then God shows up. And he asks a couple questions, drawing them out of their hiding. But there is no going back.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn21" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn21" name="_ftnref21">[21]</a><br /><br />Miroslov Volf argues that one of the horrors of our condition (and one of the reasons that the gospel is the best paradigm for negotiating it) is that so many of our actions are tragically permanent. It is impossible to undo so many of our simple acts of destruction.<br /><br />God looks at their sad little attempts to mitigate the situation…and he loves them.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn22" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn22" name="_ftnref22">[22]</a> He knows the difficulty of the harsh reality that they unleashed upon themselves and knows that their sad little coverings will not cut it. They knew that they needed cover…but God knew their solution was absurdly thin. They had lost innocence but had not become wise enough to actually survive.<br />And so he makes them cloths to cover their shame and protect them in their stark, terrifying new reality. They have staged a rebellion. And God responds with care.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn23" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn23" name="_ftnref23">[23]</a> God is still there to walk them through the mess. God is already providing comfort even as he is handing them over to the consequences of their rebellion – it is a picture of grace and care and a foreshadowing that this is not the end of the story.<br /><br />And so on the personal scale, we can mine this story for a survival guide for dealing with temptation. But there is a bigger scale with which Christians have historically read this passage. It answers the bigger question:<br /><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;color:#000099;"><u>2. Cosmic Scale – Why Things Suck – verses 14-24<br /></u></span></strong><br />The story of Adam and Eve teaches more than how to negotiate our own psychological and spiritual conflict with temptation. The story upscales…it also tells how your struggle exists within the context of the cosmic story of salvation history. You see our spiritual parents bought a very simple lie: You don’t need a god…you can be god. And this has been the fundamental problem ever since. Every violence, every injustice, every indignity that one person has done to another or to the world God has made is a microcosm of this big lie…that we can come up with a better way to do this thing. This deception propagates from generation to generation leaving us in this new broken reality. (yes, I am totally dodging the theological question of imputed tendency vs imputed guilt. Call me a chicken, but I don’t have the time…and I go back and forth on it myself.) It is the reason why, Marlo could glower at that security guard and tell him…’it’s the other way.’ Because things are not the way they are supposed to be.<br /><br />In verses 14-24, God reads humans into the new reality. We often call this ‘the curse’ but humans are not actually cursed in this passage. God is simply letting us know how things go when we assert our autonomy from our creator. Genesis 3 begins the second act of a 3 act play of creation-fall-redemption<br /><br />It is the story of a cosmic rift in our relatedness with God and each other that echoes through each generation, into ours, and will echo into our children’s generation.<br /><br />Both our work<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn24" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn24" name="_ftnref24">[24]</a> and our closest relationships (romantic and parental<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn25" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn25" name="_ftnref25">[25]</a>) get difficult and complicated – not because God has ‘cursed’ us but because we have lost the capacity for contentment in the vortex of our self centerdness – by supplanting God as the ultimate end we have evacuated our relationships and work of their meaning. Work becomes toilsome, raising children becomes heart breaking<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn26" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn26" name="_ftnref26">[26]</a> and relationships accrue a dark degrading shadow.<br /><br />There is a lot we could draw out of this passage…but let’s look at just one really tragic verse. God says to the woman “Towards your man will be your desire, but he – he is to rule over you.” John Goldengay says “These are some of the most poignant, sad words in Scripture.”<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn27" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn27" name="_ftnref27">[27]</a> <a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn28" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn28" name="_ftnref28">[28]</a>Romantic relationships are scarred – in these few sentences we see that this cosmic tear allowed the exertion of power and unrequited longing to enter into our romantic relationships – which is at the root of most of our relational brokenness. God is not ‘cursing’ them. He is laying out the implications of their new mode of self reliant existence.<br /><br />And most of our attempts to fix it have just made it worse because they are just advanced forms of the same error of self reliance, self rule and self worship:<br /><a href="http://xkcd.com/592/">http://xkcd.com/592/</a><br />Xkcd comic (not sure if a funny turn works here – and I am at a all time high for editing expletives in this talk already – but it would be an easy edit)<br /><br />Our experience is marred by cosmic disappointment. The girl you want doesn’t want you…or maybe she does, and it turns out that you just weren’t that into her. The guy you hoped was the one treated you like crap. A relationship that was promising turned degrading.<br /><br />This is why the most important thing you can look for in someone to date and marry is someone accomplished at ‘repenting’ and ‘forgiving’ because those are the currency of our relatedness. Whoever you connect with will eventually hurt you and you will hurt them. That is our state. We can only mitigate it with repentance and forgiveness. And the church has historically pointed to these events, which we have called the fall, and which echo throughout every succedding generation, and held them up as the answer to the question ‘why things suck.’ This is why ‘it’s the other way.’<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn29" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn29" name="_ftnref29">[29]</a><br /><br />“Human nature, indeed, was created at first faultless and sinless; but that human nature in which every one is born from Adam, now needs the physician, because it is not sound. All good qualities, no doubt, which it still possesses in its constitution, life, senses, and intellect, it has from the Most High God, its Creator and Maker. But the flaw…darkens and weakens all those natural goods, so that (we have) need of illumination and healing…” Augustine – On the Nature of Grace<br /><br />Total depravity does not mean that we are as bad as we could be – that is, obviously, empirically false.<br />The ‘Total’ in the phrase total depravity is not a word of intensity but of scope. We are not as bad as we could be…but everything aspect of our being that was created good in God’s image, is tainted. Our capacity for beauty justice and truth all still exist…but they are all distorted…so we can be easily deceived into thinking that something degrading is actually beautiful or that something oppressive is actually just or that something deceptive is actually true.<br /><br />So if all of our capacities are distorted, if self destructive self centeredness and self reliance are our inheritance from our spiritual parents…how do we negotiate it?<br /><br />Well, as always…grace breaks in.<br /><br />Genesis 3, the beginning of Act 2 of the creation-fall-redemption story includes an epic foreshadowing of Act 3, of God’s story. Which leads us to:<br /><br /><strong><u><span style="font-size:130%;color:#000099;">3. Temporal Scale (Conclusion) – Foreshadowing the Solution (The Christological Turn) - v 3:15<br /></span></u></strong><br />You see here is the thing…even in the statement of the problem, Got plants the seeds of the story of redemption. Act 1 foreshadowed Act 2 (with the mention of the trees) – and with a brief mention of the defeat of God’s enemy, Act 2<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn30" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn30" name="_ftnref30">[30]</a> foreshadows Act 3.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn31" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn31" name="_ftnref31">[31]</a><br /><br />When God turns to the serpent in verse 15 he says<br /><br />15”I will put enmity between you and the woman,<br />and between your offspring and her offspring;<br />he shall bruise your head,<br />and you shall bruise his heel."<br /><br />He foreshadowed the solution before he is even done describing the problem. Historically, Christians have seen in this verse, the seeds of the entire story…an epic foreshadowing of the entire narrative. Humans would live at odds with each other and a malevolent cosmic force until a special human child will take it on and bring down this enemy at huge personal cost. “He will crush your head and you will strike his heal…hope breaking through the despair. And this verse always reminds me…of course…of the Honey Badger…<br /><br />At over 19 millions views you have probably seen the Honey Badger clip. I know some of you have (water polo pic). If not, well, you might just have an actual life. But if you have seen this you both know why I have to narrate it myself and why it will be a disappointing substitute for the skilled narration of the actual clip.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><object height="315" width="420"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4r7wHMg5Yjg?version=3&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><br /><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4r7wHMg5Yjg?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="420" height="315" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object><br /><br />That’s right, in this illustration, the Honey Badger is Jesus. The story of the cross and the empty tomb is that a cosmic champion in mortal personhood plays out this script from Genesis 3:15. Jesus takes down the serpent but is mortally wounded in the process. He wounds its head but it wounds his heal.<br /><br />The days that passed between the cross and the resurrection are like the moments in the video where our hero, the Honey Badger, is overcome by the snake bite. In those seeming interminable clicks of the YouTube clock, his bravery looks like foolishness. We don’t have the data to do the toxicology in our heads but we know that the King Cobra is mythically deadly. Surely the Honey Badger could not survive that. The first time I watched this clip, I mourned the protagonist in those moments, sure he was dead. But he knows something about being a Honey Badger that we don’t. He is actually far more bad ass than we ever guessed.<br /><br />The Honey Badger’s fearlessness (he really doesn’t give a bleep) is motivated by appropriate confidence that the serpent mortal bite can only inflict a fleeting death…that he will emerge the victor and that the cost is worth the prize.<br /><br />And that is the story of the gospel. Jesus lets the serpent bite him instead of us…he takes on the penalty of Adam and Eve’s rebellion and ours…because he can take it. He can emerge on the other side of death and wrap up his victory over the decimated serpent.<br /><br />Even while the first humans stared into the dark, degrading consequences of their rebellion, God was telling them, I will send a champion, who will undo the irreversible.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn32" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn32" name="_ftnref32">[32]</a> I will win you back.<br /><br />Col 2:15 – “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in the cross.”<br /><br />Rom 16:20 – “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.”<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn33" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn33" name="_ftnref33">[33]</a><br /><br />So Genesis 3 tells us how things go wrong, and why things suck, but more importantly it also forshadows a rescue from the predicament. The victory Jesus brings over God’s enemy and our brokenness will be finally experienced in the next age, but at the heart of the gospel is the idea that you can switch teams now, from the serpent to the badger. From the enemy to the champion. And when God wins the final victory over his enemies, even though you and I are among them, he finds us on the Jesus team.<br /><br /><br /><p></p><br /><br /><br /><p>_______________<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> A show I cannot remotely endorse from the pulpit…but happens to be the best television content in the history of the medium.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2">[2]</a> Or Don’t fight or are still together<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3">[3]</a> A couple decades ago Cornelius Planting wrote what has become the most famous contemporary work on ‘sin’ – which he titled “Not the Way its Supposed to Be.”<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4">[4]</a> Walton – “The text brings the serpent on the scene with little introduction and no strategic identification.”<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5">[5]</a> There is nothing supernatural in appearance or approach about the tempter – it is totally mundane…apart from the fact that the snake is chatty (which hasn’t been my experience with reptiles), the tempter is totally unremarkable. Goldengay: “Genesis emphasizes the nonsupernatural, earthly character of the tempter, one of the wild creatures that God made.” Though it is worth noting that: “Throughout the ancient world, [the serpent] was endowed with divine or semi divine qualities; it was venerated as an emblem of health, fertility, immortality, occult wisdom, and chaotic evil; and it was often worshiped. The serpent played a significant role in the mythology, religious symbolism, and the cults of the ancient near east.” Walton 203<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6">[6]</a> Genesis 3 is about as interested in telling us where evil came from as Genesis 1 is interested in telling us where DNA came from. They are Acts 1 and 2 in the Jesus story.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7">[7]</a> “the woman saw” she reinterprets the visual evidence in light of the serpent’s suggestion that God is neither trustworthy or generous - Note: the tree is useful and beautiful…just like the other trees that God generously provided in 1:9 (the same phrase is used)<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8">[8]</a> Goldengay: “In its shrewdness, the snake begins by making God much more restrictive and much less generous than God was. The story has emphasized the plentiful nature of God’s provision and the single constraint. The snake makes it all constraint….The snake comes back immediately for round two, questioning God’s goodwill and generosity in a more radical fashion…(suggesting that) it was jealousy that made God deny people access to the good-and-bad-knowledge tree.”<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9">[9]</a> There is a religious impulse that some thinkers call the principle of ‘magnification.’ The idea is that if one rule is good two are better. Because his prohibitions are generous protections, and not the rules of a game in which we gain brownie points for a final count up to see if we earn his love… that’s not the way God’s law works - if one rule is good one rule is good.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10">[10]</a> Kidner – “The man and the woman have been sold a false idea of evil, as something beyond good; of wisdom, as sophistication; and now of greatnesses, as greed.” – Eve despises her innocence and wants to trade it for grown up sophistication – but it turns out that ‘grown up sophistication’ is just the façade of despair erected over the loss of innocence.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11">[11]</a> Goldengay “But we were never supposed to be afraid of the one who wants to go for a walk with us.”<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12">[12]</a> Kidner “To be as God, and to achieve it by outwitting him, is an intoxicating program. God will henceforth be regarded, consciously or not, as a rival and enemy”<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13">[13]</a> We tend to think of sin psychologically – how it affects us…the Israelite perspective is how sin affects God – it defiles his presence and prevents us from access to him – it does not change him, but dishonors him - Walton<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn14" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14">[14]</a> Dan and I see it all the time, CL leaders get entangled in sin, and it diminishes their productivity<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn15" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15">[15]</a> Walton – “Any independence we experience is fleeting as old dependencies are simply replaced with new ones.” – Genesis 3 is the story of the search for independence from the creator of 1 and 2 - The failure of autonomy to deliver has led to the cultural shift to postmodernism and the re-comttment to community<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn16" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16">[16]</a> “Keep your trigger finger on repentance and the safety lock on blame.”<br />Our Fist Impulse is Blame Instead of Repentance<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn17" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17">[17]</a> There is no citation of this, though it has been widely circulate…but it has not been debunked as urban legand.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn18" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref18" name="_ftn18">[18]</a> Incidentally, ‘Ride a Bike Around’ is another indispensible piece of advice from the Zombie Survival Guide which the characters in John Green’s ‘Zombiecorns’ seem to think is silly.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn19" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref19" name="_ftn19">[19]</a> Temptation’s Fallout is Characterized by Permanence AND Grace<br />Sin Has Consequences, But God Cares for us Through Them<br />Even when we push God away, he isn’t going anywhere<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn20" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref20" name="_ftn20">[20]</a> “The fig leaves were pathetic enough, as human expedients tend to be, but the instinct was sound and God confirmed it, for sin’s proper fruit is shame.” Kidner<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn21" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref21" name="_ftn21">[21]</a> There was a scene in the last season of Mad Men where Peggy and another creative are sequestered to a hotel room to come up with an idea for an account. The dude talks about how all our social equiptment to make us feel shame about being naked is just BS and we should all be freer and more comforatable with our body. Peggy calls his bluff. Nakedness is never innocent in sexualized adults. No matter how many people assert that the shame surrounding nakedness is a social construct that we should transcend…there is no going back.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn22" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref22" name="_ftn22">[22]</a> It’s cool, we got this…um, no you don’t.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn23" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref23" name="_ftn23">[23]</a> v22 – having fallen, God restricts the availability of eternal life because it is no longer a gift…but a curse. It becomes available again after we can handle it. (Rev)<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn24" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref24" name="_ftn24">[24]</a> The same anxiety and frustration you have with your studies will eventually come from your work and, even more so, from your children.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn25" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref25" name="_ftn25">[25]</a> This is why, when we start the winter quarter out with a relationship series, we are going to do 3 parts: Friendships, Family and Romance…because the scars of our brokenness go deep into what makes each of these complicated.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn26" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref26" name="_ftn26">[26]</a> The commentators have a TON to say about this. It is all very compelling…but just not the best conent for a community of college students. Here are a few thoughts on it anyway:<br />Pain in childbirth – agony, wory, nuisance, anxiety all have the same root – not typically used for physical pain but mental and psychological anguish – and the reference is not to delivery but conception- Walton 227 – sex is complicated, but for many, so is getting pregnant – same word used for the toilsome nature of work<br />The ‘pain of bearing children’ – not just the physical pain of the act but the turmoil of raising children that reflect your broken image – we distort the image of God in us, and they reflect that distorted image<br />Same word ‘toil/sorrow/travail’ used for the woman and the man for his work and her labor<br />-“conception anxiety” – it creates an image that we will see again and again in Genesis – of a couple who wants children but cannot have them…but I suspect on this campus “conception anxiety” means something entirely different (could use a condom advert)<br />-family relationships will be complicated, painful and anxiety riddled from conception to adulthood<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn27" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref27" name="_ftn27">[27]</a> ‘desire will be for your husband’ – the principle of lesser interest – “In a relationship involving two partners, the one with the greater need of the other is more vulnerable, while the one with the lesser interest in the relationship is in the position of dominance.” – Walton 228 – note male domination is default in the cosmic violence to the good that emerges from self worship<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn28" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref28" name="_ftn28">[28]</a> I kind of want to do something like, “a lot of the things you learned in Women’s Studies are true…and God knows and cares.”<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn29" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref29" name="_ftn29">[29]</a> Walton – “The purpose of this section of the text is to explain how humanity, corporately and individually, came to be outsiders and lost access to God’s presence. Israelites understood that it was not supposed to be that way.” 232<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn30" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref30" name="_ftn30">[30]</a> I feel like there has to be a scene in Empire Strikes Back, a fundamentally depressing movie, that indicates that victory will be attained – something like “he’s our only hope. No there is another.” But better.<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn31" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref31" name="_ftn31">[31]</a> The next few chapters – a total s&$# storm – narrative exposition on how this plays out – But then Act 3 begins with Abraham<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn32" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref32" name="_ftn32">[32]</a> In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe when Aslan emerges from death, he says:<br />“Though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward."<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn33" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref33" name="_ftn33">[33]</a> ‘take and eat’ – echoed in the Lord’s supper – kidner, I never saw that ‘take and eat become verbs of salvation’</p></div>stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-9810291064645468072011-10-03T21:02:00.000-07:002011-10-03T21:41:00.597-07:00“Packing the Parthenon with Powder”: Doing College in the Image of God<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1zVoCW5PTEOiij4KxbgqFuQwMcwItgtxOWkVuJ7lTqWm-UyMEYq5_-bhPCOM4fk0aY5vsaiYskM4rDS-QOx7mHq4T_uRc5AjY1FoCgGIX4MM_3FDTBLQCFRc3d6F9KiwEcwReKfjw6bDm/s1600/cover.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5659486891167316898" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 303px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1zVoCW5PTEOiij4KxbgqFuQwMcwItgtxOWkVuJ7lTqWm-UyMEYq5_-bhPCOM4fk0aY5vsaiYskM4rDS-QOx7mHq4T_uRc5AjY1FoCgGIX4MM_3FDTBLQCFRc3d6F9KiwEcwReKfjw6bDm/s400/cover.png" border="0" /></a> A couple years ago Cracked.com ran an article they called: <a href="http://www.cracked.com/article/235_the-6-stupidest-things-ever-done-with-historic-treasures_p2/?wa_user1=1&wa_user2=History&wa_user3=article&wa_user4=recommended">The 6 Stupidest Things Ever Done with Historic Treasures</a>. It was predictably hilarious and depressing. Apparently, a guy named Chester Arthur was the twenty-first president. Yeah, I didn’t know we had a president Chester either. Anyway President Chester fancied himself a fashionable guy and when he moved into the Whitehouse he found the furnishings and contents insufficiently fashionable. So he had…I kid you not…a garage sale. Now, just to be clear, this wasn’t a high end art auction it was a full on, garage sale. Countless priceless historical artifacts were sold for pennies to make room for the hottest fashions of 1880s. But I mean, to be fair, who can really resist those frilly frock coats thingys, the reverse goatee, and those dresses designed to make butts enormous.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a>
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<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg13dVwn9kkJ_lFoMvejc9gq1XlFir81MJm2kPomaw_8GQI6u_KBklizfAO_THHvdlqdpedBmfgyXDGHsHsBO_CBItXzYqmfYdLl0g7Hd0a3ANjLPONdPBifrkgMhcwRO2b4fDnQgewfbrU/s1600/I+like+big+butts.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5659486897767158034" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 296px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg13dVwn9kkJ_lFoMvejc9gq1XlFir81MJm2kPomaw_8GQI6u_KBklizfAO_THHvdlqdpedBmfgyXDGHsHsBO_CBItXzYqmfYdLl0g7Hd0a3ANjLPONdPBifrkgMhcwRO2b4fDnQgewfbrU/s400/I+like+big+butts.png" border="0" /></a> And the list goes on. It seems that, part of Stonehenge was ground up by some overzealous engineer and used to pave roads and some rich dude in California took priceless medieval art and ancient manuscripts, stretched them out and stitched them together to make… lampshades.
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<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5nO5F80-AD9RNK2gQUiBC8YLLJfFCWaRlF7FtfFsYhKwAe0o_F2wm-Bgopk0YiWIfAZ5kcAAqKHKzViJEjh8HBjWtSxyuBkleRSRb_YcNyBBAXFfbq25sYIjw-EwgdTwHGMPJq0XJBExw/s1600/other+defiled+artifacts.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5659489887328724178" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 298px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5nO5F80-AD9RNK2gQUiBC8YLLJfFCWaRlF7FtfFsYhKwAe0o_F2wm-Bgopk0YiWIfAZ5kcAAqKHKzViJEjh8HBjWtSxyuBkleRSRb_YcNyBBAXFfbq25sYIjw-EwgdTwHGMPJq0XJBExw/s400/other+defiled+artifacts.png" border="0" /></a> But the most devastating story is also the most well known. The Ottomans (who controlled Athens in the 17th century) found themselves at war with the Venetians in 1697 and thought that the Parthenon which, at the time was 2,000 years old and nearly intact, would make a good place to store gunpowder. Apparently, this went poorly. You’ll never guess what happened. The Venetians lobbed a few torches into it and it blew it up. I bet you didn’t see that coming. This great historic structure<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a> is now a tattered shell of what it could have been.
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<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS1pW-w7f4GnhsPiGNFFF_nKCv0amgrxLd6XiHtpJaBHfL49ll04y1wTqkTES1zV-3Aft9szV8PpAN4CbZTuft_6TzAvk6dI3soD6GexRZnz0bjl9OxVzTv8cFgpZXRfwBroae61JRCT8d/s1600/blow+up.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5659486885424237474" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 299px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS1pW-w7f4GnhsPiGNFFF_nKCv0amgrxLd6XiHtpJaBHfL49ll04y1wTqkTES1zV-3Aft9szV8PpAN4CbZTuft_6TzAvk6dI3soD6GexRZnz0bjl9OxVzTv8cFgpZXRfwBroae61JRCT8d/s400/blow+up.png" border="0" /></a>
<br />The reasons these stories make us recoil is the thing they all have in common. They are stories of mis-assessed value. They are stories of someone taking something with enormous intrinsic value and damaging it by using it for something it was never intended for. In most cases they used these things for pragmatic purposes that ‘seemed like a good idea at the time’ because they underestimated the value of the object and misunderstood its purpose.
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<br />But here is the thing. You are in the position to make a very similar decision. How you experience the years that you spend in this place depends on the assessment you make of your value and your purpose. If you make an accurate assessment of your value and purpose, these could be really fun and ennobling years that effectively set a wise and ennobling course f or the rest of your life…because we all want to look back on college and be happy about the way we did it. But if you mis-assess what you are worth and why you exist for, they could be frustrating and even degrading years.
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<br />So let me start out with a simple question: ‘Who do you think you are?’ It is a question usually reserved for angry moms, spurned lovers and mediocre Spice Girl lyrics, but it is a question you need to answer early in your college experience.
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<br />In fact Immanuel Kant one of the most important post enlightenment philosophers, thought the ultimate question of human thought is ‘Who am I?’
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<br />More recently, Mumford and Sons<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3">[3]</a> got to the same idea:
<br /><span style="color:#33cc00;">
<br />Because I need freedom now
<br />And I need to know how
<br />To live my life as it's meant to be
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<br />Who you think you are and why you think you exist (whether you actively decide what you believe about these things or just absorb a default cultural narrative) will determine how you live…especially in college.
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<br />And that is what Genesis 1 and 2 are about. They are not scientific documents intended to walk us through the details of the physical origins of the universe, biodiversity and physical anthropology. These narratives were written to tell us who we are, to help us accurately assess our value and purpose. And answering the question ‘who am I’ is the first step in answering the question ‘how was life meant to be lived?’
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<br />The opening pages of the Hebrew Scriptures offer an answer to the question ‘who am I?’ They tell us that we are unique creatures fashioned ‘in the Image of God.’ I mean, it is easy to believe that humans were made in the image of God when you look at certain specimens (Dieter and Ryan - really really rediculously good looking) but others make it a little more difficult (stanford and Dan).
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<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWmVXjTuzbzfoexzIrkxw7GbfxxkcM_udumsje61IH8Yl65wTqh4aFQt_lC_cjUIQQnzaHU0QPyzwsbX086pT-tzgKf_MonBLm6GBmuDH5Z9HGl9h35t9TJd3gamZsDdJPLtM6Hctp2i8z/s1600/image+of+God+Really.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5659486903100936898" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 298px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWmVXjTuzbzfoexzIrkxw7GbfxxkcM_udumsje61IH8Yl65wTqh4aFQt_lC_cjUIQQnzaHU0QPyzwsbX086pT-tzgKf_MonBLm6GBmuDH5Z9HGl9h35t9TJd3gamZsDdJPLtM6Hctp2i8z/s400/image+of+God+Really.png" border="0" /></a>
<br />But the passage here is not talking about the fact that we are bipedal hominids with opposable thumbs regardless of our relative handsomeness. It is talking about how we are what Dan called, half way creatures that inhabit empirical and spiritual reality. How we are ‘dirtlings’ but with a special quality that reflects God in a way the other metazoan don’t.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4">[4]</a>
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<br />Now, much is made of the two creation accounts, and if you want to hear me talk about the technical details of that, you will have to come to the seminar tomorrow. But functionally, Genesis chapter 2 is like the zoom function on google earth. Gen 1 is cosmic – it is earth centered, but then Gen 2 zooms in on the human story and tells a story that expands and illustrates what it means that we were made in the image of God.
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<br />If you accept this answer to the question ‘Who am I?’…if you answer Kant’s question with ‘I am a creature made by God in his image,’ it will dramatically change your college experience. …and I’ll argue, for the better. Tonight we are going to look at Genesis 2 which make the case that recognizing that you bear the image of God will make two big differences that will dramatically change your experience of these years.
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<br />Recognizing that you were created in the image of God, will affect the way you think about your Purpose and your Dignity.
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<br /><strong><span style="font-size:180%;color:#33cc00;">I. Purpose
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<br />The first thing we see about being created in the image of God is that it is on purpose. I’ll talk tomorrow about what the first two chapters of Genesis do and do not assert, but regardless of how you read them, they offer a definitive ‘no’ to the prevailing university narrative that we are trying to scrape together the illusion of a purposeful existence from an accidental and purposeless origin. The simple assertion that we were made on purpose means we were made with purpose. There are a lot of things I could talk about here, but let’s stick with the text and look at three aspects to the intended human purpose from these early chapters of Genesis. We were made for work, worship and community.
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<br /><span style="font-size:130%;color:#000099;">a. <u>Work </u>
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<br />The first really counter-cultural thing that this passage teaches is that work is good. We were made to participate in useful and ennobling labor. Look with me at v 15:
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<br /><span style="color:#993300;"><strong>“The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden <u>to work it and keep it</u>.”
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<br />To briefly use theological language, this story clearly shows that work is what we call a ‘pre-fall ordinance.’ Before things go horribly wrong in chapter 3, in the ultimate setting of human flourishing, humans are working.
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<br />All around us we are bombarded with this idea that work is bad and leisure is good and the goal of life is to gradually do less of the former and more of the latter.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5">[5]</a> We generally try to order our lives so we can work less and play more. Maybe this idea has even influenced some of you in the selection of your majors. But in the garden, where things conformed ideally to God’s plan for human flourishing, people worked. We were made to work. Now work is not our only purpose, and next week Liz will talk about how God commanded us to intentionally punctuate our work with rest to protect ourselves from it.
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<br />But we see in this narrative that Work is not just the absence of leisure, it is worshipful and purposeful activity. Being made in the image of God means that you have been made to be a maker.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6">[6]</a> You have been created to create. We will see in 2 weeks, the fall did not make work, it made work toilsome. Being made in the image of God means that part of our purpose is to create and to care for what he created.
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<br />This insight can breathe vitality into your studies. Christians have a mandate to curiosity. People like to say that I have a school addiction or that I collect degrees. During welcome week I was often introduced as the guy with X degrees, where X was an integer between 5 and 95. And the mockery is deserved…I am, in fact, strange. But I would argue that insatiable curiosity is a simple byproduct of Jesus following…well that and I’m a little strange.
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<br />Richard Dawkins, one of our faith’s most virulent modern detractors argues that “I am against religion because us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.” This is mistaken theologically and empirically. The premise that God made the world and can be seen in it makes both curiosity<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7">[7]</a> and creativity a Christian mandates. The academic disciplines at their best are simply careful observation and reflection on the reality God has fashioned and the creative response to these observations. But it also means that your studies are an arena of worship
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<br />You see, the Hebrew word used for work in verse 15 is often used in the context of worship. It is used most often in the Scriptures to describe priests as they care for the temple.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8">[8]</a> This is a cool idea because it gives real dignity to caring for the earth and people. But it also means that whatever aspect of God’s world your work brings you to, your work is an opportunity to worship. When you look at a blank word document that has to become a paper on (specific absurd example) or sit down to do a problem set to re-derive principles of calculus discovered centuries ago, you get to reflect the activity of your creator by bringing order out of chaos. And that is an opportunity for worship. Which brings us to the second purpose we see in this passage:
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<br /></span><span style="color:#000099;"><span style="font-size:130%;">b. <u>Worship</u>
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<br /></span>You see, work can and should be worshipful, but we were for times set aside for undistracted worship. The picture painted in these first few chapters of Genesis of a world of ideal human flourishing is one where God and the humans he has made talk frequently, take walks together, enjoy being together. This picture is actually painted most vividly in the beginning of the next chapter.
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<br /><strong><span style="color:#993300;">3:8 “And they heard the sound of Yahweh God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.”
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<br />Life and work were intended to be done in the presence of God. If you ignore this in college, you miss the point. If you want to do college ‘in the image of God’ order your days around a regular times of worship. Now, since the events of Genesis 3, worship is simply harder than it was in this text. But we have pretty good tools at our disposal in the form of prayer, reflective Scripture reading and joining a Jesus community that worships together. Which leads me to the third purpose:
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<br /><span style="font-size:130%;color:#000099;">c. <u>Community</u>
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<br />In verse 18 God says, ‘it is not good for the man to be alone’ which is a really stark statement, because until now everything he has made has he has declared good without qualification. The goodness of everything God made was not only the theme of Genesis 1, but it was a repeated refrain. But in chapter 2 God looks and sees solitary humanness…he sees loneliness…and he says, ‘This is not OK.’
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<br />Now this is a famous verse, and we know what comes next. You see, I know that some of you hear ‘it is not good for the man to be alone’ and immediately go to work on how you can turn that into a pickup line:
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<br />“You know, God said it’s not good for me to be alone…want to go for a walk in the arboretum.”
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<br />We immediately vest that verse with romantic implications. And we will get there…but not just yet. You see there is a more fundamental principle here. Christians believe in a Trinitarian God, a God who is one but is also intrinsically a community from eternity past. If that kind of God makes you in his image, he made you to be in the lives of other people who are also pursuing the presence of God
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<br />It is not good to be alone.
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<br />If you hang around this community long enough, you will hear me say ‘If you spend these years on the margins of Christian community, you are ripping yourself off – you are missing out on one of the great experiences your brief life offers.’ So let me formally invite you to do life with us. But if not with us, find a place in one of the several great Christian communities on campus here like InterVarsity, Crew or AIA.
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<br />But let me say, I really love this community. What you see here is a group of remarkable individuals who are passionately doing college and worship together. The up side of that is that it is a fantastic thing to be part of. The downside is that sometimes it can be difficult to break into particularly because it is so big.
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<br />Now I was talking to my friend Adam Darbone about this talk. Adam graduated last year and was part of the teaching team. And when we got to this part of the talk he said, ‘You should totally compare it to something that is hard to break into because it is so big but once you do, it’s awesome…like the Death Star.
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<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpzB0h-Rw9_Td9l_52b1kuh7JIjZUm5TypLSoa6tSAnFWtZo7XlvymlVZkdRXoUU6AuIOaiGoEiJocHjCMqxsIIdqEte2s2uNAkIWS3uyNXK9bMDZ9Ez-qi96bz98HKMdvS5UAjVQwPFiZ/s1600/something+awesome+that+is+hard+to+break+into+like+the+death+star.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5659489904269123970" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 296px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpzB0h-Rw9_Td9l_52b1kuh7JIjZUm5TypLSoa6tSAnFWtZo7XlvymlVZkdRXoUU6AuIOaiGoEiJocHjCMqxsIIdqEte2s2uNAkIWS3uyNXK9bMDZ9Ez-qi96bz98HKMdvS5UAjVQwPFiZ/s400/something+awesome+that+is+hard+to+break+into+like+the+death+star.png" border="0" /></a>
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<br />So let me offer you this deal. We will work hard to make space in our lives and community for you, but you are going to have to make an effort to get to know us. The best way to move from the margins to the center of a community like this are to join a growth group and to go on retreat. If you only come on Tuesdays…particularly if you only come sporadically, you will join a club but you will not experience community.
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<br />OK, so the first thing we see in this text is being made in the image of God gives us purpose. It calls us to a life of work, worship and community. And if you take these mandates seriously, it will improve your college experience. But there is a second major implication of being made in the image of God. If it is true that we were made in God’s image then that means you have an enormous intrinsic dignity…and as with the dudes who made roads out of Stonehenge or blew up the Parthenon, you can do damage if you mis-asses your intrinsic value.
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<br /><span style="color:#006600;"><span style="font-size:180%;"><strong>II. Dignity
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<br /></span>Remember Dan’s story about Marduk last week on e of the alternative creation stories to Genesis. In this story our world was the result of sex and violence. And the sex was not the caring self giving of two kind and self respecting deities in the Plaza after a great meal magical evening of spiritual connection. This was a lewd skinemax encounter in one of those trashy west sac motels that charge by the hour and don't change the sheets."
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<br />The author was subverting the basic idea that our existence and consciousness were the result of violence, rape or seduction. But the contemporary naturalistic creation story essentially asserts the same thing. You and I exist because our ancestors were the winners…the managed to get genetic material into future generations by power and seduction.
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<br />The Genesis account of Yahweh’s making stands in contrast to this. We were not a cosmic accident or the product of lewd or violent means. It is a story about our dignity as the loving making of a good, kind and wise artist. It is a deconstruction of the ancient and contemporary stories of power and seduction. And it continues to deconstruct prevailing world views.
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<br />This informs the way we live on this campus, because you do not have to spend more than a few days on this campus to realize that many people negotiate this place either by power or seduction (which, are also the primeval forces behind the materialist creation story). Genesis 1 offered them and offers us a better way. By asserting your dignity and the dignity of others, it argues that you can do these years well in the space of self-giving creativity. You can reject the programs of power and seduction and go for beauty and the mandate to find order in chaos. You can be a gatherer rather than a scatterer.
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<br />The first implication of -If we recognize that humans are all made in God’s image, each one immediately takes on infinite value. It makes us a people who love justice.
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<br /><span style="font-size:130%;color:#000099;">a. <u>Justice</u> (social and environmental)
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<br />You see, if we take seriously that humans were made in God’s image and are not just gene propagation machines each involved in a subversive struggle to get more of their genes into future generations, it allows us to use words like “justice” with intellectual honesty and personal consistency. If you are a materialist, you have to do some philosophical gymnastics to get to a place where you can assert what we all fundamentally know, that people matter. And that is why Jesus and the NT spend a lot of time calling us to be a people of justice. (something about Kingdom projects?)
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<br />But one of the really interesting things about this passage is that it is not just people who matter. The rest of the world that God made matters. You see, there is a common misconception about this passage, that it tells a story about how God made the world for humans. But if you look carefully, it is pretty clear ‘creation was not made for us’, it was made for God. It’s not our house; we just get to care for it. We are not the king of this castle, we are the butler. (CLer as buttler and king)
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<br />Check out the really interesting comment in verse 9.
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<br /><strong><span style="color:#993300;">“God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.”
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<br />Genesis 2 argues that the natural world has functional as well as intrinsic value. It turns out that biodiversity is ennobling to humans – and our first two jobs were to worshipfully care for creation and to catalogue biodiversity. (maybe a riff on how we are not ‘sell outs’ – that taking the bible seriously sometimes leads us into what the rest of the community believes. In fact, Christians should care more about the environment and justice than their non-Christian counterparts, not less.)<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9">[9]</a>
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<br /><span style="font-size:130%;color:#000099;">b. <u>Boundaries</u>
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<br />So social and environmental justice are themes from this passage that play well on a University. And that is cool because it means that we could potentially partner with people in the larger UCD community to work for these things. But the next implication of being made with dignity is less popular. Because, this passage teaches that God protects our dignity, he safeguard his image in us by giving us boundaries: he gives permissions and prohibitions. Look with me at verses 16 and 17:
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<br /><span style="color:#993300;"><strong>16And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."
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<br />You need to recognize that God commands stuff. What I want you to see from these verses is that being made in the image of God means that you have too much value and dignity to waste it experimenting with things that God can already tell you will diminish you. He protects your dignity with generous boundaries. And the point of the story is that God’s prohibitions are always for our good. Boundaries are an affectionate act of love, not a capricious act of restriction.
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<br />Like God, we were meant to know the difference between good and evil without having to experience both.
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<br />God’s prohibitions are simply an extension of his generosity – they are guardrails for our dignity
<br />-and ignoring prohibitions can leave spiritual wreckage…like blowing up the Parthenon or selling priceless, irreplaceable insights into our country’s history at a garage sale.
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<br />But, I want you to notice that there is an asymmetry to the permissions and prohibitions. There is way more permission than prohibition. Is God not generous, because he kept one tree from them for their own good? If you read these verses and come away with a picture of a God who is not generous, it says more about you than him. But that is precisely the way most people read this passage and it is precisely what you will find here at UCD.
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<br />God is extremely generous with you here with the things he permits. There are piles of joy available to you in friendship, academic discovery, artistic expression, and athletic enjoyment both on the field and in the stands just for starters. But when he asks you to trust him and live in counter cultural ways wrt substances, value structures and sexuality…that is also part of his generosity.
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<br /><div>Which leads us to the final topic that the passage deals with regarding dignity and being made in the image of God…which is nakedness
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<br />Yup, it’s my first talk of the year, and I’m already talking about Nakedness. (Krage) But because it is only my first talk of the year, I’ll spare you the other picture where he uses a fluids text as a fig leaf.
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<br /><span style="font-size:130%;color:#000099;">c. <u>Nakedness</u>
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<br />You see Genesis 2 suggests that the dignity that comes to you by being an image bearer of God extends to the questions of when, where, how and with whom you take your cloths off.
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<br />One of the things I love about the middle part of chapter 2 Adam is in the same position many of you find yourself find yourself in. He is doing his work with God, looking for a companion, and not finding one. Ladies?? He is unsuccessfully seeking romantic companionship. Can anyone here identify with that? The story turns into a flat out comedy. Adam does a bunch of biological field work. He explores and classifies the biodiversity of this highly productive patch of the Mesopotamian floodplain that God has selected for his home. I can imagine him alive with the sense of discovery and wonder. But there is a longing that all the science in the world cannot satisfy. So Adam essentially says, “Um, the Mesopotamian gerbil is adorable, but it isn’t exactly what I am looking for.” I kind of like bigger boned woman. <a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10">[10]</a>
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<br />But then he sees the naked woman and literally breaks out into song like he’s the straight dude from glee. I mean, this is pretty funny – and honestly kind of sweet.
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<br />The whole passage is something of a sexy romantic comedy. If this were a movie it would be rated R and not because of the F-bombs…it unashamedly celebrates sexuality…but bounds it with a protective prohibition. Look at verses 24 and 25 with me:
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<br /><strong><span style="color:#993300;">24“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his <u><span style="color:#ff6600;">WIFE</span></u>, and they shall become one flesh. 25And the man and his <u><span style="color:#ff6600;">WIFE</span></u> were both naked and were not ashamed.”</span></strong><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11">[11]</a>
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<br />You see, Genesis 2 gives us a lot of clues about things that are intrinsic to our humanness: curiosity, creativity, productivity, justice, and, it turns out…monogamy.
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<br />If you are going to do romance in accordance with the image of God - before you get to see her naked, you leave your immaturity and childhood behind, man up and pledge to her in front of God and your community that she will always and forever be the only one. Genesis 2 argues that marriage is not an arbitrarily social convention, it is intrinsic to who were made to be. It is fundamental to our dignity and purpose and it is part of God’s generosity towards us.<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12">[12]</a> And to play at nakedness, to experiment with sexuality as if it were some sort of simple pleasure inducing drug …well that is like packing the Parthenon with gun powder. It demonstrates a misunderstanding of the intrinsic value of what you are dealing with<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13">[13]</a>, and it is going to do damage.
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<br />You will have many opportunities to get naked in college. Now, admittedly, some of you will have more opportunities than others. In college, I liked to think that the ladies general indifference towards me was God’s special grace protecting me from temptation…but maybe it was just the mullet. In my defense, I grew up 20 miles from Canada where the mullet is still cool.
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<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpTe0NrujtXVN6GLk3VRp_jcS5oW-SLlEw1HV-fS43DK8xB7IBqoBpJU08O4Szk8Uq9KSJXVRf-1XMoBKs1zr3BSCC_8AVxoM-t9yIhyphenhyphenmUciUyIhk5o1Kq_SF50KEohToKdk2-7sE5Ob5o/s1600/mullet.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5659486905929871266" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 291px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpTe0NrujtXVN6GLk3VRp_jcS5oW-SLlEw1HV-fS43DK8xB7IBqoBpJU08O4Szk8Uq9KSJXVRf-1XMoBKs1zr3BSCC_8AVxoM-t9yIhyphenhyphenmUciUyIhk5o1Kq_SF50KEohToKdk2-7sE5Ob5o/s400/mullet.png" border="0" /></a>
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<br />But campus life is sexually supercharged. If you accept the proposition that you were created in the image of God it will affect the way you negotiate that
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<br />There is a reason that the passage moves from God commanding permissions and prohibitions and setting boundaries to talking about nakedness, shame and sexuality. It is because God’s commands about sexuality are counter-intuitive. Especially on a college campus, God’s commands about sexuality don’t make a lot of sense to those of us raised on sit coms, pop songs and romantic comedies until after experimentation has done its damage.
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<br />Most of the best secular artists have the same basic approach to reality: Try to sustain a credible illusion of belonging, dignity and purpose on the ontological backdrop of total cosmic indifference. The opening notes of the Christian lyric offer something better. They suggest that we have this intrinsic hunger for belonging, dignity and purpose because we were made for these things.
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<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzIF5jCRuvGTbdlFzHojAjvo5XuijV9i-ilTNgdopP715aNqPlblM4uddyfbbkeXHRsdKKLn_nUoFOaJCXUXD9BVqOiefVGJmkzwQ9ivg9Yvjgv8GH5uHD4w9sHVabjBC4XaZ-N5hJA7ib/s1600/outline.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5659489893372012242" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 241px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzIF5jCRuvGTbdlFzHojAjvo5XuijV9i-ilTNgdopP715aNqPlblM4uddyfbbkeXHRsdKKLn_nUoFOaJCXUXD9BVqOiefVGJmkzwQ9ivg9Yvjgv8GH5uHD4w9sHVabjBC4XaZ-N5hJA7ib/s400/outline.png" border="0" /></a>
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<br />The Christological Turn: So in Genesis 2 we see a picture of the purpose and dignity that God meant for us when he made us ‘in his image.’ But this is the end of the first act of a three act story of Creation-Fall-Redemption. This picture of Purpose and Dignity was the original design. But as we will see two weeks when we talk about Genesis 3, our current existence is just a pale reflection of the original intent. When we really try to live a life in accordance with our created dignity and purpose it turns out to be waaayy harder than it seems like it should be. So where does this leave us? Well this is where we have to use a name we have not used a lot yet. This is where we need to talk about Jesus.
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<br />You see, the image of God in us has been so badly damaged by our misuse of God’s generosity and our indifference to his boundaries, that we can no longer ‘just do it.’ The new testament teaches that we still bear the image of God but that it is distorted in us. But there is somewhere we can look to see God’s undistorted image…Jesus
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<br />Colossians 1:15
<br /><strong><span style="color:#993300;">He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
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<br />The image of God is corrupted on this canvas, but we can look to Jesus to see it. But the gospel takes one additional step. Not only can we look to Jesus to see God’s original intent, the prototype of intended humanness, but through the cosmic victory of the cross and resurrection, we can invite Jesus to undertake a program of re-creation in us, patiently restoring God’s image in us.
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<br />2 Cor 5 – new creation – The Biblical narrative of creation-fall-redemption means that our legacy of the first creation was squandered, but Jesus came to restore it.
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<br />It points to a second creation. A personal re-creation. God made us in his image, and we have lost it, but Jesus came to rehabilitate that image in us. Paul uses ‘new-creation’ language to describe coming into relationship with him. The key to maximizing purpose and dignity in college, despite all of the inertia built up against it in our culture and in our hearts, is to do college with and for Jesus.
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<br />My favorite illustration of this comes from a really old book, called “The Incarnation of the Son of God”<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn14" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14">[14]</a> written by a man named Athanasius in the fourth (?) century. He describes us as a damaged self portrait which the painter goes to work restoring.
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<br /><span style="color:#006600;">You know what happens when a portrait that has been painted on a panel becomes obliterated through external stains. The artist does' not throw away the panel, but the subject of the portrait has to come and sit for it again, and then the likeness is re-drawn on the same material. Even so was it with the All-holy Son of God. He, the Image of the Father, came and dwelt in our midst, in order that He might renew mankind made after Himself – Incarnation of the Son of God - 14
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<br />This is an amazing picture of how this all points to Jesus. Imagine that there is this sublime painting that all the scholars agree is the greatest work of all time. And it turns out that if you look really carefully, it is a self portrait of the great artist. But there is a fire or a flood in the gallery, or the Visigoths come through and just tear the thing up…leaving the painting violated and the image of the artist unrecognizable. Scholars and artists get together to try to restore it, but it is too deeply damaged. They can patch it up but they can’t recover the image of the artist that made the painting so special. So finally the artist comes back. He looks at his damaged masterpiece. And what does he do. Does he shrug and move on? Does he decide it would be easier to just repaint it on a new canvas? No. He goes to work on the damaged masterpiece, painstakingly restoring it so it imperfectly but undeniably reflects his image. This is what the Jesus story is all about. God who created space and time, entered it to restore us to his image.
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<br />Jesus and the Spirit are the restorers who carefully rediscover the unrecognizable visage of the creator. They can take the rubble of a glorious creation, devastated by misuse, and restore it to its original dignity and purpose.
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<br />And that is what we are about here. We are broken people in a broken world who are doing life together with and for Jesus as he patiently rehabilitates God’s image on our scarred canvas. So I’d encourage you to dive in to one of the great Christian communities on this campus. And I’d like to personally invite you to join this one. And stand with us as Jesus re-teaches us our intended purpose and dignity and works on us individually and collectively to God’s image in us.</div>
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<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> Sight Gag: President Chester with bubble “I like big butts and I cannot lie”
<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2">[2]</a> Interesting, unrelated story. My parent’s first kiss was on the acropolis of the Parthenon. My Dad had waaaayy more game than my brother or I ever did.
<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT77RZQJp8lxhLnGRxInW4EEgcAipEdFDRlGa_xr_jrVrBUWkgKlEj7_Bltded765AI_otddJPRaoODEXj1uRysZRznafQQxnIcSSfLx702o22rQm2ePVxoW_5QzyN6rR0W2SJkz9x-3JO/s1600/parents+in+Athens.png"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5659489902412786866" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 299px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT77RZQJp8lxhLnGRxInW4EEgcAipEdFDRlGa_xr_jrVrBUWkgKlEj7_Bltded765AI_otddJPRaoODEXj1uRysZRznafQQxnIcSSfLx702o22rQm2ePVxoW_5QzyN6rR0W2SJkz9x-3JO/s400/parents+in+Athens.png" border="0" /></a>
<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3">[3]</a> That’s right, I listen to music that is less than 10 years old, though you wouldn’t know it by my ‘worst of the 80’s and 90’s references so far in the intro.
<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn4" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4">[4]</a> Adam: “And for evidence of that, I’d like to direct your attention to Kiho Song.” You could also use Ryan B., Peter, or a number of other guys I’d throw a good picture up of someone too.
<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn5" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5">[5]</a> There are several historical reasons we believe this but you can trace this distortion back to our intellectual roots in ancient Greece and our cultural roots in the 1920s. And some have argued that the monastic movement and the advent of vocational ministry ‘Christianized’ this idea that spiritual activities (especially prayer and reflection) are good and the business of other activities are bad. This idea is absent from the pre-fall paradise. We were made to work.
<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn6" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6">[6]</a> Sayers Quote
<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn7" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7">[7]</a> and this isn’t a post scientific reconstruction…many historians credit this perspective with the very birth of science in the Western world
<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn8" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8">[8]</a> In his commentary on Genesis John Walton unpacks this a little: “The verbs abed (‘serve’) and smr (‘keep’) do not indicate what people are to do to provide for themselves but what they are to do for God…Adam’s duty in the garden was to maintain sacred space…The significant thing about these words is that they describe actions undertaken not primarily for the sake of the doer, but for the sake of the object of the action.” 185
<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn9" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9">[9]</a> UCD has one of the two largest biological sciences departments in the world. There might be a tie in here.
<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn10" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10">[10]</a> Zach, “…What I need is someone to cook that gerbil for me!”
<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn11" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11">[11]</a> “May we unfashionably suggest/the unmarried not undress.” – (mewithoutyou - Bullet to Binary pt 2)
<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn12" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12">[12]</a> Louie CK consistently amazes me with his honest and insightful analysis of our nature and our time.
<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn13" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13">[13]</a> You miss the intrinsic value of both you and her.
<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn14" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14">[14]</a> Visual gag: “I like ancient texts and I cannot lie.”stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-35434525721853860762011-07-25T22:56:00.000-07:002011-07-25T23:06:54.833-07:00Proof of Life: Three Marks of Authentic Christianity<p>Amanda and I enjoy watching spy shows and films. We got into Alias a few years ago<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a> and are currently banging through the dvd’s of Burn Notice. The spy genre appeals to us because she likes action and gun play and I like problems solving and moral conflict.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633536852497801762" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiK-eaFU5DqjiS2cENjMZ8h6CrYWCaCExrYx67xoGsaQKw7nXj7xUTJFNsL7xILxRcAe4g4k-Zwi8pntVIcU5jBN38GNJwuamAJlFg90LKAUcwI87bGKC2mNcwE1TF3nDHBiCFsr7gYFT2T/s400/alias-s3.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br />And a staple of spy themed fiction is the hostage scenario. From time to time in this genre, our heroes have to negotiate for or rescue a hostage. Now, I always find hostage based fiction interesting, because my job takes me to cities and counties that have required me to be receive training that trains us how to survive a hostage situation…not as a negotiator…but as a hostage. I may not be Michal Weston or James Bond or Sidney Bristow…I am not qualified to negotiate for hostages or free hostages…but I am now totally qualified to be a hostage.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633536848195183666" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp46bpFPeJTCNdtmby9NFH-swKd7zfWrcRQMpXsMqE4z_jNKOgzpmgEfslRTd0NQm4OQvKwcALMEWbS52w0C56XbAPsKLha7VPvzMeLshTPf9LE-5yoU8Yrb6UP3X0oqS-RlB61pvoRA0O/s400/0229_burnnotice.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br />Anyway, if you watch enough spy fiction you become familiar with the basic stages of a hostage negotiation. For example, I suspect many of you know the first step in a hostage negotiation. What is the first thing a hostage negotiator will ask for?<br /><br />…a proof of life.<br /><br />You want to make sure you are not paying money for someone who is not already dead. So you ask for a proof of life. There was even a whole movie about hostage negotiation a few years back, with Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan. And that was the title of the movie…Proof of Life.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633536849903373634" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1bZX1P8UdHDtC7P4a0557ZwA_-bmcwTClAG9uccz5M-K83uLYA8v4DewQ8xUKT3h2WSTWRys6OY_Ll9j5oioHkKlmL3vWVB9-GZG8UsxA8gJQmZ4iENiopr6J9grgl05Cs2B9z-P3i7BD/s400/51PRVE4803L__SL500_AA300_.jpg" border="0" /><br /><br />Well this is what came to mind when I was working on 1 John 3. John is calling us to produce a ‘Proof of Life’…of our life. Look with me at the first verse of the passage:<br /><br /><span style="color:#33cc00;">“We know that we have passed from death to life, because…”<br /></span><br /><br />And then three more times in ten verses he uses the phrase “this is how we know”…look for them as we read the passage:<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633536842266950018" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 165px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmCgfy3eCaVnaHFrLc4cwvbm5rog3zCs0SditZDAPVQN6lu2we48Q-Bb1wb9C12epJhxBIox_UqBuN4uvX144xoaHQkbQFL6arz7QWZWkURkS7Hc96AuXcs3S6ONE3KtIEIkIgoR-Hzy_2/s400/1+Jn+3+Chart.png" border="0" /><span style="color:#33cc00;">John 3:14 <strong><u>We know that</u></strong> we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15 Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.<br /><br />16 <strong><u>This is how we know</u></strong> what love is</span><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a><span style="color:#33cc00;">: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.<br /><br />19 <strong><u>This is how we know </u></strong>that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: 20 If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.</span><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3">[3]</a> <span style="color:#33cc00;">24 The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And <strong><u>this is how we know </u></strong>that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.<br /><br /></span>In tonight’s passage, John asks us to produce a ‘proof of life.’ He asks us to evaluate if our Jesus following is the real deal. And here is why. One of the things that Christianity teaches is that our ability to self evaluate is compromised. We tend to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. But John is writing to a church that has been decimated by Gnosticism, a false version of Christianity. And it produced beliefs and behaviors that do not comport with the heart of what Jesus taught and did. And so John says, it is possible to affiliate with Jesus, but not really get it.<br /><br />And so he offers some definitions and criteria for these early Christians to differentiate actual Christianity from self important spirituality in Jesus’ name. He asks us to produce a proof of life.<br /><br />_________________________<br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> My wife was Sidney Bristow for Halloween a couple years ago.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5633536853915453586" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBYkpnKDZjsZmS2TeAZFKXe5Fn7erkIxTKWPXNsdTwoUmGMi15_Pt2us8_bN2Ox8PfajHxls4ijy3hMrgX51kC6SVaO627SBR2JyRUzFz3s9rzz-x55YgITkB09WPA-JK3qBo286gheT79/s400/Sidney+Bristow+and+a+strang+cow.jpg" border="0" /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2">[2]</a> I picture John here like Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride saying <span style="color:#666600;">‘You keep using that word, but I don’t think that word means what you think that word means.”</span><br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3">[3]</a> This is a really remarkable verse because it undermines the dichotomy of faith and works. Faith is prior to love, but love is the proof of faith. You cannot please God without faith in the Son, but faith is not genuine if it does not lead to very practical behaviors including meeting the needs of others. </p>stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-74485557637064084122011-04-25T23:12:00.001-07:002011-04-27T11:57:23.649-07:00Spilling Over: The Fluid Mechanics of Grace<a href="http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/11/22/2659930//Spilling%20Over.mp3">MP3 here</a><br /><br />There is a long standing college tradition to head south for the vacation that happens in March or April …some people like to call it (air quotes) “Spring Break”. Apparently the way this tradition goes, you are supposed to go to a beautiful place...<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5599771818086174674" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicawULoyOnOLhmp50bKfVnEl70IN8sUHlYwEq5jYLEEcnwh13_kj3h13PcRg7dzPfPWzbpFxowXC3XtmNMM-UaTeFc7Fr9k5qY21xL42jAh1mawqF1qAL7Tg8mLtoE-RuNH2yx0u2M_N_u/s400/untitled.bmp" border="0" /><br />...with beautiful people...<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5599771814495795170" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOvOj-SpOTMwiwGu1zO5AeJKDOq3tTzmjuiVN5MTc1tqKRuybIYXFL8CC7OeZVNaMDhtqkb5qymB1iraQ0MR4wVRYIDpFiCL6axa1ALe3LCoSs3yO_K57QTHxasvGbQ4t4lPJowlu__vZs/s400/190121_10150113562750728_634470727_6951763_5055343_n.jpg" border="0" /><br />...and do things that you will almost certainly regret...<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5599771813947603794" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCqKQv8wBOWwidM-zZJQ_7ZZH29r_WHEf4uBYsAYwAwzSH91j4p0fjMsxv8pV4pfTwcyhovgI7zovCu8KG4JwTDj1xClanEMmNoEC0mx7UdGORe2D2e5bXCXLR3m52LjxwCsBkJD5RD94d/s400/189937_10150113554410728_634470727_6951587_4443052_n.jpg" border="0" />…and of course the pictures end up on facebook.<br /><br />Now, even though I have had a full time job for over a decade, I have been continuously enrolled at one university or another for over 15 years…but had never actually experimented with this tradition. So this year, when spring break rolled around, I got on a plane and I headed south.<br /><br />But I’m not sure I did it right…because 91% of Latin American countries have beaches…but I went to one of the two that don’t…I went to Asuncion Paraguay…and while I was there I averaged 12 hour work days…It began to occur to me that perhaps I missed the point of this tradition.<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5599780186575319602" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizOzwNCrh0h806mRDdjsRApHeRlrLhyphenhyphenHjNZ624bqLhxUP98A1uRD4NZxjtFx7PGtAN63v1PAoKiHizEKKPqJ_XX0IyJ50LDIqU3pPDf2qzNh_dIvTdLIyzGBeu5Vyur4qcZI3GGkg9mUtO/s400/Spring+Break+Location.png" border="0" /><br /><br />But, really, how much can you expect of an Engineer on Spring Break. Well, except maybe for these guys.<br /><br />“Engineers Gone Wild”<a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=6972622210843531230&postID=7448555763706408412#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5599771808721430066" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxfBRVhj_REfOVmYWHcBjXEfNzRZAONgU5fkzQSwn8nhEMdFS1yzJKEDQ5KzEpIU5vqlPJ8YmQjghVPFjcBij6AVuaIxVM0XOPuvR1mbXxJSMvky5OEU9ER1EWEIhoE-4GIPhm-dJfJ3m3/s400/EGW+2.JPG" border="0" /><br />(I don’t know what I am going to do for images when Frank graduates.)<br /><br />But the cool thing about doing your Spring Break travel for work is that you don’t have to pay for it. My trip was paid for by one of the biggest slabs of concrete in the world…the Itaipu dam. It is 5 miles long, 640 ft high and produces more power than any dam in the world. Each one of those spillways releases more water than Niagara Falls.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5599963952885819218" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 323px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPA5XfIWZ5dZZ3_n-dg9yrqBU9nlSUkwfMKkzQd43Az1zYfD-piSNuF4Qtbqh7WLLIjflxHqCM46MRZFwQbGbNtBf8TGnynML94cCp8cIxI0m2IKqXUFerEOHsATZKPt_Qt6Ok_fs4jY6W/s400/big-dam-itaipu.jpg" border="0" /><br />But as I stood in the bowels of this almost comically immense structure, watching one of the penstocks turning water into power, I was reminded of my favorite themes in 2 Corinthians.<br /><br />We talked about a number of great topics this year from the pages of 2 Corinthians: including stuff like comfort, joy, thankfulness, reconciliation, generosity. But you see, one of the great puzzles in life is how to tap into these things in a regular and sustained way.<br /><br />What is the process that gives us sustained access to these things? How are they most fully and consistently experienced?<br /><br />Many of us have had fleeting or episodic encounters with joy or comfort. Most of us have flirted with generosity and thankfulness. But…I don’t know about you, but more often than not, I find these things elusive. They seem like they are harder than they should be. Which is why I perk up when one of the Biblical authors gives us a clue about how they work. In 4 different places in 2 Corinthians Paul uses a metaphor to describe our experience of these things…and it has struck me that maybe things like joy and comfort and generosity elude us because we don’t entirely understand how they were meant to work. So we have spent 13 weeks over the course of the year studying this book and it has exhorted us to a bunch of helpful stuff. But I just want to wrap up this series and anticipate an evening of worship by asking one final question:<br /><br />How do we move our experience of these things from episodic events to consistent lifestyles?<br /><br />How do we experience these things more consistently.<br /><br />And, it turns out, that for this talk, my expertise as a hydraulic engineer is useful for the first time ever here at college life…or actually, for the first time ever outside of my cubicle. Seriously, being an engineer is not really that interesting at dinner parties. One of my best friends is a wine maker, that is a great job to talk about at parties. When people ask me about my job, I try to change the subject as quickly as I can to keep the icy grips of boredom from taking control of the conversation. But, being a water engineer happens to matter tonight, because Paul actually uses a hydrologic metaphor, when he talks about how things like comfort and joy and generosity and gratitude work in our lives (Joy mechanics sight gag)…which is why it came to mind in the dark depths of that huge dam. The metaphor he uses to describe how we are supposed to experience these things: overflow. Look at four verses with me from different places in the book.<br /><br /><span style="color:#006600;">2 Cor 1:5 “For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our <strong><u>comfort <span style="color:#990000;">overflows</span></u></strong>.”<br /><br />2 Cor 4:15 “All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause <strong><u>thanksgiving</u></strong> to <strong><u><span style="color:#990000;">overflow</span></u></strong> to the glory of God.”<br /><br />2 Cor 8:2 “Out of the most severe trial, their <strong><u><span style="color:#990000;">overflowing </span>joy</u></strong> and their extreme poverty, welled up in generosity.”<br /><br />2 Cor 9:11 “This <strong><u>service</u></strong> that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God’s people but is also <strong><u><span style="color:#990000;">overflowing</span></u></strong> in many expressions of thanks to God.”<br /></span><br />There are two aspects of this metaphor that I find interesting and that I want to briefly talk about tonight. If the dynamics of joy, thankfulness, comfort and generosity in our lives are best described by a metaphor of ‘overflow’ then there are two implications for tapping into these things in a consistent rather than episodic way. You need to:<br /><br /><strong>1. Look for Opportunities to Spill Over<br />2. Hook into a Reliable Source<br /></strong><br />First, If you want to really experience joy, comfort, thankfulness or generosity you need to<strong><u><span style="color:#660000;"> look for opportunities to spill over<br /></span></u></strong><br />Usually, when we think of something that we want more of, we see ourselves as a control volume, with a deficit. Say that our joy levels are at 30 units of joy and we need to acquire another 70 units of joy to fill up. And essentially, to keep joy levels up the sources of joy have to exceed the sinks.<br /><br />But the implication of this ‘overflow’ language is that stuff like comfort and joy and gratitude and generosity are not things that you can really possess. They are only things you can experience as they pass through you.<br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5599963790201340418" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 242px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLXEsgxmiyHwwwwB70tIMgV5n9jiGJfyfZYgr65kxy9lYtVnkNE04WZsOSOonsrrCU-hAaQvdk8Yuqw38Q_JYhppn1ctAgzHZ3Fr-fpzf5keE6GiS0FNndViPvVdF4TGRiYLykh6X6jgyo/s400/CV.png" border="0" /><br /><br />This is the first way that the things God offers us are like the Itaipu dam. The dam doesn’t do any work by simply storing water. Water only becomes power when it passes through the dam.<br /><br />Comfort was never meant to be just received. Joy is not a private exchange between you and God. These things do not really become what they are, until they pass through you on the way to someone else.<br /><br />We are not designed to be receptacles of the things God gives us, we are meant to be conduits of these things. We are not vessels – we are superconductors.<br /><br />And this is why Christianity is not a private faith. This is why Christianity is only Christianity if it is built around mission and in community. Essentially, joy, gratitude, generosity, comfort…these things we want from God…they cannot be stored. We can’t fill up on joy and then use it over the course of time. You don’t get to hoard joy. It has to pass through you to do its best work. The only way to get a sustained effect is to pass it around.<br /><br />In Cory’s passage from a couple of weeks ago, Paul compared the stuff we get from God to the mana of the Exodus narrative. In this story, as God’s people wandered the desert, God essentially made it rain bread every morning. But it couldn’t be stored.<br /><br />If they tried, it got moldy and wormy and, just plain gross. After one day, it looks like a container of mashed potatoes that had been hiding in the back of “The Bulge” fridge for six months. Joy is like Vitamin C…It doesn’t matter how much you consume today…I mean you walk out of here, go to the DC and flat out OD on 24 grapefruits… you will still need it tomorrow. You are going to need new joy and new generosity tomorrow… which means you are going to need to tie into a reliable source.<br /><br />And this leads to the second insight from this overflow metaphore.<br /><br />Second, If you want to really experience sustained joy, contentment, thankfulness or generosity <strong><u><span style="color:#660000;">you need to You need to hook into a reliable source<br /></span></u></strong><br />The ‘overflow’ metaphor is apt for our experience of joy, comfort, gratitude and generosity because if these things have a short residence time in our hearts. They don’t stay long. Our hearts generate entropy against them. So, we need to find a reliable constant external source.<br /><br />You see, the Itaipu dam is not the biggest dam in the world – the Three gorges dam in China is bigger – but the Itaipu dam produces the most power because it is fed by rain forests and has new water flowing in year round. The water source for Three Gorges is mountainous which means it is flashier, more episodic and less reliable.<br /><br /><br /><br /><p><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5599963444497491874" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 291px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-OrSEt7hvsdNF9rNKvZc8SRafixtQxEMeu0HMDbxjPila2ZBu8-E_tG2wDMQ6hzOcWv84l5sCP4XzJAjtlnf8v-f2UnnNgLP7ErS-pxNlF-OsG4hKp_0pCZKe1FZj-ivq089Zbq6TsYHK/s400/tale+of+two+dams.png" border="0" /><br />You could look at it this way: the overflow metaphor connects worship with community/mission. And this is why I am talking about this on a worship night. If joy is maximally experienced by passing through you to others – in the context of community and mission – then you need to tap into a consistent, reliable source of joy. And that is why worship is at the center of so much Christian theology and practice.<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5599963780453699010" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 347px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_-nERv6FtDQpEfAMIW6Q0-4tjADndW6his1DcRgWX2SOt0adXWIcccOO1pU0XKOiT5eKC0Y32x640y7W1vXRfLufVdYwnbi99qXR7gT183HyPtcHXHwK-3WFqHGq9D2hP5Z4if4JfZ2Ht/s400/worship+community+and+mission.png" border="0" /><br />Now before I talk too much about worship, let me take a second to say, this thing we do, where we stand here each week, turn down the lights and sing for a while…it can be a little awkward. Some of us have been around the church long enough that we have just forgotten that it’s weird. But for some of you it is a little bit like a bad Family Guy gag (click)<br /></p><br /><br /><object height="349" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Jpoki4wBwtA?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Jpoki4wBwtA?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="349"></embed></object><br /><br /><p><br />that goes on just a little longer than you are comfortable with…<br /><br />(Peter emerges from the copy room)<br /><br />and then just keeps going.<br /><br />I mean the aggie pack guy is raising his hands…he should have more dignity than that…well, unless UCD is beating Sac state.<br /><br />And if you are a little confused about the purpose of this, well you are not alone…Google has demonstrated that they are a little confused about sung worship – and you can tell by their seemingly misguided attempt to monetize it. </p><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5599780193322694482" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 265px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBkyussnnDXZGJ4P9PqyWepVdp_oqikDPwFEsKix3qrJYJn7Y4jo0KzriOrmibiD_ZD_46GEYZtHWY9jSNuXwhQbN9d6m1mtBo-dk_80pxRmCQfzZMH8TnOxyJ_dbJGX0Mj9qBCUinToRL/s400/how-he-loves-us1.jpg" border="0" />I’d like to believe that this is highly misguided.<br /><br />We get it…its weird. And I’d also like to be very clear that the musical expression of worship is a very small part of what Christians mean when we use the word ‘worship’…but it is the emphasis of tonight so let’s run with it. Though culturally strange, we do not apologize for sung worship. This Christian practice has a very specific and valuable purpose. Artfully rehearsing truths about God and the gospel - together with others who have also experienced these things, but without the distraction of what the people around us are wearing or who they are looking at...this is one of the ways we ‘tap into’ the sorts of things that we want to pass through us.<br /><br />Like a dam turns water into power (video)…you were designed to turn worship into contagious joy and surplus thankfulness. You were constructed to generate generosity, service and reconciliation from the raw materials of worship.<br /><br /><strong><u>Postscript<br /></u></strong><br />But let me say one more thing about this overflow metaphor. So far we have talked about being an agent of overflow. But, every mature Christian I have ever met, and nearly all of the great theologians and mystics that constitute our 2000 year old tradition, they agree that for some reason, it is impossible to maintain a full time connection to the gushing source of joy, gratitude, generosity that is our God.<br /><br />The Christian life is cyclical. Now, to unpack the hows and whys of this, it would take another talk. But, let me just assert that if you stick with Jesus, there will be days that he will be more real to you as than person sitting next to you, and there will be days where you will wonder if he called in sick to the whole ruling the universe thing. And there are theological reasons for why he seems to prefer to interact with us in this way. But part of the provision for this is ‘overflow.’ If we are in a worshiping community, then there will be days in which we are the overflower and days in which we are the overflowee. Essentially, the way God worked it out, there is always enough joy to go around, but that it is not always evenly distributed. If you are tapped into it, you spill it over into those you love…and if you are not getting it directly from the primary source, it is entirely legitimate to get it indirectly, from a secondary source. In addition to worship, meaningful Christian community is your rain forest. It keeps you flush with comfort and joy and generosity even when worship is hard work.<br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5599963787075856706" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 276px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwF_Y7mBrw7Rwc7pA0YMKmWgowrluZGA1uexHlePl-ha6wNA0vzqQvgjjitgVvXT1iO_MYwSpB1wxqQk6ePPn2Qx8AI6fa95i5JNK8lGjgxNVvK3_Iqu8G3oXsFmWBPUgQvVPWorDi7z_d/s400/overflowee.png" border="0" /><br />God intended for us to spill his goodness over into each other. And this is true with respect to psychological states like thankfulness, joy and comfort…but it is also true about material resources like time and money, which is why the ‘overflow’ metaphor shows up in the chapters on generosity that Cory covered. We toss around the phrase ‘God provides’ all the time…but the truth is that God does not provide on the level of the individual. God provides on the level of the community. He expects us to overflow into each other.<br /><br />So, there are really just two things I want you to get out of my favorite hydrologic theme in the Bible. First, if you want to experience the things God offers, you have to be tapped into the source of these things. We call that worship. And while we recognize that some of our cultural expressions of worship are odd, we do not apologize for them. While our cultural expression of worship is somewhat arbitrary…the fundamental need to be worshipers is at the heart of our world view.<br /><br />And second, God provides these things to a community, not necessarily to individuals. Even as a consistent worshiper, you will not experience the consistent joy or contentment that God wants for you alone because you will you will have no one to spill them into…and you won’t have anyone to spill them into you when you go dry. For you engineers, the control volume isn’t drawn around the individual, it is drawn around the community.<br /><br />So, let me wrap up by unpacking this separately for Seniors and underclassman. First, Seniors, You have been an epic CL class. I count many of you as friends. Many of you have repeatedly overflowed grace into my life. And most of you have left it on the field. But even the most spiritually mature and theologically prepared of you are in for an enormous challenge . Making the transition from CL to a local church is probably going to be harder than you expect it to be. It is simply harder to find these meaningful friendships in an intergenerational local church. We have friends who have squandered their twenties trying whining about how the church is not like college ministry. So yes. It is going to be harder when you have a 9-5, and aren’t living within 100 yards of 50 Christians. But it’s possible…and it’s on you. If there isn’t a compelling structure set up for you to share your lives deeply with people you respect…make it happen. Don’t wait for someone to set up a compelling community for you…build one.<br /><br />But most of you are underclassmen. Which is awesome, because it means that you have more years to represent Jesus on this campus. But if you are on the margins of this community make it your goal over the next 5 weeks to start build something that you want to come back to in the fall. The problem with a community this size is that it is hard to break into. And as much as Tuesday nights are the highlight of my week, you cannot find community at a gathering this size. If you want to connect with this community…if you want to find lifelong friends that you can spill over into and who will spill over into you – you have to eventually get into a growth group…or…COME ON RETREAT! There simply isn’t a better, more efficient way to you’re your people in this community to spill over into and that will spill over into you, than to come with us on retreat this weekend. If you have found Tuesday nights intriguing but look around the room and there still aren’t people who are spilling over into you…don’t leave Geidt tonight without filling out that little yellow sheet. But take some steps to put yourself in situations to know some of these really remarkable people sitting in this room.<br /><br />You need people to spill your joy and gratitude over into and you need people that will spill over comfort and generosity into you. That is the way the system was set up. Do what it takes to find those people.<br /><br /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5599963453561904514" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 298px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji9tYtf8eQiVy5zs9myj24Ci3-zYBAtBI0HiY4ANg1lvHDB2ZcAclWPfMd9FEcP_qjFvfHeaBrOpPUhQyYUL7PsB4r-1Ckh5vuXzptzJzWEsgQwNp2YhoVJnFmJZBcK7rcU7yBjxErn885/s400/outline.png" border="0" /><br /><a title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=6972622210843531230&postID=7448555763706408412#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> The pictures got better than this…but I thought I’d limit the internet post to this one.stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6972622210843531230.post-86886864858683633332011-02-07T21:07:00.000-08:002011-02-08T19:20:32.231-08:00The Mission and the Message: 2 Cor 5: 14-21MP3 (coming soon)<br /><br /><br />Most people are surprised to learn that I applied to colleges as an art major. I didn’t last long. I ended up switching to physics during orientation. But in retrospect, this was an excellent decision for one very important reason… my art was terrible. I mean my art, made Napoleon Dynamite look like Caravaggio.<br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 250px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571181488380507378" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji-fFRS77pG-xaht-XuF7RicVKv8pweKsqsMTj2BdcU-Ip7cbULlYj5pOUeJm8zj1QmSVnRTEjWXmzqGaLFoUeCnp3ww-lXOiVvF0Y3YNt0ZVbOumVylZohKh8_aIrGVwBtDsVN7Fbqzah/s400/Bad+art.gif" /><br />But throughout my undergraduate education, I would often stop by little gallery in the basement of the union where the art department displayed their work to see what my alternate life might have been like. One day, I walked in, and there, in the back of the room, in the position of honor, was a little 3 inch sculpture of Jesus on the cross. What made this sculpture memorable was that it was constructed entirely out of cigarette butts.<br /><br /><br />Now I was pretty new to the Jesus following thing and to be honest, it startled me. But years later I learned that it was not that different than the earliest depiction of Jesus ever found. The first image we have of Jesus is not sympathetic. It is a caricature that was found on the wall of a Roman prison. It pictures him on the cross, with the head of a donkey, with the inscription: “Alexamenos sebete theon”<br /><br /><br />Alexamenos worships his god.<br /><br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 250px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571184084609139010" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWER-67FxPT4PJCBVQb2pT2h4TAvwrELdQRTi9VnoeGfTuVF83r5SovMDjMiB__K7ADyYH-yeos9e7PifEg0IyUolL_cgHUT_OajKdjXkjoCR__LMsEMi0Kp9Qz0VNIDAYWplcOKodNy0C/s400/Ancient+graffiti+and+cigarette+cross.gif" /><br />Two different artists, two thousand years apart, the same idea. A dying God is absurd.<br /><br /><br />A lot of people find this aspect of Christianity weird. I was talking to my friend Mark, a couple years ago. He told me that he found out that he shared a name with one of the books of the Bible, so he decided to read it. So I asked him what he thought. His comment was striking to me. He said, “Honestly, it kind of bummed out. It turns out that’s the one Jesus dies in.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him, that it was just one of four that Jesus dies in. But I kind of get that. We can deal with the picture of Jesus as a baby – I mean, it’s a little weird, but we’ve kind of gotten used to it. We can deal with Jesus as a teacher; that one is easy, that is what we expect out of our religious figures. But there is a kind of indignity even an immodesty to Jesus stripped naked and nailed to a cross bar until his lungs fill with blood and his heart explodes. It can seem incongruous with the rest of the story.<br /><br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 250px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571181484043887970" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaOAE7yPxRfsZHLezQdTOujkTVpIHkyx0tQzOGg8iGg3Ni4gp98EZpci-nVao_w3Mhn_9NwIrPYszADsly6xK3ZnWV2UpZJFeC-Baq0TKmqRhnP85FPaBSFgwlhhH77Z33ihAGi41Em8kZ/s400/baby+teacher+cross.gif" /><br />So if you are going to understand Christianity, you are going to have to come to terms with the question: “Why did Jesus die?” Why is the cross at the center of our iconography? What’s the point?<br /><br /><br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 250px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571181489834113298" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTIqDtimjCA3xwrza2M7ZfZpupuJMV5Xhyf5tNDO9dDn4uRnFN9nzBfGR31obrhsWDm0K28QyuUamEUNXkfbFNCF3s1UGyxyEh7yBF-iyqBtOI49GJM7SlyY8xms3TdjxPNRsFDb06XTsm/s400/cross+X+5.gif" /><br />Today’s passage takes that question on. I have often considered the second half of 2 Corinthians 5 to one of the clearest articulations of the central ideas of Christianity.<a style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a> If you are looking for the cliff notes version, of this big book, If you are trying to get your head around the big message…you came on the right night. This passage argues that the death and resurrection of Jesus are the heart of the Christian message and the Christian mission. These events are the primary motivation of what we believe and what we do.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:180%;color:#000099;"><strong>I. <u>The Message</u><br /></strong></span><br /><br />The first thing you need to know about the death of Jesus is that it somehow confers a benefit to people. Look with me at the first verse. At the center of the Christian message is the message that: one died for all.<br /><br /><br />Jesus’ death was purposeful. It was for me and it was for you. But you already knew that…because it seems that Christians feel inclined to write something to this effect in the strangest places…<br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 250px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571181889533421074" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwpcllrEpCfFa0c-V1rGhvykZhypodI9YBD_Xu4snCB4hqQP3fYd5Qw2eO317hDqxhP4DpTOr9CgBcInCkzdp4MxExCR1rX1m8mU-erj65ZF7c6KYyDq7fXQgb_mXCvEelwzD09IvL7FJn/s400/Jesus+Graffiti.gif" /><br />And sometimes with less skill that the task calls for…<br /><br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 300px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571181887876278258" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_waFKh3nHq9Lf7TaCD4U4UW_83gLweguVVM8t808CFk29nlxSINaQ3wTBOa7lpfHkM04dxBp_pefPhjITj8zhyAhafUpr8_Wg7CJj93WHEUkn-hGXIUebzm8qz4UHX8SSJi1uzF75IzxT/s400/Jesus+and+bad+spelling.jpg" /><br /><br /><br /><br />The cool thing about this passage is that it unpacks the details of that idea. It answers the questions: why did we need him to die for us and how does this work. First Why? Look with me in verses 18 and 19<br /><br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#3333ff;">1. <u>Why: to reconcile us to God</u></span></strong><br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#009900;">“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ…God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them”<br /></span><br /><br />The point of Jesus’ death is reconciliation. His mission was to make things good between you and God. Of course, there is a countercultural assumption built into that answer. It assumes that you and God aren’t already good. It assumes that things between you and God are not cool. Reconciliation assumes a starting point of enmity. And this is what the Bible means when it talks about sin.<br /><br /><br />Now sin is a word that has ceased to have meaning. For most people I know, the only real concrete thing that sin corresponds to is the derivative of cos.<br /><br /><br /><br /><p><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 157px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571181494294299986" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4VVN7Ys5cCzwE4t1AJz0_fKE28NsS3ewE2FODAWQe8ele9yHFxYkMlu7Wxug0D-N7AFZpYidfPvKUBYojrokaImMoB356n0jOJKsOL-6pWXsnk-gT4XI3Ip_5VhyphenhyphenRPyjHmXhN3breCnsz/s400/d+cos+is+sin.gif" /></p><br /><p>For other people, it is shorthand for a simple indulgence…things are sinfully delicious or a couple who is living together will smirk that they are ‘living in sin’…It is a simple shorthand for fun.<br /></p><br />Chuck Klosterman kind of got at this idea in his brilliant book: Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs – A Low Culture Manifesto. One of his essays is on the book Left Behind, a book that was written from a theological perspective that believes that God will eventually take Christians out of the world. He writes:<br /><br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 250px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571181893506305010" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqeYkbNGNEbQ-GJPrZqCOWgoPiyGDHjLmOWWOiegW66HGODDw2fU-0JF6eQbmMDcNSg9QrblqwUPSao2m7XZj270fTf8MHxEw_yFwnLq52UgR6rU6F5hBuj7QcU2i3MYcwEIyOusMnNq6H/s400/klosterman+quote.gif" /><br />But the Bible means something much more fundamental when it uses the word “sin.” It argues that we each have a fundamental tendency to make ourselves the center of our lives, in the process, revolting against God’s right to occupy that position. It is more than just a few mistakes, it is a condition of enmity. If you don’t understand this, the cross will seem absurd. If you operate from the perspective, “well, I’ve made a few mistakes, but no one is perfect and God will overlook it” – the cross will seem absurd. But if you get a hold of the idea that our attempts to forge our own lives for our own happiness and our own advancement is a rebellion against God’s claims to direct our lives based on the fact that he made us…the cross starts to make more sense.<br /><br /><br />The problem isn’t a few mistakes that God needs to overlook, it is a fractured relationship that needs to be healing. You and God are not ok. Me and God, we’re not ok either. We all need to be reconciled. We have knowingly or unknowingly made ourselves into God’s enemies. In a sense, our lives represent a mutiny. God designed our lives with a purpose and a destination…but have taken over the ship and are sailing it wherever we want. We are in a state of fractured relationship<br /><br /><br />The good news is that he has taken the initiative to bring healing to this fractured relationship. Jesus. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection are the mechanism of reconciliation…the means by which you can be restored to God. The passage, says that because of Jesus, people’s sins, their rebellions, are not counted against them.<br /><br /><br />So, that is the why. Why did Jesus die – to reconcile us to God…But how does that work? How does Jesus dying end up with your sin not counting against you? It sets up a cosmic exchange.<br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#3333ff;">2. <u>How: By exchanging our rebellion for his innocence<br /></u></span></strong><br /><br /><span style="color:#009900;">5:21 “We implore you, on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin, to become sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”<br /></span><br /><br />I remember the summer that aluminum cans became recyclable. I was twelve. In NY, where I grew up, they do recycling a little differently. You pay 5 cents a can when you buy them and can get 5 cents a can by bringing them to any grocery store. So my brother and I went to a memorial day parade in a little town called Theresa NY they passed the recycling law. Now Theresa is a little rural town that is 3 blocks long and has 3 bars and a liquor store…so let’s just say that not only were there discarded empties everywhere, but a substantial fraction of them were 40’s. Nic and I were skeptical, but we got a bag and started walking around collecting empties. Now you have to remember, no one used to do this. Up until that summer, we just threw cans out. And we got some strange looks from the very gentlemen who were discarding the empties. The whole thing was kind of humiliating. But eventually, we walked into the Big M grocery store with an overflowing bag of cans. We were embarrassed and smelled of sweat and Pabst Blue Ribbon. But then, in our little pre adolescent minds, something magical happened. We handed the lady at the register a bag of trash, and she gave us money. It felt like stealing.<br /><br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 250px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571182041173200066" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJxCAy5g5RWCJ5pdV-KgQlzaIF4giMxe5A0WSL2ZrCFguyAcJgbaLtFBXmLorbfQRCXYgb-RJg4Xcx5i0u8x4d9xv_aP9WtYxPMsDB705zaeqg3qV82ajobuBoFQPLzTZYVLqAF0GUt5Gc/s400/Theresa+and+beer.gif" /><br />That is how the cross works. It's an unfair exchange. It’s an exchange in which we had over the trash of sin, self-absorption, and compromise, and we receive the cash of forgiveness, new life, and adoption into God’s family.<br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#009900;">"God made him who had no sin, to become sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."</span><br /><br /><br />Jesus, who was himself, in a fundamental but confusing way, God himself, and was totally innocent, totally without sin died the death of a rebel and a traitor. But this made way for a cosmic exchange…where we can trade our sin for his righteousness (to use the language of the passage). Or to use other language, we can trade our rebellion for his innocence. We can trade our estrangement from God for his intimacy with God. Our indifference to the poor for his generosity. Our lustful objectification of women for his loving respect for women. Our self centeredness for his God-centered and other centeredness.<a style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a> This transaction does not make us good, but it makes us as if we were good in God’s eyes, and then we try to live like God sees us.<br /><br /><br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 360px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571181506192674450" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmgQT5NxAKpCoHu5iNwUWk3xioTVDda3yXx5nzoV6CnwpDMZQx8gGQO7J_FipUdRbn0x1stShIRUBfpcBDUnIUJqEBdqd23q77aS_Ab4r1E6M6PQiyijFcNBe0QJ4yB3b-0cJzPDRcmp0n/s400/exchange+diagrhams.gif" /><br /><br /><br />He identified with our brokenness and we were cosmically associated with his goodness and his justice. We are not good…not really, we are not really just, we are not really generous, we are not really loving – we dabble in these things…and you might even be able to talk yourself into thinking that these things define you, but the results are always tainted with self interest and mixed motives. But in this cosmic exchange, we can be considered just, good and generous, and, in exchange, Jesus takes on our pettiness, self centeredness and bigotry.<br /><br /><br />And God’s offer of reconciliation is universal. It’s for absolutely everyone. Look with me in the text:<br /><br /><br />v. 14 – <span style="color:#009900;">“one died for all”</span><br /><br /><br />v. 15 – <span style="color:#009900;">“he died for all”<br /></span><br /><br />v. 19 – <span style="color:#009900;">“God was reconciling the world to himself”</span><br /><span style="color:#009900;"></span><br /><br />But it has to be appropriated. He does not force reconciliation on anyone. As it stands it is just an offer, and unless you accept it you remain in the ambient state…of fractured relationship with God. Which brings us to Paul’s punch line in verse 20:<br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#009900;">“We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.”<br /></span><br /><br />If you had to choose 4 words to summarize the message of the Bible, these four would be a pretty good choice. <span style="color:#009900;">“Be reconciled to God.” </span>Appropriate the reconciliation Jesus made available to you.<br /><br /><br />So, the Message is that Jesus died and raised so that we could be reconciled to God through an exchange of our sin for his goodness. But, surprisingly, this passage also contends that the death of Jesus not only motivates the Christian message, it also motivates the Christian Mission:<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:180%;color:#000099;"><strong>II. <u>The Mission</u><br /></strong></span><br /><br />You see, the cross is not all about you. I mean, it is clear, through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we have the opportunity to be made right with God. Because of those events, your sin does not have to count against you. But there is another level of this. Look at v 15.<br /><br /><br /><span style="color:#009900;">“And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”<br /></span><br /><br />Reconciliation re-establishes the correct order where you no longer live for yourself but for God. Now, on the face of things, this seems like a cost. It sounds like Jesus is saying “Listen, I’ll make things good between you and God…but then I own your ass.” But it is actually part of the rescue. Jesus not only saves us from the consequences of our self involvement, he saves us from our actual self involvement. You were not designed to live for yourself. Living for yourself is a psychological cul-de-sac. You end up obsessing over your desires and neurosis. Part of the rescue that Jesus brings is a new mission of living for Jesus which manifests as living for others. Here is the thing, the reconciliation Jesus brings does not make you reconciled. It makes you a reconciler. There is no intermediate state where you receive the benefits of reconciliation but do not reorder your life to pass them on to others:<br /><br /><br />18 <span style="color:#009900;">"All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation"</span><br /><br /><br />19 <span style="color:#009900;">"And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation."</span><br /><br /><span style="color:#009900;"></span><br />20 <span style="color:#009900;">"We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.<br />What Jesus offers is not just a rescue, it is a rescue into a mission."</span><br /><br /><br />So before Battlestar Galactica put the Syfy channel on the mainstream map, they made their living off the stargate series. In Stargate Atlantis, there were two characters Tayla and Ronin, who were part of the team that was trying to save the Pegasus galaxy from a malevolent, oppressive, ruthless enemy. But the interesting thing about these two characters is that they had both been enslaved by this enemy. So when they were freed, they immediately joined the mission of resistance and rescue. They weren’t just rescued to move on with the rest of their lives. Neither of these characters could conceive of being squandering their rescue on themselves, they had to use it to become agents of rescue. They were rescued into the mission. And that is the way Christianity works. We are not just made good with God so we can move on with the rest of our lives for our selves with the God box checked off. We are reconciled to become reconcilers.<br /><br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 250px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571181908583427314" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsk4gLGGmWqNVp1beveIv95wXOS9uVo9uCu562nGLNpei-qKsOeBQPsQHbcSN7mdY8F-oP3lpB7sZKjfHueNiW5p5skT3M47AFdmCI1FK9SomwjL4keG9qMQRh4af1cOc8c65pIfbav3jq/s400/Taelya+and+Ronin.gif" /><br /><br /><br />One of my soccer buddies from high school went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to study Mechanical Engineering. So I ended up doing numerical modeling of rivers and he ended up designing submarines…but we found that these very different fields converged on a shared passion. We both loved fluid dynamics. He told me the story of his fluid dynamics class. Apparently the professor offered two exams. Everyone had to show up for the first one. If you passed, you got a B. Those that passed, could call it good, or they could show up the next day for a harder test, which would give them a shot at an A. What surprised him was how few people showed up for the second exam. But I feel like this is how a lot of Christians view the gospel. That accepting the reconciling exchange of the cross to make us good with God is like the mandatory B exam…but becoming agents of reconciliation is extra credit. It is the optional A exam for the overachievers or the nerds who want to go to Grad School.<br /><br /><br />But here’s the thing, it is impossible to disentangle the message of reconciliation and the mission of offering that reconciliation to others. Paul speaks of them together. They are the same thing. I went through the passage and marked the parts that talk about the message and the parts that talk about the mission…and there is no tidy sequential separation. They are intertwined:<br />Reconciliation doesn’t just make you reconciled…it makes you a reconciler.<br /><br /><br /><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 229px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571181904337953698" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOFpuwi4lMx42X1TdKrBQMWRjk6nLsywswiCDZAsUf_4hnpqTiNIdhdLDWK4tL71bAg7ZYG_1FuDlpAKvHZkYy4XYRAfixG9e713ABXGVWWa8rTFxAIzkqOy_4Uea_BzrN8z83TsF2bOqs/s400/message+and+mission+overlap.gif" /><br />Now the immediate context here refers to offering the Message of reconciliation to anyone who is interested. And that is the primary meaning. Most people only have the vaguest understanding of the Message of God’s reconciliation mission in Jesus, and so we should offer the story to anyone who is interested. But in the broader scope of the Scriptures it can also include acts of care and justice…acts of practical good that demonstrate God’s intent for a restored creation. This is one of the reasons I really like the “Ambassador” language this text uses. An lives in one country but their primary allegiance is to a different country. Their primary mission is to deliver the message from their home. But they also live and work for the practical good of the people they live among out of a general affection for them and to demonstrate offer of peaceful relations between the two nations.<br /><br /><br />These are not primarily programmatic sorts of thing. You just need to be constantly on the lookout for opportunities to be agents of reconciliation, both in terms of offering the message and, what we refer to in our mission statement as practical ‘creative acts of courageous love.’ But there will be some community wide opportunities coming up. Next week Layeah will be talking about global opportunities and the week after Alyssa and Mike will be talking about local opportunities to be agents of reconciliation.<br /><br /><br />So, we say all the time here that our hope is that this gathering would be a place for two kinds of people. We hope that it is a safe place where those of you who are spiritually curious could investigate and experiment with Jesus and Christian community. And we hope that it is a place where those of you who have made a commitment to Jesus could come together and figure out what that looks like. And so it would seem like this talk divides<a style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3">[3]</a> along those lines. For those of you who have experienced and continue to experience intimacy with God because of the reconciliation of Jesus, you were reconciled to become reconcilers. The Mission of the Cross is to become agents of reconciliation. For those of you who are checking Jesus out: The Message of the cross is pretty simple. Take Jesus up on the offer to exchange his goodness for your brokenness…<span style="color:#009900;">“We implore you on Christ’s behalf: be reconciled to God.” </span><br /><br /><br />___________________________<br /><a style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> This text is exceedingly full of matter, and might require many treatises, and even multitudes of folios, to bring forth all its meaning. Holy Scripture is notably sententious. Human teachers are given to verbiage; we multiply words to express our meaning, but the Lord is wondrously laconic; he writeth as it were in shorthand, and gives us much in little. One single grain of the precious gold of Scripture may be beaten out into acres of human gold leaf, and spread far and wide. -Spurgeon<br /><a style="mso-footnote-id: ftn2" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2">[2]</a> Reconciliation is an act of remaking – it is an innocence infusion. Like a medical procedure where contaminated blood is exchanged for pure blood<br /><a style="mso-footnote-id: ftn3" title="" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6972622210843531230#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3">[3]</a> But it is actually not as tidy as that. You see, for the spiritually curious, The Mission is the fine print. We, like Paul, sincerely hope that you will decide to accept the reconciliation with God offered to you in Christ, but you need to know the implications of that is a massive priority change.<br />And Christians need to recognize that The Message of the Cross is not just for the spiritually curious. We do not graduate beyond the gospel. The minute we think we are good with God based on our own goodness, we become self-righteous, religious prudes. We are tempted to exchange self-centered hedonism for a self-centered moralims, which is a little more refined but just as broken. The exchange of our sin for Jesus goodness happens once and for all, but we keep bringing sin to the table. The gospel is for Christians. That is what keeps us from lapsing into self righteousness, when things work right…because the righteousness is not ours. The more often and the more deeply we recognize that our relationship with God is not based on our goodness but Jesus’ the less likely we are to be condescending jerks to those who don’t accept the Christian story.stanfordhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07591716618038804118noreply@blogger.com0