For all the Eugene Peterson fans out there

——
by Skye Jethan from the Out of Ur blog:
Last year at the National Pastors Convention, Dallas Willard spoke at an early morning Bible study gathering. Unlike the main sessions the Bible study had no music, no flashing lights, no massive screen. There was nothing remotely worshipful or stimulating about the physical setting. Still, I recall feeling most blessed and caught up into something divine during that simple lesson by Dr. Willard.

Yesterday morning I had a similar experience. For the second year I have been blessed by a soft-spoken, gray haired sage. This morning it was Eugene Peterson. In the same bland ballroom Peterson opened the Bible to share his reflections on prayer. There was nothing spectacular about his presentation, but it carried the gravity of a godly life.

Peterson spoke about the prayer he begins every day with as he walks the quarter mile from his front door to retrieve his newspaper. Living amid the natural beauty of Montana, Peterson greets the squirrels and the deer as he recites the words of Zachariah in Luke 1:68-79…

…In verses 76-77, Zechariah speaks of his newborn son, John:
And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;
For you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him;
To give to His people the knowledge of salvation
By the forgiveness of their sins.

Most interesting is that while reciting these verses Peterson inserts his own name for “child.” He reminds himself that our calling as pastors is to be a prophet—one who speaks God’s word into our world—to prepare the way for the Lord. We are not the Lord, and we do not accomplish what he accomplishes. All we can do is prepare people to encounter the Lord. The outcome rests in his hands, not ours.

Full Article

To my friends who have missed me,
Thanks for the encouraging words. I do intend on blogging more regularly. It’s been a resolution.

Know that things are well and I appreciate your thoughts.

* Special thanks to CarolAnn. Appreciate your prayers.

A Thanksgiving Reflection

11/22/06
From Whom?
by Jill Carattini

The four lines of what is commonly known as the Doxology have been sung for more than three hundred years.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Praise Him all creatures here below.
Praise Him above ye heavenly host.
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

It has been said that the Doxology, which literally means words of glory, has done more to teach the doctrine of the Trinity than all the theological books ever written. To this day, when I sing those powerful lines, I recall the colorful lesson of my first grade Sunday school teacher. With something like cookie dough and bologna magically falling down on the table before us, she read us the story of a God who made the heavens rain bread and quail so that his grumbling people might live and know that He is God. I was impressed. And when we sung the Doxology at the end of the service, I thought it immensely helpful that I knew a little more of what it means when we sing that God is a God from whom all blessings flow.

Cornelius Plantinga, Jr. once said pointedly, “It must be an odd feeling to be thankful to nobody in particular.” He was commenting on the odd phenomenon of finding, especially around Thanksgiving time, people thankful “in general.” To be thankful “in general” is very strange, he concluded. “It’s a little like being married in general.”

Of course, his words are not dismissing the thought that it is good to give thanks in all circumstances. Rather, Plantinga raises an important philosophical question. Can one be thankful in general, thankful for the blessings that flow, without acknowledging from where or from whom they might be flowing?

In what remains a revealing look at human nature, Moses describes life after Egypt. Rescued Israel was a grumbling people sick of manna, wailing for meat, even longing to go back to the land God had mightily delivered them from. And in the midst of revealing God’s promise for meat, Moses says to them, “You have rejected the Lord, who is among you” (Numbers 11:20).

How revealing these words are to our grumbling prone lips. If being thankful is by nature being aware and appreciative of things beyond ourselves, complaining is refusing to see anything but ourselves. It is refusing to see the one who is among us. Moreover, it is an expression that serves only to affirm our own expectations, whether they are based on faulty visions of reality or not. Certainly the Israelites didn’t want to go back into captivity, but in their grumbling even slavery began to look inviting.

Choosing not to see the glory of God, choosing not to raise our eyes to God from whom all blessings flow is in essence to be content in blindness. It is choosing not to wholly consider reality, choosing to overlook the sovereign God at work beyond us, in all things, in all circumstances.

In one of his own doxologies found in Romans 11, the apostle Paul declares the glory of God and lifts our eyes to the one worthy of our praise: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:33-36).

Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken and living before one who is worthy of our praise, let us be thankful. Let us worship God with reverence and awe, always remembering with praise and wonder the one from whom all blessings flow.

Found this recently and I loved George’s answer, thought I’d post it. Enjoy.

Good Question: Has God Played Fair? by Timothy George
Why did an omniscient God create humankind knowing that people, in every generation, would reject him? —Peggie Jones, Lowell, Arkansas

The honest answer to this question is, we don’t know—at least not in a cocksure, foolproof way that takes the risk out of faith and the mystery out of revelation. The Bible says that “the secret things belong to the Lord our God” (Deut. 29:29, NIV). And yet this is a natural and reasonable question to ask. We can say four things in response:

First, everything God does, by either explicit decree or permission, has an ultimate beneficial purpose. This includes the fact of hell and God’s judgment against rebellious sinners, as well as the blessings of heaven and salvation in Christ. Love and holiness are both essential attributes of God, and they are not in competition with one another. As with Job, in the face of suffering and mystery we are tempted to accuse God of wrongdoing and put him in the dock. But God’s answer to Job reaches us as well: “Would you condemn me to justify yourself?” (Job 40:8).

Second, this question assumes that human beings are victims caught in the vise of an inexorable fate. But the Bible teaches that God in his goodness has created a world of moral order, one in which men and women are free moral agents. By creating Adam and Eve in his image and likeness, God gave them a quality of relationship with him that no other creature has. God’s creative act was so great that he trusted them with freedom. Unfortunately, freedom includes the freedom to turn away from God, and that is what Adam and Eve did. The fact that God knew beforehand what they would do in no way abrogated their capacity to act and do as they chose. God condemns no one unjustly. God is the judge of all the earth, and he will do right by everyone. On the final day of judgment, no one will be able to stand before God and say to him, “I have been treated unfairly by you!”

Of course, exactly how the inequities of this life will be seen in the tapestry of eternity remains imponderable. But we do know that God’s plan is free and purposive, that he does not compel or coerce human creatures made in his image, and that nothing can ultimately thwart his glory and grace.

Third, it may seem that we can get God off the hook by denying his absolute foreknowledge of future events, by seeing Creation as an open-ended experiment about which even God is in the dark. Rather than taking the problem of evil seriously, though, such a view of God trivializes it. We would not praise a doctor who produced horrible deformities while experimenting with human cloning.

Nor can we find solace in a disabled deity whose creative power unleashes a floodtide of suffering and evil over which he has no certain knowledge and only limited control. Such a god might deserve to be pitied—but not worshiped and adored. This is why orthodox Christians of all confessions have affirmed God’s complete foreknowledge of the future, however much they may have differed on issues such as election and predestination.

Finally, Jesus Christ is the surest window into the heart of God. When Martin Luther was asked difficult questions such as the one posed here, he replied by encouraging his troubled friends to “look to the wounds of Jesus.” That same advice had been given to him as a young man, when, plagued by guilt, he doubted whether he could ever be accepted by a holy God. By focusing on Christ, he discovered the doctrine of justification by faith alone. In Jesus Christ, God’s grace and truth were realized in perfect equipoise. In Jesus we see that God is unspeakably generous, “abundant in goodness and truth” (Ex. 34:6, KJV), and at the same time a God of uncompromised purity and righteousness. In Jesus Christ the Creator has become our Redeemer, the Judge has received our judgment. Through his death and resurrection, the way to eternal life has been forever opened to all who turn from selfishness and sin and in simple trust commit themselves to Christ for all time and eternity.

Timothy George, a CT executive editor, is dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University in Birmingham.

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VeggieTales too Christian for NBC Network demands edits, creator says it fears kids hearing ‘God loves you’

Even with the censorship, it’s a small step in the right direction. I might just break out the Cocoa Pebbles and stay in my pajamas Saturday Mornings.

Well, it’s her perogative. It lasted 14 years longer then I thought it would. Then after the 34th time they were arrested for drug possession, I thought they’d be doing the “Moonwalker” on their 50th anniversary. Maybe they were made for each other. I post on this because for the life of me, I couldn’t understand how this relationship lasted so long. I even thought maybe they were in love. Or he wouldn’t let her share his drug supplier if she left him.

Well, I am going out on the limb and saying that Brittany and Kevin won’t make it for 14 years but Tom and Katie, that’s forever. Pretty much because all those papers he made her sign, and the “eternal covenant” thing, aka known as the “death threat”.
I also remember reading somewhere that he used that line out of Jerry McGuire, “I’m not letting you leave, what about that?”. Wow, I think I saw a movie about this, I think it was called The Firm.

A long but interesting read.