day no. 14,775: belly brakes

"If your ideals ignore reason, your instincts will ignore restraint." —G. K. Chesterton

If what you want does not account for what actually is, your belly will have no brakes.

day no. 14,764: happy birthday, Paige!

We count the years by how long it takes the earth to orbit the sun. When it began and what exact year that was, we do not know precisely, but we know from any fixed day, a year later, we will be back where we were. So wherever the earth was at on March 26, 1986, it is at that same place again and has just completed its 33rd leg of that particular journey. You have now completed 33 orbits around the sun and spun around 12,054 times on the earth. 12,054 lunch hours, 33 Easters. It's a good ride.

day no. 14,759: soft pedaling hard truth

In Christian circles, softness is not a sin. In fact, it is a virtue. Many Christian churches prefer their men sweater-vested and sweet-hearted, pastel, prim and proper. But softness is forbidden by God; it is not a permissible option of orientation.

The KJV captures this in its translation of 1 Corinthians 6:9

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind

This list of sins continues beyond vs. 9, but the significance of this concept is captured by the two Greek words translated by the KJV separately as "effeminate" and "abusers of themselves with mankind."

The ESV combines these two concepts into one in its rendition of 1 Corinthians 6:9

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality

While "effeminacy" and "abusers of themselves with mankind" certainly can come together to practice homosexuality, this is too narrow of an application of the concepts being condemned.

Effeminacy is itself a sin. Before it ends up behind closed doors, it is doing something in broad daylight; and that thing must be repented of or it will not inherit the kingdom of God. It is not only a sin if it reaches it's telos, it is a sin at its inception. It grows up and gets worse like any other sin, but it's beginnings are not great to begin with (James 1:15).

The Good News is that if a sin can be named, it can be forgiven. If you have been going soft, you can repent and find forgiveness. What you cannot do is embrace softness as an ideal. You cannot dismiss it as an untouchable personal preference. It is either a sin as God has defined it or it is acceptable as we have determined.

Silk will always scratch less than wool skipping will always be more fun than marching. 

The Christian community has far too long been ignorant to the sin of softness and as a result has even promoted it as ideal. What many churches aim for as "exemplary," God aims His wrath at as "unrighteous."

day no.14,758: shifting reference points

"No one should ever be allowed to tear down any fence unless they could explain why it had been erected in the first place." - G.K. Chesterton

For all of the things that God takes time out of His busy eternity to detail for us, His concern with landmarks cannot go unnoticed.

Proverbs 22:28

Do not move the ancient landmark that your fathers have set.

Proverbs 23:10

Do not move an ancient boundary stone or encroach on the fields of the fatherless,

Deuteronomy 27:17

Cursed is he who moves his neighbor's boundary stone.' And let all the people say, 'Amen!'

Deuteronomy 19:14

Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmark, which they of old time have set in thine inheritance, which thou shalt inherit in the land that the LORD thy God giveth thee to possess it.

Job 24:2

Men move boundary stones; they pasture stolen flocks.

Q: Why all this interest in stones and landmarks?

A: For all the reasons Chesterton points out. It isn't to say that some things can never be moved, but rather to say that you ought to have a VERY good reason to move them. And furthermore, some landmarks are so fixed that a good reason to move them hasn't been found for thousands of years. Progress doesn't require you to shift every reference point, rather it requires you to know the old references so that you can measure what progression actually is.

day no. 14,751: sons of God and the bride of Christ

Read a few interesting articles today, HERE and HERE.

Many feel the freedom to change their vernacular to accommodate the inclusion of "daughters" to the term "sons of God." But most still would feel a sense of reluctance to change their vernacular to accommodate the inclusion of "spouse" instead of "bride" of Christ.

The Church is the bride. That requires no qualification. Yet, sons of God requires an accommodation lest people get the wrong idea.

The accommodations almost exclusively go the one direction.

day no. 14,750: 1 Corinthians 12 walk through and observations

:1 There is authoritative teaching when it comes to spiritual gifts. This isn't just a free for all, what you think is just as good as what I think kind of deal. He doesn't want to leave them uninformed and groping to figure this out when there is clear, light giving teaching on the topic. This also, apparently, is something that they had asked him about and expressed either  confusion and asking for help, or they expressed knowledge on the subject that Paul read and observed their confusion in what they thought they knew on the topic. Perhaps they made assertions that he knows are untrue and now wants to clarify or they asked in earnest and he is now taking his quill to address them.

:2 Everyone is being led somewhere by something. Pagans are being led somewhere by idols. Those who have become Christians are no longer pagans. It would be inappropriate to be led by things that no longer fit who you are. You are Christians, you should be led by the Spirit.

:3 Christians are being led further upward and inward. Up in maturity and in to Christ. And there is no up without going in and you cannot be in without going more up.

:4 And while this is an across the board, universal Christian experience, it manifests itself in a variety of ways within those in whom it manifests itself. In other words, all Christians will grow up and in, but how the Spirit overflows up and out of them will look differently.

:4-6 varieties of gifts, services and activities, but one Spirit, one Lord, one God. God is Himself a unity of diversity. Three persons and one God is a living illustration of the university (unity of diversity).

:7 every Christian has been equipped to do what they have been called to do. Everyone is not called to do everything, but everyone who is a Christian has been called to do something and they can't blame God that they have been given a task without the tools. In other words, God has not set His children up for failure.

:8-11 Paul lists of some for examples and ends by saying that just as the gifts may vary per person, the apportioned amount of any gift may vary per person. So you can have one person with knowledge and another with tongues, and you can have one with healing and another with MORE healing.

:12-13 God did not send a Jew born of Jews to save only Jews. He didn't send a Greek born Messiah to save Greeks, a slave born Messiah to save slaves, etc… He sent one Messiah to live, die and resurrect for all kinds of peoples. Every Christian belongs to and submits to the one Christ. He is the one Head of the one body. There are many things to do underneath the headship of Christ, but only one Head and there are no job openings or possibility of promotion. But there are all kinds of jobs to do south of the neck line in the Christian body = church

:14-26 God arranged the body. If you do not like the body, your problem is not with the rest of the body, but with God who arranged it. hands and eyes have no reason to boast or to belittle their positions. God put them there and it is in that confidence that they can serve, enjoy their place and endure the difficulties that come with wherever they have been stationed. Every body part has its problems. Eyes get blinded, fingers get smashed, knees get scraped, stomach growl, lips chap and the small of your itches where you can't reach it.

When you have a headache, your whole body suffers. You aren't free to just go about your business while your brain aches. A hangnail can ruin your entire day, a stubbed toe, etc… It's all connected.

:27-31 that isn't too say that all gifts are equal. They are equal in one sense and not in another. They are all valuable, but some are higher than others. Hierarchy is not a product of sin. This comes full circle to the Trinity discussion with which he began. There is a hierarchy in the Godhead but no sin. Because we are sinners, we abuse hierarchy on either end of it, but Paul doesn't try to solve the problem by yanking God's design out from under the dining table like a white linen sheet. He insists that order is really there and some gifts really are higher up and that people should desire the higher gifts (if they're wanting to be desirous of something, but not in a lustful way (James 4).

Everyone doesn't have to be everything…. And that's Good News! God is everything and He can divide all that He is into human size portions and divvy it out as He pleases. We don't have to be all to everybody because we can't and God isn't even asking us to. He is asking us to join hands and be part of something that is more representative of what the church should be. Whatever you think the church is failing at, join it and help not fail at it. who is the church? You are!

Who is Todd? His head? Sure. His feet? Yep. His kidney? Yep.  All of it. Corn on the cob is really just Corn. Corn off the cob is the equivalent of body parts scattered about. What many think the church should be would resemble more of a crime scene than a body. A body is an integrated system of parts which are able to be defined distinctly, but cannot function properly without each other. 

day no. 14,747: story

My friend, Kendall, sent me THIS article the other day.

It's main point of discussion was around story and arc and how the rise and fall motif is most often utilized. The article identifies SIX story lines that are often told.

1. Rags to Riches (rise)
2. Riches to Rags (fall)
3. Man in a Hole (fall then rise)
4. Icarus (rise then fall)
5. Cinderella (rise then fall then rise)
6. Oedipus (fall then rise then fall)

I love the art and science and sentiment of story, so this article was up my alley and it reminded me a short YouTube video I saw a while back.

 

The Bible is THE story. It contains every element of every important and meaningful story we have imagined. It is interesting, exciting, and most importantly, it is true.