It has been quite a journey on the third rock from the sun this 2009 ... personally and for our world. I entered the year still emerging from the dark days of being divorced by Pamella. But 2009 is the year I learned to laugh again. In January I moved back into my house after a year in exile in an apartment. My focus has been throughout most of the year to be a good dad for Rachael and Talya, this has been no small task. I have learned to loath the custodial arrangements invented by some lawyer and imposed by family courts. But we make the most...
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
The following article, “The Revised Testament and Rebaptism,” appeared in the Gospel Advocate near the end of David Lipscomb’s career. It is significant in showing the continuity of his rejection of rebaptism throughout his life. I will place in parenthesis () when the text moves onto p. 922. The brackets [] are in the original article. The "Common Version" is the KJV, the Revised Version is the 1881 revision, the American edition is known as...
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Greetings from the "wintery" land of Saguaros and Scorpions. It just doesnt seem like winter when you are in short sleeves and flip-flops!! Most of my life within Churches of Christ Christmas has been the object of scorn nearly worthy of the ACLU and other secularist folk. I have long since been quite convinced that such an approach was neither wise nor even called for from a biblical standpoint. It seems to me that Christmas is not about a specific...
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
In our previous two posts on ancient Christmas hymns we have looked at key figures in the history of Christian hymnody and now we move a century down to another pivotal figure: Anatolius of Constantinople (died 458). Anatolius is a significant figure just about anyway one slices Christian history (even apart from his impact on hymnody). He became bishop of Constantinople in 449 three years before the Council of Chalcedon (451) that has been seen as a turning point in the history of Christian thought (for good or ill). But his contributions in...
Monday, December 21, 2009
(I placed this on my blog last year, partly because of my own situation. My life has changed drastically in the last year but I know from experience that Christmas is not all joy for many. So I offer this once again for the hurting in our midst and for the churches to minister to them)What do you think of around Christmas? What do you normally see at a Nativity ... even one at a church? There are usually animals. Mary, Joseph, Wise men all have...
Saturday, December 19, 2009
I have shared two early Christian hymns (and more on the way) that focus on the Christmas season but now I want to share an early Christmas sermon by an eastern Syriac Christian named Narsai who lived about 1500 years ago. Narsai (ca. A.D. 399-503) has been called “the Harp of the Holy Spirit” for his gift of doing theology in poetry. He did not believe doctrine was dry, boring or irrelevant; rather vibrant and full of life. I thought it would be appropriate here in light of the hymn that saw Christmas from Josephus' point of view ... Narsai...
Thursday, December 17, 2009
One of the giants of early Christian hymnody is a man known as Ephraem the Syrian. Ephraem thrived in the 300s and died in the year 379. Ephraem rescued the practice of singing from an ill reputation because the Gnostics had seized upon the art form as a way of promoting their heretical views on Jesus. Ephraem who apparently had a spiritual gift in hymn writing turned the art form back to the faith. His songs are characterized by a deceptive...
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
We are setting out our Christmas decor this evening, that along with the "cool" wintry weather just sort of puts one in the "mood" for Christmas ... after all it was a frosty 70 something today! And since I am home alone doing that which is communal by nature I thought I would share an ancient Christmas hymn dating to around 400 A.D. It is nice to know that over the course of one thousand six hundred years we still have some "fellowship" with the saints through joyous song. One of the most highly regarded Latin poets of Christian antiquity,...
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
First I want to express thanks to all those who have sent notes expressing a desire for new editions of my blog. I am pleasantly surprised in fact by the number of those I have received. I have needed a break actually as I continue to reorient my life. Two years ago Hell rather than Christmas arrived. Today my life looks so different than it did then. Second I get requests for book recommendations frequently so I offer a few for the Christmas season ... here are some great quotes on reading ...The worth of a book is to be measured by what you...
Friday, October 23, 2009
"When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments" - PaulWhat is the relationship of reading and ministry? Or more specifically is there a correlation between reading and preaching and teaching? Should there be a relationship? Is reading an area of discipleship for the minister? I grew up in a tradition that delivered mixed signals regarding ministry and reading. Oh! the rumblings of discontent...
Monday, October 12, 2009
I am taking a brief diversion from our mediations on Jesus & Sabbath to reflect on a question that was put to me the other day. It is not the first time that this question (though perhaps not in the exact same words) has been asked of me. The question is: "Can a person perform worship acts incorrectly, or the wrong acts altogether, and still be pleasing to God?" Another form of this question is "Can a person be baptized for the wrong...
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
I plan on doing a series of posts related to Matthew 12.1ff on Jesus and the Sabbath. I plan on placing the text in its historical setting first; second I want to place it with in the argument of the Gospel of Matthew (which has a plot just as surely as Romans or Philippians) ; and third I want to see how Jesus' makes use of the material from the Hebrew Bible. I hope to make reading these posts worth the time of everyone. Even if we do not come to the same conclusions regarding it perhaps we will all see it in fresh light.Jesus, David, Sabbath...
Friday, October 2, 2009
Alister McGrath in his recent outstanding study Christianity's Dangerous Idea asserts Protestantism gift to Christianity was the belief that all people have the right to read and interpret the Scriptures for themselves. This "democratizing agenda" as McGrath terms it (p. 53) is certainly one that the founders of the Stone-Campbell Movement embraced with enthusiasm. These individual readings, over time, became collective readings that were more...
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
"Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body" -Sir Richard SteeleReading helps us understand our world and our place within it. Being a person that is often alone at night, and a person that does not have cable/satellite tv, I find several hours each night that are "silent." Until recently I did not have internet at home either ... so how to fill that time? Well I read ... and watch movies if I can. Most of the books I read will be non-fiction (there are exceptions to this) and often religious/historical in nature. Here are a few works...
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Greetings from the land of Saguaros and Scorpions. Sometimes I am simply amazed at, in MY perception, how tunnel visioned we as a group of people can be. Here at Palo Verde we have been doing our 120 Days through the Bible. Last night in my Bible class we reviewed the reading since Sunday (Joshua 1-Judges 10). As we have gone through and read this material in God's word I have once again been struck by two significant facts that seeming smack...
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Since I began this blog on April 11, 2006 there have been many twists and turns in the life of this Stoned-Campbell Disciple. My family made the trek from the land of beer and cheese in Milwaukee to the land of Saguaros and Scorpions in the Arizona desert. We went from snow in April to sunburns in January!! We moved from one awesome congregation of the Lord's family to another. Along the way the Jobian experience of divorce ravaged the sanctity...
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