One of the major themes of my life and ministry is living from the heart. Some people don't like it because they have shut down the voice inside them that wants to live a daring, risky, life that is sustained and fulfilled only by trusting in God's goodness. They want a religious experience that is chock full of information gathering and downloading Christian tips and techniques from the latest spiritual guru.
I don't like that!
I don't like the way the church has reduced the cosmic, magical, mystical experience of knowing God and embraced dissecting glory like a worm pinned to a wax tablet sitting on a biology classroom desk. It gives me the same feeling I had when some silly science teacher explained how a rainbow glows or what makes the proper weather conditions for a lightning storm. Somewhere, someone has determined to explain away anything and everything that someone else might "wow" over. It seems to give them control if they can make what your heart loves something akin to a textbook. No one loves a textbook (except those who write them).
There is one thing that Christians everywhere need to remember, God never asked to be studied, God asks to be known.
Monday, June 07, 2004
Thursday, June 03, 2004
Seminary Education
I'm in Abilene this week fulfilling one of the many requirements to receive my Masters Of Divinity degree. I'm taking Advanced Introduction to the New Testament. It's been an enlightening class. However, as the days continue on and we focus on fatigue in the synoptic gospels, redaction-criticism, kerygma and interpretive theory, I am reminded of these words from the great Danish religious thinker Soren Kierkegaard.
"It appears to me that on the whole the great mass of interpreters damage the understanding of the New Testament more than they benefit an understanding of it. It becomes necessary to do as one does at a play, where a profusion of spectators and spotlights seeks to prevent, as it were, our enjoyment of the play itself and instead treat us to little incidents--one has to overlook them, if possible, or manage to enter by a passage which is not yet blocked."
Elsewhere Kierkegaard throttles Christian interpreters by saying, "Christian scholarship is the human race's prodigious invention to defend itself against the New Testament, to ensure that one can continue to be a Christian without letting the New Testament come too close."
I think he's right, knowledge--and the on-going profession and interrogation of that knowledge--is often a hindrance to what Jesus asks us to do: "Come and see!" Kierkegaard and I aren't the only ones to think so either. After years of hearing dozens of professors lecture, reading countless essays and books, sitting in on hundreds of scholarly conversations, and knowing some of Christendoms great thinkers, we all agree on one thing when it comes to reading the Bible. The most simple interpretation is usually the right one!
"It appears to me that on the whole the great mass of interpreters damage the understanding of the New Testament more than they benefit an understanding of it. It becomes necessary to do as one does at a play, where a profusion of spectators and spotlights seeks to prevent, as it were, our enjoyment of the play itself and instead treat us to little incidents--one has to overlook them, if possible, or manage to enter by a passage which is not yet blocked."
Elsewhere Kierkegaard throttles Christian interpreters by saying, "Christian scholarship is the human race's prodigious invention to defend itself against the New Testament, to ensure that one can continue to be a Christian without letting the New Testament come too close."
I think he's right, knowledge--and the on-going profession and interrogation of that knowledge--is often a hindrance to what Jesus asks us to do: "Come and see!" Kierkegaard and I aren't the only ones to think so either. After years of hearing dozens of professors lecture, reading countless essays and books, sitting in on hundreds of scholarly conversations, and knowing some of Christendoms great thinkers, we all agree on one thing when it comes to reading the Bible. The most simple interpretation is usually the right one!
Thursday, May 27, 2004
Away to Abilene
This next week, May 31-June 4, I will be in Abilene for a class. I doubt I will be able to post anything, but I'm sure I'll have lots to say when I return.
While I'm gone, you can look back over your favorite post here and direct your friends and neighbors to the site.
While I'm gone, you can look back over your favorite post here and direct your friends and neighbors to the site.
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
Magical Morning
Don't you hate mornings? I do! I have never understood those people who jolt out of bed and bound around the house before 6:00 am each morning. Are they crazy? Do they not have good dreams? My wife works with a woman who wakes up every day around 4:00 am. She practices her piano--which I'm sure her husband loves,--eats breakfast, reads the daily paper and gets to the office before 6:00. Why? Surely there must be some mental dysfunction going on there. But, I guess some folks are just morning people.
I am not one of those people! I am a night person. In my view the world is backward. We should sleep in the day and be up at night. I understand why our inner clocks work the way they do, but I'm not a farmer or a rancher. I don't need the daylight to get things done. The earliest anyone needs to get up is 10:00 am. Anything that needs to be done before that can wait. Right?
Well, that's how I used to feel.
Now our daughter, Malia, wakes up every morning between 7:30 and 8:00. From the living room we can hear her begin to stir. Turning, stretching, yawning and sighing are signs that her new day is about to begin. My first instinct is to race in to get her, but to do that would mean missing the magic. When she first stirs, she's not quite fully awake. The patient man is rewarded if he can wait for those few minutes when she is fully awake but she hasn't realized she is alone. If you go in her room then, you will see the glory of the sun in her eyes. Standing there, I watch her roll over when she senses the presence of someone in the room, her eyes blink as she recognizes a familiar and loving face and then a smile only given to angels inches across her face. It is magic!
Right then, a overwhelming feeling of joy and love floods from the heavens into my heart. My only responds is to pick her up, kiss her and tell her how much she is loved. It's a feeling so far beyond words, that one feels silly even trying to describe it. No matter how difficult it was to put her to sleep the night before, or how much she fused the previous day, nor how many diapers there were to change, the love greatly outweighs the pains (if those things can even be called pains).
There is something mysterious and magical about the morning, something glorious. Each day is a new beginning, a fresh start to revive our lives. Malia has taught me that mornings are God's perfect painting of renewal and blessedness.
Standing over her this morning, these words came to mind:"Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."
I am not one of those people! I am a night person. In my view the world is backward. We should sleep in the day and be up at night. I understand why our inner clocks work the way they do, but I'm not a farmer or a rancher. I don't need the daylight to get things done. The earliest anyone needs to get up is 10:00 am. Anything that needs to be done before that can wait. Right?
Well, that's how I used to feel.
Now our daughter, Malia, wakes up every morning between 7:30 and 8:00. From the living room we can hear her begin to stir. Turning, stretching, yawning and sighing are signs that her new day is about to begin. My first instinct is to race in to get her, but to do that would mean missing the magic. When she first stirs, she's not quite fully awake. The patient man is rewarded if he can wait for those few minutes when she is fully awake but she hasn't realized she is alone. If you go in her room then, you will see the glory of the sun in her eyes. Standing there, I watch her roll over when she senses the presence of someone in the room, her eyes blink as she recognizes a familiar and loving face and then a smile only given to angels inches across her face. It is magic!
Right then, a overwhelming feeling of joy and love floods from the heavens into my heart. My only responds is to pick her up, kiss her and tell her how much she is loved. It's a feeling so far beyond words, that one feels silly even trying to describe it. No matter how difficult it was to put her to sleep the night before, or how much she fused the previous day, nor how many diapers there were to change, the love greatly outweighs the pains (if those things can even be called pains).
There is something mysterious and magical about the morning, something glorious. Each day is a new beginning, a fresh start to revive our lives. Malia has taught me that mornings are God's perfect painting of renewal and blessedness.
Standing over her this morning, these words came to mind:"Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."
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