5 Reasons Some Should Spend Their Lives Writing Books about Theology

1. There are many smart people in the world.

2. Some of these smart people believe very dangerous ideas.

3. To persuade others to believe their very dangerous ideas, these smart people write them down and defend them with convincing arguments.

4. Unless other smart people write down why these convincing arguments don’t work, these very dangerous ideas will spread like cancer.

5. Cancer kills people.

Make a Difference in the Middle East

Cry Out is a movement to unite believers across the globe in prayer and fasting for the people and cities of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq. You can go to their website to sign up for a bi-weekly newsletter and find out more information.

From the Cry Out website:

“Cry Out is a clarion call to the worldwide Body of Christ to join together in a three-year season of focused, intentional, collective prayer and fasting for people and cities in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq from Jan. 1, 2008 to Dec. 31, 2010.

• Groups of believers are asked to pray and fast, especially on Fridays, as part of Cry Out.
• Prayer walking teams are invited to visit one or more of the four lands to pray on site with Cry Out.
• Cry Out calls believers to join in night and day prayer and fasting especially during the Muslim holy seasons of Ramadan and Ashura.

To enable you and your friends to pray more specifically, a story from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, or Iraq, along with several prayer requests is posted on the Cry Out website regularly. If you want these stories and prayer requests sent directly to you on a continuing basis, please sign up for our newsletter (below).

Cry Out is not sponsored by any one denomination, church or sending agency. It is a prayer movement shared by the Body of Christ across the earth, irrespective of church, denomination, or agency affiliations.

Followers of Christ from multiple countries currently work together to write stories and prayer requests, take pictures and create videos, design and oversee the website and database, write and produce prayer guides and special magazines, and travel globally to speak, calling others to Cry Out.”

Maybe this will be me someday.

When I was a young pup, I watched the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie incessantly. In fact, I had many of the lines memorized (weird, huh?). Anyway, there was a Pizza Hut commercial at the beginning about a not-so-talented boy that stunned his teammates by catching a fly ball out in right field:

I say all this because I played in my second softball game of the season last night. Once again, I was confronted with my skinny-white-boy-ain’t-got-no-softball-skills status. My position? You guessed it. Right field.

But you know what? I’m glad I stink at softball. It can be a humbling gift from the Lord if I’ll receive it.

C.J. Mahaney writes as much in his book “Humility: True Greatness.” Although his humbling sport of choice is golf, I feel the counsel still applies:

“When you aren’t exploring the attributes of God, the doctrines of grace, and the doctrine of sin, try these surefire methods for cultivating humility and weakening pride. First, play golf as much as possible. Yep, golf. In my athletic experience, I don’t think there’s a more difficult or more humbling sport. Rather, make that humiliating — because if you play at all, you know all about those shots that result in laughter from your partners and humiliation for you. No one escapes them — not even Tiger Woods, and certainly not me.” (pg. 94)

What’s your favorite humbling sport?

He lived on top of a pillar for 37 years.

While we were in Syria a couple weeks ago, our team visited the ruins of a church dedicated to one Simeon Stylites. Born around 390 A.D., Simeon was an ascetic monk who lived on a platform atop a pillar for a total of 37 years until he died in 459. Minus the boulder, the structure Crystal and I are standing in front of is the remains of what used to be his 45-foot-high home (he lived on other smaller pillars earlier, but this rocky pole was his last perch).

Wikipedia explains:

“In order to get away from the ever increasing number of people who frequently came to him for prayers and advice, leaving him little if any time for his private austerities, Simeon discovered a pillar which had survived amongst ruins, formed a small platform at the top, and upon this determined to live out his life. It has been stated that, as he seemed to be unable to avoid escaping the world horizontally, he may have thought it an attempt to try to escape it vertically.”

His odd abode eventually drew a crowd, and he permitted visitors by ladder. From his roost he wrote letters and preached to those gathered below.

Simeon’s unconventional arrangements, of course, present all sorts of logistical questions. Some are probably best left unasked.

Side note: In 2002, magician David Blaine, in Simeonesque fashion, performed a stunt called “Vertigo” where he stood on top of a 90-foot-tall pillar in New York City for 35 hours.

Larry the Cucumber misses Jesus.

So claims Russell Moore in an insightful article titled “Beyond a Veggie Tales Gospel: Why We Must Preach Christ from Every Text.”

Here’s his explanation:

“…the Veggie Tales episodes we’ve all seen are bloodless. They take biblical stories, and biblical characters, but they mine the narrative for abstractions–timeless moral truths that can help children to be kinder, gentler, and more honest. There’s almost nothing in any episode that isn’t true. But what’s missing is Jesus.”

He then explains that, since all of the promises of God find their Yes in him (2 Cor. 1:20), we must understand and teach all of Scripture as being ultimately about Jesus. He writes:

“Why is this so important? Why can’t I simply say true things from the Scripture without showing how it fits together in Christ? It is because, apart from Christ, there are no promises of God. In the temptations, Satan quotes Scripture to Jesus, and doesn’t misquote the promises. God wants to children to eat bread, not to starve before stones. God will protect His anointed One with the angels of heaven. God will give His Messiah all the kingdoms of the earth. All this is true. What is satanic about all of this, though, is that Satan wanted our Lord to grasp these things apart from the Cross and the empty tomb. These promises could not be abstracted from the Gospel.”

If you have time, I’d encourage you to read the whole thing. It is very well-written and soul-strengthening.

Five Vintage Graduation Songs

With graduation season upon us, I thought it would be fitting to include a list of five classic commencement anthems that have graced the American scene in years past:

1. “Friends” by Michael W. Smith

2. “I Will Remember You” by Sarah McLachlan

3. “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” by Green Day

4. “Graduation (Friends Forever)” by Vitamin C

5. “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)” by Baz Luhrmann (this was my wife’s submission)

Any others you would add?

When God Sounds a Lot Like Hallmark

Consider the following birthday e-card message from hallmark.com:

It’s all about gifts. It’s all about cake. It’s all about wondering what wishes to make.
Happy All-About-YOU day!

Now here’s another birthday e-card message, this time from a Christian company:

God has placed his hand on your shoulder and said, “You’re something special.”
He’s not the only one who thinks you’re special!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Here’s my question. If you remove God from the second message, is it really saying anything different from the first?

“Heaven is better than church,” she said.

My wife’s birthday is tomorrow. She’ll turn a ripe 24. Given that birthdays are special days, and special days inspire special plans, and special plans upset established schedules, Crystal asked me the following question yesterday afternoon:

“So are we going to church Saturday or Sunday, since it’s my birthday?” (Our church has services on both days).

Wanting to sound decisive and manly, I said “Saturday.” And then, feeling especially pious, I added, “What better place to be on your birthday?”

“Heaven,” she said.

“Touché,” said I.

Why it’s okay that I can’t remember last month’s sermon.

During my lifetime, I’ve probably listened to over a thousand Sunday sermons. Out of those, I can recall a fraction in fuzzy detail. This makes me think that I’m either a horrendous steward of information (which I probably am) or there is something more important in hearing a sermon than being able to recite every bulleted point ten years down the pike.

I prefer the second option.

What is most important about a sermon is the immediate effect that it has on me while I am listening. Does it make me see Jesus? This is how I change: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Whether or not I can recall its content at a later time is secondary.

Jonathan Edwards said this very thing: “The main benefit that is obtained by preaching is by impression made upon the mind in the time of it, and not by the effect that arises afterwards by a remembrance of what was delivered” (quoted in Jonathan Edwards: A Life by George Marsden, pg. 282).

Sometimes high-tech defenses are no match for low-tech foes.

Consider the following story from the May 3/10 edition of World Magazine:

Tiny Bandits

It wasn’t moth or rust, but something destroyed Dwarika Prasad’s life savings. Turns out, it was termites that infested his bank’s safe deposit box and ate through the paper money and investment notes the Northeast Indian man planned to use for his retirement. In all, Prasad lost more than $16,000 – a sum he’ll likely have trouble getting back from his bank. Authorities at the Central Bank of India say they aren’t responsible, noting they did their job of keeping his belongings safe from human threats.