Guest Blogging for John Finkelde

I'm guest blogging for Pastor John Finkelde from CCC Hepburn Heights today.

You can check out the post and his blog here.

Pastor John is a great pastor and leader and will be speaking at our church conference, Increase, later in the year. You'll be inspired and blessed through his ministry for sure!

Biblical Armageddon Must Be Taught Alongside Global Warming

This link will take you to a thoughtful post by David Opderbeck on Through a Glass Darkly.

Well worth reading post and following the link in order to watch a very funny video.

Click here for post.

Click here to go straight to clip.

The Good News of the Gospel

Here is a quick attempt at summarising my understanding of the gospel as simply as I can. My summary is full of Christian language and there is a depth of meaning underneath concepts like 'to live in Him (Jesus)' that could be unpacked further, as could terms like 'faith' and 'repentance.' A good exercise nontheless.

The world is broken but it wasn't always broken and it won't be broken forever; there is 'good news.'

God created the world good. The centre piece of creation was humankind created in the image of God. Humankind was created to love and worship God and to live in wholeness of relationship with each other, stewarding and developing the rest of creation. However humankind broke relationship with God by disobeying God and sinning. Humanity fell short of that which God intended it to be.

As a result we all have a sin problem that separates us from God, from ourselves, from each other and from the rest of creation. In and of ourselves we are powerless to deal with this sin problem. This sin problem is wrecking havoc on earth now and separates humanity from God partially now and promises to permanently in the future.

The good news is that God in his love sent Jesus Christ to rescue humanity from sin and to deal with humankind's sin problem. Jesus lived, died, rose from the dead and sent the Spirit in order that through faith and repentance all who respond to Jesus can be forgiven their sins and from sin in order to start a new life 'in Him.'

In Him we are restored to right relationship with God, with ourselves, with each other and with the world around us. We begin the process of learning to live as God always intended us to live and do this in the context of God's community, the church. The church is historical and global in nature but also an actual, tangible community that we commit and involve ourselves in locally.

As Christ followers live missionally and participate with the Spirit in God's redemptive work, faith, hope and love will begin to change lives and communities as the rule and reign of God (his kingdom) is established here on earth as it is in heaven. While God's kingdom will only be experienced in part now, and while Christ followers are not immune to the effects of the brokenness that exits in the world, Christ followers live in light of eternity, as sign posts to the truth that Jesus Christ will return and his kingdom will be established in full forever. Justice and judgement will flow throughout the world, creation will be restored and those whose faith and trust is in Jesus Christ will be judged righteous and will live in wholeness and restored relationship with God forever.

The Big Story

This link will take you to a 3 minute clip of James Choung presenting the gospel with a marker and a single piece of paper. This is the kind of link you could happily e-mail to unchurched friends who may have questions about God confident that it would be helpful in your journey with them.

Watch it here.

What is the Gospel?

There is a great post and discussion dealing with the question 'what is the gospel?' on Scot McKnight's blog Jesus Creed.

It would be well worth you checking out the discussion.

Here is the link.

Enjoy.

Lots of Humans!

Ever noticed in your reading of Genesis 1 that God created lots of humans (male and female) all at once?

First time I've seen it from that perspective.

Mmmm. Lot's of really interesting implications...

Israel's Two Creation Stroies (Part 3)

Theology is More than Head Knowledge

I enjoyed this recent post by Lisa Robinson on the blog Parchment and Pen. She writes about how Theology is More than Head Knowledge and addresses the age old attitude about how we don't need more theology we just need more people walking the walk!

Well worth the read.

Highlights...

Learning theology is head knowledge. It is just obtaining information. Unless, we are participating in some form of ministry and downloading the information, theology is useless.

While I would wholeheartedly agree that the tangible outworking of our faith is important, I think the statement that theology is nothing more than head knowledge is a mis-statement and does a disservice to actively pursuing the knowledge of God.

Everyone is a theologian. Everyone has a theology of some sort – Everyone. Why? Because of what theology is. It is the study of God – theo (God) plus logos (reason, wisdom or thought). Theology is reasoning about God or “God-Thought”. It is how we learn about God and think about Him. To the extent that we are engaged in this task, is to the extent that we are thinking and learning about God.

Whatever methodology is employed to grasp the study of God, will shape how we think about him.

Shunning any type of theological study as just gaining head knowledge is saying that learning is not important and maybe even irrelevant.

Theology is practical. Theology is useful. Theology will be lived out, whether we participate in formalized ministry or not.

Theology is more than head knowledge – it is faith seeking understanding that should cause us to be reflective Christians that care deeply about the Christian faith enough to gather as much information as we can about it.

Grenz and Olson say it best,

Engaging in theology is finding answers to questions that arise in the course of living the Christian life in contemporary culture. Any person seeking to live as a disciple of Jesus Christ in today’s world will encounter questions…[but] theology is not so much a set of pat answers to these and other similar questions as it is a way of thinking toward answers. The only alternative to honestly seeking answers is refusing to live Christianity in public and thus refusing to engage in discussions with questioning seekers. This alternative is hardly compatible with authentic Christianity.

Water

You should go and buy the latest National Geographic. It is a special edition on water and the issue that a lack of water is to so many in the world. It is an issue that we should all be aware of and where possible should be a part of trying to solve.

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