The Rushed Contemplative

Okay, I confess... I'm not in my right mind . At least, that's the joke that we who are left-brained must deal with from you artsy, right-brained types. (By the way, if the left side of the brain controls the right side of the body, why are the vast majority of people right-handed? Even the artsy types. It seems like there would be a balance.) Anyway, I am left-brained, which means I am more intellectually- and analytically-inclined than my more emotional and artistic right-brained friends. I am also a guy, so I don't necessarily do deep, intimate relationships really well. Which all brings me to this question: How can I develop a deep, intimate, personal relationship with God? I grew up in The Church , so I know the textbook answers to that - spend time in The Word, do my Quiet Time every day, memorize Scripture, pray a lot (after all, it's just talking to God). That's all well and good, but at some point it all just seems rather academic. I love to study the Bible...

For nearly 20 years I have had a question lingering in the back of my mind: Who is church for? It really stems from the "seeker-sensitive" (SS) church movement that has Willow Creek and Saddleback as de facto flagship churches. The basic methodology of the SS movement is to bring seekers of God to church, where they will hear the gospel. And since Sunday morning is the time that most Americans think of when they consider going to church, the Sunday morning services are geared specifically and unabashedly toward seekers. Willow Creek has midweek services geared toward believers; I don't know if Saddleback has a similar setup. There are a wide range of criticisms of the SS model in general and of these churches in particular, but one is foremost in my mind: that "the church," by definition, is comprised of believers in/followers of Jesus...and therefore, that when we gather as the church, we should gather as believers. In other words, a church service should no...

In the beginning, God said…. The word of God is his unlimited creative power. The universe and all that is in it came into being by mere utterance from God’s lips. “God said, ‘Let there be…’, and there was….” Out of nothing, something. Man can create only out of pre-existent matter. I once worked with a man who refused to use the word create in reference to anything man-made. He argued that to create implies making something from nothing and that therefore only God can create. It was an argument of semantics, but the argument had its merits. Man can dream and design and invent incredible things, but he is forever limited to the materials at hand. God, on the other hand, speaks matter into existence. But does God speak today? We give lip-service to his voice. We say that he speaks through his people, the Bible, the Holy Spirit, circumstances…. But do we really believe that it is truly the voice of God, or do we hear only his instrument, one speaking for God? Would I pay closer attenti...

Last night in my hermeneutics class at Bethel Seminary , I ran the basic question of my last post by my professor: "Does Jesus call all of his followers to be disciples, or can one be a true follower without accepting the invitation to discipleship?" His first response was that to be a disciple means to be a follower; he noted that one Bible translation (I don't remember which) actually uses the word follower where others use disciple . Exegesis is the process of understanding what the original author actually wrote. Hermeneutics, which begins with and encompasses exegesis, is the process of interpreting what the original author wrote to the original audience, and determining the significance of that for us today. I confess that my post on discipleship is not the product of sound exegesis; in fact, I stated that in one of my subsequent comments: "My conclusions (at this point) are really based on what Jesus didn't say as much as on what he did say." ...