Being a ministry intern for IV while still finishing school was supposed to give me a head start on my fund development. I have been realizing how I have been going to the extreme of allowing it to consume all of my thinking to the point of worry and unable to do anything else or the extreme of keeping my mind and time so scheduled so that I don't stop to think about it. The result of both is that no fund development has gotten done this school year and it is half over. Jesse has been talking to me and praying for me to help motivate me to overcome my fear of doing fund development. Bottom line is that if I cannot fund raise the money, I cannot be an IV staff worker.
Jesse is really good brother in Christ and he keeps pushing me and praying for me. I realize that there is deeper issues in my heart that this brings out. Why am I avoiding working on this? Why does my heart drop out of my chest when I see Jesse's number come up on my cell phone? Why do I purposely not answer the phone when he or Paul calls? I thought I was more mature of a Christian than to be doing such foolish behavior.
I intellectually understand all the reasons why fund development is important and how it grows my trust in the Lord's provision, but this is the true test. I do not want to do this. I don't want to make the list of names or write my newsletter or make phone call asks or set up appointments. Why? I thought my intellectual knowledge of the right answers should overcome my emotions? I guess I am a more emotional guy than I realized. These are the moments that really define who we are. The ones that throw us out of our comfort zones faster that we can adapt to the change. That is when our true self rears its ugly head. I am challenged in this area of weakness. As Jesse asked me in our phone conversation on Friday, am I more afraid of God or of other people's responses when I ask for their financial support? Wow that is a cut to the core, no BS kind of question. First my mind goes to work and finds the answer but not as quickly as the sinking feeling in my heart, nor as strong. I continually yield to the feeling of insecurity and I fear man more that God.
Lord please help me through this like you have done ever other time. Give me the strength to walk by faith. I would appreciate the prayers of anyone reading this as well, thanks.
Join the Relentless Fight Against Opression!
Monday, January 8, 2007
Sunday, January 7, 2007
QUIET TIME: Luke 1:1-4
Observations
Luke opens with an explanation and a defense of his writing an account. The word account is repeated 2x in the first section. He writes about the "things that have been fulfilled among us", which points out he was an eyewitness of of these events. Interestingly Luke does not mention Jesus directly in his opening, well at least in the TNIV. He addresses his letter to the "most excellent Theophilus." The mention of "us" would include Theophilus. Luke's only refers to his writing as an "account of the things fulfilled among us" and mentions "the things you have been taught". He clearly states his purpose in writing this account is to give certainty of the "things you have been taught". Luke shows his credibility by writing that he has personally and carefully investigated "everything from the beginning". In making such strong claims, Luke is boldly putting himself on the line in a writing to Theophilus. He says that many accounts have been written about these current events. Doing a little background commentary research shows that the Gospel of Mark was written prior to this. Luke wants to verify their Truth claims, therefore these many other accounts must be true, and Theophilus has heard them.
Questions arise about who is Theophilus? Why does he speak vaguely about this account and not mention Jesus? Who were the first witnesses and servants of the word?
Interpretation
It is amazing what you can find in just 4 verses of Scripture. Of course the dangerous thing about reading such a small section is that it becomes easy to interpret out of context. Luke is doing a great job at setting up his credibility and answers the sceptics from the beginning of the legitimacy of his truth claims. Luke takes extreme attention to detail which then holds up when his account will be scrutinized.
Luke addresses Theophilus as most excellent, this tittle would be used of heads of state and governmental leaders in his time. Other than that, the text does not give further evidence of who Theophilus was.
Previously I had commented on how detail and carefully worded Luke's writing style is. So why would he be seemingly vague when talking about "this account"? It cannot be that he accidentally neglected it, for that does not fit with the rest of his detailed writing, therefore he must have purposely omitted it. Why? I observe that Luke writes that himself and Theophilus knew of "the things that have been fulfilled among us". Maybe it was not necessary because the information about Jesus ministry was already being taught from Mark's Gospel and of the many eyewitness accounts.
So far the text does not yield, within itself, answers to the questions of who were the first eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Whoever they were they handed down this account to Luke and Theophilus.
Application
What do I do with all this setting up of the passage that Luke does? It shows me the importance doing a personal investigation into the truth claims being made around me. Many of which occur in the academic setting for me. I should be examining more deeply what I hear in my classes from professors and students and not just be a sponge. I need to have a Christian worldview to be able to filter this information through to during my investigation to determine whether it is true. It seems that Luke does not go on this personal investigation only to be content with keeping the answers he finds. He purposefully organizes it into this account for the purpose of giving others certainty. I can apply this by making sure that I don't pursue knowledge only to keep it to myself and allow me to be puffed up with all I know. I need to humble myself and seek to relevantly share it with the culture I am apart of. At the cost of putting myself out there with my account, that I am not ashamed of what I am saying but stand behind the Truth claims of Christ.
Luke opens with an explanation and a defense of his writing an account. The word account is repeated 2x in the first section. He writes about the "things that have been fulfilled among us", which points out he was an eyewitness of of these events. Interestingly Luke does not mention Jesus directly in his opening, well at least in the TNIV. He addresses his letter to the "most excellent Theophilus." The mention of "us" would include Theophilus. Luke's only refers to his writing as an "account of the things fulfilled among us" and mentions "the things you have been taught". He clearly states his purpose in writing this account is to give certainty of the "things you have been taught". Luke shows his credibility by writing that he has personally and carefully investigated "everything from the beginning". In making such strong claims, Luke is boldly putting himself on the line in a writing to Theophilus. He says that many accounts have been written about these current events. Doing a little background commentary research shows that the Gospel of Mark was written prior to this. Luke wants to verify their Truth claims, therefore these many other accounts must be true, and Theophilus has heard them.
Questions arise about who is Theophilus? Why does he speak vaguely about this account and not mention Jesus? Who were the first witnesses and servants of the word?
Interpretation
It is amazing what you can find in just 4 verses of Scripture. Of course the dangerous thing about reading such a small section is that it becomes easy to interpret out of context. Luke is doing a great job at setting up his credibility and answers the sceptics from the beginning of the legitimacy of his truth claims. Luke takes extreme attention to detail which then holds up when his account will be scrutinized.
Luke addresses Theophilus as most excellent, this tittle would be used of heads of state and governmental leaders in his time. Other than that, the text does not give further evidence of who Theophilus was.
Previously I had commented on how detail and carefully worded Luke's writing style is. So why would he be seemingly vague when talking about "this account"? It cannot be that he accidentally neglected it, for that does not fit with the rest of his detailed writing, therefore he must have purposely omitted it. Why? I observe that Luke writes that himself and Theophilus knew of "the things that have been fulfilled among us". Maybe it was not necessary because the information about Jesus ministry was already being taught from Mark's Gospel and of the many eyewitness accounts.
So far the text does not yield, within itself, answers to the questions of who were the first eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Whoever they were they handed down this account to Luke and Theophilus.
Application
What do I do with all this setting up of the passage that Luke does? It shows me the importance doing a personal investigation into the truth claims being made around me. Many of which occur in the academic setting for me. I should be examining more deeply what I hear in my classes from professors and students and not just be a sponge. I need to have a Christian worldview to be able to filter this information through to during my investigation to determine whether it is true. It seems that Luke does not go on this personal investigation only to be content with keeping the answers he finds. He purposefully organizes it into this account for the purpose of giving others certainty. I can apply this by making sure that I don't pursue knowledge only to keep it to myself and allow me to be puffed up with all I know. I need to humble myself and seek to relevantly share it with the culture I am apart of. At the cost of putting myself out there with my account, that I am not ashamed of what I am saying but stand behind the Truth claims of Christ.
COMMUNICATION: On the Use of Globalizing Language
I having been thinking a lot about how often people use globalizing language to describe situations or groups of people. I just had to backspace and retype that last sentence about 3 times before I said what I wanted to say without using globalizing language. This is how pervasive it is in my life. What I mean by globalizing language is expressing your thoughts about a situation or people group by using terms like always or never. These terms are all inclusive and leave no room for exceptions by definition of their usage.
Is it appropriate or even accurate to use globalizing language in any circumstance? I would like to separate it into categories of descriptive and normative. Descriptive means talking about the way things are and normative means talking about the way things ought to be. It seems like very rarely is it accurate to describe something in globalizing terms. The best examples of this comes to mind when I think about fights between friends or couples. One person will say "you always do this" and the other will say "I never do that". The use of globalizing language is most likely not accurate in these situations but merely seems like it. When in a argument the use of terms like "always" or "never" seems to keep us from fairly evaluating each situation by itself to see it that is true. There seem to exceptions to our descriptions most of the time.
I have observed in my own life that most times that I talk in globalizing terms in describing a situation I haven't done the work to analyze fairly each situation, I just want the outcome I already feel in one situation to be true for all the situations. My own stereotypes about people groups, politicians, nations, cultures, and subcultures have come from taking one situation involving an individual affiliated with one of those larger groups and painting their actions as an accurate description of the actions of all individuals in the larger groups. Democrats always do..., the French are, goth people always, women never.... The results of descriptions like this may be true of some with that affiliation, but in reality I honestly cannot be sure of what percentage does my statement accurately depict. Therefore I should not say such things.
Imagine how this would change our conversations, my conversations. It seems that it would force people to examine each person for who they are or each situation for what it is instead of my preconceived notions based on another person of their group affiliation. Wow, this would be really hard. During this blog post alone I had to retype many of my sentences because without thinking I would make globalizing descriptions of people. Something I haven't done is look at how Jesus used globalizing terms, if He ever did. If anyone wants to do that let me know if a comment.
The question that leads us to is: is it ever appropriate and accurate to use globalizing terms? If you remember back in the beginning of this post I made two categorical distinctions of descriptive and normative. Up until this point we have just been talking about the descriptive uses of globalizing terms. I believe the normative uses are appropriate and necessary to convey the Truth of the way reality ought to be or how people ought to act. For example, you should never have sex outside of marriage. This is a normative use of globalizing terms and it is true and accurate.
I hope to make all my future descriptive posts in non globalizing language, if I don't please point it out to me.
Is it appropriate or even accurate to use globalizing language in any circumstance? I would like to separate it into categories of descriptive and normative. Descriptive means talking about the way things are and normative means talking about the way things ought to be. It seems like very rarely is it accurate to describe something in globalizing terms. The best examples of this comes to mind when I think about fights between friends or couples. One person will say "you always do this" and the other will say "I never do that". The use of globalizing language is most likely not accurate in these situations but merely seems like it. When in a argument the use of terms like "always" or "never" seems to keep us from fairly evaluating each situation by itself to see it that is true. There seem to exceptions to our descriptions most of the time.
I have observed in my own life that most times that I talk in globalizing terms in describing a situation I haven't done the work to analyze fairly each situation, I just want the outcome I already feel in one situation to be true for all the situations. My own stereotypes about people groups, politicians, nations, cultures, and subcultures have come from taking one situation involving an individual affiliated with one of those larger groups and painting their actions as an accurate description of the actions of all individuals in the larger groups. Democrats always do..., the French are, goth people always, women never.... The results of descriptions like this may be true of some with that affiliation, but in reality I honestly cannot be sure of what percentage does my statement accurately depict. Therefore I should not say such things.
Imagine how this would change our conversations, my conversations. It seems that it would force people to examine each person for who they are or each situation for what it is instead of my preconceived notions based on another person of their group affiliation. Wow, this would be really hard. During this blog post alone I had to retype many of my sentences because without thinking I would make globalizing descriptions of people. Something I haven't done is look at how Jesus used globalizing terms, if He ever did. If anyone wants to do that let me know if a comment.
The question that leads us to is: is it ever appropriate and accurate to use globalizing terms? If you remember back in the beginning of this post I made two categorical distinctions of descriptive and normative. Up until this point we have just been talking about the descriptive uses of globalizing terms. I believe the normative uses are appropriate and necessary to convey the Truth of the way reality ought to be or how people ought to act. For example, you should never have sex outside of marriage. This is a normative use of globalizing terms and it is true and accurate.
I hope to make all my future descriptive posts in non globalizing language, if I don't please point it out to me.
Saturday, January 6, 2007
A New Resolution for the New Year 2007
Over the past week I have been reflecting on what has been happening in my life and what the Lord has convicted me of. After the amazing experience of going to InterVarsity's missions conference Urbana 06, I was convicted of not taking enough focus on cultivating my relationship with God. The Lord used my good friend and roomate from SLT 2005, Scott. He shared with me how he has been going through the Bible 1 chapter at a time and studying it and posting his thoughts after reading online in his blog. That got me thinking about my Daily Quiet Times and how they have been more like Weekly or Monthly Quiet Times. Then when I came home from Urbana I began reading a new book I had bought there called A Mind for God by James Emery White. I just finished it about 2 hours ago. In it White argues that the cultivation of our mind is essential to spiritual growth. That it is an ongoing process of reading, studying, reflecting, and applying Scripture to our lives. This is something that excites me as a philosophy major and a Christian. I realize it needs to start with consistent study and reflection on Scripture. That is where this blog comes in. This is where I will post my thoughts on the Scripture from my DQT's.
The reason I am using this blog, instead of a private journal, is that I want to be upfront and honest about how my DQT's are going and show people that I am actually doing them. Also an even larger goal of this blog is to live my faith out load by engaging in the ongoing dialogue on historic and current issues and the big questions. I pray that the Lord is honored by this endeavor, the Body of Christ built up, and the world educated about the Truth claims of Christ in culture.
The reason I am using this blog, instead of a private journal, is that I want to be upfront and honest about how my DQT's are going and show people that I am actually doing them. Also an even larger goal of this blog is to live my faith out load by engaging in the ongoing dialogue on historic and current issues and the big questions. I pray that the Lord is honored by this endeavor, the Body of Christ built up, and the world educated about the Truth claims of Christ in culture.
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