Amazing Quotes

Here are some amazing quotes from my reading so far this year...

"The blessing of mission is ours while the burden of mission is God’s." -Jonathon Dodson

The Four G's : -Tim Chester

1. God is great – so we don’t have to be in control
2. God is glorious – so we don’t have to fear others
3. God is good – so we don’t have to look elsewhere
4. God is gracious – so we don’t have to prove ourselves

"All of us are living out the story of our lives and to often we do that unconnected to the meta narrative of our Creator God who has brought us into relationship with Himself through Jesus, and is redeeming his creation even now." -Rick McKinley

"Jesus: the One exposed, ravaged, ruined and resurrected for us." -Tullian Tchividjian

 "An idol is when we turn a good thing into an ultimate thing." -Caesar Kalinowski

 "To be a person of truth is to live before God in the reality He created rather than to settle for illusions, even those of our own making" -Lael Arrington

"God is the expression of the very thing we seek in each other... What we have sought, what we have tasted in part with our earthly lovers, we will come face-to-face with in our True Love. The incompleteness we seek to relieve in the deep embrace of our earthly love is never fully healed." -John Eldridge

 "The Kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared?" -Martin Luther

"It is in the ordinary duties and labors of life that the Christian can and should develop his spiritual union with God." -Thomas Merton  

"He who loves his dream of community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter" -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Are we responding to the love of Jesus concretely and consistently in our love for one another?" -Brennan Manning

"Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love." -Martin Luther King Jr.

"Our static, self-centered structures are "heretical structures" because they embody a heretical doctrine of the church. If our structure has become an end in itself, not a means of saving the world it is a heretical structure." -John Stott

"In reality the only call in the Bible is the call to the way of the cross, the way of service, sacrificial love and suffering." -Tim Chester

"We ought not to grow tired of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed." -Brother Lawrence

"I want to prepare like an evangelical; preach like a Pentecostal; pray like a mystic; do the spiritual disciplines like a Desert Father; art like a Catholic; and social justice like a liberal." -Mark Driscoll

"The god of whom no dogmas are believed is a mere shadow.  He will not produce that fear of the Lord in which wisdom begins and therefore will not produce that love in which it is consumated….There is in the minimal religion nothing that can convince, convert, or (in the higher sense) console; nothing therefore which can restore vitality to our civilisation.  It is not costly enough.  It can never be a controller or even a rival to our natural sloth and greed." -C.S. Lewis  

Winebibber

Dear Reader,

Here's a great quote to get us on our way:

"A good local pub has much in common with a church, except that a pub is warmer, and there's more conversation."
-William Blake

Alcoholism is a sin. Period. The Bible is pretty clear on that point. We lose control. We become addicted. Something besides Christ becomes ruler in our lives. The Scriptures are plain in this.

Drunkenness is a sin. Period. The Bible is pretty clear on that point. We lose control. We say & do things we would not otherwise. Something besides Christ becomes ruler in our lives. The Scriptures are plain in this.

Alcoholism & Drunkenness are abuses of a substance.

Watching Porn on computers & DVD’s is abuse of a media.

This results in some preachers preaching against DVD’s & computers. They demonize neutral media because it is capable of being abused by people who struggle in such areas.

The same line of thinking is used with alcohol.

Touching the fruit on the tree becomes the sin instead of simply eating it. This is looked at, by some, as a wise approach. However, the result we see in this Creation Poem is that it doesn’t help. The Law stirs up the appetite for sin. Forbidden fruits create many jams.

I have a computer.

I have a DVD player.

I drink alcohol.

(*Disclaimer. Yes. I threw that in for shock value. I also know that your senses immediately got heightened. If you agree with me on this issue, you immediately got excited… “Finally, someone has said it!” If you disagree with me on the topic, you probably immediately felt a tinge of horror and disappointment and you quickly put on your glasses of preconception. You’ll now probably attempt to filter everything I say through your firmly secured set of beliefs. I want to invite both kinds of readers to step outside their emotional subjectivism and presuppositions and momentarily sit down for the ride. I promise I’m not trying to get you to drink a beer with me, but I want you to see through my eyes for a moment.)

I agree with drawing lines for one’s self where there is a loss of control or a developed weakness.

I believe personal convictions should be pursued with all deliberation & diligence.

That aside…

I also believe the Holy Spirit desires for us to grow in our faith.
I believe salvation is not just for the afterlife, but also within this life now.
I believe the goal of mission is ‘to be in the world but not of the world’… ‘to be not overcome with evil, but to overcome evil with good.’ To learn to live a life tempered with the Spirit. By the Spirit’s help, to walk in a sanctified life where moderation rules our passion and grace & mercy replace judgment. To integrate our beliefs with our actions (where our Orthodoxy begets our Orthopraxy).

When did we begin to diminish the redeeming power of the blood of Christ applied to our lives? When did it stop healing and delivering?
Why do we feel the need, as leaders, to draw general lines for people that neither the Bible, nor the Holy Spirit in their lives is drawing?

I’m ranting. That happens when I'm passionate about something.

"No animal ever invented anything as bad as drunkenness - or as good as drink."
-G.K. Chesterton

I met some Pentecostal friends in New Zealand that described beer with culinary flare, using adjectives like "nutty," “rich,” & “full-bodied”…etc. They loved the different flavors & nuances of beer, like a barista loves the characteristics & personalities of different coffees. I soon realized this was not merely a localized phenomenon. Christians from all over the Western World (France, England, Australia…etc.) who were devoted to sanctification, loved indulging in a good beer.

Retracing our steps throughout history, many of my favorite Christians drank beer & preached adamantly against drunkenness. CS Lewis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, GK Chesterton, John Calvin, Martin Luther…You Name It!

Where did this anti-alcohol movement begin?

It seems that Billy Sunday, following the trend of the Holiness Movement, began to demonize it through his powerful preaching. America would never be the same.

While many thoroughly devoted Christians all around the world have learned Christian maturity through moderation, many of us here in America have drawn thick lines in the sand… In fact it seems like the lines evolved into walls and eventually into castles, surrounded by moats with machine guns lining the upper walls, waiting to obliterate anyone who would dare step foot near this ideal. When it comes to this issue, you’ll scarcely find a “Come let us reason together” mentality.

"Whoever drinks beer, he is quick to sleep; whoever sleeps long, does not sin; whoever does not sin, enters Heaven! Thus, let us drink beer!"
–Martin Luther

The trend of making inanimate objects into Satan continues today. I’ve witnessed people preaching against VCR’s, Perrier Water, & Red Handkerchiefs. I have witnessed people relegating holiness to every aspect of appearance from hairnets to tassels on the shoes. While these examples seem extreme & ludicrous to most of us, the same logic is employed in the anti-alcohol arguments.

I often am troubled by the parallels between our American church and the devout religious leaders of Jesus’ day.

I remember a famous Christian once saying that if Jesus returned to our world today, it would be the Christians who would crucify him…

I wonder if he was on to something.

It feels like, at times, we are so locked into our ways that we have forgotten how to open our eyes to The Way… and The Truth and The Life.

We are so focused one the noise of our Christian sub-culture…the blazing fire of our traditions, the howling winds of our peers’ voices, the earthshaking racket in our own heads, that we can’t focus in on God’s still small voice, calling us to forsake everything and follow him.

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”
-Benjamin Franklin

I will not take the time to perform a polemic for the use of Alcohol with moderation here, complete with chapter & verse. That’s been done countless times. If you want to read something along those lines, here’s a great place to start:

http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=988

But, my concern is primarily the legalistic idea behind it all. Here’s a few questions:

What does the Bible really say?
Do our presuppositions blind us?
Are we truly open to God’s truth?
Even when it clashes with our traditions?
Are we reading our own questions back into the text?
Why do we defend this point so strongly?
What is our motivation (pro or con)?
Faith or fear?
God’s gospel or our own traditions?
Who are we trying to appeal to?
Are we following God’s voice or man’s?

Ok, One last quote…

"Whenever the devil pesters you, at once seek out the company of friends, drink more, joke and jest, or engage in some form of merriment."
– Martin Luther

In His Grip,
Theophilus

Setting the Tone

Dear Reader,

I am blogging.
This is a strange thing to me.
Still, I'm doing it... It's needed.
Both for me and for you.

My name is Theophilus.
I love my God with all my heart.
I love His church as well.

Sadly, many people have turned from my God and rejected His Son because his wife can be a tad bitchy at times.

She's moody.
She's cantankerous.
She's sincere in her love, but her eyes wander in the direction of other lovers.
She vacillates between 2 lives: Gomer (Hosea's wife of old) and the Virtuous Woman of Proverbs.

"The church is a whore and she is my mother" - Augustine

This is why I write.

My brothers and sisters squabble about issues, wandering back & forth between legalism and lawlessness, as we all pursue our newly-created hearts' desire to 'live the gospel.'

We all struggle and fall.
We all beat at the air blindly.
We all forsake the cross... and return to it.
It's a cyclical process, this thing called discipleship.

I'll write about issues and doctrines, divisions and unities, displays of love and hate, gut-busting humor and heart-wrenching sorrow, truth & beauty, faith hope & love.

I hope, in the writing and interacting, that we can all come to a fuller understanding of God and one another, until we all 'come into the unity of the faith.'

Until then, let's all walk humbly in the knowledge that God is bigger than all of the boxes we try to put Him in, yet He still chooses to work inside them.

Let's walk in wisdom and love toward each other understanding that (as Tony Campolo says) all theology is, in a sense, heresy because it tries to define the infinite within finite parameters. It always falls a bit short, no matter how true it is. The only true theology is wonder.

Let's seek to broaden our understanding of this boundless God with awe and wonder, fear and expectation...after all, isn't that the beginning of wisdom?

In His Grip,
Theophilus