I don’t really have anything brewing in my head that would make for a full blog post this morning, so I thought I’d share a few things I’m thinking about along with some links to some articles I’ve enjoyed recently.
*I’m preaching this weekend at a church in Glendale. This will be my second time preaching at the church. I am now a finalist for their vacant solo pastor position. It’s a very small church, but the people seem great. If you are the praying sort I’d appreciate your prayers for Christie and me and for the congregation as we continue to discern if this is where God is calling us. The text I’ve selected for the sermon is Colossians 2:6-15. It is a wonderful passage that touches on a number of incredibly important theological ideas. I’ve never taught on it before. I am looking forward to spending time studying it this week. Please pray also that Jesus is glorified in the sermon on Sunday.
*This week in The SEMI we are publishing an interview I did last week with Jim Belcher about his book Deep Church. Jim is a great guy, and he has really written a remarkable book. I believe Deep Church is one of the most important books for church leaders that we’ve seen in a long time. I honestly don’t remember the last time I underlined and scribbled in a book as much as I did as I read this one. Far from being leadership theory (which is certainly valuable), this book really lays out a vision for uniting traditional and emerging voices around an orthodox, missional Christian tradition. I’ve been planning on writing a few blog posts about the book, and I’ll hopefully start with that tomorrow. Yesterday Jim was interviewed on Ed Stetzer’s blog, and you can read that interview here.
*Over on the Out of Ur blog they have an interview with Jonathon Edwards. Yes, I know Edwards has been dead for hundreds of years, but somehow they managed to get him to agree to an interview. It’s short, and it’s a fun and insightful read. Edwards is an important figure in Christian history (understatement), and I’ve got a biography of him on my bookshelf that is high on my list of books I need to read.
*Switching gears completely, I had a conversation yesterday that got me thinking a little bit about eschatology (the study of the end times). I have long said that my eschatological beliefs can be boiled down to, “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His Kingdom will have no end.” Beyond that, I don’t really have an opinion. More than that, I don’t care to develop an opinion. I almost never taught on eschatology at my old church, and when I did, the teaching essentially amounted to the line from the Creed that I quoted above. I never once argued for a pre-millennial, post-millennial, or a-millennial position. I guess I just don’t think that, relative to other theological topics, eschatology matters very much. I’d much rather devote my time and effort learning to understand and live out the gospel. Furthermore, I think the Scriptures are purposefully ambiguous about the finer details of how everything is going to play out. Am I wrong for not wanting to develop a more concrete eschatological position? For any of you who have thought more about eschatology than I have: can you convince me that it is important, and that I should clarify what I believe the Bible says about it? I would appreciate your thoughts.
*Back to church leadership, the Resurgence has a helpful little post this morning that is essentially a checklist for making a ministry idea a reality. The older I get the more I realize lists like these are very helpful for me.
*Finally, I learned from BioLogos that the Pontifical Academy of Sciences has spoken up about evolution again, this time rejecting intelligent design. The Vatican has affirmed macro evolution since the time John Paul II was pope, but I’m glad to see this reaffirmation. I believe there are important evangelistic and missiological reasons for Christians to more or less abandon the intelligent design project and more thoroughly embrace theistic evolution, thus I think reports like this are very important. The fact is, there are millions of evangelical Christians- including most Christian scientists- who believe the Bible and affirm macro evolution, and there are likely innumerable people around the globe who write off Christianity because it appears anti-science and anti-intellectual. Anti-evolutionism is, in my opinion, an unnecessary hindrance to the gospel.
So there you have it, a few random thoughts and links. Hopefully I’ll be able to come up with something more cohesive tomorrow.
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