Reconnecting

This last week I have reconnected with a friend that we knew from our days in Las Vegas, at Sunrise Baptist Church.  When we left Las Vegas for Japan, our friends had gotten married and had graduated from seminary at Golden Gate.  We were in Japan for 13 ½ years, and our friends had pursued the Lord’s leading in their lives too.  That led them to missions work in old parts of Europe.

He taught in a seminary there and did translation work for books to be used in his seminary, and pastoring, and … well, everything that missionaries do.  Their children were born there, and are third culture kids, just as ours are.  

There is something special about third culture kids.  They were strangers in a strange land while they were “over there,” but they also missed out on more than a decade of their formative years of American culture.  The things other people their age experienced, they missed out on.  On the other hand, they have multicultural experiences from the host country that American inculcated people know nothing about.  Who would understand “You don’t see what you don’t look at,” if you never went to a public bath house?  Who would understand driving on the “wrong side of the road,” if you were never in a foreign location, not under Americanization?  Why would anyone want to go about the house in sock feet, or bare foot, if they never lived where shoes were “dirty” and tracked mud into the house if they were not dumped in the genkon, or mud room?  Who would think to BYOTP (bring your own toilet paper) in a public place?  Or that bicycles are the accepted mode of transportation, because gasoline is too expensive, and public transportation is how EVERYONE gets around.

Anyway, the old friends are back in America, as are we.  They are pastoring a church, as are we.  They have kids that are just younger than ours, ours are adults now.  It’s good to reconnect, when the connection was so good in the beginning!

More Books I Am Reading

Okay, it's time for more of the books I am reading. I pick up various titles, depending on my present mood. It's almost never fiction, though I really like the writings of John Gresham and the techno-thrillers written by Tom Clancy, but his more "factual" books interest me not at all.
Jon Meacham wrote American Gospel, talking about the religion and faith of various American leaders, especially the founding fathers and Presidents. Jon critiques the faith of others, but does not understand the Bible himself. He has adopted the "public religion" of John Dewey, and denies the reality of religion in the public square. What ever happened to tolerance and academic freedom, to say nothing of freedom of speech?
Jesus and the Father, by Kevin Giles, is a defense of non-subordinationist Trinitarian theology. Giles sees all three persons of the Trinity as co-equal in every way. Since that is so, where is the Holy Spirit in the title of his book? How does he differentiate which person of the trinity is active at any point of Scripture? Why then does Jesus address the Father as He does? Jesus and the Father is a lengthy and detailed examination of the doctrine of the Trinity, written in response to Wayne Grudem'sSystematic Theology, which holds to subordination of the Son to the Father in function of role only, but not in person, or any other way. Giles says that subordination in any form is unthinkable, even hinting it is heresy. I am anxious to get to the parts where Giles deals with Jesus' statements about His being obedient to the Father; now, that should be an interesting read in anti-subordinationism!
I try to keep at least one book about preaching open all the time. If I am going to improve as a preacher, I must keep studying the practice and the art of preaching. The preaching book I am reading at the moment is Preaching Evangelistically; it was written by several people and is a compilation of various preachers. Nothing exciting in the first two chapters; I'll let you know how it goes as I get further into the book. While not technically not a book I am reading, I subscribe to Preaching Today on CD. :-)
A couple of years ago our church went through The Purpose Driven Life {:(. I bought and am going through the companion Journal. I don't like the way Rick Warren jumps around in various translations and versions of the Bible for the verse form he likes at the moment. My own reaction to the "open-ended" comments and questions of the text is interesting to me.
I am still reading The Journals of Jim Elliot. I am amazed at the things he wrote in his personal journal. Surely Jim Elliot did not think that anyone would ever be interested in, or certainly study, his personal journals; and they are very personal. I doubt that I could write at that personal level, even in a journal intended only form my personal growth and reflection.
Vanhooser's The Drama of Doctrine tries to deal with theology as a literary form. The interpretive form for his idea is that the Bible was given mostly in the form of stories. The stories must be understood in the societal context of the time it was given. This, however, ignores what Peter said; "As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow," 1 Peter 1:10-11. The interpretation of Scripture is not entrely dependant on the social context of the time, but on the intent of its Author. The literary form, the genre of the text, certainly matters but it cannot be the paramount criteria. More Readings to follow in the days ahead.

Books I am Reading

Okay, I admit it. I’m a bibliophile.

There I said it, I admit it: I love books.

Someone has said, When I have money, I buy books. If there is any left over, I buy food. If there is still some left, then I pay bills. Well, I’m not that bad about it. I recognize my fiduciary responsibilities, but I would rather own a good book than a good car.

When I was in the second grade, my teacher wrote a note for me to take home to my parents saying that I was going to be held over in the second grade because I could not read. We were reading Dick and Jane stories in school. “See Dick. See Jane. See Dick and Jane run.” Dad wrote back to the teacher and said that did not make any sense, because I was reading the King James Bible at home and in church.

If I have a duplicate of a book, I don’t keep it; instead I give it to a library. Maybe the Mid America Baptist Theological Seminary, my alma mater. Or maybe I give it to the Rivercrest High School library if it is fiction or something I think it would be good for high schoolers to have access to. I also don’t keep a poorly written book. I may or may not agree with the author, but that does not make it a bad book, I care more about the quality of the writing.

This brings me to books I am reading. Mark Buchanan is my new favorite author. He writes religious books, but they are powerfully written with vivid prose. My first encounter with his work is in the book The Rest of God. When I first saw the title, I was not sure if it meant the book looked at something about God that we were missing, or if its subject was Sabbath. When I got the book and saw the cover, it said that it was about Sabbath keeping. Having almost finished reading this book, I find I must read it again, because there is such a rich content that absorbing it all in one reading is not possible. Nor is it possible to read the book in one setting, not while employing its teaching and meaning. I hope to absorb more of Buchanan’s imagery in my own preaching!

Anne Graham Lotz is another of my favorite authors. Heaven, My Father’s House was a good introduction for me to her writing; her video of the same title is also excellent. I also picked up her book Why? Trusting God When You Don't Understand. Because I am interested in theodicy, this book and others on the topic are primary sources for my search for the root cause, the real origins of evil in the cosmos. Lotz’s Just Give Me Jesus is an unusual commentary on the Gospel of John, though it reads more like a devotional. Lotz’s tendency to ask questions and make lists in the middle of her texts is disruptive to her text, and I do not find the lists helpful, though the rest of the books are. Lotz’s sister, Ruth Graham’s In Every Pew Sits a Broken Heart is more than biographic in nature, it read like she is trying to win acceptance for herself and her bad life choices, and sympathy for the bad things that have come into her life. She used a ghost writer, but was honest about it in that she credited Stacy Mattingly as her co-author. Ruth’s story is an informative read in how the good children of good leaders in the faith can suffer evil.

I have just finished a book by Charles Coleson, Loving God. Mostly a series of stories, this is a devotional book that tries to motivate readers for a change in prison policy and prison ministry. In How Now Shall We Live?, Coleson tries to motivate Christians to convert not just souls and minds to Christ, but to convert society to Christian values. When did Jesus call us to save our culture? He was concerned with the individual, the sufferer, the outcast, to bring them to faith, to demonstrate His sovereignty over every form of good and evil: “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Go and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them,’” Matthew 11:4-5. Jesus, however, never tried to establish a theocracy; “Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm,’” John 18:36. We need to do good in society, but that is not the form Jesus wants for His kingdom, for His church.

There are several more books I am reading, but I have bored you long enough. I’ll discuss the others in a blog later.

Today is a new day

Ok, this is not the best picture of me ever taken, but it fits my mental image of myself. I used to think of myself as this young, can-do guy. Now there is snow on the roof, and I spend most of my time preparing for preaching. When I try to "can-do" I wind up with lower back pain. I have talked to my doctor, but he prescribes muscle relaxers and pain pills, but they put me to sleep. The chiropractor seems to be my best answer for (almost) immediate, if temporary, relief. At times my back hurts so much I preach sitting on a bar stool behind the pulpit. Because of my bad back, and the intensity of the heat this summer, the grass has not been cut like it should have been. Thus the grass is too thick to cut and leave on the ground, but must be bagged. The bagger fills after five or six feet and must be emptied. After ten or twelve bags, the garbage can is full! ARGH! Well, it does not make a living, but it is the sweat of my face (Gen. 3:19).

Speaking of hair, I was teasing a church member because we saw a picture of him with more hair than he has now. Rubbing his head, his wife said, “This is a LOT of hair … in your soup!”

My wife goes back to school today, to teach seminars for the “Reconvening” at her college. The teachers have to have recurring training in WebCT, and she is the one teaching the teachers! She really enjoys teaching, and most of the people she is teaching are friends. She always makes lots of friends where ever she is! She is, however, a little bit stressed over the challenge of teaching four different sessions on four different subjects about WebCT. She will do great, she always does! For those of you who don’t know about WebCT, it’s a software package that allows for record keeping, class design, and even content teaching via the internet. Some of it is intuitive, but much is not, and for teachers who have a fear of computers, it can be downright intimidating.

We are getting new glasses this week. I never did like the ones I have been wearing because they have such a narrow strip across the bottom for reading, which is most of what I do, and then I see the edge of the glasses as a bright line under the text of what I am reading. I think these new glasses will solve that.

We were talking last night about our youngest, and we affirmed that she has achieved what we hoped and prayed for her, the ability to live and work independently, and to be happy in her life. One has a hurt knee; another is planning to go back to school again; all will be fine in the life God gives them.
Numbers 6:22-27
Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and to his sons, saying, ‘Thus you shall bless the sons of Israel. You shall say to them:
The Lord bless you, and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine on you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance on you,
And give you peace.’ “So they shall invoke My name on the sons of Israel, and I then will bless them.”

My wind chimes

As I sit here in my living room, I hear the gentle clang and bong of the wind chimes my wife bought for me last month.  As the breeze blows across our porch, the hammer in the chimes is moved by the wind catcher, ringing the chimes and making them sing for me.  The song they sing is my wife’s love song to me, singing to me of her devotion to our marriage.  

Great Uncle Drenth

Okay. So I have not written in my blog for over a month.
I’m claiming that this is natural and not aversion or phobia.
Writers are told to write a minimum number of words every day, whether they feel an inspiration or not; whether they have a subject to write about or not. Well, I haven’t and I still don’t, but I owe my blog something, so here’s this update to the blog.

“But,” I should “sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;” 1 Peter 3:15, NASB. “You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin.” 1 John 3:5, NASB.

I have recently found out that there is an infamous person in my family history. My great uncle, my mother’s uncle, Herman Drenth, was hung for multiple murders, and he apparently told the police “You’ve got me dead to rights on five, what good would fifty more be.” From this the newspapers assumed that there were at least fifty more and ran with it from there, along with some other quotes he gave police. The quotes were apparently after the police had beaten him severely. “Drenth” is listed in several web sites as Harry Powers, plus several other aliases. I only found this out because of a call from a person doing research for a project; we have no family memory of him, no stories, no legends, and no whispers from anyone, ever, about him. The family lineage is correct, but we knew nothing of him before this month.

I sure am glad for the promise “The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father's iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son's iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself,” Ezekiel 18:20 (NASB).

And that “21But if the wicked man turns from all his sins which he has committed and observes all My statutes and practices justice and righteousness, he shall surely live; he shall not die. 22 “All his transgressions which he has committed will not be remembered against him; because of his righteousness which he has practiced, he will live. 23 “Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked,” declares the Lord GOD, “rather than that he should turn from his ways and live?” Ezekiel 18:21-23 (NASB).