Date-Dabitur just blew the dust off of a conversation between Nathan Chilton and his dad, David. It’s really funny (and profound) at spots, including:

Nathan: Well, why aren’t these people happy? Do they think heaven is a sad place to be?

Papa: I think they’re sad because they’re thinking about their sins.

Nathan: But they’ve been forgiven, and now they’re in heaven! They’re supposed to be thinking about Jesus!

Papa: Oh, they’re thinking of Him, too. They’re sad because they’re thinking about Him dying on the cross.

Nathan: But He’s not dying anymore. The whole reason we’re doing this is that He came alive, right?

Papa: Right.

Nathan: Well, I don’t think they could be sad about Jesus. I think they’re sad ’cause they had to eat those icky crackers and drink that dumb old Kool-Aid.

My favorite part was the following exchange (because it seems to sum up so many things for me):

Nathan: Is this as confusing to them as it is to me?

Papa: It might be if they thought about it much.

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Alan Knox has an article about the “local/universal church” up on his blog today:

It seems to me that the “local church” and “universal church” distinctions adds very little to our biblical understanding of God or of the church. Instead, it seems to divide the church into little groups that feel that they are maintaining unity in the body of Christ as long as they are united withing their “local church”. Meanwhile, it also allows believers to ignore the “one-anothers” of Scripture if the “one-another” does not “belong” to their “local church”.

This is one of the big reasons behind a project I have in the works. I don’t know when it’ll be announced, because I just finished a client’s redesign and I have some family obligations to attend to. But one of these days, I’ll let you know what’s under the hood…

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My name is Travis Seitler, and I approve of and agree with this quote:

I do sort of like the irony in people criticizing me for being critical of people being critical. Sort of a rabbit-hole type thing. Is the one with the last word most divisive? Wheeeeee!

Source: “On Division,” The Gospel-Driven Church

Edit: Ooh, there’s more:

There is the Gospel, and there is the not-Gospel. To criticize and name those who preach and profit from the not-Gospel is not being divisive; the division began with the deception. The unity is broken not at the point of criticism, but at the point of departure from the Gospel.

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I hate getting charley horses. I tend to get them in waves, too.

I woke up this morning at about 4am. I had about five seconds from the moment that I was awake and knew a muscle was pulled, and the start of the pain. This was the worst one I’ve ever had! It was like I’d been stabbed in the calf, and someone was twisting the knife over and over again. And it seemed like multiple muscles in my calf were getting pulled–like how one power supply goes down and puts a strain on the whole system, eventually shutting everything down. Steven Subotnick, D.P.M. says:

“This out-of-the-blue leg cramp is as intense as a kick from a palomino. You’ll be lying in bed or even asleep when you get this terrible knot-usually in the calf but sometimes in the thigh or the arch of your foot.”

Apparently if I get out of bed right away and stand on that leg, it’ll make the pain go away quicker? (That and drinking more water, of course–I hate drinking water!) I wish I’d checked Wikipedia before today.

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“Pastoral authority” is invoked in support of all kinds of actions, events, and propositions. In more mundane uses, “pastoral authority” becomes a catchphrase signaling the need to acquire permission from the pastor to take action or make a public statement. Along these lines, you might hear someone say, “I disagree with Pastor Tom about this issue, but I don’t want to undermine his pastoral authority.” More extreme applications, of course, include the forceful silencing of dissent and the legitimization of unfortunate personality worship. In this vein, something like this is more likely: “Don’t you know our pastor has authority over you?”

To be clear, in my criticism I do not take away from the responsibility of our local church pastors to shepherd our congregations. The apostles left us careful instructions regarding the need for us to recognize, honor, imitate, and submit to our leaders (1 Thess 5:12-13; 1 Tim 5:17; Heb 13:7, 17), as well as details regarding the characteristics that qualify and disqualify leaders from service (1 Tim 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9).

Yet, if you survey the teaching of the NT epistles on the matter of elders, overseers, leaders, or shepherds, you will find no mention of “authority” or “exercising authority over” anyone. In fact, 1 Peter 5:3 contains explicit instruction for shepherds to oversee the people “not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.”

Source: SBCOutpost.com (HT: Alan Knox)

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