Tag Archives: quote

The Saints are Kings and Priests

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It is a severe violation of the adult conscience to treat the saints as children under the over-lordship of elders. The ultimate effect of treating the saints as children is that they will either remain children in their understanding as they submit to bondage, or they will rebel. Elders exercise appropriate authority as fathers within their own households, but their role in the assembly is not as fathers and lords over children and servants, but as elder brothers in the faith and humble servants to the whole.

Source: Steve Atkerson, New Testament Church Leadership

What Makes for a Strong Leader?

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Then the Elder continued, “What if a truly strong leader is one who is un-threatened enough to actually, honestly listen to the input of those around them, precisely because (a) they are secure in their identity in Christ, and (b) they know they need the voices of others to adequately hear what God is saying to the whole group? What if the ‘weak’ leader is really the one who insists on his or her own personal vision, and is too threatened to consider the voices of anyone else?”

“Maybe it takes more cajones to NOT insist on the leader’s ‘vision’, or ‘strategy’, and to trust that the Spirit speaks through the Body, hmm?”, he asked, gesturing with open hands.

Source: Robby Mac, Through The Looking-Glass

Faith To Be Strong

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Don’t you love it when you listen to a song and it brilliantly captures exactly how you’re feeling at that particular moment? I just had that experience with a song from a new-to-me album I’ve wanted for years, but didn’t have a sufficient excuse to buy until I had money to burn on an iTunes gift card I got for Christmas.

This is not another song about the mountains, except about how hard they are to move. Have you ever stood before them like a mustard seed who’s waiting for some proof? I say faith is a burden: it’s a weight to bear; it’s brave and bittersweet, and hope is hard to hold to. Lord, I believe, only help my unbelief till there’s no more faith; no more hope. I’ll see your face and Lord, I’ll know—I’ll sing your praise and let them go—’cause only love remains.

— Andrew Peterson, No More Faith (Clear To Venus, 2001).

As wonderful as this life can be sometimes, nothing could possibly compare to the day that’s coming. More than anything, my heart cries out:

But, Lord, ‘tis for Thee, for Thy coming we wait, the sky, not the grave, is our goal. Oh trump of the angel! Oh voice of the Lord! Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul! And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight, the clouds be rolled back as a scroll; the trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend…

And sometimes, I want that Day so badly that I can’t sing the last line: “Even so, it is well with my soul.” Because sometimes it’s not well with my soul “even so” (that is, even if the Lord doesn’t “haste the day”). I want sin to be gone; I want to stand face-to-face with my lord and my God in that city he’s been preparing. I’m weary of the pain and disappointment and disease and death that sin has subjected this world to. I want to see everything finally brought into utter subjection to Jesus, the Christ.

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,
and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.
They shall not hurt or destroy
in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea.

— Isaiah 11:6-9 (ESV)

Yesterday we celebrated God’s triumph over Satan, Death and Hell. His victory was total, but it is not yet utter. And so we praise and work and wait and hope, until “…the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death” — 1 Corinthians 15:24-26 (ESV). But until then…

Give us faith to be strong, give us strength to be faithful; this life is not long, but it’s hard. Give us grace to go on, make us willing and able; Lord, give us faith to be strong.

— Andrew Peterson, Faith To Be Strong (Carried Along, 2000).

Cosby Bebop

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Cosby Bebop

Wow, I like this! At least, I think I like it. It’s always hard to judge a parody when you’re unfamiliar with the original. I’ve been looking all over the Internet for the Cowboy Bebop intro theme this thing is a parody of, but I can’t find it.

“Class? Anyone? Anyone?”

UPDATE: Silly me! The guy included a link to the Cowboy Bebop intro on this piece’s profile page!

We Will Die To Make Him Known

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John Piper sends out once a week or so what’s basically an e-mail devotional, called Fresh Words. The one I got today is titled, “Enemies of the Cross and How to Respond to Them,” and I highly recommend it.

Anyway, toward the end of it (yes, I’m spoiling the ending!) Piper says this:

“My greatest longing in response to this enmity is that Christians walk in the way of the cross. Yes, militant Islam is big and threatening. It may even be the true Quranic Islam. There are alarmists whose whole tone seems to awaken political and even militant responses from Christians. My concern is that as the church we distance ourselves from this kind of response and focus on the truth that we will never spread the Christian faith by the sword. Some Muslims may kill to spread their faith. Some Christians have. But it is not the way of Christ. It is not the way of the cross.”

Amen! I’ve also got a new candidate for my e-mail signature: “We will die to make [Christ] known. But we will not kill to make him known.”

Quotes: John Quincy Adams

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From Wikiquote:

“All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse.”

“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.”

“America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”

It’s a shame Presidential figures today don’t talk like that.

The Emergent Church’s Problem

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“The problem with the emergent church (in addition to some of those already described) is that they tend to identify humility with uncertainty and dogmatism with pride. Consequently, they embrace story, not because it is the best vehicle for restoring robust certainty to the Church, but rather as a means of getting Christians to knock it off with that off-putting certainty business.” — Douglas Wilson, One Other Thing

The only must-have “Study Bible”!

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So I moseyed on over to Saint Anne’s Pub this morning (for the record, this is the only pub I’d visit in the morning…), to check out their new audio digest “issue,” and what do I see? They now have commercials. Oh, but not just any commercials; these are good! For instance:

Recently a group of vanguard theologians that the original Hebrew and Greek Bible is thoroughly satirical, and that English translators have bowdlerized it. What a great sin… but restitution has been made! Now you can buy the most literal version of the Holy Bible yet translated!

Introducing The Serrated Edge Study Bible! Now you can “count it all [bleep!] in view of the greatness of knowing Christ.”

Teach your children what it means to be a prophet with The Serrated Edge Study Bible:

Elijah mocked them and said, “cry aloud, for he is a God! Either he is talking, or he is taking a [bleep!].”

(We’re not saying that other translators are wrong—a man’s got to know his limitations.)

Put new life in family devotions with The Serrated Edge Study Bible:

“In calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the whore in the land of Egypt, and she [bleep!] after their [bleep!][bleep!] whose [bleep!] was like the [bleep!] of donkeys, and whose [bleep!] was like the [bleep!] of horses.”

“Father! What do those words mean?”

“Well, honey, let me tell you…”

The Serrated Edge Study Bible‘s notes make clear all the satire that the most literal translation can’t. Decode Jesus’ cryptic put-downs…and Saint Paul’s scatological humor…and find every first-century cuss word on the “Saint Peter Profanity Chart.”

Just don’t let your mother see.

It’s track #8, if you’re interested.

Yeah, it’s most likely a joke… but it would be so cool to have a copy.

What Is the Essence of the Unwasted Life?

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So if you ask me tonight, “All right, tell us then, what is the unwasted life? What does it look like? What is the essence of the unwasted life�” I just mentioned it: A life that puts the infinite value of Christ on display for the world to see. The passion of the unwasted life is to joyfully display the supreme excellence of Christ by the way we live. Life is given to us so that we can use it to make much of Christ. Possessions are given to us so that by the way we use them, we can show that they are not our treasure, but Christ is our treasure. Money is given to us so that we will use it in a way that shows money is not treasure, but Christ is our treasure.

The great passion of the unwasted life is to magnify Christ. Here is the text that, perhaps more than any other, governs what life is really about: Philippians 1:20-21. Paul says, “It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.“

Paul’s all-consuming passion was that in his life and in his death Jesus Christ be honored, that is, that Jesus Christ be made to look like the infinite treasure that he is. The reason you have life is to make Jesus Christ look great. There is one central criterion that should govern all the decisions you make in life and in death: Will this help make Jesus Christ look like the treasure he is?