Bible Engagement

I need to structure my time to engage the Word for real. Passing my eyes across the text and scribbling down a few blurbs is quite the insufficient meal. Speaking of the importance of Bible engagement, Scripture is to be heard and obeyed, while tradition, reason, and experience are ways we do that in our contexts. Good interpretation puts one in a position to better receive the Spirit’s illumination of Scripture and partner with him to carry it out in actual life.

Conversation partners: personal pondering on illumination and interpretation; Reasoner, SPIRITUAL GEOMETRY: Evaluating the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, http://www.fwponline.cc/v14n2/v14n2reasoner.html

Ecclesiology

·       Unity is not optional. Because of this, I wonder why so many churches rely on majority vote to make decisions. It seems to me consensus would be a better option, more difficult, but better.

·       Step one in understanding the church is seeing her in relation to God. Step two is seeing her in relation to herself and the world. God’s design of the church is eternal, but the church resides in certain places and times. Both perspectives matter.

·       Mutual and outward-facing love is the reputation by which the world will know that we are God’s family.

·       Intra-church discipleship is partnering with one another and the Spirit to see and be as those in Christ.

Conversation partners: 1 Peter 2:9-10; 1 John 3:1-3; Romans 15:5; Matthew 28:16-20

Lived Faith

Forever Life in God’s presence is an absolute certainty, so let’s prepare for it now.

1.     I have been reading Where Prayer Becomes Real by Strobel & Coe, and in a typical Holy Spirit move, God has seen fit to supply targeted verses of the day from another source altogether to supplement the reading. The most prominent lesson so far seems to be a common tendency among Christians to clean themselves up before coming to prayer. What I am learning is that it is much more important to be sincere and straightforward with God. I mean, he knows everything already anyway, and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are already there praying. You would think it would be easier to join in but alas. Here are some additional bits:

·       Inward or outward expressions of snark or pride ought to be turned into acts of prayer.

·       Coming to trust that I am safe in God is an ongoing partnership project with the Spirit.

·       I am learning to use mind-wandering as prayer until prayer becomes resting in your presence.

·       Honest faith gazes at God, showing him all neediness and responding to what he exposes.

2.     Christians who live in a sin-indulging culture must speak the truth with blunt love and not compromise with the culture’s indulgence. This in no way means we get to be mean or act like jerks. We are commanded to speak the truth in love, but love isn’t mamby pamby. Bravery+Trust is not optional for Christ-followers. On the other hand, the message of the Gospel is more important than confronting culture. We need to figure out how to love others and our Christian siblings in ways that are clear to the context of cultural expectations yet properly image God. After all, we’re here in time and under the sun to image God before creation and proclaim his salvation.

3.     There are passages in the New Testament that are difficult to make sense of in a culture so distant from that the original writings. Some that are exceptionally difficult are passages when God speaks into the culture of the time rather than against it, for example, passages about the responsibilities of bondservants and women. Teasing out the timeless truth in such passages is quite the slog, but this must be done if we are to understand God’s instructions and live them out in our cultures.

Conversation partners: 1 Timothy 6:1–2a; Mark 8:35; ‘solipsism’ Dictionary.com; 1 John 3:1-3; Psalms 56:3-4; Proverbs 22:4-5; Matthew 5:43-48; Ephesians 5:1-2; Exodus 23:20-24:18; Proverbs 23:24; Where Prayer Becomes Real (Strobel & Coe); Matthew 5:43-48

Integration

In the practice of holistic integration of faith and learning, there ought to be no gaps in the Christian thinker’s life, for God centers all. Of course, we live in the world, so this is tough. First off, knowing itself takes a lot of work, requiring analyzing, synthesizing, valuing, and doing. To this we add Christ-centered, knowing, and we’ve piled in another layer of complexity. But this complexity is necessary because God is Creator and Lord of all; therefore, all things are essentially for him.

Conversation partners: personal pondering on ‘Know, Feel, Do’ as teaching/learning structure; Holistic Integration; @FredFredSanders’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/FredFredSanders/status/1080178667244810240?s=09

What am I here for?

·       I am a thinker. Therefore, thinking should instigate contentment. It should also help me focus on others in practical ways.

·       I am a Christian, so one of my main tasks is to point fellow believers to God, always clearly and in love, and sometimes bluntly. Why is this so often so hard?

Conversation partners: 1 Thessalonians 5:14-15; ‘Happy’ Oxford Dictionary

Writing

·       Using assumptions as spaces for writing allows evaluation, correction, and expansion of one’s beliefs.

Conversation partner: Luhmann, Communicating

Thinking

It is very unfortunate that I failed to think more about thinking while I was in graduate school. Had I done so, I would have a deeper understanding of concepts like the following and would be able to put them to proper use more easily. Here’s my initial take:

·       Congruence bias, the filtering out of the new because it does not match the old, is countered with careful perception and conception that supports continuous learning.

·       Resilience thinking is nimble and intentional, iteratively engaging and responding to reality.

·       Confirmation bias, the considering of only that which aligns, maybe countered by seeking out counterexamples and re-examining one’s heuristics.

·       Studying hard things requires systematic, focused thought over time. So, take the time.

Conversation partners: PhD by James Hayton; Strunz, Sebastian. 2012. Is conceptual vagueness an asset? Arguments from philosophy of science applied to the concept of resilience. In Ecological Economics. 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.02.012; Hajek, A. (2017). Philosophy tool kit. Aeon. Retrieved from https://aeon.co/essays/with-the-use-of-heuristics-anybody-can-think-like-a-philosopher, para. 12

Good Life

The Good Life is not determined by safety or stuff or excitement. Safety is a good thing, but if it is achieved at the expense of the freedom to live life as God intends, then is it really worth it? If the gathering of stuff, even in well-curated collections, merely smears salve the collector’s damaged soul, is the stuff really worth the space? Is it not better to collect only things of excellence, doing so in ways that honor the craftspersons? Finally, get out of the mind any notion that the mundane is just boring, for the mundane is the regular place of comfort and stability. Excitement is overrated.

Conversation partners: ‘mundane’ Oxford Dictionary; ‘récherché’ dictionary.com

Olders Ministry

Just a few weeks ago, I assumed that Elders and Overseers in the New Testament were basically the same thing. Then I studied 1st Timothy 5 for myself, and I have come to the preliminary notion that in some cases Elders may be another group, at least in Ephesus where Timothy served. For the time being, I have dubbed this other possibility “Olders.” Olders, however the group is interpreted, are held to standards that are similar to those of Overseers and Deacons, and they lead in ways that align with how parents lead families. Things I look forward to describing:

·       What are they responsible for?

·       What are the criteria for service?

·       How they are to be treated by the church?

Conversation partners: 1 Timothy 5:1-16; 1 Timothy 5:17–25