I had to laugh at this article.  The Southland Christian Church in Lexington Kentucky recently sent letters to Brittney Spears in an effort to show love where none is being shown.  Look how the “editor” ends their piece against this church.

The post-modern juggernaut, i.e. seeker sensitive/mega/emerging/emergent/ culturally relevant churches have joined the TBN/charismania crowd in the cult of celebrity.

So, which one is Southland Christian Center?  seeker sensitive?  mega church?  emerging?  emergent?  culturally relevant?  charismania? I guess we could always try the shotgun approach and just throw em all out there, so ALL the bases are covered.  We could just accuse anyone who does anything different than us of being a megaseekeremergentingchrismania relevant church.

Tomorrow again commemorates the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I am hold up in a hospital bed until next weekend at the earliest, but I want to exhort all my brothers and sisters to worship Jesus tomorrow as if this was your last day on this earth, teach with passion, preach with anointing, and generally give yourself wholly to Him who gave Himself wholly for us. There was a time when Sunday morning would have seen us just going to bed but now by His grace we worship Him.

It is in times of worship and praise that we should capture our hearts, put away all the battles and cares of this world, and let our voices and hearts rise as grateful incense before our Wonderful Redeemer. I will lift you all up to Him and ask that He “may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him”. I rejoice in His grace and goodness to me in the midst of “light affliction” and pray that God is pleased with our praise. May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering!

“I am He that lives and was dead and, behold, I am alive for evermore.”

From here

On October 18, 2007, California IMB trustee Jerry Corbaley sent a one hundred and fifty three page letter, via email, to all International Mission Board trustees….

Mr. Corbaley requested in his email that the trustees of the International Mission Board take official ‘action’ against me at the Springfield, Illinois trustee meeting in two weeks. Jerry did not contact me privately before sending the email. However, I called Jerry as soon as I received it. He informed me over the phone that unless I was calling to confess to him my repentance before God, he would not talk with me. He then proceeded to hang up while I was in mid-sentence.

Attempts at building a relationship with Mr. Corbaley have been continually rebuffed for the past eighteen months, including the May 2006 Albuquerque, New Mexico commisioning service where, with my wife at my side, I expressed my love for Jerry and a desire to build a relationship with him. He informed me that we could not have a relationship because of my ’sin.’ I approached Mr. Corbaley again in July of this year while he was eating in the cafeteria of the International Learning Center outside Richmond. I sat down beside him to visit with him, but he refused to converse with me. He got up from the table and told me if I followed him he would make it a public issue.

After reading Mr. Corbaley’s email, I am frankly at a loss. Jerry seems to think I should be responsible for the comments people make on my blog. I keep an open, unmoderated comment section and am not responsible for what others write. I take full responsibility for what I write, and I hope every person in the Southern Baptist Convention reads it again – and again – and again. With the help of some who don’t understand how relate to people who disagree, that just may happen.

I could let it go, but the pattern has been established in the past that some will make reckless character charges in an attempt to convince people of their conclusions, the logic of which is beyond my comprehension. I have chosen not to defend myself. I am more than happy for every Southern Baptist to read what I have written on my blog and what I have written is my defense. I have not deleted one post. I write for Southern Baptists, and everything I post is with a desire to make our convention better, to advance the kingdom of Christ and to treat all people, especially those who disagree, with respect.

I wish this kind of thing was shocking, sadly, its becoming par for the course. Also, 153 email pages!?!?! Sounds like someone needs to spend more time working, or more time with their family.

God is sovereign. No words can fully encompass that infinite truth. The finite can never capture the infinite and the servant can never define His sovereign. Upon creation God did not set things in motion outside His jurisdiction and relegate Himself to a hapless bystander, no never, woven into every atom of creation is His divine sovereignty which is sometimes hidden and other times revealed but at all times active and intertwined in a unified reign that glorifies Him and His eternal sovereignty. This attribute of Almighty God is one upon which we must dwell and meditate because we are so prone to imagine ourselves as in control and are generating history by the power of our own wills, but that it a mirage of our own imagination.
Read more…

$300 to attend

$200 to get there

$200 to sleep

not going… PRICELESS

what are they complaining about?

Peter Dupre, worship pastor at my church (Grace Chapel in Lexington, MA), spoke at our young adults service. Here is his talk.

One of his most interesting points was that people complain about not having enough hymns, but no one ever complains about, for example, not singing enough classic Christian Creole songs.

You can also subscribe to my church’s young adult podcast here.

Photo by magbug

It seems even those people who generally agree with the watchdoggie POV are getting a bit tired of them. From here:

Sometimes even bloggers with good intentions can fall into the trap of being over zealous in their discernment. I am sure I have fallen into that trap myself at times. But this past week, in reading a post by Phil Johnson, I thought I saw a classic example of someone who had over-reached himself in reacting to some things he had discerned. Now, don’t get me wrong. I share many of Phil’s concerns. I am indeed concerned about some aspects of Willow Creek’s ministry philosophy. Personally, I am not sure how to interpret their recent “repentance,” and certainly was VERY worried to see that they have invited Brian McLaren to speak at one of their conferences. BUT it bothers me that Phil seemed (at least to me) to be implying that Willow Creek has absolutely nothing to teach us. I think that to fail to recognize something as being good and helpful and true, we fail in our discernment as much as if we blindly accepted everything in a naive way. I know it sounds cliched, but we really must be looking for the good in people, especially in those who have not denied important aspects of the Gospel. It is quite correct to say, “I like what this person says about the following subject, and have learned from them, although I disagree strongly with them on another subject.” If, instead, we lump people and whole movements together into an amorphous lump of theological rejects, surely we risk alienating them and, ironically, driving some further away from the truth of the Gospel that I know Phil and I both love.

But if Phil was harsh on Willow Creek, he went on in the same post to be even harder on the charismatics. I mention this because this kind of over-zealous discernment is sadly quite common. Again, quite rightly, he was pointing out the sin in a specific charismatic minister. Also, quite rightly, he was pointing out that due to an absence of discernment this kind of error is all too common in the charismatic movement, and sadly is often covered up. So far so good. And, despite his claim that his charismatic friends would be angry at these comments, I agree! What I struggle with, however, is that he then makes plain that he believes that charismatic doctrine itself is to blame for these sins and the lack of discernment that allows them to continue unchallenged. Phil applies the red card of his disapproval to the entire movement that, despite all its acknowledged weaknesses, I am thrilled to have been part of for decades. Should we use discernment with such a broad brush stroke?

didn’t Jesus pull out of the world when it got really sinful?  What on earth would Jesus have to do with sinners?  I mean, why bring light to the darkness when the light can all hangout together.  Didn’t Jesus also make his decisions on where he would go based on how godly the political decisions were.  I am pretty sure that was the case, right?  I could be wrong.

I guess when they have a point to prove, they will even side with their enemies.

In Part I of this series, we examined the need to view the entire Christmas story arc – which begins in Exodus (after the prologue in Genesis) and ends with John the Baptizer’s declaration of “Behold the Lamb of God”.

Today, I would like to take a quick journey in trying to determine when, during the year, Jesus’ birthday was likely to have fallen. [Hint: For those of you paying attention, it wasn't likely to be December 25.]

Remember, Remember, the 25^th of December

There are a number of reasons Christmas is celebrated on December 25, many of which are syncretised from pagan Winter solstice celebrations, most likely those during the time of Constatine, which celebrated the birth of the “gods” Mithra, Ishtar and Julius Caesar. By celebrating the birth of Jesus on this date, many Christians sought to ‘de-paganize’ the celebrations and feasting of this day (or in some traditions, a week or more), and Roman authorities sought to blur the lines between Christianity and Mithraism, the two primary competing religions of the empire.

There is very little doubt that December 25 is not the actual date of Jesus’ birth, but a date chosen for numerous other reasons, lost to antiquity.

Of Shepherds and Fields

One of the first indications of the time of year of Jesus’ birth comes to us from the Gospel of Luke:

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.

What, you might ask, from this would give us any clue, whatsoever?

In the land of Israel, there are two types of land – wilderness and farmland – which have a fairly distinct border between them. In the Hebrew Scriptures, it is described as a “land flowing with milk and honey”. Milk is the product of sheep , tended by shepherds. Sheep are tended and maintained in the wilderness areas of Israel. Honey, on the other hand, is a word which describes not only bees’ honey, but also the product of mashing fruits, such as figs and dates, which are stored in sealed jars. [A recent excavation near Masada found jars of this 'honey' prepared during the time of Herod the Great, still in edible condition.] Honey is one of the key products, along with grain, of farmers.
The word used by Luke to describe where the shepherds were – in the fields – specifically refers to the fields of the farmers, and not the wilderness area (which he describes via a different word elsewhere). Only two times during the year would sheep be allowed to be in these fields – after the spring harvest after the poor had gleaned the corners (around the time of the Feast of Shavuot (Pentecost)) and after the fall harvest after the poor had gleaned the corners (around the time of the Feast of Sukkot (Tabernacles)). During any other time of the year, shepherds would have been attacked and likely killed for allowing their sheep into the unharvested fields.

Doing the Math

The second method we can use to try to approximate a birth date for Jesus is via gestational math from scriptural clues. From Luke 1:

In the time of Herod king of Judea there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly division of Abijah;

[...]

When his time of service was completed, he returned home. After this his wife Elizabeth became pregnant

From historical Jewish records, we can place the time of service for the division of Abijah in the late spring of the year, ending in early June. So, if we assume that soon after this (as the Greek text seems to indicate) Elizabeth became pregnant, she would have known this in early July.

Luke continues:

In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

[...]

At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!”

So, we have Mary visiting Elizabeth in what is likely to be early January (Elizabeth’s sixth month), and John leaping in the womb in response to the fetal Jesus in Mary. With this in mind, Jesus’ birth should be approximately nine months later, in early-to-mid September, which is the same time as the Feast of Sukkot – one of the two times of the year in which sheep can be tended by shepherds in the fields.

Linguistic Clues

Next, in beginning of the gospel of John, the most deliberately symbolic of the gospel writers, we are given some linguistic clues as to the time of Christ’s coming.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

John makes clear that Jesus is the Word, and that he “made his dwelling” among us. However, John’s wording here is peculiar in it choice of words. This can also be translated: “The Word became flesh and tented (or tabernacled) among us”. This word for tent is the same word as is used in the name of the Feast of Sukkot – the Feast of Tabernacles.

Narrative/Poetic Clues

Finally, if we examine the Jewish feasts, and their symbolic significance, we can see a pattern emerge (for those associated with Easter, you can read more in my Holy Week Series from earlier this year):

(Note: I’m not including Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, which may be associated with eschatalogical events or (in the case of Rosh Hashanah), with past events linked to partial-preterist eschatology.)

So What?

I have nothing against celebrating God’s gift to man, in Jesus, via the giving of gifts to each other on December 25. I sometimes wonder, though, why Christians fight so hard to prevent the secular world from replacing a religious celebration of a day with a secular celebration of a day on which Christians replaced the original pagan celebration of a day with a religious one (didja follow that?).

It is nice that we give each other gifts on December 25 and celebrate God living amongst us as a Father who gives good gifts. It is kind of weird though to celebrate this as Jesus’ birthday, in which we say ‘Happy Birthday’ and then go into the other room and give each other gifts, instead of him…

Perhaps it’s just time that we celebrate Sukkot as a time when the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us…