For those of you who ever wondered what Joe Cocker was really singing about at Woodstock, I present this captioned version of With a Little Help from My Friends. Enjoy!

Birthday Greetings from Joe Cocker

Regina | MySpace Video

I hope you get the opportunity to hear this song in its entirety. It’s from the new Crowder CD.

Oh, happiness
There is grace
enough for us
And the whole
human race.

–David Crowder, Oh, Happiness

Be blessed and well my friends.

I’m finally getting around to reading Justification by NT Wright. I’m 40 pages in, and I am happy to say that Wright agrees with me. I do believe that I have finally found a theologian who agrees with the way I have always read Scripture.

It is terribly hard to put the book down, although I must because I have graduate responsibilities to tend to this afternoon, so I wish to give you a glimpse. I know others have written about the book or quoted it here or there. What I propose to do is read and think through the book just as I did with Jesus For President (which, by the way, I have gained some clarity on in recent days, especially in regard to what is referred to pejoratively as ‘redemptive violence’; more on that another time).

So here’s a word from Pastor Wright:

It is central to Paul, but almost entirely ignored in perspectives old, new and otherwise, that God had a single plan all along through which he intended to rescue the world and the human race, and that this single plan was centered upon the call of Israel, a call which Paul saw coming to fruition in Israel’s representative, the Messiah. Read Paul like this, and you can keep all the jigsaw pieces on the table. Ignore this great narrative, and you will have to sweep half of them out of sight or try the Stasi trick. (35; his emphasis)

Wright is simply brilliant here. The last major series of sermons I preached to my former family dealt with just this subject and traced the story of faith from the the creation, to the fall, to the call, through the prophets, to the Messiah, to the New Heavens and the New Earth. It’s all there: We are sons of Abraham.

I hope to share more of this wonderful book with you as I read along. I’m not trying to step on any toes of those who have already written reviews or quoted from the book. I just hope to share some of his wisdom and the beauty of his work in the Word with you who might not otherwise dare to read it.

Blessings.

I saw this post linked to by someone recently, and the guy who wrote it says that Christian men are big sissies.  According to Mr. Daubenmire, we need man up and be more like Braveheart, John Wayne, and Clinton Eastwood.  He puts it this way:

Needless to say, I am swimming upstream on this one. All day long they are taught in school to “act like Christians.” That is the problem, I tell them. Stop ACTING like a Christian and start BEING one.

But we don’t even know what that means. WWJL…What Was Jesus Like? I promise you this. He was all MAN. He confronted evil, challenged the status quo, upset some apple-carts, and spoke what was on His mind. He was the original “Braveheart.”

Come on now. Look around at the Christian role models our young men have to look up to. Most don’t even look like men. What is the word that pop culture has given us…metrosexuals…? Modern Christian men are the ultimate metrosexuals.

So, what say you? Are Christian men too metro?  Too sensitive? Big weenies?  More importantly, what does it actually mean to be a Christian man?  How important is our masculinity as it relates to our identity in Christ?  Of course, I have my opinion, but I’d be interested in hearing what others have to say (which probably makes me a sissy for asking, of course… )

I realize that this probably is a sign of me being a Very Bad Person^TM, but I found the following video (HT: BigGovernment) to be hilarious.

If this has been done by SNL, Stewart or Colbert , I’m not sure it could have been any funnier.

With that said:

1) Do we need to be good stewards of God’s creation? Yes.

2) Should we seek to avoid wasteful lifestyles? Yes.

3) Should we get wrapped around the axle about Anthropogenic Global Warming and responsible use of natural resources?  Only if we want to waste billions of dollars for no real reason other than to assuage our collective guilt (missing the mark on it), or if we want to star in a video like the one above…

One of the staff’s favorite bloggers to read, here at PPP.Info, is Brant Hansen (of Kamp Krusty fame).   We’ve interviewed him on our old Podcast and covered him in other posts, and I follow him in a couple of his blogs and on Facebook.  Basically, he’s a very cool guy working in Christian radio who likes to ask questions that tend to make you squirm – and laugh.

Brant left this past week on a mission trip to Afghanistan (not necessarily a place at the top of my list), and this morning he gave this update on Facebook:

They dressed me up with a white coat today so I wouldn’t freak out the Kabul patients… but they didn’t clue in the doctor they assigned me to watch. So he kept asking my opinions of his diagnoses. In Dari. People here think I’m an Afghan M.D. He finally asked my specialty: “Uh…radio.” “Radiology?” “No. Like, playing songs and stuff.”

Classic.

Please keep Brant in your prayers, and let us look forward to the touching and/or funny stories he will share with everyone when he gets back.

“The Lord said to me, ‘Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.’”—Hosea 3:1

“I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.”—Revelation 21:2

I had a moment of clarity yesterday during worship. Maybe not so much clarity as stark, hard, cold reality slapped me across the face. It happened, strangely, not during the sermon (which was excellent and listened to intently); it was not during the songs; it was not during the time when we received communion at the altar (although there are a lot of things that were realized while I knelt and received the body and blood of Christ).

It happened, strange as it may sound, when my wife held my hand.

I think of 18 years of marriage and what has she seen, heard, and known about me and there she stands in the place where we are most unmasked, most undone—the worship—holding my hand while we pray. Is anything more absurd? Is anything more true and untrue at the same time? I held her hand back; later I pulled her close and put my arm around her. But she is the one who started it. She held my hand. It’s funny, I know, so go ahead and laugh.

I’m not one for public displays of affection so the hand and the arm are about as far as it gets, but there was that moment of clarity when I realized that this woman, this beautiful, spectacular, young, cooks-a-mean-pot-o-chili, girl—still loves me. After all she has seen; after all she has heard (and she has heard nothing short of the most ungodly misery over the last 4 and half months); after all the foolish decisions I have made; after all the poor choices I have decided upon at one time or another; after all the times when I have been mean and unpleasant at best—there she stood, in the worship, in the Spirit, in the presence of Holy Christ holding my hand. Not ashamed. Not embarrassed. Loving.

I’m not sure which is more amazing: that she has stayed married to me or that she has not filed for divorce.

I’ve heard a lot of complaints about the church; many of them are true. Many of them are hurtful. Many of them are just unhappy people complaining because they have nothing better to do. Often the church seethes with ugliness. And much more often there are those among us who do really well at complaining about how ugly the church is. It’s easy to point out the ugliness and wrong and think that what is best for the church is to redo the way we do church. I suppose that is what the satan does all day long as he constantly accuses the church and slanders her (Revelation 12:10, just so we know where the accusations really come from.)

Everyone has a better plan for the church–and a better picture, a better idea to make her more pure, more perfect, more holy. And everyone has a swell picture of all that the church has done wrong. We are adept at painting pictures of ugliness. Reading through Scripture gives that idea sometimes: the church can be an ugly place, the church can be an unfaithful bride. And yet all Jesus does is continue to love us in spite of ourselves. “Go and love your wife,” the Father says to the Son.

My dad taught me that lesson one time too after my wife had an argument with my mom. “Dad,” I complained, “what am I supposed to do?”

“Go with your wife. Love her.”

Then there’s God’s words to Hosea: Love your wife.

Then there’s John’s vision: I saw the Bride; beautiful; glorious.

And Jesus remains faithful to us even though we are, well, what we are. He—as amazing as this is—stands there in the worship and holds our hands, covers us with sloppy wet kisses, puts his arm around us with deep affection, and loves us. The wonder is that despite our fears and inhibitions to demonstrate our affection publicly, I wanted to dance yesterday and didn’t), he stands right beside us and can’t stop showering us with affection.

I cannot escape the wonder of it: She loves me; He loves us. Can you make sense of it either?

Yes. “The church is wicked, evil, wrong, hypocritical, blah, blah, blah, etc, ad infinitum, and so on and so forth…day and night, forever and ever…”–the world.

“HEY WORLD, HEY ACCUSERS, HEY HATERS, I STILL LOVE MY BRIDE!”–Jesus

The wonder is not that we are in worship or taking communion or singing songs. The wonder is not that we have anything to bring before him. The wonder is that He shows up.

The church is bloody. Beaten. Bruised. Crushed. Unfaithful. Undone. Rebellious. A whore. And loved. Loved. Loved–loved more than we can hope or imagine or dream. Sometimes we try to hard. The wonder is that He loves us in spite of our complacency.

Jesus loves his bride. The wonder is that after all the years, after all the anger, after all the sins, and mistakes, after all the unfaithfulness—He remains. The wonder of it all is that Christ Jesus has not divorced the church. The wonder of it all is that though now we are beaten, broken, and bruised, yet someday we all together will be that beautiful bride prepared by God and ready for the wedding-feast.

though i am poor and needy
my Shelter You’ll be
not by my merit lead me
to where You say

waste my time on lover’s quarrels
speed my breath and hope to stumble
out of my disdain and still
You Remain
–Jennifer Knapp, You Remain

The wonder is not that I am a catch or pleasant or all that much fun to be around. The wonder is that Renee loves me. The wonder is that she is faithful. The wonder is that she has not divorced me. The wonder is that after 18 years she is still here, still refreshing me each day with her affection, grace, mercy, and love. The wonder is that she believes that I am worthy of her love even though I am clearly not.

I fact, I can think of no better metaphor for grace than that of the love that a wife has for her husband. Marriage is about so much more than we think. Marriage is about so much more than feelings. Marriage is about holiness and Christ means to perfect us thus he stays with us, faithful in season and out of season, day in and day out, rain and sun—the wonder of it all is that he still loves the church. And he will purify us because he is faithful, because he loves us even when we fail.

Ugly we may be. But we are loved. And nothing or no one is going to change Jesus’ mind about that.*

*I hate to have to add this disclaimer, but the internet can transmit ideas that were not intended by the author of a blog post. Thus, my post should not be interpreted to mean that I have been unfaithful to my wife in any physical way. Of course, as with most men (except the superheroes among us) my eyes and heart have been wayward at times, and I have confessed and repented. And Renee and I have talked about this and she assures me that although she believes Don Draper is dreamy she has not been unfaithful to me either.

Nolan Ryan. Reggie Jackson.

“Ryan is the only guy who puts fear in me. Not because he can get you out, but because he can kill you.”–Reggie Jackson on Nolan Ryan during the 1974 season, during a stretch in which Ryan struck out 1,079 and walked 521 in a three year span. (Wit and Wisdom of Baseball, 136)

I’m glad Nolan Ryan is back in baseball.

Tags: Baseball, fear, Nolan Ryan, Reggie Jackson

Recently, in the modern worship service at my church, we have introduced a “new” song – How He Loves Us, by John Mark McMillan.  Since it was on the new David Crowder Band album, I was familiar with the song, itself, and the lyrics, and thought they were quite moving.  Playing the song (I am the keyboardist in our worship band), I think the most difficult thing with How He Loves Us is that the picture it paints of God and the way the final crescendo focuses on His love and grace, I really want it to keep on going (and going), but (as a musician in a band) I’ve got to stay with the other guys and bring it to an end.

Somehow, in times like that, I think about Moses.  Not the Moses, leading the children of Israel.  The Moses leading a bunch of sheep in the desert, coming across a burning bush and discovering the presence of God – in direct communication with Him.  In his talk with God, Moses sounds so tentative and reluctant to carry our his mission, coming up with all sorts of excuses to stay out in the wilderness.  And I wonder – was it all reluctance to do what he was asked, or was it partially a reluctance to leave the direct presence and communion with God, there with that burning bush?

And I think about John – the “disciple Jesus loved”.  John, a kid who was probably only 15 or 16 when Jesus was crucified.  John, whose Gospel did not just seek to recount the events of Jesus’ life, but whose Gospel stands apart from the other three – an attempt to theologically explain Jesus through a lens of intense devotion and love.  John – the only disciple to die of old age.  How he must have longed for his short time on earth with Jesus to have never ended.

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