Things I Think…
1. The biggest challenge I face biblically is understanding how to seek reconciliation and fellowship with brethren who hold to political and social views that I believe are in opposition to the way of Jesus. Despite the difficulty of the task, I believe it is a command from the Lord to do so…
2. I am often accused of hating President Trump and there are moments when I cross that line when thinking about what he and his administration are doing to people and the country. It is a sin I have to guard against and repent of…hate transforms you into the image of the hated…
3. My opposition to Trump is rooted in moral and theological ground…my responses to him have to be as well…
4. I’d rather not think about him or write about him at all…but as Bonhoeffer said, “not to speak is to speak’…
5. I can affirm people who support the administration as people created in the image of God… I can affirm them as spiritual brethren…but I cannot in any way affirm the current ideology and practices…and it’s difficult to separate one from the other…
6. I scoff at the notion that real revival has come to us…unless it’s the revival of triumphalism which is without repentance or a suffering Savior…always remember…you keep them with what caught them…
7. When I allow myself to think careless thoughts, I think the development of AI is the tool of the final great deception…
8. Russell Moore, in an interview with Paul Kingsnorth (a recent convert to Orthodoxy) explored #7 a bit…”what if the internet was actually a giant Ouija board in our homes?”
9.“To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.” Barth
10. All the cool cats have reviewed “The Connecting Scripture New Testament”. I’ll simply commend it highly. It’s a CSB New Testament with Old Testament quotations and allusions color coded in the text, cross referenced and commented on in the study notes.
It’s mainly the work of Greg Beale…I’ve used his “New Testament Use of the Old Testament” since it came out and it’s been invaluable to me.
What remarkable times we live in…the resources we have are amazing…and we need them all…
Well said on all counts.
Re: 8…
Somedays (all days actually) on Facebook I don’t know whether to scream, say amen, cry, or throw up my hands in disgust….or just throw up. I can see the meaning behind the internet and AI being a giant Ouija board.
Dan,
Train your algorithm to post what you want…I’m all cat stuff and Jerry Lee Lewis at this point…your tasted may vary… 🙂
Seriously, we could never have the division and gross misinformation tsunami without social media…there is something behind it that feels like the work of the father of lies…
Michael,
I have been doing that for most of my tenure there…art, music, weather, dogs, art, etc. I will keep my corner of FB on that tip and forego the garbage! And I agree with your second comment.
Love the Barth quote.
Michael,
I so feel for you when you mention Trump. I have a difficult time between rather deciding to despise him or detest him (neither of which is good!). He just seems to pop up everywhere with an off the wall comment that makes no sense at all regarding everything from bathtubs to toasters. He is practically a caricature of himself. When I start having those feelings of wishing he would disappear, I pray for myself and then for him along the lines of 1 Tim 2:1-4. God does have a purpose in what I don’t understand. He also doesn’t say I have to like Mr. T. but I do need to pray for him. It’s not easy by the way….
Linn,
It’s tough, but it’s necessary to learn these things.
I think you touched the key…recognizing that Gods hand is in this some way.
This is a hard thing, Michael. Recognizing that God’s hand is in this, and everything else that has ever happened, no matter how bad, in some way. I don’t think I’m up to it. I don’t see how I will stop myself from raging “against the dying of the light,” I really don’t.
“
Robert F,
I understand more than you know.
Still, the Scriptures and Spirit compel me to look above the dumpster fire and believe that history belongs to Jesus.
I’m trying…not always succeeding…
Michael,
My Bible study group is going through Daniel. Great training in recognizing where God is working.
There is a novel written by Robert Stone, “A Flag for Sunrise.” It takes place in a central American country during a brutal crackdown on rebels by the authoritarian government. One of the characters is an American whiskey priest who has all but lost his faith, and is depressed and hopeless. He is bullied by a brutal army officer who he learns, in a confession the officer has forced him at gunpoint to hear, has raped and killed a young American nun, a missionary doing relief work in the country, someone whom the priest knew well and loved like a daughter. He also confesses to the priest other murders he has either done himself or ordered his soldiers to do, all heinously brutal. The priest is overcome with grief and starts to cry uncontrollably, but the officer demands to be given penance and absolution, all under the seal of confessional confidentiality. The priest gets control of his himself, and tells the officer that his penance will be every day to imagine a world in which he, the officer, does not exist and has never existed.
There are things that happen in this world that should not happen. I can’t believe that God uses them, because I cannot see how God could use or work through them without being polluted himself. This is where I’ve been stuck all my life, from childhood.
Robert F,
The single greatest evil ever perpetrated was the murder of Christ.
He allowed it…and used it.
I don’t pretend to understand, but the Bible is full of lessor examples…
I don’t know how I can trust a God who allows and uses such things. I’ve been trying to see my way through to it all my life. But at rock bottom what I feel is fear at this idea, at this image, at this notion; and the fear thrusts aside all sense of trust.
Then the beast was allowed to speak great blasphemies against God. And he was given authority to do whatever he wanted for forty-two months. And he spoke terrible words of blasphemy against God, slandering his name and his dwelling—that is, those who dwell in heaven. And the beast was allowed to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them.‚
(Revelation 13:5-7 NLT-SE)
This is what is coming or may be upon us.
It scares me, too…but the way to the other side is through the fear.
Please pray for me, Michael.
We’ll pray for each other, my friend…
Yes, Michael.