Posted April 27, 2009 by Charles
“The Watchman” is a discussion about the role of a friend in confrontation on sin. In brief, do I have to responsibility to let my friends know when I feel like they are in sin?
This is a slightly different question. What do I do if what I see as sin turns out to be just a difference of opinion? Is there room for open disagreement in Christian friendship?
These questions are playing themselves out in some personal events right now, so I won’t be going into more detail until I’ve gotten some distance from the situation. But I wonder if this is an issue that many people have to deal with. It’s a first experience for me, so I welcome any advice in moving forward.
Posted April 21, 2009 by Charles
“So you, son of man: I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; therefore you shall hear a word from My mouth and warn them for Me. When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you shall surely die!’ and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. Nevertheless if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.”
Ezekiel 33:7-9
Am I the watchman? When I was in full-time minstry the answer was a simple yes. I was placed in a position to relay God’s word and his warnings to my students. I hope I did well in honoring that responsibility. But what about now?
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Posted January 21, 2009 by Charles
I was strangely intrigued today by a long passage of a 150-page book I’ve been trying to read for a little over two years now (my interest level has been decidedly low up to this point…this is found on page 121-122), Don Everts’ God in the Flesh. The point is to examine the black letters of the Gospels, and see what we can learn from the way people acted around Jesus.
It appears that I’ve finally reached a concluding section, and while discussing an appropriate response to Jesus’ sacrifice, Everts shares this about his life:
In my own life two separate seasons have pegged my soul, more deeply than ever, to the solid work of Jesus on the cross.
The first season was a time of clarity about my own sin. How bad is my sin? I wondered. I began to ask deep, honest questions about what I really believed about sin (sin is being naughty, doing little things that are fun but are for some reason outlawed by God) and began to study what Jesus said about sin (it’s a dark land of deception, dizziness, slavery, spiritual suicide).
The more biblically I understood my own sin, the more brave my thanksgiving started to become. A clear theology of sin has been like water poured on the weak, dying plant of my thankfulness.
Posted July 13, 2008 by Charles
I’m working my way through John Stott’s The Cross of Christ (quite slowly, I might add), and came to his chapter about the problem of forgiveness. I’ve seen quite a few different theories of atonement over the last couple of years, and since I’d never spent a lot of time thinking about it, it’s been pretty interesting to see what’s out there: from the vague atonement=Jesus=the Gospel equation from the Church of the Apostles “Theology Blog”, to the idea that Jesus’ martyr’s death was intended to move us emotionally to repentance.
In his chapter on the problem of forgiveness (Why did Jesus have to die? God could just forgive us if he wanted to.), Stott states succinctly something that I have tried to suggest to a number of people over the last few years, most of whom regarded the idea with disgust:
We can cry “Hallelujah” with authenticity only after we have first cried “Woe is me, for I am lost.” In Dale’s words [R. W. Dale in his book Atonement], “it is partly because sin does not provoke our own wrath, that we do not believe that sin provokes the wrath of God.”
I’ve said for quite some time, you can’t appreciate the Good News until you’ve gotten the bad news. Namely, that you’re a sinner, and you have no hope of saving yourself.
I worked for a long time in an environment that was focused on people’s “felt needs”. These generally took the form of fellowship, comfort, security, confidence, stability, counseling, etc. I always felt, and often said – occasionally with other people within earshot – that we needed to focus on the most important, and usually unfelt need, of forgiveness from God. Read more
Posted July 5, 2008 by Charles
I’ve never had a very positive view on humanity. Well, that’s not true. When I was a kid I had a pretty positive outlook, but that all changed about a year after Jesus snatched me up.
Don’t feel sorry for me though. You might be under the impression that meeting Jesus should make me see the good in people…to be more trusting. But that’s not really true.
As a good, secular American, one who gives a nod in Jesus direction without actually paying attention to him, you have a wonderful feeling about the American spirit and the possibility of progress. We can achieve anything. We went to the moon, we ended slavery, and we’re eliminating poverty. Never mind that the moon is basically useless (as far as we know), slavery is still rampant worldwide (as it always has been), and there are poor people everywhere. But none of that fazes you because you’re all caught up in possibilities.
Is this really better than my negative outlook? Is it more Christian/Biblical? I don’t think so, and neither does Tim Keller(do you like how I throw out the big name to back up what I’m saying? That means I’m right…). In The Reason for God he talks about the difference between the two worldviews and what it means for us daily. (quotes coming later, assuming I remember) Read more
