Culture of the Uncultured

So I was thinking today about some topics that are controversial and at the top of churches list of things to steer clear of. Things like women in leadership, what type of worship a church should have, turning the other cheek to name a few. But when I was thinking about turning the other cheek I was going back a forth between standing up for yourself and being a good witness and a thought entered my mind. Now the thought usually would have come and gone just as fast, it would have just become another point in my argument for what I believe but this time it caught my attention. The thought was that “it is just culture” and I started to think where did this come from? Why did my mind jump to that?

I started to dwell on this thought and think back to when i was younger when the whole idea of women in leadership was being argued over in my church and in the membership and i realized that that was the first time i have ever heard “it is just cultural” be uttered. Now i don't really care where you land on the whole women in leadership thing (we will probably get to that later) but this phrase started to bother me. You see I feel that if we start to say that one thing is cultural in the Bible and one thing isn't then our grounds for our beliefs and out grounds for our faith become very impetuously unreliable. I feel that we become hypocrites if we take a verse like 1 Tim 2:12 (see below) and call it cultural and then not even 5 verse before (see below) are verses that the church holds up as a staple of the Christian life. I mean if we say that this one part of 1 Timothy is cultural don't we have to open the door to the fact that the whole book of 1 Timothy is only cultural and if 2 Timothy is a extension of what was said in 1 Timothy then we would have to also open the door to 2 Timothy being cultural and we can't do that because 1 and 2 Timothy have doctrine in them that the church is built on.

So I guess when it comes down to it all I am saying is don't try to pick apart the Bible to prove your point, we should find God's point and let Him show us how to prove it. Don't try to disprove the Bible because it doesn't fit with your idea of what this life should be, because this would isn't what it should be but the Bible tells us the way it should be.

In Christ

PJ

1 Timothy 2

1 First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, 2 for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. 3 This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time. 7 For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle ( I am telling the truth, I am not lying) as a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. 8 Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and dissension.

9 Women Instructed

Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, 10 but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness. 11 A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. 12 But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. 13 For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. 14 And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. 15 But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint

The Battery that Keeps Going and Going and Going

So I am definitely find out a concept called recharging (by that I mean taking time out for yourself to get back energy and letting God pour back His love and grace back into you when you have been drained or are close to being drained). In the past week I have been going non-stop and have been in so many spiritual conversations with people that I got so tired, it made me so bored I was finding any reason to escape the ordinary. The other effect it had on me was that I got so tired that I wouldn't even want to add to a conversation, we had a conversation in the class that I didn't agree with and I didn't say anything (which for anyone who knows me knows that is not me) and my excuse was that I didn't think that given the group that my views would be different then theirs (again for anyone who knows me they know that I don't really care, usually).

Then I talked with one of the staff here and we got talking about how you need to have time to yourself and rest (whatever that means for you whether it is reading a book or going to the movies or whatever). So I got this book on postmodern evangelism and have been reading through it and I must say that it is great to feel the life of God come back to you. It is really a great thing to be able to see God speaking through you and using you again

So I would say go out and find yourself a good book or something and really take the time to let God pour into your life and see what God has in store for you.

In Christ
PJ

P.S. The book I was reading is called “More Ready Then You Realize (Evangelism as Dance in the Postmodern Matrix) by: Brian D. McLaren if anyone cares”

what is that in the sky is a bird o wait no its just the end of the world

The end times are something that people have been talking about for a long time but one thing that not many people talk about often is what it will be like in eternity. A big reason for that is probably because no one knows, people have things that they think but no one knows what it will really be like but that doesn't stop people from trying (including me).

So with that in mind i thought i would give it a try. So i thought i would start with what i was taught when i was younger. I was told that we would live out our lives until a peace treaty would be signed by Israel and another nation which would start the 7 year tribulation, 3½ years of relative peace and then 3½ years of war. After that Christ would return condemn Satan and start His thousand year rule over the earth where all of our questions would be answered and we would worship God all the time after which Satan would be released and try to make a stand against God which would fail, then we would live for ever in heaven with God worshiping Him. That is all in a nut shell of course.

Now on to what I have come to think and believe. I really started to think about this about a year ago when people I knew started to talk about it and how great it will be (and it will), with no pain, no questions, ext but when I started o think about it I began to think maybe it wasn't going to be like that, not the whole part about being with God forever and it being a great time. I began to wonder what forever was going to be like.

One I don't think that we will spend our whole lives in heaven, in fact I think that we will spend it here on earth. You see in the bible one thing that you might notice is that we were made on earth and angles were made in the spiritual realm. I believe that if we were meant for the spiritual realm we would have been made there, so why would God put us in a place that we were not made for, that would make no since to me.

The second thing is I don't think that every question will be answered. I think God gave man a curiosity about the world and universe around us. Back in the garden is the best example of what the kingdom of God will be like and in Genesis God gives us the mandate to go out and explore (see below) and to this day there is so much that we have yet ti find out so why would God make such a big universe only to let it go to waist.

Now I do think that we will spend an eternity with God worshiping Him but I think it we will worship Him through our actions, I think that we will continue to try to answer questions we have and in answering those questions we will give glory to God. I think we will still try to find love and marry but all of that will be to the glory and supervision of God. I think in that time we will find out how things were suppose to be.

So I hope all that got you thinking.

In Christ

PJ

Genesis 1

28 God blessed them; and God said to them, " Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." 29 Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; 30 and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; and it was so.

The Unchristian Christian

What if someone came up to you that you don't know that well and started to tell you all of these things about them selves. Things that you think are cool and things that you would railer not know. What if they started to tell you all of their sins things like

1. I love money and will do anything to get it

2. I drink a lot every night until I pass out

3. I do drugs to get rid of the pain

4. I love to watch pornography and i masturbate every night

5. I get a prostitute every week

and the list goes on until it eventually reaches over 100 that this person has told you (reminding you that this person is someone you don't know very well).

What would you do? What would you think? Would you listen? Would you think they were crazy? I think that most of us would probably try to help them and give them advice (even if we are not qualified to do so we will still try to help and/or find them help). All that is great and i am not saying it isn't, but every day people leave the church never to return because people don't care enough to help or find them help. Instead they will gossip about them talking about what they are doing wrong. No one who has ever been to a church for any long period of time would ever be that vulnerable because they know that if you do that people will be talking about you for ever.

My concern, my fear, my passion and my challenge is that we become a people who are not the first person, the one who was just standing there but the second the one who confessed. The one who became so vulnerable and showed who he truly was and not just who he was but also who he wanted to be and in doing that became closer to who Christ is. To become more open with the community around us, to be more vulnerable with ourselves and to become more unpardonably like Christ should be are goal everyday.

My last closing thought is that we cannot do any of this alone, we need a community to do this (this thing we call the Christian life). It just can't be done, so get in a group were you can talk, listen and think.

In Christ
PJ

My First

So this is my first blog and I am not sure what to write. I guess I will just tell about my thoughts and give you a glimpse into who I am (if anyone cares). I will be writing while I am at school so I don't know when I will have the free time to do this. That is about all I wanted to say for this one so bye.

In Christ
PJ