Genesis

Well, I'm done! I spent this week taking a Genesis intensive class at Bethel. ^ hours of class every day of the week. I think the only word for that is brutal. Actually I ended up rally liking the class and being extremely challenged by it. The prof held to the JEDP theory of authorship - which holds that Genesis was written by 4 different authors over the course of a few hundred years. While I don't leave the class holding the same position, I do walk away having a greater appreciation for the context in which Genesis was written and the theological implications of the book. I'm glad to be done!

An Experience in Hell

I had an experience yesterday that I think could only be rivaled by Hell itself. I moved to California almost a year ago to the day... so I decided that it was high time to get CA plates on my car. So, I had to go to the DMV. I had been putting it off for a long time, but I just decided to bite the bullet and go. The DMV is bad enough in and of itself, but I also am taking a Genesis intensive class next week. The class has a ton of reading for it, so I took some of the reading to the waiting room of the DMV. The reading was on the Ancient Myths of Mesopotamia. So, picture this, I am in the DMV, waiting in line, and reading ancient Mesopotamian literature. Friends, I promise you, it doesn't get any worse than that!

What you really think...

Last week I had the opportunity to go hear a few lectures by Dallas Willard. He is the author of The Divine Conspiracy, The Great Omission, and a bunch of other great books. While some many find lectures like this to be a bit boring, it was seriously like a massage for my soul. His central point is that Jesus calls us to discipleship... not believership. I won't go off here about how the church has gotten that backwards (especially the evangelcial church), but he did share one comment that really stuck with me. He said, "What you really think about Jesus will show when you realize that you don't have to do anything."

Today I want to spend time with Him, learning to be like Him.

A tribute to facial hair

This is the video some guys from The Well made for the Academy Awards night that we had this summer. I figured I would continue my recent trend of flooding the world with bad videos (Healer being the first!).

Hilarious

A friend sent this video to me... hilarious!

Gospel of Mark

The Bible was originally transmitted orally. People would sit around and tell stories about Jesus. Chris, a man from my Seminary (Bethel), memorized the book of Mark and does a dramatic presentation of it. He is coming to EFCC on September 12th @ 6:30. It is going to be a great night.

Martin Luther King, Jr speech

As I was studying for this weekend, I ran across a great speech by MLK. He wrote this from jail:

There was a time when the church was very powerful in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators"' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests.

Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Par from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent and often even vocal sanction of things as they are.

But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it vi lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.