Saturday, January 27, 2007

Quotable Quips - Seek Jesus Over All

"God rewards those who seek Him. Not those who seek doctrine or religion or systems or creeds. Many settle for these lesser passions, but the reward goes to those who settle for nothing less than Jesus Himself. And what is the reward? What awaits those who seek Jesus? Nothing short of the heart of Jesus!"

Max Lucato, Senior Minister of Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas - as quoted from PerryNoble.com (January 5, 2007)

When we seek or glorify "doctrine or religion or systems or creeds" rather than Jesus himself, it is idolatry. When we stand before Christ, He won't ask us about these other things before He'll ask us, "Did you know Me?"

Is Jack Bauer Really Jesus?

Well, of course not. But Jack Bauer, the lead character from the hit television show 24, does seem to be "type-ish" of Jesus. In Christian-ese, that means that his characteristics and actions are similar to, or in some ways mimic those of Jesus.

I've mentioned before that entertainment that follows the life of Christ is always more successful than entertainment that is not. Check out this trailer for the new season of 24. Mark Driscoll points out...

"The trailer repeatedly says that Jack "must be sacrificed" to save the multitudes who will supposedly be given life through his substitionary death. Does this sound like anyone you know? A young, healthy, innocent guy dies for a whole bunch of people and willingly lays down his life as a sacrifice for them?"



Do you see the similarities? Leave a comment and tell us what you think.

Why Believe the Bible?

For the most part, I think we Christians take for granted the authority of scripture. For most of us, we say, "God said it, I believe it."

But for those outside the Church (and even some inside), it is not so clear cut. We can't assume that everyone really respects the Word of God. It's hard for many to believe the Bible hasn't been corrupted over many years, by many translations, etc.

Unfortunately, people visit our churches each week hearing us believe that no one would dare question the authenticity, origin, or authority of the Bible. From that vantage point, it would really be difficult to believe much about what we say. (On the other hand, I do believe much can be said about the changes Christ makes within us. Our lives are the true evidence of God's truth.)

With all this said, there is a pretty good paper on the origin and reliability of the Word of God. Mark Driscoll's church is changing over to the English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible and he explains why in this post (and the associated PDF). Download it and check it out!

The Truth War? Whatever!

John MacArthur is busy again attacking Christians. This time, he is releasing a new book on the Emerging Church called The Truth War.

Although the book has not been released, it seems MacArthur is basing most of his "warnings" from a book by Chris Seay and a review of a book by Brian McLaren (even according to a MacArthur follower). As Dan Kimball points out, it would be nice if MacArthur would do a few more hours of research on the subject, if not days or months. Perhaps he could actually visit a few emerging churches...or maybe even one.

For the most part, the emerging church is responding, "Whatever. We're too busy helping people experience the life-changing power of Christ."

If you want to read a pretty good article, by someone actually familiar with the emerging church, check out this one.

Friday, January 26, 2007

This One's For You, Don

Andrea's dad, Don, has been an AT&T employee for many years. I thought he might enjoy this humerous clip from The Colbert Report. It's about AT&T's purchase of Cingular and their dumb decision to change the name back to AT&T...



P.S. It's good to be blogging again!