Telling Stories . . .
My buddy Adrian is getting into the act of telling his story over on his blog. He has posted part one of his own testimony. His is different than mine in that my posts called "My Journey Into Grace" pick up after my conversion to Christ, whereas he speaks about how he came to Christ. I didn't tell my own conversion story, though I will be happy to do so at another time. Adrian's story is a good one because it tells of his coming to Christ as a result of the Christian influence of his family. I don't know how things are across the pond, but there are a lot of folks here in the U.S. who think you don't have a testimony if it's not a dramatic conversion story of God rescuiing you from the pit. Actually, I think the best testimony is one like Adrian's where you come to Christ through the influence of your family.
While he's telling stories, Adrian also has a post about his pastor and mentor Tope Koleoso and you will see there that Adrian is trying to motivate him to join the ranks of blogging pastors.
And, while I'm on the subject of my buddy Adrian, he's trying to bait me into an argument with a post wherein he agrees with everyone's favorite blogging Southern California Trojan, Diane Roberts, who says:
"I absolutely believe there are apostles today. There is nothing in Scripture that denotes otherwise. If we accept the Ephesian 4:11 offices* for prophet, evangelist and pastor-teacher, then we must also accept apostle. To do otherwise is theologically dishonest."
Adrian suspects that I would disagree with him and Diane on this, and he's absolutely right. But since I don't have time to explain why right now, I'll simply say that I agree with what Jeremy Pierce said in a comment on that post:
It's possible to distinguish between two kinds of apostle. One is the group who knew the resurrected Christ who had been commissioned by him directly. Paul says he came to this group late, having seen him only after the ascension. It seems that other people are called sent ones, though, including Timothy, who wasn't among the group of the 12 + Paul. That kind of apostle is basically a missionary.
I agree with Jeremy, my only modification would be that I don't even want to call a missionary an apostle, simply to keep from confusing them with the true apostles.
Speaking of Jeremy Pierce . . .
He has responded to Pseudo-Polymath's challenge to defend our division. You can find Jeremy's response here, and you will see that he interacts with my own post in his. I won't comment on it now because I want to do a follow-up but for now I'll say I'm in agreement with pretty much everything he says. Jeremy's post is here.
Great Dane Batman . . .
And while we're on the subject of division, has anyone read the comments on my posts Blogrolling Backlash and Defending Division ??? Both posts have a comment from "The Dane." If you aren't familiar with him, he's one of the most experienced bloggers out there, he's been blogging since 2001, which in blogging years has got to be something like 50 years. His blog is called Nowheresville, USA and I highly recommend spending some time reading through the archives. Unfortunately, the muse has left him so he has hung up his keyboard and is not blogging anymore. I'd like to publicly thank him in this post for commenting on my blog and state my own opinion that maybe the muse hasn't left him, based on his comments. I hope you have a short retirement Dane.
Chess Anyone . . .
While making my daily blog-trek to the Evangelical Outpost today I found that Joe had linked to a new blog by Victor Reppert, author of the book C. S. Lewis's Dangerous Idea. The blog is appropriately called Dangerous Idea, and Mr. Reppert promises to blog on philosophy, politics and chess. You gotta love someone who links faith, philosophy and chess as he does here:
However, a good deal of my own cast of mind, my interest in the rationality of religious faith, and a lot of other things which I think have borne good fruit in my life are the result of having spent a lot of time hunched over a board of 64 squares with 32 pieces on it. I'd be a very different person without it, and I don't think I would be a better one.
Mr. Reppert links to Maverick Philosopher who also philosophizes while playing chess, apparently. And he also links to Dennis M's Chess site, who asks the question Can Christians Play Chess. To which I reply, "some can, some can't." But he's a little more serious about the question. He gives five reasons why Christians shouldn't play chess (and you need to understand that he is a Christian who plays chess as he writes this), and then he has some commenters who tell why it is ok for a Christian to play chess. Without getting into it, I would say that if Dennis M's five reasons Christians couldn't play chess were to hold up, then these reasons would apply to any and all competitive endeavors, and thus Christians could never engage in any sport or activity that keeps score.
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