JOLLYBLOGGER

Friday Humor - Why did the chicken cross the road?

My friend Tom Wenger, who is a fellow pastor here in the area, sends out some funny e-mails from time to time.  This week he sent me one I hadn't seen on some theories on why the chicken really crossed the road.  Enjoy.

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DR PHIL: The problem we have here is that this chicken won't realize that he must first deal with the problem on "THIS" side of the road before it goes after the problem on the "OTHER SIDE" of the road. Whatwe need to do is help him realize how stupid he's acting by not taking on his "CURRENT" problems before adding "NEW" problems.

OPRAH: Well I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so badly. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I'm going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.

DONALD RUMSFELD: Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road.

Did Jesus Talk More About Heaven Than Hell?

I recently came across a good post and discussion on Verum Serum about how much Jesus spoke of hell. Apparently someone made the statement that Jesus spoke about hell more than heaven, so John at Verum Serum checked it out to see if it was true and he came to the conclusion, just be doing a word count that Jesus speaks more about heaven than hell.

John's interlocutor fired back with some evidence to the contrary and a good discussion ensued.  Said interlocutor quoted Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Theology as saying that Jesus spoke of hell more than any other biblical figure.  That's a good point, but the issue is "did Jesus speak of hell more than Jesus spoke of heaven."

So, using my handy-dandy Logos software I decided to do a little search to see what I could find out.  Before I tell you the results I need to explain a bit about Logos searching.  I have a bunch of bibles in my Logos collection and the word "hell" was found in 20 of them.  When Logos searches it gives you the number of places the search term was found, so if the word is found in 6 versions, it's six hits, if it is in 20 versions it's 20 hits.  Also, Logos will often include variants of the search terms in their results.  So that's my qualifier to say that this is not exactly a scientific study.  Still, the results are interesting.

Logos found the word "heaven" 4742 times in the gospels in 20 translations.

Logos found the word "hell" 286 times.

Since it seems to be a proven fact in some circles that Jesus spoke of hell more than heaven it occurred to me that Logos was obviously off here so I did a search for the word "hades" and came up with 86 hits. 

That was still a little short so I did a search on the world "fire" and came up with  936 hits.

I'm not good at math, but I think 4742 is a slightly larger number than whatever 286 + 86 + 936 adds up to, like it might even be somewhere around 4 times larger.

On Thinking New Theological Thoughts

Stephen Shields quotes some good passages from John Murray on thinking new thoughts theologically:

"However epochal have been the advances made at certain periods and however great the contributions of particular men we may not suppose that theological construction ever reaches definitive finality. There is the danger of a stagnant traditionalism and we must be alert to this danger, on the one hand, as to that of discarding our historical moorings, on the other."

Murray continues, "When any generation is content to rely upon its theological heritage and refuses to explore for itself the riches of divine revelation, then declension is already under way and heterodoxy will be the lot of the succeeding generation.... A theology that does not build on the past ignores our debt to history and naively overlooks the fact that the present is conditioned by history. A theology that relies on the past evades the demands of the present"(emphasis mine, from his article "Systematic Theology" - see Looking Beyond the Facade of Modernity, Part 2).

Rick Warren in Newsweek - He Makes America Great

Link: 15 People Who Make America Great - The Giving Back Awards - MSNBC.com.

I've cracked on Rick Warren before and maybe I'm softening up a bit in my old age and losing my edge, but I have to say I appreciate the write-up Newsweek did on him for their feature called "15 People Who Make America Great."

The author of the story commends Rick for the way he has handled his recent successes.  Although I am not in love with his book, it has brought him a fortune which he has used wisely and lovingly.  With the money he has made from the book he has paid back his entire salary for the 25 years he has been pastoring the church, has established three foundations and now gives 90% away and lives on 10%.

And he is using his influence to mobilize Christians to feed the hungry, heal the sick, and combat illiteracy.

Book Review - A Thousand Resurrections by Maria Garriott

There are some books I read that I am highly predisposed to liking from the outset.  It can be because I like the subject, have read some of the authors other works, or because someone I respect recommended it to me.

In the case of the book "A Thousand Resurrections," by Maria Garriott I was highly predisposed to liking this book from the start because Maria's husband Craig is a colleague of mine in ministry, a fellow pastor in my presbytery.  Although I don't know Craig well I have talked with him on occasion, have heard him speak many times at Presbytery and have gained some familiarity with his and Maria's work  at Faith Christian Fellowship in the inner city in Baltimore over the past few years.  Also I serve on a presbytery committee with Craig's co-pastor, Stan Long, and have enjoyed some great fellowship with him.

I don't usually mention the contents of personal e-mails on the blog, but in this case I'll make an exception.  When Maria sent me the book to review she assured me that this is not chick-lit.  I got a kick out of that, but she needn't have worried. Her book tells a story I was happy to read and am happy to commend to you.

Relevance, Faithfulness and I Corinthians 9:19-23

Mark Dever had a good post dealing with relevance over at the Together for the Gospel blog a week or so ago.

I agreed almost completely with his thesis statement.  I say almost agreed because he seemed to set up an unnecessary contrast when he said:

I think the most basic practical division among evangelical pastors today may be between those who pursue faithfulness and assume relevance and those who pursue relevance and assume faithfulness.

The only reason I am slightly disagreeing with this is that I think we can pursue both.  However, if you read the rest of his post he seems to say that we should pursue both, and he concludes by saying:

Pursue faithfulness and relevance.  Know that the Gospel is always relevant.  NEVER assume the Gospel.

He says "pursue faithfulness and relevance," so I think this clarifies his prior statement.  Of course I have a few more thoughts on this.

PCA General Assembly 2006 - A Tale of Two Visions

One of the highlights of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America is that we usually have some outstanding worship services with some outstanding speakers/preachers.  This year was no different.  However, two of the speakers at our General Assembly this year illustrate two different ways of ministering to our world.

The theme for this year was "making disciples for our emerging world."  Due to travel delays I missed the first worship service last Tuesday night, which was delivered by Howard Q. Davis, our outgoing moderator.  I did get to hear the Wednesday night message by Randy Pope, pastor of Perimeter Church in Atlanta.  Q. Davis's message was titled "Onward Christian Soldiers," and Randy Pope's message was titled "The PCA, A Missional Church?"   You can order or download both messages here.

I thought Randy Pope's message was outstanding and as I talked to a few of my friends, they were quick to comment on and contrast his message with the previous night's message.  To say that my friends were non-plussed by the first message would be an understatement.  And I will add the qualifier that I only talked to a few folks, so don't take the comments of me and my circle of friends as any definitive word on the reception of that message by the Assembly as a whole.

So, I went ahead and bought a CD of Q. Davis's message and listened to it and found it to be an interesting contrast to Randy Pope's message, which I think illustrates at least one divide in the PCA, and probably the evangelical church as a whole, on how we ought to minister to our culture.

Sean Michael Lucas on Men and the Church

Way back in the dark ages I did a few posts touching on the feminization of Christianity, some of which were:

Sports as Religion

The Feminization of the Church

Follow-Up on the Feminization of the Church

This issue has gotten hot again recently with the publication of David Murrow's book Why Men Hate Going to Church (Reviews by Rod Heggy, NakedReligion, and blogicalfallacy.

And, it got hotter with the Washington Post story on Murrow's book.

Today I came across a particularly good article by Sean Michael Lucas addressing these issues.

Whitfield and Wesley on Confronting Error

I stumbled upon this terrific piece from Candyinsierras at Shook Foil.  It's a discussion of the great divide between Whitfield and Wesley.  I'll let you read the whole thing at her blog but I'll excerpt one passage, where she quotes Ian Murray.  What I like the best about this passage is the distinction between judgment and affection and between public cooperation and personal affection. 

Some evangelical writers have sought to minimize the division between Whitefield and Wesley by referring to their "minor differences." An impression is given that Whitefield abandoned the strong conviction he had about Arminianism in 1741; in proof of this we are referred to the fact that in 1742 their personal friendship was in measure resumed and that ultimately Wesley even preached Whitefield's funeral sermon. But all this is misleading. The truth is that Whitefield rightly made a distinction between a difference in judgement and a difference in affection; it was in the former sense that he differed from the Wesleys, and that difference was such that, as Tyerman writes, it "led them to build separate chapels, form separate societies, and pursue, to the end of life, separate lines of action . . . the gulf between Wesley and Whitefield was immense."[9] But while their public cooperation was thus seriously disturbed, his personal affection for the Wesleys as Christians was preserved to the last.[10] In this respect Whitefield teaches us a needful lesson. Doctrinal differences between believers should never lead to personal antagonism. Error must be opposed even when held by fellow members of Christ, but if that opposition cannot co-exist with a true love for all saints and a longing for their spiritual prosperity then it does not glorify God nor promote the edification of the Church.

I think this hits two important matters.  We ought to cultivate and express affection for those we disagree with.  Yet, we ought not assume that personal affection necessarily leads to public cooperation and ought not to assume that there are malice, hatred, or other such sinful motives involved when we speak against what we perceive to be doctrinal error and/or refuse to publicly cooperate with some.

HT - Rebecca Writes

Recap of the PCA General Assembly 2006 - 2

I wanted to give a few more updates on the PCA General Assembly for those of you who weren't there and who care what the PCA is doing.   There were 27 overtures presented this year and I am not up on all of them.  I missed some of them because I was outside catching up with old friends at  the time they were discussed and I have not seen the actions posted on them.  A couple of particular interest to me were overtures regarding the New Perspective and Federal Vision and regarding calling a pastor.

By my count there were at least five overtures having something to do with the Federal Vision/New Perspective/Auburn Avenue Theology, ranging from a request to erect a study committee to declaring the Auburn Avenue theology heterodox and asking the GA to assume jurisdiction and institute process against a particular advocate of the Auburn Avenue theology.