Jesus Creed

Everybody's got a hungry heart -- so says Bruce Springsteen and Greg Boyd, in his newest book, The Myth of a Christian Religion: Losing Your Religion for the Beauty of a Revolution  quotes the Boss to make an important part.

LaVonne Neff, over at Lively Dust, has said it so well so I'll just quote her. She estimates that it would cost each pro-abortion advocate 6 dollars a year to fund the abortion industry. So go ahead she says:

 Personally, I'm glad the House voted in favor of health care and against public funding of abortion--I'm one of those politically liberal, pro-life Catholics. But pro-choicers, if you really want to make abortion easily available and totally free, stop whining and just do it. Really, you won't miss the ten cents. And by going private, you can keep your ideology from sinking the entire national health-care plan.

Following the situational shift fresh reflection has been given to theology proper (ie the doctrine of God). The theological awareness that is spreading across the Church in the West is that God himself is missional. This may sound like an odd thing to say, who doesn't think God has a passion for mission? But in popular discourse today mission is often treated like an interim program between creation and new creation, an activity largely of the church, something that had to occur because something was missing and will fad away once what was missing is restored. John Piper's book, Let the Nations Be Glad, is a good example of this when he says (note: there is much that is beneficial in Piper's book);

 

"Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Mission exists because worship doesn't. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It is a temporary necessity. But worship abides forever. Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions." *

Acts 15 is a watershed in earliest Christianty -- even if it interrupts the flow of the gospel and mission of God in the Book of Acts, and how you read this chapter affects everything about how you read the rest of the New Testament. Does this chapter create two kinds of Christians -- Jewish and Gentile? Or does this chapter create a temporary expedient -- some basic laws need to be followed by Gentiles until later in the Church? Here we go.

15:1 Now some men came down from Judea and began to teach the brothers, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved." 15:2When Paul and Barnabas had a major argument and debate with them, the church appointed Paul and Barnabas and some others from among them to go up to meet with the apostles and elders in Jerusalem about this point of disagreement. 15:3 So they were sent on their way by the church, and as they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, they were relating at length the conversion of the Gentiles and bringing great joy to all the brothers. 15:4 When they arrived in Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all the things God had done with them. 15:5 But some from the religious party of the Pharisees who had believed stood up and said, "It is necessary to circumcise the Gentiles and to order them to observe the law of Moses."

Brand new book, and one you will want to read. Steve Wilkens and Mark Sanford examine eight cultural stories that shape our lives and they are eight stories that we don't want shaping our lives, and they are eight little foxes that can spoil the church's vines. The book is called: Hidden Worldviews: Eight Cultural Stories That Shape Our Lives .

A letter from Jeremy Berg, who sometimes writes posts for this blog... I'm very keen to hear what you do when Jehovah's Witnesses come to your door. Can you tell us what you feel, what you want to do, what...

The critics of the new perspective on Paul, and they have tended to focus on the work of N.T. Wright, now have their biggest challenge yet. Until we get Tom Wright's fourth volume, and Tom is now writing it, Douglas...

O God, whose blessed Son came into the world that he might destroy the works of the devil and make us children of God and heirs of eternal life: Grant that, having this hope, we may purify ourselves as he is...

Don't know if you saw this, but David Neff reports on Robert Wilken's opening lecture at Wheaton about how the early fathers read the Bible. I wish I could have been there, but I had too much on my plate...

When this big fella came by for Trick or Treat, we gave him our pumpkin!It has been a grey, cloudy, cold week here at the Jesus Creed blog, the World Series plodded along with yet one more trophy for the bad...