Indecision

Most of my friends are reactionary people.  When it comes to theology, they are reactionary theologians.  This doesn't necessarily  mean that they are reckless or whimsical.  What I mean is that they inundate themselves with a steady flow of ideas and immediately or almost immediately react with either a positive or negative response.  They almost always end up qualifying their first reaction or sometimes completely abandon it, but in the short term, they readjust the lens of their worldview to reflect their new ideas.  In other words, they quickly resort to a decision about a given topic.

I am not this way.  I seem to almost always fall back to indecision.  I'm a perpetual fence rider.  I have been identified as the "middle man" in countless of my friends' religious and political discussions.  Lately, I have been thinking that I need to be more reactionary.  I do think that indecision does have benefits.  It helps you lead a more careful life, and keeps you from often making your brothers and sisters stumble.  But leading a life that is characterized by indecision has at least a couple of negative side effects:

1. It makes the world impossibly complex.  I sometimes feel like I am unqualified to talk about anything because I have not read every book on the subject.  My typical way of approaching theological issues is that I must read at least one book on each side of an argument.  Then I need to talk to pastors on the varying sides and see what they agree and disagree about.  This is certainly a wise choice of action in some very important matters, but if your life is characterized by this method of research, you will drown in a sea of complexity-- never feeling any accomplishment.

2. It leads to a kind of pride.  I don't like being wrong.  I often feel uncertain about saying something because I might change my mind in the months that follow and feel foolish that I identified myself with the wrong group.  Their is safety in indecision, no one thinks that you went out on a limb.

Once again, I am not saying that we should be carried away by every wind of doctrine.  I just think that we can interface with this Christian life a lot better if we allow ourselves to take hold of a new ideas and quickly categorize them.  Then we are free to move on with our lives while slowly digesting the decisions we have made. 

Publicly Joining Zion

I officially joined Zion Church PCA today. I am now a functioning, publicly recognized church member in Lincoln, Nebraska. Its a good feeling. As long as I am in Lincoln, I have a duty to serve this church to the best of my ability. It is a covenant I am making regardless of how much the church serves me. Even though serving this church (or any) will be difficult in some ways, I am rather pleased to be a part of Zion. There are several aspects of Zion church that I find particularly helpful:

1. Liturgy- Good ole' fashioned "lets confess together" liturgy. It is worshipful to the Father for us to confess what we know to be true about Him and about ourselves, and it is encouraging and nourishing for the body to speak truth.

2. Order of Worship- Zion has a unique order of worship that I find very helpful. There is a good mixture of hymns and spiritual songs with both contemporary and older instrumentation and melody. We prepare to confess our sins together, then kneel and confess our personal sins to God, then hear the assurance of pardon from the atoning work of Christ. We are instructed by the word. We celebrate communion together and are free to enjoy singing or listening to music while waiting for everyone to receive the bread and cup. Since we have already confessed our sins, we are free to joyfully take part in the sacrament with the community of the redeemed.

3. Weekly communion- Not a scriptural command, but it has been helpful to me and I think it is a good practice for any church.

4. Approachable leadership- It has been an honor to get to know some of the elders and pastors and Zion. They seem to be interested in getting to know me. This is a huge encouragement for someone who is thinking seriously about ministry work. I love to have relationships with people who can give godly, pastoral advice to an inexperienced youth such as myself.

5. Families- There are kids running everywhere. There are parents holding their children. It is a beautiful picture of the way that God has chosen to work in our community. People are fulfilling the cultural mandate.

And I am a part of that. I pledged to be. These are the the vows that I took:

1. Do you acknowledge yourself to be a sinner in the sight of God, justly deserving his displeasure, and without hope, except through his sovereign mercy?
2. Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and savior of sinners, and do you receive and trust him alone for salvation as he is offered in the gospel?
3. Do you now resolve and promise, in humble reliance upon the grace of the Holy Spirit, that you will endeavor to live as becomes a follower of Christ?
4. Do you promise to support the church in it's worship and work to the best of your ability?
5. Do you submit yourself to the government and discipline of the church, and promise to strive for its purity and peace?

I answered these in the affirmative. If you are not currently a member of a church, I challenge you to think seriously about it. It is a way for you to express your commitment to the growing Kingdom of Jesus. We are all called to serve.

joining the church

I will be publicly joining Zion church this Sunday morning. Everyone is welcome to come and celebrate my becoming part of the visible Church in Lincoln Nebraska. I'm actually transferring my membership from 2nd Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Yazoo City, Mississippi. This decision has been a long time coming, but I feel that it is the right one. It feels good to be part of the local body again. Hope to see you there.

More substantial posts are in the works. Stay tuned.

Catch up post

I know that I haven't posted in a while and I am sure that you are all on the edge of your seats hoping for more thoughts on Baptism. For now I have none. I have done precious little reading on the topic in the last couple of weeks. School and personal demands have been primary. But I thought that I might give a summary of some of my thoughts as of late, ranging from serious to silly...

Should we preach systematics? I have been contemplating recently whether or not pastors, when they preach, should refer to a systematic theology approach of understanding a text. Should we bring all that we know about a given topic to a text that seems to exemplify it, or should we preach primarily within that text, drawing out themes of redemption that are present while leaving other aspects for later sermons. This is not a yes/no question, but an important one.

Why can't men wear purses? I mean, seriously. I am a pocket person, meaning I always have lots of stuff in my pockets or otherwise connected to my person. It would be a lot easier if I had a purse to carry that stuff in. Why is this not socially acceptable? Some people might suggest a "man-purse" but that is just not the same.

Living for Christ? What does it mean to "live for Christ." It is a phrase that gets thrown around in Christian circles a lot. I just don't really know what it means. I could look up any number of definitions for this phrase and could probably supply a fairly theologically correct one myself. But it doesn't mean anything if it is not experiential. I guess I just don't feel like I really "live for Christ" most of the time.

The importance of voice and melody. For the last few years my musical interests have been in the indie-rock/indie-folk vein. This music is still amazing and I continue to fall in love with bands like this. But these bands often downplay the importance of powerful vocals and melodies. I feel like I may be moving away from this and more toward vocally driven music.

How old is the earth? 6-day Creationism vs. Old earth is still a hot topic. Being in geology this semester has stimulated my interest in the topic. I have a fairly massive post about this that I am working on. It should be out soon, provided I have the guts to publish it.

Revelation. I have been reading through the book of John's revelation again. It is such a fascinating book. Reading it again has been very good for me. It is so symbolic, I don't know how anyone could have anything other than a preterist reading of it. Seriously.

Those thoughts have been pretty much in constant rotation in my mind lately.

Thoughts on Baptism, Part one

I am going to attempt several posts this semester concerning my thoughts on paedo/believer's baptism. This has been a mystery for me for a long time as I will explain below. However, I am starting to feel the need to come down on this issue for several reasons. Because I hope to be joining Zion Church soon, I would like to be cultivating a theology of baptism that will show me how I will appreciate the sacrament. When a baby is baptized at Zion, I need to have a category for how I deal with it. Is it good? Is it acceptable? Is it praiseworthy? Is it done out of tradition or real biblical thought? Another reason for studying this issue is that I hope to attend seminary after school. This decision may or may not have an effect on my choice of seminary, but it definitely will affect how I relate with ideas and people within seminary.

I grew up in the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America) in Mississippi. I witnessed many infant baptisms as I was growing up and did not question its validity until around middle school. I found out that my parents were of a believer's baptist position and that they only went to a PCA church because of the strong teaching. Then I realized that I hadn't been baptized as a child. I was baptized when I was 12 years old--I was sprinkled in that Presbyterian church as a believer. I befriended my pastors and struggled with the concept of baptism throughout high school. I was pretty much sold on the idea of believer's baptism when I finished high school and started college so I looked for Baptist churches in the area. Eventually, I had to come back to the PCA for the same reason my parents had joined years ago. I begin to question baptism again after my freshman year in college because of the influence of teaching and friends. And here I am uncertain again.

So I have picked up some reading that will guide me through this topic. I had some material for this previously, and I have a couple of books on order from Amazon. This may be slow processing because I don't have very much time to read. But I hope to get through these books by the end of the semester:

The Case for Covenantal Infant Baptism (Gregg Strawbridge). This came recommended to me by one of the elders in my Church.

Christian Baptism (John Murray). This is a short work but I hope to use Murray to really get an intellectual mindset for infant baptism. He is a very pithy and heady writer.

Believer's Baptism: Sign of the New Covenant in Christ (Thomas Schreiner & Shawn Wright). I chose this because it seems to be a definitive work on the covenantal aspect of believer's baptism. It is endorsed by the likes of Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware.

I am also finishing a little essay by Bryan Chapell called A Pastoral Overview of Infant Baptism. As the name would imply, his concerns are largely pastoral and not exegetical, but I am using this as a guide to the key passages on baptism, especially in the Old Testament. Befor e I begin my analysis, here is a presupposition and a disclaimer:

Assumption: Covenant theology is largely true. I concede that there is more continuity between the old and new covenants than discontinuity. There is a flow of redemption that needs to be understood. So, any study of theological issues in the NT need to be understood in the context of the OT. I may find that there is some discontinuity in the area of baptism...especially that it is not the sign of the new covenant. But I must first admit that there is a connection between old and new.

Disclaimer: My study will not focus as much on historical example. I find history to be inconclusive when it comes to this issue. As far back as I can see, there has been disagreement about baptism. Even if one side could lay claim to precedence, it could not precede by much, and there are other historical factors that could be at work.

As I begin this study, I need to be very careful about man's opinion. I don't want to be swayed into either camp because I don't want to offend or hurt people. I have great respect for my parents and the people in my church in Sioux City. I also have respect for my friends and teachers in Lincoln. This is hard, but I want my arguments to be biblically grounded in truth, not what is most convenient for me. Any reading recommendations and solid advice are welcome.

Cell phone spirituality

I got a ridiculously funny text message last night when I was hanging out with some people at The Mill. The message said this:

Say this slowly "God I love U & I need U!" send this to 10 ppl & a miracle will happen 2nite. Ignore it and everything will go wrong!

I ignored it and everything seems to be fine so far. I read the message out loud and everyone laughed. It was from some unknown Mississippi number (go figure). I tend to get pretty annoyed with any form of media as a means to share the gospel, although I'm sure God has used it. My favorite story is when I received one of those Christian email forwards that told some emotional and unbelievable stories. Then at the end of the message it said something like this:

Send this to as many people as you possibly can!!! If Jesus had been alive when we had email, he would definitely have used it to spread His name.

WOW. I can't even begin to list all the problems with that.

...the joy, joy, joy joy, down in my heart, where?

John Piper says that, for the Christian, there is no difference between the experience of joy, happiness, glee, (insert happy word here). He says that all of the Biblical words used for these emotions are used interchangeably. While I can't, at this point, check his greek and hebrew skills, I think that he may be right. I always got a weird feeling when someone would say that Christians experience "joy" while non-christians have only fleeting "happiness".
Usually people say this when they are going through tribulation or sorrow. They say "although I can't be happy, I can have joy because I know that I have Jesus." I think this has some validity. We need to recognize the presence of Jesus during hard times. But I think that Christians can and should seek real, smiley, bubbly, happiness even during hard times.
I'm not trying to minimize the pain and struggles of life, and I realize that we need to be sensitive to people and not try to make them artificially happy when they are really grieving. At the same time, if we really truly believe Romans 8:28, we should probably be smiling more.

This is sad

This is the list of books that I have started to read this semester but have not yet finished:

The Legacy of Sovereign Joy (Piper)
The Pursuit of God (Tozer)
Called to the Ministry (Clowney)
Atlas Shrugged (Rand)
A Long Obdience in The Same Direction (Peterson)
Knowing God (Packer)
Understanding Dispensationalists (Poythress)
Creation Regained (Wolters)

There is absolutely no excuse for this. I am starting to realize that, if I'm honest, much of my "desire" to read is basically just a desire to "have read" something. I want to be able to say that I have read something so that I can hold my own in a theological discussion. I am looking to break down books into a couple of sentences so that I can either praise it or refute it and feel comfortable with myself. It is just striking to me how I can flit from one subject to another, and think that I growing spiritually. Shame.

A "Christian" Paradigm

From time to time I have these realizations that, being in college, I really am supposed to be learning something. Sometimes I get so used to routine that I forget that the point of an education is to get educated. I realize at these times that I have a further responsibility, as a Christian, to process my education in terms of the gospel.

So lately I have been contemplating some ideas that were expressed in my Intro to Communication Research Methods class and I have been trying to process them Christianly. This class deals with how research is conducted in the field of communications (my new major...see post below). A large section of the class is devoted to what is called research paradigms. These paradigms guide the researcher in how and why he/she conducts research. The three paradigms are as follows:

1. Discovery Paradigm: There is an absolute truth that can be found with research on any subject. Nothing is subjective. Research can tell us exactly what is true for everyone. (Ex: Good Communication in marriage leads to relationship satisfaction)

2. Interpretive Paradigm: Ideas found in research are subjective. The person being studied creates his or her own meaning. This paradigm wants to collect as much data from as many people as possible because every person has a unique take on each subject. (Ex: What aspects of marriage increase relationship satisfaction for individuals?)

3. Critical paradigm: This paradigm seeks to correct what is perceived to be wrong in the world. A researcher studies some injustice and provides research on why it should be changed. (Ex: Husbands should use good communication because it leads to their wife’s relationship satisfaction.)

As Christians, which paradigm should we use to process truth? At first I thought the answer was simple: We should use the Discovery paradigm because we all know that there is objective truth in the world. Most of us have been affected enough by the Church’s reaction against post-modernism that we chafe at the idea of something being “subjective.”

The more I think about this, however, the more I realize that the paradigms are not merely a pronouncement of truth, they are “ways of knowing something.” I think therefore that we can use all of them in both Biblical scholarship and our everyday lives.

Let me give an example. I know that God is sovereign because the Bible tells me as much (objective reality=discovery paradigm). I also know that God is sovereign because when I hang out with friends, they give me examples and I myself can experience the sovereignty of God (Interpretive Paradigm). Finally, I can prove that God is sovereign in my own life by trusting that he will work things out for me. This means I SHOULD trust him (Critical Paradigm).

Thus, God uses many means to convey truth to us. We believe that the Bible is truth. But the way that we unpack and apply that truth is by examining our personal experience and by making changes based on what we have observed.