Posted on Saturday, April 5th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
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Anyone who is at all connected to reformed theology has heard about the theological battle going on at Westminster Seminary. The battle is over Dr. Peter Enns and a book that he published back in 2005. While speculation runs rampant on the web, much of it pretty uncharitable, you might find two sites coming at the issue from different sides, informative if you desire to know more about this issue. You can check out the list of comments put together by Brandon Witherow at http://www.digitalbrandon.com/?p=454 You can also check out the comments at Scot McKnight’s blog where you will find a variety of comments, many from young people who fail to see the need for such a hard line stance on a confession rather than the Scripture. You can find that discussion here http://www.jesuscreed.org/?p=3654 If you are totally unfamiliar with the issue, I won’t point you to a general article, but advise you rather to spend your time reading something more profitable.
SamLam
Posted on Monday, June 4th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
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No one whom I have ever known as a great preacher has been happy with his own preaching. It seems that the task is too big and the time, talents, and intellect are just too small. Charles Spurgeon, the great pastor of a very large British congregation, suffered from very severe depression although he was, by all accounts, one of the greatest preachers the world has ever known.
Wise advice tells pastors to “never resign on a Monday.” No matter how bad one feels about the sermon yesterday, Tuesday always comes and a new sermon begs to be prepared. I suppose that we, like Chicago Cubs fans, are eternal optimists, hoping that next time something will get better; sometimes it does.
Then there are those rare and amazing days that almost every preacher, speaker, or teacher dreams of, but which come all to infrequently. Those days when the Spirit of God seems to infuse all that we do and everything works together in a way that we could have never expected, let alone planned, and we know that God has been there. We wish it could be that way all the time. We wish that we had some method or formula for making those days occur when we really need them. Alas, the Spirit, like the wind, blows where it will and try as we might we cannot control it. We are just thankful when we can be carried along by the breath and feel like a sailboat being whisked along rather than a broken tugboat being dragged. But this is Monday. Tugboat day. Tomorrow is Tuesday when perhaps, I pray, I will prepare and the Lord will visit in a special way, and the sails will be filled with breath from on high. Maybe . . .
Posted on Friday, May 11th, 2007 at 11:10 am
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My dad once said to me that you never do anything knowingly, for the last time, without some feelings of sadness. At the time I questioned that. I thought that I would walk out of High School with nothing but glad feelings, but he was right, there was a bittersweetness there. At the end of my need for PE classes in college I realized that I would never again have to perform the “dreaded twelve minute run.” I should have been elated, but somehow I realized that I had let those moments go by without really capturing them. Days gone without even thinking about how grand life really is. These times in our lives when we do or see things for the last time remind us that we are mortal and that our days are numbered.
I suppose that is why the end of the school year, every year, brings me a little sense of melancholy. It is wonderful to see these students who have worked so hard graduate, move on to take a place in the world and minister; but it is also sad to see them, many of whom have become good friends, leave.
I went to Sunday School in the same building from the time I was an infant until I was twenty-four years old. There came a time when it was apparent that the day had arrived to tear the old building down (it had been called “the old building” for as long as I could remember).
One day, a few days before the demolition trucks were to arrive I spent a quiet afternoon just wandering around that old building thinking about the times that I had spent there. The wonderful times with family, the great times at church (this was before the books came out teaching us that church was terrible and making children go was near unto a hate crime), and the fun times at VBS (the non-fundamentalists will have to find a translator for that one). How often I remember ending some service as a child and the entire group singing the song “God be with you ‘till we meet again.” That song seemed stuck in my mind as a reminder of what that building was all about: the kindness of God and the timeliness of life. I had used the building for juggling practice (it had high ceilings), learning to ride a unicycle (wood floors are much kinder than concrete), and teaching Sunday School (how is that for a combination?). After I had been knocking around in the building for a few hours a friend of mine came over and said “What are you doing, kicking out some old memories?” I said that I was actually grabbing hold of a few, though I hadn’t realized exactly what I was doing.
I guess that is what we run through life doing, kicking out the memories that we don’t like and keeping the ones that we want forever. Then at some point, brain chemicals, time or death robs us of those memories and we move on. We eventually move on to a land were there is no need for memory because everything is always perfect and wonderful. We remember, after all, to relive a better, more wonderful time. There is coming a day and a city where there will be no end to semesters, no lives lost, no buildings torn down and no friends moving away. A city in which we will never need to sing “God Be With You Till We Meet Again.” Until then, . . .
Posted on Thursday, April 5th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
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Is this a problem or a wonderful thing?
On a typical Sunday morning, 61% of U.S. church pews are occupied by women and 39% men. That translates to 13 million more women than men, with nearly a fourth of married women worshiping without their husbands. For midweek activities the ratio is 70% to 80% female.
Lima News 2/10/07
While it is wonderful that mothers are bringing children to church, how is the church failing the males? Is it in the preaching? The Singing? The Fellowship? Let me hear from you and then I will chime in. I will start out by saying that I would rather die than go to a place that makes me hug other people! Maybe it’s that old homophobia kicking up on me, but a line from the Adam’s Family movie works well here, “We’re Adams, we don’t hug.” What about you?
Posted on Tuesday, February 13th, 2007 at 5:30 pm
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Please continue to pray for Dr. D. James Kennedy. He is still in the hospital and still suffering from the effects of his coronary (shortly after Christmas). I ask that you continue to pray for him, his wife and daughter/son-in-law, and for the church that he pastors. This is a difficult time for everyone who is a part of his ministry and I hope that you will keep him lifted up before God.
Posted on Friday, February 2nd, 2007 at 2:04 pm
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Why I’m No Longer a Fundamentalist
For those of you who don’t know, I grew up a fundamentalist and was graduated from Bob Jones University with a B. A. in Public Speaking. During that period of time, most of those who went to BJ, as the school was known, were proud to be called fundamentalist Christians. My Father was a fundamentalist pastor. However today I no longer call myself a fundamentalist and over the next week or two would like to give you some reasons why. I came across a list of reasons on the website of Michael F. Bird at http://euangelizomai.blogspot.com and thought that for the most part the reasons were well done. I have re-written some of the reasons, and will spend a bit of time commenting on each one of them. I hope this helps you to see where I came from, and why I needed to leave.
1. Fundamentalists often major on the minor issues, and make minor issues absolute tests for faith and orthodoxy (e.g. drinking alcohol, “mixed bathing? (that brings back some memories), KJV only, etc).
It was very common in my childhood to judge the Christianity of a person based on their view of drinking, the version of the Scripture that they used, or whether or not they stood against “modernism? (whatever that was). As a child I simply thought that these were legitimate tests of faith but as I grew older, I began to wonder about things like love, kindness, care for widows and orphans, feeding of the poor. The fundamentalists were often not very good at these things, afraid that being nice to anyone not like themselves could somehow taint them and make them “worldly.?
2. Fundamentalists often fail to distinguish between what is Biblical Christianity and what is the cultural Christianity that they were nurtured on. Thus the need to ban dancing, makeup, and women in pants.
While I would agree that the Spirit may very well show someone that drinking alcohol is wrong for them. The problem comes when that person takes that conviction and makes it a universal rule for all people. It may not be good for young people to dance in certain places on certain occasions, but there is a great deal of dancing for joy in the Bible, and God seems to be pleased with it. The problem comes when any person takes a personal conviction and makes it a universal commandment. This is the work of a dictator.
Two or three more reasons tomorrow.
Keep the Faith,
DrSamLam
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