Getting Settled

I don't do many personal updates on this blog (even though many have lovingly suggested that I do), so I thought now is as good a time as any to do that since I just moved across the country. Just over two weeks ago, I made the drive across the country from Atlanta to Pasadena. Here are some highlights of what has happened since then:

The drive took about thirty hours, spread out over three days. I really loved the experience and enjoyed all the different scenery. I think Arizona might have been my favorite. This picture is either from New Mexico or Arizona, not really sure.
Here are a couple of pics of what Brittany made for me in her apartment. It sure was good to see her!
Here is what my apartment looks like (before I bought any furniture). This is looking from my door, through the kitchen, into the living room. My bedroom is above the kitchen and is accessed by the stairs on the left.
Looking the opposite direction
Here's the living room with furniture. By the way, I packed my car up with some basic things, but the majority of my stuff has still not made it. They were originally supposed to deliver it between March 14 and 18. As of today the window is March 30 thru April 3. Seriously, don't use US-1 Van Lines.
The view from my living room. Part of Fuller's campus can be seen on the left.
Oh yeah, Brittany and I met my family in Breckenridge to do a little skiing last weekend.

Classes started today and I'm excited to be taking courses on the Pentateuch, Church History, and Christology/Pneumatology/Soteriology. Thanks to all of you who have been praying for me and keeping in touch. Though I am enjoying it here, I've been realizing more and more what a great community I left behind. Those of you in that community, you are greatly missed.

Being afraid of being alone

Francis Schaeffer:

“People today are afraid to be alone. This fear is a dominant mark of our society. Many now ceaselessly sit in the cinema or read novels about other people’s lives or watch dramas. Why? Simply to avoid having to face their own existence. . . .

No one seems to want (and no one can find) a place of quiet — because, when you are quiet, you have to face reality. But many in the present generation dare not do this because on their own basis reality leads them to meaninglessness; so they fill their lives with entertainment, even if it is only noise. . . .

The Christian is supposed to be very opposite: There is a place for proper entertainment, but we are not to be caught up in ceaseless motion which prevents us from ever being quiet. Rather we are to put everything second so we can be alive to the voice of God and allow it to speak to us and confront us.”

(via)

Charlie and the Apple Factory

This is good:

(via)

Dancing Thom

One of my favorite bands, Radiohead, came out with their eighth studio album a two Fridays ago called The King of Limbs. There is a video out for one of the tracks, Lotus Flower. It's basically just Thom Yorke (the lead singer) dancing in way that some might call weird but I call amazing! Check it out:



In honor of his moves, a site was recently launched called Dancing Thom. People are basically mashing up the above video with other random songs. It's definitely worth checking out. Here's my favorite so far:



You can also check out Paste's favorites here.

Encounter with Aslan: The Dawn Treader

My favorite Aslan encounter in the Narnia series comes from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Eustace, who had been turned into a dragon, is explaining to Edmund how he got turned back into a boy:

"Well, anyway, I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly toward me. And one queer thing was that there was no moon last night, but there was moonlight where the lion was. So it came nearer and nearer. I was terribly afraid of it. You may think that, being a dragon, I could have knocked any lion out easily enough. But it wasn't that kind of fear. I wasn't afraid of it eating me, I was just afraid of it -- if you can understand. Well, it came close up to me and looked straight into my eyes. And I shut my eyes tight. But that wasn't any good because it told me to follow it."

"You mean it spoke?"

"I don't know. Now that you mention it, I don't think it did. But it told me all the same. And I knew I'd have to do what it told me, so I got up and followed it. And it led me a long way into the mountains. And there was always this moonlight over and round the lion wherever we went. So at last we came to the top of a mountain I'd never seen before and on top of this mountain there was a garden -- trees and fruit and everything. In the middle of it there was a well."

"I knew it was a well because you could see the water bubbling up from the bottom of it: but it was a lot bigger than most wells -- like a very big, round bath with marble steps going down into it. The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. But the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I don't know if he said any words out loud or not."

I was just going to say I couldn't undress because I hadn't any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that is what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales started coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it deals after an illness, or if I was a banana. In a minute of two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down to the well for my bathe."

"But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly as they had been before. Oh, that's all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I'll have to get out of it too. So I scratched and tore again and this underskin tore off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe."

"Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I had looked at myself in the water I knew that it had been no good."

"Then the lion said -- but I don't know if it spoke -- 'You will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back and let him do it."

The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know – if you’ve ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is fun to see it coming away."

"I know exactly what you mean," said Edmund.

"Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off – just as I thought I’d done myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt – and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me – I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I had no skin on – and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again. You'd think me simply phony if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they've no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian's, but I was so glad to see them."

"After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me -- "

"Dressed you? With his paws?"

"Well, I don't exactly remember that bit. But he did somehow or other: in new clothes – the same I’ve got on now, as a matter of fact. And then suddenly I was back here. Which is what makes me think that it must have been a dream."

"No, it wasn't a dream," said Edmund.

"Why not?"

"Well, there are the clothes, for one thing. And you have been -- well, un-dragoned, for another."

"What do you think it was then?" asked Eustace.

"I think you've seen Aslan", said Edmund.

Tim Keller on MSNBC

It's refreshing to hear a Christian leader graciously and winsomely talk about the truth of Christianity in a TV interview. Keller does so here

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Encounter with Aslan: The Silver Chair

I've been reading through The Chronicles of Narnia recently, since I received them for Christmas. It is my very first time through and I am loving them. It's opened up a new world of C.S. Lewis for me, as this is the first of his fiction that I've read. Not surprisingly, I love his way with words and his imagination.

My favorite moments of the books have been the encounters with Aslan. I finished The Silver Chair last night and wanted to share my favorite part of the book. It is a conversation between Jill, as she first meets Aslan:

“If you are thirsty, you may drink.”

They were the first words she had heard since Scrubb had spoken to her on the edge of the cliff. For a second she stared here and there, wondering who had spoken. Then the voice said again, “If you are thirsty, come and drink,” and of course she remembered what Scrubb had said about animals talking in that other world, and realized that it was the lion speaking. Anyway, she had seen its lips move this time,and the voice was not like a man’s. It was deeper, wilder, and stronger; a sort of heavy, golden voice. It did not make her any less frightened than she had been before, but it made her frightened in rather a different way.

“Are you not thirsty?” said the lion.

“I’m dying of thirst,” said Jill.

“Then drink,” said the lion.

“May I – could I – would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill.

The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.

The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.

“Will you promise not to – do anything to me, if I do come?” said Jill.

“I make no promise,” said the Lion.

Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.

“Do you eat girls?” she said.

“I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,” said the Lion. It didn’t say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.

“I daren’t come and drink,” said Jill.

“Then you will die of thirst,” said the Lion.

“Oh dear!” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.”

“There is no other stream,” said the Lion.

It never occurred to Jill to disbelieve the Lion – no one who had seen his stern face could do that – and her mind suddenly made itself up. It was the worst thing she had ever had to do, but she went forward to the stream, knelt down, and began scooping up water in her hand. It was the coldest, most refreshing water she had ever tasted. You didn’t need to drink much of it, for it quenched your thirst at once.

An Inside Look At Scientology

My friend Bailey recently told me about an article in The New Yorker entitled The Apostate. It is looking at Scientology, mainly through the experience of screenwriter and film director Paul Haggis. Paul, for a time, was very involved in the "church," as he made it as far up as you can go in their ranks. But in 2009, he began questioning his involvement and has since become an outspoken voice for many of its harmful practices and teachings.

I have some special interest in Scientology because I (along with Bailey and many others) spent three summers in the early 2000s in Clearwater, Florida, a couple miles from its worldwide spiritual headquarters. We would often witness the odd behavior of the members walking around the streets in their strange uniforms. With much intrigue, I began researching to know more about this movement/religion/cult or whatever you want to call it.

It was founded in 1954 by L. Ron Hubbard. Here's a quick overview of the "church" from the article:

The Church of Scientology says that its purpose is to transform individual lives and the world. “A civilization without insanity, without criminals and without war, where the able can prosper and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights, are the aims of Scientology,” Hubbard wrote. Scientology postulates that every person is a Thetan—an immortal spiritual being that lives through countless lifetimes. Scientologists believe that Hubbard discovered the fundamental truths of existence, and they revere him as “the source” of the religion.

Hubbard’s writings offer a “technology” of spiritual advancement and self-betterment that provides “the means to attain true spiritual freedom and immortality.” A church publication declares, “Scientology works 100 percent of the time when it is properly applied to a person who sincerely desires to improve his life.” Proof of this efficacy, the church says, can be measured by the accomplishments of its adherents. “As Scientologists in all walks of life will attest, they have enjoyed greater success in their relationships, family life, jobs and professions. They take an active, vital role in life and leading roles in their communities. And participation in Scientology brings to many a broader social consciousness, manifested through meaningful contribution to charitable and social reform activities.”

And here's a good description of their practice of Dianetics:

“Dianetics” purports to identify the source of self-destructive behavior—the “reactive mind,” a kind of data bank that is filled with traumatic memories called “engrams,” and that is the source of nightmares, insecurities, irrational fears, and psychosomatic illnesses. The object of Dianetics is to drain the engrams of their painful, damaging qualities and eliminate the reactive mind, leaving a person “Clear.”

After reading the article, it becomes obvious that Scientology is almost exclusively a religion based on pragmatism rather than truth. No one seems to make any truth claim apart from commending how the beliefs and practices make life work better. But it's ironic that, pragmatically speaking, it seems to fail. People don't seem happier. They seem controlled and much poorer than when they started.

I'd encourage you to read the entire article, because it is quite fascinating. Though I should warn you that it is rather lengthy.

Also, a few years back, I saw a special that the BBC did on Scientology called Panorama: Scientology and Me. The reporter has multiple interactions with Tommy Davis (who you would find from the article is Scientology's main PR guy), and it's crazy to watch how much effort Tommy goes into as he tries to stop the BBC from doing their story. You can watch it in four separate YouTube videos:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

The Whole Point of Being a Christian

After referencing this quote by Margaret Durham (1668), Ray Ortlund says this:

"...Personal communion with Christ is real. It is the whole point of being a Christian. It is what the Bible is for. It is our endless future.

...The Puritans, among others, knew a lot about it. They experienced it. They pursued it. Have we graduated to a spiritual level above them, such that we can smile condescendingly? Or is it we who have drifted from the sacred center and need to repent and come back and reengage with our Lord in profound and very, very personal ways?"

This seems to be a simple truth, one that should be very obvious to me. But as I read these words, I have become profoundly convicted.

Somewhere along the way I have preferred to read books about biblical truth than actually read the Bible in order to commune with my heavenly Father. I have become complacent and lazy. More than that, I have become rebellious, preferring entertainment and everything else to fellowship with Him. I repent. Lord help me desire You.

Jesus Wants to Meet Us in Our Shame

Over at the CCEF blog, Ed Welch writes about the differences between shame and guilt. He says that guilt is usually black and white. You either did wrong or you didn't. Shame, however, is harder to pinpoint. He says, "With shame, we feel like we did wrong, but we can’t always identify what that wrong was, or we can identify a thousand wrongs, though none of them might be the actual trigger for shame."

He goes on to talk about how shame is not something that is talked a lot about in church or our communities. Because of that, shame is often left unidentified and continues to to plague us. We must seek to identify those things in our lives that have brought shame.

I began this process in my own life a few years back. I knew I struggled with anxiety and nervousness in different social situations but never knew why. I also knew I was an approval junkie, constantly needing others to validate me. God began revealing how I had believed certain lies growing up and had massive amounts of shame associated with this anxiety. Because these lies and the shame have been brought more into the light, God has begun bringing great amounts of freedom in this area, freeing me to let God's love be enough for me.

Back to Ed Welch's post, here are a few key paragraphs that I thought were helpful::

Shame has to do with your standing before God and your standing in the community. You think you should be unaffected by the opinions and words of other people? Not so. We were created to live in community, and anything that jeopardizes our inclusion goes against who we really are.

Worthlessness is an easy place to begin defining shame. Have you ever felt worthless? I am guessing that I am not alone in this one. I feel worthless when I notice student indifference after a lecture, when I preach and know that I was less than helpful, when I become alert to my weaknesses as a counselor and wonder why I am inflicting myself on people, and, of course, I could go on.

Worthlessness evokes images of value. It means that your standing with others has gone way down. You know you are a failure, so does everyone else. Our despair over our worthlessness could reflect our pride. That is, “I feel so bad because I want to be great.” And, no doubt, there is pride mixed in with worthlessness. But Jesus doesn’t go to lepers and talk about their pride. Instead, he touches them as a way to show his fellowship and acceptance, and he restores them to his community, though acceptance into the community of mortals like us is not guaranteed.

Shame. You feel worthless, rejected, dirty and exposed. Sometimes you feel it because of what you have done, in which case your badness must exceed community standards. For example, there are some things that Christians confess in public – a little bit of lust, anxieties about money, not listening to a spouse, erratic quiet times. These are the sins that, when you confess them, everyone is nodding in agreement. But there are other acts that leave everyone else in silence because these sins are less common and less acceptable. Shame attaches itself to these sins. But not only to these sins...

Shame does indeed have many faces. It seems to be everywhere and yet still be elusive. Maybe that’s why you can’t do anything with it until you put words on it. But God puts words on it, so we should too. That itself can be hopeful. It can also leave us wanting more. If you want more right away, just watch Jesus. He goes out of his way to meet, touch, bless, and restore the shamed:

• a Samaritan woman who is not measuring up to community standards
• a woman who sexual past identified her as a “sinful woman”
• lepers
• tax collectors
• a woman whose bleeding renders her unclean
• a disciple who denied any association with him

The Gospel of Jesus is “I am yours and you are mine, and I’m not letting you get away.”

American Hyper-Instrospection

Ethan Watters, the author of Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche, responds to a few questions from Adbusters. One question Ethan responds to is summarily stated "What is the root cause of the epidemic of mental illness we are currently experiencing? His response:

"If I had to put my money on one idea then it would be the American notion of the egocentric mind – the idea that you are the captain of your own destiny and that you should be able to chart your own path and find your own happiness and control your own destiny fundamentally without the need for others. I think that this idea in the West – and in America in particular – has led to a great deal of insecurity and a general loading of our psychopathology. I think that the human animal is much more of a group animal than the American idea of the mind suggests it to be."

Later on, he expresses the need for more community:

"I think that human beings cannot feel at ease mentally if they are disconnected from their sense of a role within a group. I think that the human mind is deeply permeable to the goals and expectations of the people around us, and if we don’t pay attention to that, if we think of ourselves as the captains of our own destiny, always able to pick ourselves up by our own individual bootstraps, then we are likely to experience that sort of postmodern insecurity that leads us to a certain form of American hyper-introspection – always looking inward."

Also, here's a brief video of Ethan explaining how we as Americans have incorrectly exported our ideas of mental illness to the rest of the world:

(via Roy)

Understanding the Protests in Egypt

If you want a better understanding of what is going in Egypt right now, you should read this post. It's brief and to the point.

Also, here is a moving video combining different protest footage:

(via 22 Words)

How Undserved Grace Empowers Obedience

It seems that God is really wanting me to understand His grace as it relates to obedience. Over the last six months, I've had numerous conversations and have read countless blogs and books that have centered on this subject. I've also had many conversations lately about the right way for a preacher of God's Word to correctly communicate this to his congregation. But that's another subject altogether and won't get into that right now.

The question at hand is "How does the pursuit of personal holiness and God's grace relate?" How do we know that we aren't being legalistic? How do we know that we aren't being licentious? How do we know that we are pursuing holiness in a way that honors God and is motivated by the gospel?

Dane Ortlund, over at the Gospel Coalition blog, responds to a recent article in Christianity Today. For context, I encourage you to read the whole post, even if it's just to get an wonderful example of how to lovingly disagree with someone through the internet. But, for the sake of brevity, I just wanted to include a few paragraphs where I believe Dane provides excellent insight into the subject of gospel-centered obedience.

He is basically responding to the question, "How are radical obedience and personal holiness to be encouraged?" Here is his answer:

One way is to balance gospel grace with exhortations to holiness, as if both need equal air time lest we fall into legalism on one side (neglecting grace) or antinomianism on the other (neglecting holiness).

The other way, which I believe is the right and biblical way, is so to startle this restraint-free culture with the gospel of free justification that the functional justifications of human approval, moral performance, sexual indulgence, or big bank accounts begin to lose their vice-like grip on human hearts and their emptiness is exposed in all its fraudulence. It sounds backward, but the path to holiness is through (not beyond) the grace of the gospel, because only undeserved grace can truly melt and transform the heart. The solution to restraint-free immorality is not morality. The solution to immorality is the free grace of God—grace so free that it will be (mis)heard by some as a license to sin with impunity. The route by which the New Testament exhorts radical obedience is not by tempering grace but by driving it home all the more deeply.

Let’s pursue holiness. (Without it we won’t see God: Matt 5:8; Heb 12:14.) And let’s pursue it centrally through enjoying the gospel, the same gospel that got us in and the same gospel that liberates us afresh each day (1 Cor 15:1–2; Gal 2:14; Col 1:23; 2:6). As G. C. Berkouwer wisely remarked, “The heart of sanctification is the life which feeds on justification.”

Thoughts on Anger and Being Right

Ed Welch

"The problem with anger is that those who don’t have the problem take it to heart; those who are angry are confident in their right-ness and over time can become massively, utterly, completely deluded, blind and (this is no exaggeration) can feel quite good about themselves after bludgeoning someone close them, as if they have set the world aright. Arrgghh. I hate anger.

But I also want to hate this evil in myself before I hate it in other people. How? By zeroing in on the more subtle expressions of anger, such as a critical attitude toward someone, complaining, not wanting another’s best, jealousy at the level of my imagination, any hint of “I am right and you are wrong,” sarcasm, or “whatever.” I want to keep asking my wife and at least one other person if they have seen me frustrated or angry. I want to have no wiggle room for righteous indignation. By that I mean that since ninety-nine percent of my anger is sinful, I don’t want to give tacit permission to my frustration by calling it righteous indignation. If I am angry because of what was done to another person I am on safer ground. If I am angry because of what someone did to me, I am always wrong. “Be angry and don’t sin” – forget about trying to master that one. Don’t let it authorize one blasted scrap of anger.

(...)

In a world where we are god, anger makes perfect sense. Anger stands above all things in omniscient and infallible judgment. But in the real world, where we are creatures and not the Creator, and where the Creator chose the path of a servant in order to rescue, comfort and encourage, our anger is ugly and perverse.

Lord, help us to recognize our anger and not be the “last to know” about it. Be merciful to us and give us power to show mercy."

Click here to read the entire post.

The News

Neil Postman, (from Amusing Ourselves to Death):

"How often does it occur that information provided you on morning radio or television, or in the morning newspaper, causes you to alter your plans for the day, or to take some action you would not otherwise have taken or provides insight into some problem you are required to solve?...most of our daily news is inert, consisting of information that gives us something to talk about but cannot lead to any meaningful action.”

...What steps do you plan to take to reduce the conflict in the Middle East? Or the rates of inflation, crime or unemployment? ...What do you plan to do about NATO, OPEC, the CIA, affirmative action, and the monstrous treatment of Baha'is in Iran? I shall take the liberty of answering for you: You plan to do nothing about them.

...We have here a great loop of impotence: The news elicits from you a variety of opinions about which you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you can do nothing."

Dallas Willard, (from The Spirit of the Disciplines):

“Henry David Thoreau saw how even our secular existence withers from lack of a hidden life. Conversation degenerates into mere gossip and those we meet can only talk of what they heard from someone else. The only difference between us and our neighbor is that he has seen the news and we have not.”

Steve Jobs and the Secular Gospel

Yesterday, Steve Jobs announced his leave of absence from Apple. Andy Crouch reflects:

...In his celebrated Stanford commencement address (which is itself an elegant, excellent model of the genre), [Jobs] spoke frankly about his initial cancer diagnosis in 2003. It’s worth pondering what Jobs did, and didn’t, say:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It’s life’s change agent; it clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it’s quite true. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.

This is the gospel of a secular age. It has the great virtue of being based only on what we can all perceive—it requires neither revelation nor dogma. And it promises nothing it cannot deliver—since all that is promised is the opportunity to live your own unique life, a hope that is manifestly realizable since it is offered by one who has so spectacularly succeeded by following his own “inner voice, heart and intuition.”

Jobs was by no means the first person to articulate this vision of a meaningful life—Socrates, the Buddha, and Emerson come to mind. To be sure, fully embracing this secular gospel requires an austerity of spirit that few have been able to muster, even if it sounds quite fine on the lawn of Stanford University. Upon close inspection, this gospel offers no hope that you cannot generate yourself, and only the comfort of having been true to yourself. In the face of tragedy and evil it is strangely inert. Such a speech would have been hard to take at the funeral of Christina Taylor Greene, nine years old, killed along with five others on a bright Saturday morning in Tucson, Arizona. It is no wonder that Barack Obama, who had to address these deeper forms of grief this past week, turned to a vision which only makes sense if there is more to the world than we can see. Anything less is cold comfort indeed.

But the genius of Steve Jobs has been to persuade us, at least for a little while, that cold comfort is enough. The world—at least the part of the world in our laptop bags and our pockets, the devices that display our unique lives to others and reflect them to ourselves—will get better. This is the sense in which the tired old cliché of “the Apple faithful” and the “cult of the Mac” is true. It is a religion of hope in a hopeless world, hope that your ordinary and mortal life can be elegant and meaningful, even if it will soon be dated, dusty, and discarded like a 2001 iPod.

Read the whole article

(via)

Likealittle.com: making flirting easier since 2010

Brett McCracken shares some of his thoughts on likealittle.com, a new social flirting site:

"Though it remains to be seen whether likealittle will be more than a flavor-of-the-week fad, its popularity certainly underscores some of the broader social trends happening among “Generation Y” (or whatever the generation in college is called). Namely: The increasing preference to mediate relationships (even the very initial stage of relationships, such as flirting) via technology and avoid the difficulties and awkwardness of face-to-face communication wherever possible.

Naturally, if there is technology that makes the awkward things in life less awkward, we seize upon it. Who wants to nervously stumble over their words when making small talk with a girl they like when a cleverly crafted likealittle message will do? It’s the same reason why Gen Y communicates almost exclusively by texting on their phones rather than talking. Texting is more controlled. More efficient. Easier. It’s the same reason why updating scores of friends and family about your life in on fell swoop on Facebook is preferable to the laborious process of calling each of them or writing an email or letter to them.

Technology’s dominant raison d’etre has always been about efficiency. Making something easier, quicker, less painful. Think medicine, automobiles, assembly line, central heating. Communication technologies are similarly in the business of making the difficulties of communication easier. But there are always unintended consequences. Likealittle makes flirting easier, but it also makes it anonymous, objectifying and addictive (“dangerously” so). And, as with its various forbears, likealittle thrives because it creates a safe, low-pressure, “just me and my computer/phone” environment where it’s easy to say whatever we want. It removes those pesky filters (in person tact, nervous self-restraint) that sometimes keep us from saying the things that pop into our heads. As with texting and other “nonverbal signals be damned!” modes of fast-paced, send-before-you-think-too-much-about-it communication, likealittle feeds the culture’s ever worsening addictions to communication as diversion/commodity and narcissistic self validation."

Read the whole thing

Gospel-motivated Obedience

Tullian Tchividjian:

"So, it’s a mistake to identify the “two cliffs” as being legalism and lawlessness. The one “cliff” is legalism but it comes in two forms—what some call license is just another form of legalism. And if people outside the church are guilty of “break the rules” legalism, many people inside the church are still guilty of “keep the rules” legalism.

This is super important because the biggest lie about grace that Satan wants the church to buy is the idea that grace is dangerous and therefore needs to be “kept it in check.” By believing this we not only prove we don’t understand grace, but we violate gospel advancement in our lives and in the church. A “yes, grace…but” disposition is the kind of fearful posture that keeps moralism swirling around in our hearts and in the church.

I understand the fear of grace. As a pastor, one of my responsibilities is to disciple people into a deeper understanding of obedience—teaching them to say “no” to the things God hates and “yes” to the things God loves. But all too often I have (wrongly) concluded that the only way to keep licentious people in line is to give them more rules. The fact is, however, that the only way licentious people start to obey is when they get a taste of God’s radical unconditional acceptance of sinners.

The irony of gospel-based sanctification is that those who end up obeying more are those who increasingly realize that their standing with God is not based on their obedience, but Christ’s.

The people who actually end up performing better are those who understand that their relationship with God doesn’t depend on their performance for Jesus, but Jesus’ performance for us.

People need to hear less about what we need to do for God and more about all that God has already done for us, because imperatives minus indicatives equal impossibilities. If you’re a preacher and you’re assuming that people understand the radical nature of gospel indicatives, so your ministry is focused primarily on gospel imperatives, you’re making a huge mistake. A huge mistake!

Long-term, sustained, gospel-motivated obedience can only come from faith in what Jesus has already done, not fear of what we must do. To paraphrase Ray Ortlund, any obedience not grounded in or motivated by the gospel is unsustainable. No matter how hard you try, how “radical” you get, any engine smaller than the gospel that you’re depending on for power to obey will conk out in due time.

So let’s take it up a notch. Don’t be afraid to preach the radical nature of the gospel of grace. For, as the late Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones once said, “If your preaching of the gospel doesn’t provoke the charge from some of antinomianism, you’re not preaching the gospel.”

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A New Year's prayer

New Year, from The Valley of Vision:

Length of days does not profit me except the days are passed in thy presence, in thy service, to thy glory.

Give me a grace that precedes, follows, guides, sustains, sanctifies, aids every hour, that I may not be one moment apart from thee, but may rely on thy Spirit

to supply every thought,
speak in every word,
direct every step,
prosper every work,
build up every mote of faith,
and give me a desire to show forth thy praise, testify thy love, advance thy kingdom.

I launch my bark on the unknown waters of this year, with

thee, O Father, as my harbour,
thee, O Son, at my helm,
thee, O Holy Spirit, filling my sails.

Guide me to heaven with

my loins girt,
my lamp burning,
my ear open to thy calls,
my heart full of love,
my soul free.

Give me thy grace to sanctify me,

thy comforts to cheer,
thy wisdom to teach,
thy right hand to guide,
thy counsel to instruct,
thy law to judge,
thy presence to stabilize.

May thy fear be my awe, thy triumphs my joy.

Best Books I Read in 2010

1. A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken (1977)
A book very hard to put down. It is the true account of a man's love for his wife before and after her death. But it's really about how he gets to the point where he can call her death "a severe mercy." It also tells of the couple's friendship with C.S. Lewis and thankfully contains a handful of letters he wrote them over the years, all of which are goldmines of truth.

2. Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman (1985)
The introduction alone is worth the price of the book. From what I've heard, it is or at least should be the anchor in all advertising classrooms since it's been published. Postman looks at the history of technology and comes to the conclusion (even in 1985) that we are only doing things for their entertainment value, and that this is killing us. How much more is that statement true today? Everyone who is remotely interested in social media and technology should read this book. Actually, everyone who USES technology in the slightest should read this book.

3. The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer (1978)
An amazing look at the attributes of God.

4. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1844)
For some reason, I've put off this book for a while. I love the latest movie adaptation (with Jim Caviezel) and finally decided to read the book. The first half is pretty similar to the movie and the last half is completely different, but even better in my opinion. It's a captivating read that doesn't take as long as you might think by looking at it. Definitely worth the hype of being a classic.

5. Jack: A life of C.S. Lewis by George Sayer (2005)
I had wanted to read this for a while, and then had to for my seminary class this summer. It was well worth the 464 pages. Looking at all the biographies of Lewis, most would say this is the best and most comprehensive one (I've also heard good things about The Narnain). It is written through the eyes of a man named George Sayer who befriended Lewis at Oxford. He does a great job of not only giving the reader a look into the events that shaped Lewis in his childhood, but he also gets into the mind of who Jack (what all his close friends called him) really was, what made him tick. Excellent biography about an amazing man.

6. The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton (1908)
My first introduction to Chesterton was Orthodoxy a few years back. I eventually came to love his style and wit (though it took a second reading to get there). In this latest book, the style is still intact as he cleverly conveys a story about a group of detectives, anarchists and spies. It is a very fun and quick read. It also contains an amazing line, "...no man should leave in the universe anything of which he is afraid."

7. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (2008)
I couldn't make it through The Tipping Point. This book, however, kept me captivated throughout. Gladwell basically presents true life scenarios of different people as he seeks to understand why certain people succeed and why some don't. It's a sociological study that is riveting.

8. The Pressure's Off by Larry Crabb (2004)
Crabb explains how we no longer have to live according to the old covenant of "do this and live" or "do this and be cursed." Subtly, many of us live our lives in such a way hoping to receive God's blessing because of our behavior or using God to make our lives work. This creates huge amounts of pressure and is not living in light of the gospel. When I read this book, God was doing a huge work in my heart, uncovering ways I had believed these lies. Crabb does an excellent job of pointing us to Christ and what he has accomplished for us so that we may live in freedom and grow in our sanctification.

9. The Search for God and Guinness by Stephen Mansfield (2009)
Really fun read about the history of the Guinness family and their famous beer. The Guinness company was an incredibly philanthropic company that did much for the city of Dublin and the world.

10. Doctrines of Grace by Phil Ryken and J.M. Boice (2009)
One of the best treatments of Calvinism that I have ever read. The authors do a great job at showing the biblical basis for the doctrines of grace, as well as fairly handling the difficult verses that seem to build a case for the other side. They also give a great history lesson about how Calvinism has lead to much flourishing and how Arminianism typically leads to pietism which leads to liberalism which ultimately leads to atheism. Strong words, but they give some great evidence that is hard to argue with.

Honorable Mentions: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Foer), Counterfeit Gods (Keller), Lord of the Flies (Golding)