Passing-Thought

final exam study guide - outline for guilt

1) Guilt
a) Brief Description
God’s unshakeable presence in our lives exposes the human heart to the universal problem of guilt when we have sinned or been shamefully sinned against. The shame or guilt we feel (or should feel) before God will shape our attitudes and actions to do our best to cover/hide/cleanse the shame. God’s good news is that Christ’s sacrifice has sufficiently dealt with human guilt so that we can be fully and enthusiastically accepted by Him, thus freed to live with a clear conscience and open hearts in a public way to the glory of God.

b) The Most important Question/Feature/Issue to consider:
• Legalism to deal with guilt of sin and uncleanness.
a) Why do you not believe God’s forgiveness in Christ is sufficient?
b) Why has God’s beautiful forgiveness become unattractive to you?

c) Issues you need to be particularly alert to in your relationship with the counselee:
• Privacy. A guilty person typically does not approach you with their guilt. They are ashamed to talk about it. Ask them to describe how they feel (e.g. depressed) in other words. Ask them to ask for forgiveness and trust He forgives according to His promise.
• Pride. Guilty people are struggling with some form of legalism.
• Purity. Sometimes guilt comes from being victimized, made shamefully unclean.
• Concience. Sometimes people don’t feel guilty about things they should be.

d) One significant biblical text relevant to the problem area, why the text is relevant.
A guilty person needs fresh appreciation of God’s surprising, incomparable forgiveness.
• Story of the Running Father (Luke 15) – a.k.a. The Prodigal Son.
• Gal 3, Gen 15 : The promise came before the law
(Unilateral covenant is humiliating.)
• Hosea & Gomer. “I am the one who pursues you in the midst of adultery.”
• Jesus touches/touched by the unclean (Mark 5:25). Great exchange. Jesus becomes unclean so that we might be healed.

e) Its biblical conceptualization (Causes? Roots?)
• Currently in unrepentant sin.
• Need to confess a past sin to God
• Consequences of the past
• Victim of sin.

Guilt is evidence that someone hasn’t come to terms with God’s complete, supreme forgiveness and cleansing in Christ. Guilty people inevitably try to manage their uncleanness, sin problem, or sin’s consequences apart from God’s covenant provision and promises. Legalism perpetuates guilt because it doesn’t have the power to remove guilt. It seeks to make atonement, to hide/cover shame, based upon our own man-made religion.

f) Two homework assignments showing awareness of uniqueness of the problem.
1) Ask someone to forgive you. Whom should you forgive?
2) Ask God to forgive you for trying to manage sin apart from Him.

g) Your basic method of approach
• First I would ask why a person feels guilty, to explain how guilt makes them feel. This will help determine whether guilt is the core issue or what form the guilt takes.
• Then I would try to discern any legalistic behaviors or attitudes that might be diminishing the glory of the gospel of forgiveness.
• Then I would want to encourage the person to recognize how God the Father has enthusiastically run to us in a “shameful” manner to accept us in His Son, so that they can move, in repentance and confession, from guilt to joy in God.

Ministry 101 Catch-22

How can I begin to minister to others when I need constant reminding of the gospel in its two glorious dimensions: accessible to infants and more profound than any human work of art, poetry, and philosophy?

final exam study nugget - on guilt

"Joy is the serious business of heaven." -- C.S. Lewis

Under the topic of guilt, Prof Ed Welch reminds us that confessing our sins should lead to joy. If it doesn't, we are legalistic, refusing to take to heart the attractive beauty of knowing and trusting God's forgiveness. For some crazy reason, we still cling on to being the judge of when/how/whether our sins shall be forgiven, rather than abandoning this to God's complete, surprising, and incomparable justice in Christ. We think there is something still we must do to earn His favor. Joy says to the world, "We get His ineffably enthusiatic forgiveness!"

trash receptacles and eucharist

Restaurant trash receptacles always give thanks. All we feed them are leftovers and discards. Even so, they swing open their mouths and say, "Thank you." Such steadfast disposition makes our daily complaining attitude look and smell like rotten garbage. Let this instruct us as we approach His royal banquet each Sunday. We sit with the highest King and our mouth receives not his scraps, but from a select cut and an overflowing cup. Even if the world throws us its manure, is this not fertilizer for the future harvest of glory? Give thanks for all things!

Death, absence, and omnipresence

"Everywhere I go, I'm surrounded by things that remind me of her." A friend recounted to me the impact of his recent break up. So it is also with those of our loved ones who have died. Why is it that the sudden absence through the death of a relationship in one form or another often impresses upon us an abiding sense of their presence in all things. Even for those whom we admit we did not think enough of, now we find ourselves unable to not think about them, at least in the present.

I can't help but think that there is in this cycle evidence of being programmed to expect our relationships not simply to survive death, but to obtain some higher and final significance through it. Perhaps this is a mere fraction of what it means for Christ to be "all in all". "I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away..."

Does God have an answering machine?

How many Christians enter their personal prayer closets expecting to leave a message on some answering machine through some long distance service provider?

a world without mirrors?

Imagine a world without mirrors. Imagine what it would be like to walk around without ever knowing what your face looks like. With a good imagination, you might be able to morph together in your mind some permutation of the face of your mother, father, and a few of your siblings. Okay, imagine you were adopted. There are no photographs or photographers, portraits or painters, no reflective materials. Life is one continuous game of Indian Poker with your poker face being the dealt card.

Mirrors are everywhere. It's hard for you to imagine knowing who you are without them. The irony is that more often than not we use mirrors to forget who we are. The disciples once asked Jesus, "Lord, show us the Father and it will be enough." To which he replied, "Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? We are mirrors made, not for the sake of our own image, but to reflect the glory of God. Face it. When our Glory comes in all His glory, you won't forget who you are. You won't forget Him.

Till then, I'll leave you with some Scripture for your reflection.

If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. -- James 1:23-25

Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. -- 1 Cor 13:12

Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we will be like him, because we shall see him as he is.. -- 1John 3:2

They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. -- Revelation 22:4-5

Easter as a liturgical suspense

It dawned on me on Saturday that the suspensefulness of Easter is a blessing experienced only by believers this side of the resurrection. Think about it. The close disciples of the Lord all scattered; they completely forgot or misunderstood Jesus' prophecy. The Jewish and Roman authorities at least remembered the prophecy and had some sense of suspense: they thought the disciples might attempt to steal away the body after three days, hence their appointment of soldiers to guard the tomb. The only sense of suspense felt by believers was in the women, but they were anxious to finish his burial preparations after the Sabbath. Thus, Christ's resurrection was anticipated by no one but Christ. He shocked the world.

Now we can anticipate Easter as it approaches, not to diminish it's shocking once-for-all happening in history, but to set a liturgical focus and special celebration of it. The suspense of the coming of Easter was heightened for me through passion week observances. This past week our church celebrated with the Lord's Supper (Maundy Thursday) followed by Tenebrae (Good Friday). As many of you may know, a Tenebrae service sings through hymns and reflects on passion narratives, extinguishing candles to represent the growing darkness that fell upon Christ during the crucifixion, until the last candle is extinguished with "It is finished...". Everyone departs in silence without a closing benediction.

Easter Sunday, then, is the resolution to the suspense of leaving in darkness. On that day, God's new creation light dawned, shattering darkness forever. Hallelujah!

Alfred Adler on 'Empathy'

(An excerpt from Understanding Human Nature, p. 52)

Empathy occurs in the moment when one human being speaks with another. It is impossible to understand another individual if one cannot at the same time identify oneself with him. Drama is the clearest expression of empathy, since through the playwright's skill we readily identify with the characters on stage and act the most varied roles within ourselves. Examples of empathy in everyday life are those cases in which we have a strange feeling of uneasiness when we notice another person in danger. This empathy may be so strong that we make involuntary movements in self-[defense], even though there is no actual danger to us; for example, we all know the involuntary movements people make when someone has dropped a glass! At a bowling alley, one may see certain players following the course of the ball with movements of their body as though they wanted to influence its progress by these gestures. Similarly, during football games whole sections of the crowd in the grandstand will push in the direction of their favorite team. Another common example is the involuntary application of imaginary brakes by the passengers in a car whenever they feel they are in danger. Few people can watch without a shudder of fear a window cleaner worker at work on a tall building, and when a public speaker loses his thread and cannot proceed, the audience feels uncomfortable and embarrassed. Our entire life is very much dependent upon this faculty of identification. If we look for the origin of this ability to act and feel as if we were someone else, we can find it in every human being's inborn empathy with others. This is a universal feeling and a reflection of the oneness of the whole cosmos of which we are apart; it is an inescapable characteristic of being human. It gives us the ability to identify ourselves with things outside our own direct experience.

Ecclesiastes and [miss]communication

A man speaks his mind, but the woman gives it meaning.

I can't help but laugh when a lady seeks clarification for a something the guy has told them (or vice-versa). We forget that the problem is often not so much in what was said, but in the people present in the communication situation. We may after much effort come to formally "agree to disagree", but in the case of actually resolving miscommunication, how do we really know that even when our heads are finally knodding in agreement, our minds are not still spinning [off in their own directions]?

To what shall I compare a man and woman seeking clarification from the other? They are like two scientists who agree to recalibrate their instruments for better focus: the first his telescope, the second her microscope.

So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man..and he built into a woman the rib he had taken from the man (mind you, this was no brain surgery). -- Genesis 2:21-22

credit or debit?

In the economy of salvation, is faith credit or debit?

love AND sorrow?

i recently discovered that hard times have fallen upon a brother of mine, yet he is not taking it so hard. I say, "I am sorry" and want to really mean it. He asks, Is commiserate rehabilitate?

"blessed are those who mourn..."
I want to believe that it is. That love grieves for those who suffer, even if those suffering don't feel the extent of their trouble. I want to know the magnitude of it (without necessarily having to know private details). And that such pathos can bring true healing. Through such sorrow, confronting the reality of pain, we can find true joy. That sorrow for those confronting death in its manifaceted forms is a prophetic critique of a world-order that pushes novocaine values to numb us with the self-help gospel, promises for paper-plastic peace, and a fast-food consummer marketplace for meism.

misery is drug in veins of many. while i don't want to live in denial of actual misery, i also have no interest in keeping wounds fresh. i like love in which there is no pity - in all relations, whether i'm giving or receiving end. ...if i show you that i pity you, you feel pitiable. some people like that feeling and KEEP themselves: not only pitiable, but pitiful like beggars grown dependent on donors. trust breeds trust. love, love. pity, pity. cursed are those who say "blessed are those who mourn", and intend for people to just live their earthly lives as pitiful and miserable, as though they always need to have some sort of pious crisis. blessed are those who use the phrase sparingly, and then say something like: get off your ass and get to work! be salt and light!

I recognize that misery, like its Dollar General antedotes, is a potent drug. The latter a hallucinogen to escape from facing problems, and the former a self-injected tracer to show others all your problems. I have known close friends and relatives addicted to it, more or less, and the victim mentality (against others or self and sin). I have learned (through interacting with them, and recognizing my own shared weaknesses) more and more to encourage people who carry such attitudes (and remind myself) to discover opportunities for loving those who seem to hurt them the most, to not make sin or one's past an idol greater than God and his grace in Christ, and to demonstrate the love of Christ that surpasses anyones deserving, a liberty that isn't confined by other peoples opinions or judgments about you (as if humans could control the liberty of God's free and sovereign grace), but overflows even to the feet of those who wrong you.

Amen: A sorrow and compassion which does not also offer words of wisdom to deliver the oppressed from their oppression, to cast out demons, is impotent. At the same time, there is also more wisdom and power in sitting in silence in sackcloth and ashes, than rushing to be Job's accuser. Deeds of "love" without sorrow, pity, compassion, will not the flesh rise up to render them hollow? uncaring, unconcerned, inhuman.

An immortal widow who eternally mourns the loss of her husband (like Arwen dreams she will for Aragorn in Lord of the Rings) may be hopelessly romantic, but there is no justice in it for her or her husband. Angels are impotent to raise the human dead! But what do we make of the same widow's character if she decides not to mourn on the principle that it will do no one any good, and remarries even before the time of her former husband's funeral has been finished?

"Jesus wept."
He is paradagmatic for my conception of love in union with Him. Apart from His sorrow, my heart will surely rot with hardness (towards the weak) or bitterness (towards the strong). Yes, his weeping can raise the dead and will restore the cosmos to right order.

bumper stickers that stick with you

Have you ever noticed bumper stickers that give you something to chew on?

Here are three that have stuck with me and have challenged me for different reasons. How do they affect you? What worldviews do they express? For the ones with which you disagree write a response in the form of a bumper sticker.

1) Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.

2) Militant Agnostic: I don't know and neither do you!

3) Dear Lord, please help me be the person my dog thinks I am.

is acting genuine a genuine act?

"I would never make it as an actor: I have a hard enough time being myself!" ;-)

-- But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. Romans 13:14

do you water your toothbrush?

Is there any advantage to watering the toothpaste on your toothbrush before you brush your teeth? More than one person has asked me why I don't water mine. When I was little, I used to do it, partly because that's the way other people did it, and partly because it seemed to water down the flavor of toothpaste which I never cared for too much. But it also seemed that adding water tended make it harder to keep the toothpaste in my mouth, so I stopped watering my toothpaste.

Am I the only person who doesn't water their toothbrush?
Can anyone please show me where the toothpaste directions say, "Add water"?

nostalgia and the present

Like sound sleep, nostalgia is one of those things you risk losing trying to get more of it. The past simply refuses to be brought wholly into the present, lest the past become a thing of the past, or more precisely, a thing of the present.

Life cereal

There always seems to be plenty of cereal...that is, until the final crumbs are shaken loose from the bottom of the box. And when the box is turned upside down thus, I can't but help but imagine some day this will be me. O Lord, may the last of me be mostly sugar to Thee.

Prolegomena?

The present Hermeneutics World War has made proof texts the battleground for opposing dogmatic armies. What do we do when our national battle cry �Sola Scriptura� is heard from the lips of another nation attempting to capture the same territory on the same basis that it first belonged to them? Some in the confusion have decided to raise their voice over the rest; others have changed their battle cry to �Sola Prolegomena�. However, I suggest something remarkably foolish. What if, instead of waiting for the pearly whites of our enemies, we let our eyes rest Sabbath-like upon the ground on which we stand? Then, remembering our famished estate, pluck heads of grain from our neighbor�s field, make ourselves to sit upon the green grass, and taste once again the land flowing with milk and honey. You might think this a sure way to get oneself captured and thrown into prison! And so it shall come to pass as you meditate upon these things alone in your closet that you shall remember it was through a prison that the whole world was captured (Acts 28:28-31). Then the world shall hear a strange sound from your cell, when our battle cry has become a hymn of praise to God for his unsearchable works of incomprehensible wisdom and majesty.

children stories are for adults

I was recently re-introduced to the Velveteen Rabbit (during a morning devotional of all places), and was thereby reminded of God's electing love as that which establishes human authenticity.

"Whut is REEAL?" askt th Rabit wun dae, when thae wer lieing sied bi sied neer th nersery fender, befor Nana caem to tiedy th room. "Duz it meen having things that buz insied U and a stik-out handl?"

"Reeal isn't how U ar maed," sed th Skin Hors. "It's a thing that hapens to U. When a chield luvs U for a long, long tiem, not just to plae with, but REEALY luvs U, then U becum Reeal."

"Duz it hert?" askt th Rabit.

"Sumtiems," sed th Skin Hors, for he was allwaes troothful. "When U ar Reeal U don't miend being hert."

"Duz it hapen all at wuns, liek being woond up," he askt, "or bit bi bit?"

"It duzn't hapen all at wuns," sed th Skin Hors. "U becum. It taeks a long tiem. That's whi it duzn't hapen offen to peepl hoo braek eezily, or hav sharp ejes, or hoo hav to be cairfuly kept. Jeneraly, bi th tiem U ar Reeal, moest of yur hair has bin luvd off, and yur ies drop out and U get loos in yur joints and verry shaby. But thees things don't mater at all, becauz wuns U ar Reeal U can't be ugly, exsept to peepl hoo don't understand."
[excerpt from http://www.diac.com/~entente/velrss.htm]

We are being transformed from incapable "stuffed" animals, into a maturity worn and torn by God's love, which surpasses the tears from the mockeries of those who call themselves "real". In the end, we shall receive a body that can sustain His love for eternity and a heart to know Him as we are known.

The Googlization of speech

Today, I noticed that I had an inexplicable time uttering a full sentence when trying to ask my seminary professor some questions after class. The grammar of my sentences was pragmatic: use short KEYWORD phrases until professor knods + begins answering. Afterwards I reflected upon my speech-act and realized what is happening: my philosophy of speech is becoming Goooooglized! We must do something to keep ourselves from becoming irresponsible speakers. Within generation I predict global transformation in speech patterns towards KEYWORD oriented grammar, placing communication burden on HEARER rather than SPEAKER. To save our SPEECH from degenerating into KEYWORDS, we must make every effort to speak complete thought FORMS. In QUERY jargon, everything must be irreducible <literal>: guard all SPEECH "as if completely surrounded with quotations." Otherwise, start LOSING frequent WORDS. MUST+ACT+BEFORE+TOO+LATE

optimistic eschatologies

Just wanted to give voice to the stubborn remnant of "amil" that still remains in my heart:

I recently had the opportunity of hearing Richard Pratt at PCPC's Winter Grace. I found much of his eschatological optimism to be edifying and encouraging, and left even more convinced that Christians have every reason to be "triumphalistic" in their eschatology. amen! I do, however, get a bit concerned when the cross and "sufferings of Christ" seem more preterized than paradimatic in our conception of Jesus and the Victory of God. To say that Jesus came into the world "to make the world a beautiful place" is pie in the sky theology if it does not glory through the cross on its way to glory. Of course, I don't think victory ends at the cross (as it seems to in many evangelical dispensational churches), but there remains a true temptation for our optimistic-exaltation eschatologies to gloss the cross on its way to glory (let alone glory in the cross). We seem to walk with full force with Jesus to Jerusalem in his kingdom proclamation and miraculous healing signs of the Spirit, but "may it never be that you should die, Lord!" 70 AD didn't do away with the cross and its covenantal implications; it sealed them. Every Sunday we still rightly observe the Lord's table, and we say we "remember the Lord's death until He comes." Thus we drink from the same cup. We still bear in our bodies the dying of the Lord Jesus. The suffering of the church is still the "sufferings of Christ" and to those who persecute her, Christ still says, "Why do you persecute Me?" As long as victory is permitted to look like the righteous dying and crying out in heaven "How much longer, O Lord?", then I say onward Christian soldier!

[Closer to fully realizing I'm a "postmil" than when I first believed.]

Extroverts and Introverts (revisited)

I'm beginning to think that the categories of "Introvert" and "Extrovert" are really descriptive of two ways people prefer to be selfish.

Confession or Excuse?

I admit that I'm starting to realize that there exists a fine line between the opposing worlds of confession of sin and excuse for sin. What am I really doing when I confess my sins to others? All too often, I am finding that confession, while partaking of the truth, can function in a way that excuses are intended to function: to lift the guilt that comes with sin, and to avoid or delay further judgment for it. The difference is that confession is 1) more therapeutic, 2) gives the social impression that one is accepting responsibility for sin 3) shows sign of repentance that leads to a corrective course of action or a sincere request for help.

It feels good to confess. Socially, I can use confession to elicit comfort or encouragement from others (e.g. "You're being too hard on yourself, Eric." or "you're not wholly to blame."). Excuses, however, can often appear like blameshifting, or at least not wanting to accept any personal participation in why things are not right. Thus, excuses have the disadvantage of possibily incurring further investigation and judgment about your own actions, intentions, and responsibilities.

Confession has the power of making one seem honest about themselves. Further judging someone who has honestly confessed something, seems uncompassionate, if not hypocritical ("Who can cast the first stone?"). But confession of sin, can easily turn into gaining acceptance for the problem one has with sin. Thus, I can confess sin in a way that convinces others of my being a helpless victim of sin, confessing (as a good lutheran-calvinist could quote from Romans 7) that I have no power in myself to correct the problem. In this manner, I hope that others will not be so hard on me in the future, or so hurt by me, when I fail to live up to God's law for their good and His glory. Thus, the act of confession can function as an excuse for further sin, public and private. Because of this, I think plain excuses can be more honest than confession.

Why do you think I am confessing all this to you? O my soul, go learn what this means "I desire compassion, not sacrifice."

Extroverts and Introverts

Introverts are more likely to think before they act, but less likely to act. Vice-versa extroverts.

When did angels become female?

I've often wondered--especially around Christmas time--when angels first became female. One of the most common ornaments on Christmas trees is a woman angel perched on top. The woman who is most revered in modern love songs is affectionately called "an angel". We take that for granted in our society, even in church. But angels in the Bible, as far as I can tell, are primarily, if not exclusively masculine in identity, having great stature, brilliant in appearance, and always a cause of fear and trembling upon human encounter (unlike cute little baby cupids).

A few years ago, I visited the Carnegie-Mellon Natural Museum of Arts and history, and saw several ancient pulpits and other Christian architectures with angels engraved on them. These angels typically had long hair. I wonder if at some point when having long hair was primarily a female fashion, if these images got re-interpretted as feminine. Just a guess.

Do birds ever fall from the sky?

I saw one of the coolest things on my way down to Dallas last Thursday. Within a hundred feet or so from my car, hawk fell straight down from the sky onto the median on I35 near Gainsville, TX. If it was an attack manuever, I would have expected a swooping motion. This, however, was straight down, as if it had died in the air. To my surprise the hawk reemerged from the ground flying upward in my rear-view mirror. attack maneuver.

But the thought still lingered with me: Why is it that I've never seen a bird die mid-flight (naturally)? I suppose birds spend most of their time perched. And if they are sick or dying from natural causes, they might not feel well enough to fly.

Speaking "literally"

A friend studying linguistics recently recounted her frustration growing up trying to understand what "literally" literally means. As soon as she thought she understood its meaning she'd hear it used in a way that seemed opposite of its literal meaning (e.g. "I literally ran into her at the store.").

lit·er·al·ly
adv.

1. In a literal manner; word for word: translated the Greek passage literally.
2. In a literal or strict sense: Don't take my remarks literally.
3. Usage Problem.
   1. Really; actually: “There are people in the world who literally do not know how to boil water” (Craig Claiborne).
   2. Used as an intensive before a figurative expression.

Usage Note: For more than a hundred years, critics have remarked on the incoherency of using literally in a way that suggests the exact opposite of its primary sense of “in a manner that accords with the literal sense of the words.” In 1926, for example, H.W. Fowler cited the example “The 300,000 Unionists... will be literally thrown to the wolves.” The practice does not stem from a change in the meaning of literally itself--if it did, the word would long since have come to mean “virtually” or “figuratively”--but from a natural tendency to use the word as a general intensive, as in They had literally no help from the government on the project, where no contrast with the figurative sense of the words is intended.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

what's funner than more fun?

Is 'fun' a noun only or can it properly be used as an adjective?

Just for fun, I did a google search on "funner". I quickly found two sites that discuss this fun problem (reaching somewhat different conclusions).

Questions & Answers: Funner and funnest (from a Brittish perspective)

The Fuss About "Fun": "Fun" As An Adjective (American grad student in Comparative Studies)

Fun, fun!

Sight Under Construction

Now then, let's begin.
If you've come expecting answers here, why not be patient?
If you're still looking for a final draft, it's right there.