Happy Star Wars Day! (“May the fourth be with you…”)
As I’ve mentioned before, great talent alongside terrible character is a dangerous mix. Evil comes in many forms, often as greed hidden under the cloak of laziness. It looks like a lack of ambition, but is the symptom of something much worse.
Here’s a fun look at what a greedy person may do with Jedi powers:
Description:
“Master Dave just doesn’t feel motivated today. With great power eventually comes great laziness.”
I’ve moved back this site over to deTheos.us.
Head on over and join me.
(RSS and email subscribers have already made the switch.
This is worth every nanosecond of the four minutes you must suspend to watch it.
Yosemite HD, by the Project Yosemite:
Soundtrack by M83.
Today begins the Round of 64, the real beginning of the NCAA men’s basketball Tournament. Productivity will be on the decline in offices all across the land.
Need some help with your backet? Try this:
The first Christians did not get in trouble for saying “Jesus is God.” The Romans believed in a myriad of so-called “gods,” so saying Jesus is another one of those is just to add Him to the pantheon of supposed gods they could worship. That wasn’t the offense of their message.
Instead, the message was “Jesus is Lord,” which is much deeper and far-reaching in the claims about the God-Man (and is “sneeze-able“).
Those three tiny words were actually hugely offensive. Why?
Who was the so-called “Lord” of the Roman Empire?
Caesar.
He was the “God of the gods,” who ruled over all, on earth and in the heavens. Or so they thought. Pagans saw gods in everything, and everything was a god. So, calling Jesus “God” isn’t as forceful as what believers more commonly called Him: Lord.
When we say Jesus is Lord, we must become like the first believers, who were not using religious jargon. They were saying that Jesus replaced Caesar, and anyone else, as the one receiving their worship. These thoughtful Jesus-followers were making a whole-life claim as to who they will obey and follow in this life. They were saying He is above all, the one true ruler, the God who calls the shots. He is in control of all; He is the Caesar of the Caesar.
More than saying “Jesus is Lord,” they were living as if Jesus is Lord, which maks all the difference in the world.
Jesus was not an add-on. They realized that before Jesus they were busy serving other kings and masters, who abused them and let them down. In contrast, Jesus is a good Master, who will not let us down.
He wants our whole life. When He is Lord, life becomes good. Because He is the one Good God.
Mark 12:13-17 (NLT):
13 Later the leaders sent some Pharisees and supporters of Herod to trap Jesus into saying something for which he could be arrested. 14 “Teacher,” they said, “we know how honest you are. You are impartial and don’t play favorites. You teach the way of God truthfully. Now tell us—is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? 15 Should we pay them, or shouldn’t we?”
Jesus saw through their hypocrisy and said, “Why are you trying to trap me? Show me a Roman coin,[a denarius] and I’ll tell you.” 16 When they handed it to him, he asked, “Whose picture and title are stamped on it?”
“Caesar’s,” they replied.
17 “Well, then,” Jesus said, “give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.”
His reply completely amazed them.
Image credits: “Caesar’s or God’s” by Lawrence OP, and “The Biblical Tribute Penny: Tiberius AR Denarius 16-34 AD” by Icarus Kuwait, both on Flickr
Happy Pi day to everyone.
My Momma makes the best apple pie, where does the famous “3.141592” come from?
What is the relationship between evangelism and social justice?
Should Christians talk more about the good works of Jesus, or demonstrate their own good works? I’m convinced it is BOTH/AND, not just either/or, for Jesus came proclaiming the Good News (Gospel) He embodied in His whole life (see Luke 4:14-21).
Skye Jethani (editor at Christianity Today and Leadership Journal) points us to John Stott to help us navigate the ongoing evangelism/social justice divide:
“Atonement-only advocates demand that advocates of social justice justify their efforts. And justice advocates demand atonement-only advocates justify their emphasis on gospel proclamation. But, using Stott’s logic, if evangelism or social activism is flowing from a heart of love and compassion, than neither must be justified. Love is its own justification. As you engage this issue in your own community, do not get snared by the false dichotomy that declares either evangelism or social justice must be superior. Instead, let’s affirm whatever work God has called us to, whether that be proclaiming reconciliation or demonstrating it, as long as his love is found to be fueling it.”
I will add that evangelism that cares only for the eternal safety of another’s soul but not for that person’s flourishing in this life is not truly motivated by the love of Jesus. Let’s talk and walk at the same time.
[HT: Tim Høiland]
Some of my earliest memories are the fun we had playing with slinkies on the wooden stairs at grandma’s house.
Do you feel like you’re kinda like this slinky?:
That slinky is taking it easy. Let’s call it a Friday Slinky.
Now these slinkies are more like what we’ve been doing all week:
How will you rest and renew this weekend? (And not just “relax,” which is essentially just not working.) How will you rest — pause, reflect, replenish — and renew — transform your mind, become energized, get ready for whatever comes next?
Christians are called to be “salt and light” in our culture, which is to say we must create culture, not just critique it. We have special resources to renew, restore, and create godly culture embodying the life of Jesus. He told us not just to believe the things He said; He taught us to also do whatever we saw Him doing. Since He is the one Creator, we get to borrow His creativity as co-creators.
Many today are “culture warriors,” which is to say they want to go to war against any and all anti-Christian sentiments. They battle against evil worldviews with the force of their far superior “Christian worldview.” I think a biblical worldview is important (and am convinced you cannot attain one without meditating on the Scriptures constantly), but what I find lacking among these “culture warriors” is an awareness of the true enemy. Paul said we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but rather an hidden, wicked enemy, that (Ephesians 2:1-3).
Are other people the real enemy, whatever their category or label? Are these our enemies: liberals (or conservatives), those for (or against) gun control, politicians, public schools, taxes? Our enemies become our prime targets in an election year like 2012. (Maybe you’ve seen the expensive propaganda mailers in your mailbox already.)
Let me ask you: is this really making things better? Can someone be salt and light, known for the message of Jesus, if they’re whole platform in life is what they are AGAINST?
How about we fight the real enemies that war against our souls: pride and greed.
How about we rail against those?
Pride and greed are daily on display in our foolishness, where we resist following God’s ways and choose to run our own lives. When we try to be the hero of our tiny stories, and be sure to “get ours,” we become everything we ardently criticize. Yet we remain blind to our real problem, thinking it is “out there.”
14 Do everything without grumbling or arguing, 15 so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky 16 as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain. 17 But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. 18 So you too should be glad and rejoice with me. —Philippians 2:14-18
When we resist the urge to grumble and complain, we give ourselves opportunities to cultivate a culture of grace and peace, right where we live. As we follow Christ (who never complained or played the ‘victim’ card), we become like Him, borrowing powerful light from the Light of the World. As His light shines, we become co-creators of new, attractive opportunities for righteousness, peace, justice, mercy, and grace to live.
One day the whole world will be just as He designed it to be. Until them, we’re invited to live like we are as He designed us to be — loving God and loving people. We’ll be imitating Jesus who created the world, and then stepped into our fallen mess to re-create it again in His image.
Go create something good.
In the meantime, if you have a hard time knowing what to create in the darkness, trying some of these:
Top photo credit: “Go on creating” by fotologic
Continuing from yesterday and the day before …
The prevailing ways and means curricula in which we are all immersed in North America are designed to help us get ahead in whatever field of work we find ourselves: sales and marketing, politics, business, church, school an university, construction, manufacturing, faming, laboratory, hospital, home, playground, sports. The courses first instruct us in skills and principles that we are told are foundational and then motivate us to use these skills so that we can get what we want out of this shrunken, dessicated “world, flesh, and devil” field. And of course it works wonderfully as long as we are working in that particular field, the field in which getting things done is the “end.”
When it comes to persons, these ways of the world are terribly destructive. They are highly effective in getting ahead in a God-indifferent world, but not in the community of Jesus, not in the kingdom of God. When we uncritically accept these curricula as our primary orientation in how to get on in the world, we naively embrace the very temptations of the devil that Jesus so definitively vetoed and rebuked.
Warnings are frequently and prominently posted by our sages and prophets to let us know that these purely pragmatic ways and means of the world weaken and enervate the community of the baptized. The whole North American ways and means culture, from assumptions to tactics, is counter to the rich and textured narrative laid out for us in our Scriptures regarding walking in the way of righteousness, running in the way of the commandments, following Jesus. In matters of ways and means, the world gives scant attention to what it means to live, to really live, to live eternal life in ordinary time: God is not worshiped, Jesus is not followed, the Spirit is not given a voice. …
Jacques Maritain, one of our more prescient and incisive prophetic voices from the twentieth century, continues to call on all of us who have taken up membership in the Christian community to be vigilant and active in what he called “the Purification of Means.” He saw this as urgent work, about which we should not procrastinate if we are to follow Jesus in the freedom where he leads us, and we are not to end up as slaves of a de-souled culture.
—Eugene Peterson, The Jesus Way: a conversation on the ways that Jesus is the way, 2-4.
deTheos 