1 John 2:12-17 (Maturing in Christ; the world)

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Jay F Guin

FearA poem about maturing in Christ

(1Jo 2:12-14 ESV) 12 I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake. 13 I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.

The ESV and some other versions take these three verses to be poetry, because of the parallel structure. I’m sure that’s right, and like all good poetry, the full meaning doesn’t reveal itself on the first reading. Here’s my take:

John writes to the “little children” — new converts — and assures them that have already received forgiveness of sins, not because they merit it but for the sake of Jesus. Even though they aren’t as strong as Christians with more experience, they nonetheless should be confident in their forgiveness. Continue reading →

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1 John 2:9-11

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Jay F Guin

Fear

(1Jo 2:9-11 ESV)  9 Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.  10 Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling.  11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

Notice how dualistically John expresses himself. You either hate or love; there are no other possibilities. You are either in light or in darkness. There is no gray. You either have no cause for stumbling or else you don’t know where you are going and have been blinded. Continue reading →

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Real Worship: Part 6: The Story and Temples of the Spirit

Posted on April 4, 2011 by Jay F Guin

The assembly in light of the Story

We start in the Garden. The question is: How did Adam worship? Was there a bunch of rules and do’s and don’t’s? No, I think his worship is found in —

(Gen 3:8a ESV) And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day …

Which parallels—

(Lev 26:12 ESV) And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people.

Which parallels —

(Rev 21:3 ESV) And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.” Continue reading →

Posted in Real Worship, Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Thought Question: Why Millennials Are Leaving the Church

Posted on April 3, 2011 by Jay F Guin

Millennials Conference LogoAccording to Richard Beck, a professor of psychology at Abilene Christian University,

So what happened? Why didn’t Gen X leave the church while the Millennials [also known as Generation Y] are leaving in droves?

The difference between Generations X and Y isn’t in their views of the church. It’s about those cellphones. It’s about relationships and connectivity. Most Gen X’ers didn’t have cell phones, text messaging or Facebook. These things were creeping in during their college years but the explosive onset of mobile devices and social computing had yet to truly take off. Continue reading →

Posted in Thought Questions, Uncategorized | 59 Comments

IntenseDebate: New Features

Posted on April 2, 2011 by Jay F Guin

Go to IntenseDebateI’ve just added the following new features —

* Ability to insert emoticons in the comments. There’s a button immediately above the box. :mrgreen: This has been frequently requested and will surely help avoid hurt feelings over comments that were intended to be facetious. 😈

* Spellchecker button to check your spelling before posting your comment … not that anyone might actually need such a thing. 🙄

* Ability to embed YouTube videos in comments. Again, there’s a button immediately above the box. 😆

This is not new but I just discovered —

* At the top of the list of comments, you can click on Last Activity to reverse the order in which comments appear, that is, the most recent comment will be on top!

For a list of a dozen or so comments, it seems most natural to have the oldest comment at the top and the newest at the bottom. This way you can read from top to bottom in time order. But if there are 100+ comments, but you might prefer to move the newest to the top  to avoid scrolling down, down, down.

To return to the usual oldest-on-top order, click Date.

Enjoy!

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IntenseDebate: Instructions/Questions

Posted on April 2, 2011 by Jay F Guin

Go to IntenseDebateI’m still sorting through some installation issues, and need the readers’ help to work out the kinks. When I decided to start blogging, I wasn’t really planning on becoming a programmer as well!

Subscriptions

I’ve had complaints about readers being unable to subscribe via email. There are now lots of ways to subscribe — including the ability to subscribe to all comments on all posts without having to subscribe post by post!

At the bottom of each post, in the Comment section, there’s a box in which you post your comments. (It should get bigger as you type more!)

Just above the box, to the right, is the RSS icon. It’s much more than an RSS feed. You can also subscribe via email, by Facebook, etc. using this icon. Continue reading →

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Real Restoration: Abraham’s Covenant with God, Part 2

Posted on April 2, 2011 by Jay F Guin

Desktop potter's wheelLet’s look more closely at the several covenants God made with Abraham —

Many descendants

(Gen 15:5 ESV) 5 And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

Faith counted as righteousness

(Gen 15:6 ESV) 6 And he believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness. Continue reading →

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Real Worship: The First Church of Moses

Posted on April 1, 2011 by Jay F Guin

The Greek word for “church” or “congregation” has fascinating roots in the Old Testament — roots that are rarely taught in my tribe. Consider —

(Deu 4:9-10 ESV)  9 “Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children —  10 how on the day that you stood before the LORD your God at Horeb, the LORD said to me, ‘Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to fear me all the days that they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children so.'”

(The Septuagint says “the day of the assembly” where the Hebrew has “gather.”) Continue reading →

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Real Worship: Part 5: “In Spirit and truth”

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Jay F Guin

Mount Gerizim

Only now are we ready to understand John 4 —

(John 4:19-20 ESV) 19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

According to Josephus, under the Maccabees, when the Jews threw off the rule of the Seleucids and gained independence for the first time since Nebuchadnezzar, the Jews invaded Samaria and destroyed the Samaritan temple at Gerizim. This is surely one reason the Samaritans hated the Jews.

Therefore, it’s not surprising that the woman asks Jesus whether God should be worshiped only at Jerusalem. After all, the Jews destroyed the temple complex at Gerizim to enforce the rule that God may only be worshiped in Jerusalem. Continue reading →

Posted in Real Worship, Uncategorized | 37 Comments

Thought Question: Community for Progressive Ministers and Churches

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Jay F Guin

I get emails —

I am a graduate of a CENI school, and I have moved far, far away from the “conservative” CoC movement, and have been “marked and avoided” by many whom I thought were friends. Since then the church where I preach has come a long way, as the brethren here trust me and know me, and were/are willing to sit and talk about these issues.

How do I (we) get to know other churches who are, well, “progressive”? How do I get to know other ministers who are “progressive,” etc?

And, if my family and I are asked to leave because of our “liberal” views (which is a bit of a concern), how would we find a place that would hold the same views we do? (My only contacts for many years have been in the CENI camp, and I just couldn’t go to another place like that).

Continue reading →

Posted in Thought Questions, Uncategorized | 47 Comments