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...dispatches from the post-evangelical wilderness

Refelctions on Being the Parent of Adult ChildrenToday

When you are a 52 year old dad, and you have a 20 year old, college student son, it’s not all that unusual if you don’t have many one-on-one, personal conversations. But my son and I had a good one today, and it left me with an abundance of things to reflect on.

1. I’m incredibly grateful for my children. I love them both. Without a moment’s hesitation, I’m more proud of being their dad than of any other calling in my life.

2. When you have small children, you can simply never realize what it is going to be like to one day face them, as adults, with the realization that YOU have shaped them into the persons they will be for all of their lives. If we realized what it really means to create, nurture and shape another person in the deepest of human ways, we’d be frozen with fear. So much of what they are comes from us in ways that were unintended, or unknown or unplanned. Your children are truly a legacy of the kind of person you really are, and of how you’ve lived, how you’ve loved and what you’ve considered most important.

3. Thankfully, our kids are more than what we make them to be. God and many other influences shape the as well. When you look into the face of your

The Question is God; the Answer is JesusYesterday

“Anything that one imagines of God apart from Christ is only useless thinking and vain idolatry.”- Martin Luther

It’s been a very interesting day. I can’t tell you much about it, but I can tell you something.

When a discussion starts about God, the Christian is not faced with the same choices as other people.

Most people can go wherever they want in the discussion. They can talk about “God as I understand him” or “my higher power” or “my church says that God….” and so on. Really, the choices are practically infinite.

The Christian, on the other hand, must immediately think about Jesus. Jesus from the pages of scripture. Jesus the light, the revealer, the image of the invisible. Jesus in his own words, in the Gospels and in the totality of scripture.

Jesus reveals God, and from there, the discussion can go on.

You can explore the Bible, or you can place Jesus into a moral issue or various cultural settings. You can apply what you know of Jesus to what you don’t know of God. You can pray, sing, preach. There are plenty of roads open NOW. But only after we come to Jesus.

It truly breaks my heart to hear, see or read anyone who i

Open Mic At The iMonk Cafe: A Question About ApologistsYesterday

Tonight’s “Open Mic” question is a simple one. If you don’t get it, I’m not going to help you.

Catholics, I thought about this just being about your team, but that wouldn’t be fair.

OK. Here it is. Tonight’s iMonk Cafe Open Mic Question:

“Why are apologists….you know…..why are they the way they are?”

Some help is available here.

“It Was There, So I Ate It”January 5

Philippians 3:17 Dear brothers and sisters, pattern your lives after mine, and learn from those who follow our example. 18 For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite (belly), they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth. 20 But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior. 21 He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own, using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control.

Let me describe the essence of Christmas holidays in our house:

“It was there, so I ate it.” (Or in the case of egg nog, “It was there, so I drank it….and bought more….and drank it.”)

Anyone else feelin’ me on this one?

You’re standing in the kitchen eating a cookie. You aren’t hungry. You don’t need it. You really don’t even wan

Salvation: Is It So What? or Whatever?January 4

Comments are closed on this post.

Galatians 3:10 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” 12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

I’ve taught an adult Bible study here on our campus for the last 15 years. Right now we’re in the middle of Galatians, chapter 3.

I can’t read this paragraph without thinking about the “seeker sensitive” decision to attempt to create interest in Jesus through various kinds of felt needs.

There’s no doubt that the application of the cross and the Lordship of Christ can take u