Nuts about Theology!

Skrat’s got his theology down, alright. I’m going to put something of my last lifeblog entry in here to set the stage:

It’s really a hard thing to get yourself into the place where sitting and waiting on the Lord is a natural state. I’ve been trying, and believe me, it’s hard. But, If I can get to this kind of singleminded devotion, I’ll be set for sure:

The one thing is the most important, folks. To sit at the feet of the Lord, rapt with attention, is what we need to do as much of as we can. It’s getting past the distractions of the world, the flesh and the devil to do so that causes the trouble.

I wanted to remind those who may not peruse both blogs that Skrat’s become kind of a running theme of late. You see, Skrat’s the model Christian for us all. Think about it, because I do!

Throughout both Ice Age movies, Skrat’s always after the one acorn that will feed him. He never loses weight, and never gets the acorn, but the comic predicaments that he gets himself in continually provide him with the incentive to keep on going. This capture is from the very end of the second film, in which Skrat is ushered through the golden gates to a field of clouds strewn with acorns. He gathers and gathers (treasures stored up in heaven!) until his jaw drops in ecstasy and amazement, for there before him sits the biggest and brightest acorn of the bunch. As he’s about to jump on it in delight, he’s sucked back out of the gates and back to the world through which he’s been striving mightily to get the one solitary, tiny acorn he can achieve, ruined mightily for life here on earth. The parallels, I hope, are obvious, and I can give Biblical support if you really want it. I can also give experiential support. But it’s funny, because tonight’s Bible study took on the theme of losing your life to save it, and looked at Christ ‘who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.’ (Hebrews 12:2b). I can’t help but think of Skrat through this filter, especially when it comes to some of the trials he faces throughout the films. Anyway, a bit of a break from the usual heavy-handed theological questionings (eh, Jen!)

Now I’m going to get back on to them.

Also throughout the process of the study tonight, I noted one area for further study that I’m going to spend my devotional time on throughout this week. The verses are Hebrews 12:5-17, and I’m going to spend much of the next post talking about my reflections on these verses (so don’t forget to remind me about it in comments), but to give you a preview:

Hebrews 12:12-15 reads “Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather healed. Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no ‘root of bitterness’ springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled”. These verses really spoke to me tonight about the issues I have recently begun dealing with in my own journey – the Father heart of God and the mystery of the sonship of we the Gentiles, the reclamation of what it means to be a man of God (picked up Wild at Heart the other day, by the way), and the recent wheel-spinning I’ve got up to. It seems that the Lord decided to speak through these tonight, so I figure I’d better listen. They are going to provide some interesting food for thought, as are the verses I’ll be reviewing from the Bible study come midweek. Anyway, that’s the game plan for the next little while. I’ll let you know how it goes in a week.

Chris

The Doctrine of the Triune Role of Christ

Hello folks;

I’m hoping to be at this on a really weekly basis from now on. It was a resolution I made some days ago, simply because it provides focus. Tonight, I want to write a bit about Christ as prophet, priest and king. I was listening to a Driscoll sermon some days ago and it simply astounded me. It was one of the best sermons I’ve heard, because it shed some light on follies which I’ve been guilty of for many years. The essential focus of the message was the three-in-one nature of Christ’s work on earth…to be prophet declaiming and convicting, priest encouraging and interceding, and king ruling and holding to account. If we do not know the Saviour in all of these incarnations, we do not know the Saviour truly. I’ve been guilty of losing sight of Christ as both priest and as king at different times throughout my life, and this gave me some knowledge of the consequences of that folly. To lose sight of the king – a thing we wretched of the West have long since forgotten – means that one loses sight of authority and accountability, a man to defer to and to honour as royalty. We have no understanding of what it means to be a king, despite the fact that we in Canada still maintain ties to the monarchy in Britain. We know of the king or the queen as distant figures, busy with affairs of state in other places and with other priorities. Thus, we have a clouded picture of the sovereignty of the Lord, understanding Him as only a distant figure who rules elsewhere, who works elsewhere. We do not have an immediate and present God because we do not concern ourselves with that form of leadership as much as we should. Perhaps I should read more of my Shakespearean history plays, or read them again.
To lose sight of Christ the priest means that we lose sight of God’s awareness of the bitter cries of His people; we lose sight of one who can truly make atonement and intercession for us, but most importantly, we and our land carry the scars of the church’s presence here. We carry without knowing it the burden of the schools where young men and women were abused by those who claim the ear of God. We carry the burden of the slow decline in power, influence and value that the church once held, and the rise of the right to ‘free speech’ and of self-aggrandizement. We see the damages caused by people’s self-righteousness; rather, the damages caused by the colonisers, the missionaries who came in the name of Christ to impose, rather than to live lives worthy of the calling and grace of the Lord. Now, this is not a blanket truth, but it does shed some light, for me, on what it is that hinders the following of Christ as the only option and the person of Christ as the true Incarnation in this particular corner of the West. The wounds of the denominational school system run deep here, certainly, as do the wounds of the Reformation. The conflict between Protestants and Catholics, for example, is as old as the formation of Newfoundland as a complete piece of land, of country, and now as a province.
I need to go back to looking at Christ as a prophet now, too. There are many reasons that Christ can be and is misunderstood as a prophet. For one, it’s because we no longer either believe in or understand prophecy as it operates now. We also cannot conceive of the embodiment and fulfillment of prophecy in Christ, which is not something I’ve forgotten about since my last post. I still meditate on it. We take the Word for granted when we should not. Scant attention is given to the details that the Bible reveals to us about our own lives, and the journey that the Word itself has taken to come to us now. Let me make mention of Christ as a prophet for today. Driscoll’s theology is such that he defines prophecy as distinct from the office of prophet; the Old Testament prophets, to him, are holders of that office – writers and transmitters of the Word of the Lord in its prophetic aspect. The gift and the purpose of prophecy, to him, are distinctly different from the office. Prophecy for him is both the utterance and teaching of the Word as well as personal revelation of areas in which the body of Christ is weak, such as unconfessed sin and hypocrisy, as well as direction and guidance for those parts which are healthy. This theology leads to the understanding of Christ’s role as prophet for today as one in which personal sin and weakness are revealed to the Christian and the call to repentance is issued. Because we are such an isolated and self-centered society, we can’t understand conviction of sin or guilt, atonement and the call to repentance, or the prophetic voice of revelatory information. We treat it as hostile and frightening, and rightly so, but with nothing to assure us of its character as encouraging and empowering as well. We have an unconscious fear of the Lord and his wisdom, but no understanding of His connection to our innermost parts as encourager and empowerer to act out and live upon that wisdom. We’re at the beginning, folks…the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and we can’t understand what that means any more. Thus, Jesus can be clouded in one’s life. And that’s my two cents worth for tonight.

Recovering The Heroes

Men need more heroes in their lives. I’ve been looking at some friends’ posts, most notably Daniel’s blog and have also been thinking about biblical manhood of late. Combined with meditation on my relationship with Christ, this makes for some very interesting thought. See, all men don’t necessarily have a clear concept of what kind of Saviour they worship when they claim Christianity. If you read the Gospels, much of their information is devoted to Jesus the suffering servant, or Jesus the compassionate shepherd, or Jesus the spiritual man, who never succumbed to temptation. Looking at oneself as reflecting Jesus in these aspects can lead to a self-emasculation of sorts, because, speaking for myself, I equate the suffering servant with a lack of confrontation ability in myself – be silent and serve for the glory of the Lord, that you might receive your reward in the end. I understand the man who was tempted in everything, but did not sin as something that I can’t even hope to be, because I know I’m weak in areas that are particularly sensitive to temptation. But these are only part of the picture. Leading a Bible study tonight on Christ as the embodiment of prophecy has, however, given me some interesting insights into the nature of the incarnate Jesus. Given that the entire Word is about Jesus, as Mark Driscoll holds and as I see more clearly now, looking through some of the promises and prophecies about Jesus in the Old Testament and looking afresh at what Paul’s letters say about Him allows a better understanding of what it means to be like Jesus the man who conquered death, the man who will lead, who will take responsibility for the war in heaven and claim final victory, not that which we see only in part now. Take, for example, Hebrews 1:2-4: “but in these last days he [God] has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom he also created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.” (ESV) This is the same Jesus who, as Isaiah claims in chapter 42, “will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law.” This is also the Jesus of Revelation 19, whose “eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that non one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron.”

To get back to the original post idea, men suffer a dearth of heroes in these days, because we are kept from knowing the full character of the Saviour by not only the world, but even in some cases the churches. Can anyone remember the last time, for example, a sermon was preached on Matthew 10:34-39: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Do we remember the Jesus who overturned the temple in anger because of its transformation to a den of robbers? Men are reservoirs of deep emotion – we’re reminded about our hearts in Proverbs 20:5 – “The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.” Are we presented with this in the contemporary pictures of men that deluge us daily? No! Still, we mustn’t forget that the hero is in some ways making a comeback. I’ve talked in my lifeblog about Babylon 5, but its resonance appears here as well – There are men who have real struggles in their lives throughout this series, and they are heroes because of their determination, their purpose, and their inner strength. Look at G’kar or Garibaldi. Even Byron, the pacifist telepath, makes a journey that ends in sacrifice and could be seen as a hero. And we are given new heroes in the ordinary. I haven’t seen ‘World Trade Center’, but I’m aware of the reality of heroism that prevails in this movie. Likewise, we see the emergence of the hero again in “24″ and in “Hostage”, a relatively recent Bruce Willis movie. I will be meditating more on these things over the next little while, and you may see some of that here. Until then;

Chris

Updates forthcoming

I hope to be at this a little more frequently with the onset of the new year. It seems a shame to have left this hanging since it was the reason I started blogging. I have quite a few things to share, but it would take a significant amount of time to get into them, time which I’m going to spend in the future, as well as more regularly.