Against the overwhelming weight and seriousness of the Bible, much of the church is choosing, at this very moment, to become more light and shallow and entertainment-oriented, and therefore successful in its irrelevance to massive suffering and evil. The popular God of fun-church is simply too small and too affable to hold a hurricane in [...]
Archive for the ‘God of All Nations’ Category
The Popular God of Fun-Church
Posted in Christ and Culture, John Piper, contextualization, irrelevance, suffering on August 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
A Spurned Lover
Posted in East and West, Orhan Pamuk, Turkey on July 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Still, the melancholy of this dying culture was all around us. Great as the desire to westernize and modernize may have been, the more desperate wish was probably to be rid of all the bitter memories of the fallen empire, rather as a spurned lover throws away his lost beloved’s clothes, possessions, and photographs.
–Orhan Pamuk
Istanbul [...]
No One Was Quite Sure
Posted in East and West, Islam, Literature, Orhan Pamuk on July 7, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Although everyone knew it was freedom from the laws of Islam, no one was quite sure what else westernization was good for.
–Orhan Pamuk
Istanbul (2006, p.10)
read 6-26-08
A Peaceful Union
Posted in East and West, God of All Nations, Sir William Ramsay, contextualization on June 15, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Christianity is the religion which associates East and West in a higher range of thought than either can reach alone, and tends to substitute a peaceful union for the war into which the essential difference of Asiatic and European character too often leads the two continents.
–Sir William Ramsay
The Letters to the Seven Churches (1904, p. [...]
The Word Became Flesh
Posted in Incarnation, John Stott, contextualization, inspiration of Scripture on March 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Essentially the same principle is illustrated in both the inspiration of the Scripture and the incarnation of the Son. The Word became flesh. The divine was communicated through the human. He identified with us, though without surrendering His own identity. And this principle of “identification without loss of identity” is the model for all evangelism, [...]
God’s Condescension
Posted in Incarnation, John Stott, contextualization on March 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
What strikes us immediately is the greatness of God’s condescension. He had sublime truth to reveal about Himself and His Christ, His mercy and His justice, and His full salvation. And He chose to make this disclosure through the vocabulary and grammar of human language, through human beings, human images, and human cultures.
–John Stott
The Bible [...]
Guard and Interpret
Posted in John Stott, contextualization on March 17, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Since [the gospel] comes from God we must guard it; since it is intended for modern men and women we must interpret it.
–John Stott
The Bible in World Evangelization
(Perspectives Reader p. 23)
No Man Could Number
Posted in God of All Nations, John Stott, Revelation, redemption on March 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I have always derived much comfort from the statement of Revelation 7:9 that the company of the redeemed in heaven will be “a great multitude which no man could number.” I do not profess to know how this can be, since Christians have always seemed to be a rather small minority. But Scripture states it [...]
To Bless All the Families of the Earth
Posted in God of All Nations, John Stott, election, to bless all families on January 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“…we should never allow ourselves to forget that the Bible begins with the universe, not with the planet earth; then with the earth, not with Palestine; then with Adam the father of the human race, not with Abraham the father of the chosen race.
Since, then, God is the Creator of the universe, the earth and [...]
The Boundaries of their Dwelling Place
Posted in God of All Nations, Paul, Scripture, sovereignty on January 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far [...]
