Raising Yeshua-Followers in the West Bank

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/women/2011/06/parenting_lessons_from_the_wes.html

Ariella, a Messianic Jew, raises four children amid violence in the Holy Land.

by Michelle Van Loon

June 15, 2011

“It’s ironic, but I feel that my kids are safer here than living in the U.S.,” said Ariella B. I met Ariella nearly two decades ago when we were attending the same Chicago-area congregation. Recently I had a chance to visit her on a recent trip to Israel. She is now a vivacious 40-something wife and mother of four elementary-aged children living in the West Bank.

“Safe” is probably not the word that comes to mind when most of us think about raising a family in a Jewish settlement on the far side of the Green Line. But Ariella insists that her family’s rhythms would be familiar to most American parents: school activities, piano lessons, chores and outings shape their day-to-day life.

“We don’t have too many fears of child abduction or mugging. There are the usual safety measures - areas you know to stay away from, and where pickpockets are in the Old City. But normally, kids stay out late here with no problem. Everyone here is required to serve in the army, so everyone knows how to take care.”

Ariella, who emigrated to Israel from the U.S. nearly 15 years ago, is a Messianic Jew. “Our town of about 40,000 is a short distance from Jerusalem. Most living here hold to some form of religious Zionism, otherwise they would not feel comfortable living here.

“When I was 13 and had my Bat Mitzvah - my coming of age ceremony - the Torah portion for that week was Ezekiel 36:24-39. This set of verses turned out to have incredible impact for me in my 20s as I came to faith in Yeshua (Jesus), and again a few years later when I became part of the community of returning exiles.” She married another Jewish believer she met after moving to Israel.

Though the number of believing Israelis is growing (current estimates place the Israeli Messianic population at around 10,000 out of a population of more than 7 million), Ariella and her family have long been accustomed to living as a sometimes-persecuted minority in the country. They attend a small Hebrew-language Messianic congregation, but have friends in many other congregations as well. This network of relationships provides support as they live their lives among those who don’t share their faith in the Messiah.

“We have a lot in common in terms of morals and lifestyle with our neighbors,” Ariella noted. “My husband and I believe God brought our family to this community. The move here was attractive as well because rents are sky-high in Jerusalem. We can afford to live here.”

There is a cost to that affordability: bars on every window of their one-story home, an armed security guard at the entrance to her community, and the gauntlet of checkpoints, concrete barriers, armed soldiers, and United Nations monitors, all ever-present reminders of the tensions that exist in her region of the world.

Two incidents of terrorism this spring struck especially close to home for Ariella’s family: the massacre of a five members of the Fogel family in Itamar, another West Bank community, and a bombing that killed a Christian Bible translator at a Jerusalem bus stop. The Fogel murders shook the entire country to the core. The funeral was broadcast live on Israeli television. Days later, the bus bombing triggered fears that a third intifada had begun.

Talking with her children about the danger in their world is a necessity, but Ariella’s approach is shaped by her faith as much as it is by the hard facts of life on the other side of the Green Line. “All Israeli kids are briefed not to touch or be around objects left alone without an owner, for instance. They know that terrorists don’t want us here. My family prays regularly for those who want to harm us. We pray for their salvation, that God will have mercy on them and stop them from doing evil.”

Ariella noted that prayer doesn’t automatically banish fear in her household, but she and her husband process scary issues as they arise in order to prepare their children to embrace their role in their culture. “They understand that here and being a believer means they won’t have an easy life. But I also want them to know that only God’s promises are our foundation for safety.”

Ariella believes she's responsible for modeling openness and fear-free engagement with both their Jewish neighbors and the Arab community. “God has given my husband and me opportunities in our daily lives to share God’s love with Arabs. I like it when the children are with me for these ‘divine encounters’ so they can witness them. Last week, I met a lady from Gaza who was in a hospital waiting room with me. In the course of our conversation, I shared my faith with her. She knew I was Jewish, but I explained my faith in Yeshua (Jesus) to her, and she let my 7-year-old daughter and me pray for her healing. My little girl has been praying for her since that encounter.”

Ariella and her husband are quick to counter any hatred the children may pick up from the polarized culture in which they live. “We don’t want the prejudices of others to be the foundation for our family’s responses,” she said. “The children know God’s heart to redeem, and that brings perspective.”

And according to Ariella, that healthy, hopeful perspective is a gift parents can give to their children, no matter what their zip code is.

Why Men Should Read Jane Austen

Occassionally I like to break out of Christian topics and simply look at culturally relevant material like this CT article below. However you may identify with it I think it behooves us to better listen and learn from one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.

skinhead

* * * * * * * * * *

And, how we all should read works like ‘Pride and Prejudice.’
http://blog.christianitytoday.com/women/2011/06/why_men_should_read_jane_auste.html

 

by Gina Dalfonzo

June 20, 2011

 

Nobel-winning novelist V. S. Naipaul recently started a firestorm with his remarks about female writers in general and Jane Austen in particular. According to the Guardian:

In an interview at the Royal Geographic Society on Tuesday about his career, Naipaul, who has been described as the "greatest living writer of English prose", was asked if he considered any woman writer his literary match. He replied: "I don't think so." Of Austen he said he "couldn't possibly share her sentimental ambitions, her sentimental sense of the world". 

He felt that women writers were "quite different". He said: "I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not. I think [it is] unequal to me." 

The author, who was born in Trinidad, said this was because of women's "sentimentality, the narrow view of the world". "And inevitably for a woman, she is not a complete master of a house, so that comes over in her writing too," he said.

Naipaul’s words caused controversy for obvious reasons: They were self-serving, condescending, and, as any of Austen’s millions of devoted readers could attest, wholly untrue. Not only was Austen’s talent equal to that of virtually any other great writer, but she was about as “sentimental” as a surgeon’s scalpel.

As my friend Lori Smith writes in her book A Walk with Jane Austen, “Biographers sometimes wrestle with Austen’s complex character—the good Christian girl with the biting wit, with the ability to see and desire to expose the laughable and ludicrous. . . . She had a capacity for devotion as well as an ability to wryly, if at times harshly, engage the world around her.”

But Naipaul’s words will blow over before long, as publicity stunts tend to do. What should be troubling us is that his attitude seems to be deeply embedded in our culture. I’ve known quite a few men—educated, well-read men—who either dismiss Austen as “chick lit” or simply never bother to give her a thought. (I’ve even heard one man say that [Austen] didn’t know what she was talking about because she never married.) There are men who still read and enjoy her, but their number seems to be diminishing.

One reason for this, I’m afraid, is the way that many of us women read (and watch) Austen these days—drooling over the romances while passing over the satire and ignoring the fact that, as Lori puts it, “the triumph of [Austen's] books . . . is not only that the relationships come together but the kind of people who are allowed to come together—two people with characters that have been hammered out a bit, with faults that have been recognized and corrected.” In other words, the books are not just about love triumphant, but about the formation of good character and good values.

We Austen readers miss so much when we ignore the religious and moral bedrock of these novels. Sometimes we “use” the books rather than truly reading them (as C. S. Lewis expressed it in his insightful work An Experiment in Criticism), getting only romantic gratification out of them instead of thoughtfully taking in all that they have to offer. I’m not saying we shouldn’t enjoy the romance, but when we enjoy only that, we create an impression that that’s all these books are good for—and that’s an impression that’s hardly appealing to the average male reader.

Another reason is that we as a society seem so determined to segregate children by gender as soon as they begin to read. It’s not that we do it out of bad motives; it’s more a matter of wanting to make sure that both girls and boys will love to read. The way to do that, most of us believe, is to offer books that appeal to them on the basis of gender—just as pop culture offers them movies and shows and games on that same basis. Have boys read only boyish books, the theory goes, and they’ll want to read more and more. Except that it doesn’t seem to be working out that way.

When we at BreakPoint started covering books for teens and tweens, we heard from several parents begging for some good reading options for their sons. Yet the libraries and bookstores are full of books about boys and their pursuits. Why, then, do parents have such a hard time finding material?

Maybe the answer lies in what we’ve taught them to enjoy. Everyone has different tastes, of course, but I wonder if we adults have had more input into children’s tastes than we realize. In fact, I wonder if our gender-based ideas have created something of a vicious circle: The more we promote books that we think boys will like—always exciting, not too difficult, with as many boys and as few girls as possible—the more we help to narrow their minds and ensure that they’ll never try anything else. And in the process, we’re exhausting the amount of literary resources available to them.

This problem doesn’t just involve gender, of course; it’s also about what Lewis called “chronological snobbery,” which is far more rampant in our time than in his. It leads too many parents to dismiss shelves full of classics that appealed to children in earlier generations, in endless pursuit of the modern and relevant. We send them the message that classic literature is too hard, too boring, too far removed from their lives—is it any wonder they believe it? And this doesn’t apply just to Jane Austen, or even just to female authors. Try running a blog about Charles Dickens, and finding yourself constantly explaining to people that (1) yes, Dickens is worth reading, (2) no, he was not “paid by the word,” and (3) no, they do not deserve to be pitied for the rest of their lives because a teacher “forced” them to read him.

I realize I’m asking for a lot here. These days, teaching children, regardless of gender, to enjoy all sorts of literature from all sorts of authors is generally held to be far too difficult and not worth the effort. I’m not saying it would be easy, but I am saying it would be very much worth the effort. Aside from the obvious benefits to their intellect, vocabulary, and faith—for many of those great writers incorporated a Christian worldview into their work—it would broaden their horizons and teach them that it might just be possible to learn something from people who are different from them.

V.S. Naipaul might not approve, but I’ll bet Jane Austen would.

Gina Dalfonzo is editor of BreakPoint.org and Dickensblog. She wrote "The Good Christian Girl: A Fable" and "God Loves a Good Romance" for CT online, and “Guarding Your Marriage without Dissing Women,” “Bill Maher Slurs Sarah Palin, NOW Responds,” “The Social Network’s Women Problem,” "Facebook Envy on Valentine's Day," "What Are Wedding Vows For, Anyway?" "Why Sex Ruins TV Romances," and "Don't Think Pink" for Her.meneutics. Her book, “‘Bring Her Down’: How the American Media Tried to Destroy Sarah Palin,” is now available on Amazon.

Being Human 6

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/06/14/being-human-6/

by RJS

June 14, 2011

The third chapter of Joel B. Green’s book Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible deals with the ideas of sin and freedom. In the last post we discussed a bit of the embodied nature of sin. We do not seem to possess a separable soul capable of overriding the impulses of our bodies. This was illustrated by an extreme example of a tumor that undermined the control mechanisms in the brain and rendered a patient unable to resist the lure of pornography and sexual pleasure. The limitations imposed by the fully embodied nature of human decision making are not confined to cases of disease and accident however.

Dr. Green summarizes the scientific data:

Among the implications of these data, two are of special interest to us in this chapter. The first is simply the embodied nature of decision-making, its manifestly somatic basis, involving predispositions and emotion alongside logical weighing of considerations. Second, decision-making cannot be characterized by the laws of neurobiology in simple bottom-up terms, since our neurobiological profile is itself in a state of ongoing formation and reformation on account of environmental, and especially relational, influences and through self-reflexive evaluation of the bases and futures of past and prospective behaviors. (p. 87)

That paragraph sounds a bit like “professor-speak,” but there are important ideas here.

(1) We are embodied creatures and our decisions are constrained by this fact. The idea of a libertarian free will to choose just doesn’t fit with the data.

(2) Our choices and behaviors today influence our future choices. Relationships and community play an important role.

In the remainder of the chapter Dr. Green looks at the biblical concept of sin in 1 Peter, James, and the letters of Paul, primarily Romans. The question is how the concept of sin according to Peter, James, and Paul, relates to the neurobiological ideas of decision making and human behavior.

What is the biblical concept of sin? How does this relate to human behavior and decision making?

1 Peter

In his letter Peter refers to the former way of life practiced by his audience, behaviors to be avoided, and labels for those who are antagonists. These concepts help to define his view of sin… sin is living outside of the way of God.

“Sin,” then, is inhabiting the muck and executing the ways of a religious and moral climate set against God; it is present as an ethos of unrestrained immorality and craving that cannot but shape persons in its likeness. (p. 89)

Because of Christ his followers can be done with this way of life. The capacity for transformation is a divine gift – both through the example of Christ and through the power of Christ’s life and death. The human family needed liberation from the bondage of a sinful past. Christians enter into a new community and a new way of life. This new way shapes all.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Peter 1:3)

Dr. Green summarizes his reading of 1 Peter:

For 1 Peter then, human life is life on the potter’s wheel, so to speak – being shaped one way or another, by the ancestral ways expressed in taken-for-granted social conventions, or by the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit and the formative influence of the people of God. Humans act out their formation, so the primary questions must be, Formed according to what pattern? Formed within what community? (p. 94)

James

In the book of James sin is the child of desire born through friendship with the world. Friendship with the world is a unity of heart and mind with the ways of the world. There is a strong emphasis on both the personal and the relational.

The very epitome of the sinful life is not an act but an allegiance, relationally delimited: “friendship with the world.” (p. 95)

Partiality, hypocrisy, bitter envy, selfish ambition, these characterize friendship with the world. Peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy, absence of partiality and hypocrisy, these characterize the way of of God. As in 1 Peter there is an internal and a relational component – but the problem of human desire is internal to the human person and the solution must be internalized.

The challenges of exilic life provide an arena for the unbridled exercise of human passion, the result of which is sin and death. … Required is a transformation of human nature by means of divine wisdom, the divine word that must be received and fully embodied so that it imbues who one is and what one does. Theologically this is nothing less than a conversion of the imagination, those patterns of thinking, feeling, believing, and behavior that animate our lives. (p. 98)

Paul

According to Dr. Green Paul’s view of sin is universal – not because Adam sinned, but because all sinned.

Paul’s affirmation of the universality of sin derives from his understanding that Adam’s sin set in motion a chain of effects, one sin leading to the next, not because sin was an essential constituent of the human condition but because all humanity followed Adam in his sinfulness. (p. 100)

This isn’t sinfulness passed on as a contagion but sinfulness as an inescapable part of human community ever after. Reading beyond what Dr. Green has written – this is not necessarily a condition introduced by a unique act by a unique couple, but a statement of the rebellion of mankind and the condition of humanity as a consequence. Paul may see Adam and Eve as the progenitors, but his understanding of sin and human nature does not rest on this.

Moving on, Dr. Green sees six aspects of sin in Paul:

(1) The perspective is cosmological. Sin is a condition of the human family.

(2) Acts of wickedness are expressions of sin, they are not themselves the problem.

(3) The expressions of sin evidence the moral integrity of a God who takes sin seriously. God gives humanity over to its own desires. As Wisdom 12:23 puts it: God “torments” those who live unrighteously by allowing them their own atrocities. This idea fits with the Paul’s understanding of sin.

(4) The giving over to sinful desires means that humanity is now in a condition of slavery to sin.

(5) Sin is a rupture of the divine-human relationship, human relationships, and the relationship between humans and creation. Sin is not private, it is in relation to God, to others, and to the cosmos.

(6) Humanity embraces a lie and receives a corrupt mind. [T]he conceptual patterns by which humanity perceives the world and orders its behavior is out of touch with the way things are. (p. 102)

Paul talks very little about the forgiveness of sins. Dr. Green identifies only two places (Eph 1:7, Col 1:14). Rather humanity requires a liberation from enslavement. We are liberated from the enslavement to sin and death and brought into a new community of the people of God. This new community was inaugurated and enabled through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Pulling this together. Dr. Green suggests that the following three ideas are coherent with both neurobiology and New Testament perspectives on human nature, human sin and human freedom.

1) We do what we are. That is, our behaviors are generated out of, and so reflect, our characters and dispositions.

2) Who we are is both formed and continually being formed socioculturally, and especially relationally.

3) “Choice” is contextually determined.

Biblical faith pushes beyond the inherited human nature to a broader view of the people of God. Dr. Green doesn’t quite go here in this chapter, but the conclusion seems inescapable. Sin is not the specific acts or behaviors of an individual but the condition of humanity. The acts, bitterness envy, sexual immorality, and so forth characterize a life shaped by a community apart from God or rebelling against God.

We are called and enabled to join the people of God and to re-form ourselves along biblical theological lines in the community of the people of God. This is not an instantaneous change, but an ongoing formation for which community is absolutely indispensable. There is no transformation without the church (being in relationship with the community of the people of God).

This chapter ends rather abruptly and leaves many ideas dangling. The next chapter, Being Human, Being Saved, may bring more of this together.

For now…

What do you think of Dr. Green’s identification of the nature of sin according to Peter, James, and Paul? Is this in accord with your understanding?

Does the emphasis on the communal nature of sin and sinfulness make sense?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

Sojourneys - Eggs & Rice

I wanted to share my friend's story of ministry to the street kids exploited for sex on the streets of Chiang Mai, Thailand, to remind us to pray for missionaries serving the Lord. Davey had toured with KKSM for five years beginning his sophmore year in high school, then served as a youth pastoral intern at Village Bible Church under Matt Chandler, before hearing God's call to come to ABBA House's ministries in Chiang Mai a half a world away from Dallas, Texas. You may follow his ministries under "Mission Sites" found on this blog ("ABBA House") as well as his personal blog listed below. Please keep all of God's servants in prayer who serve in these very difficult and dangerous markets of sex, money, addictions and exploitation.

skinhead

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Sojourneys by Davey Voetberg

http://davevoetberg.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, June 14, 2011

eggs & rice






Serving God in "another life" in KKSM ministries



Abba House Foundation Vimeo video link
http://www.abbahousefoundation.org/

sour patch kids

by Davey Voetberg
Monday, June 6, 2011

If we're being real, I think we would all agree that sometimes life just gets hard. I mean, really hard. Now the term "hard" is somewhat subjective, being that the definition of difficulty differs from person to person. But life gets hard for you, whoever you are. And life gets hard for me. And sometimes the struggle & strain become so wearisome that we feel as though we may not be able to endure another day. We have those points in our lives where our hearts feel ready to break & we, like king david, wish that we "had wings like a dove" so we could "fly away & be at rest". And those laments from the 55th psalm are in good company with many others that were uttered out of the mouth of the man who ferociously went after the heart of God. I think mourning is almost seen sometimes as unspiritual & to acknowledge pain/difficulty as being a sign of weakness. I would say it's more a sign of being alive & not living under a rock. Even Jesus, our Savior, was a "man of sorrows" who, even though he was fully divine, "offered up prayers & supplications with loud cries & tears".

So I'm not even speaking right now about those outside the body of Christ. I'm talking about blood-bought disciples. It's not as though when you become a christian you take up residence on a cloud high above this fractured world. What happened is that you were, by the grace of God, broken & contrite enough to fall at the feet of The Hero. Not being one yourself, rather, you're simply a recipient of His heroism. With that being true, it's only pride in us that would try to give off the notion that upon trading our sin for Jesus' righteousness, we gave him our tear ducts as well. The day will come when He will wipe away all our tears (and I imagine that when it does, the hands of God will be very pruney!) but we're not there yet. The temptation many times can be to act as though the weight of the world has not penetrated our souls. To put on a face & appear unaffected by it all seems to be the more mature, godly route to go. Some might even think the one crying the hardest at the funeral has the least amount of trust in God's good purposes.

But just because someone weeps doesn't mean that they're not trusting God. It's not that the children of God have dry eyes from the moment of conversion, we just don't "grieve as others do who have no hope." We're told in Acts that the early church "made great lamentation" over Stephen after his death. There is a way to mourn that is available to the family of God & even more so, encouraged when necessary as the Bible calls us to "weep with those who weep."

So we still feel pain and, I would argue, even more so now that everything has been infused with meaning for us, but the tears of the saints contain elements of hope that the unbeliever's tears don't possess. That's the difference. Our tears don't have the same make-up as they did before our adoption. Every tear that falls into God's bottle from the eyes of His elect are laced with His Romans 8:28 designs. This is what makes it possible to be "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing", even when the darkness will not lift.

The rainbow of God's providence is overarching every storm the christian goes through. And when the clouds are dark & pouring, that doesn't mean God will necessarily give you an umbrella, but He will most definitely stand with you in the rain. The rock solid assurance of His sovereignty & loyalty doesn't make pain painless by any means, but it does infuse our pain with meaning as God is, as John Piper says, "plotting the course & managing the troubles with far-reaching purposes for our good & for the glory of Jesus Christ."

And The Lord, in his mercy, has given His people books like Revelation & Isaiah, giving us glimpses of how the story will end. It isn't with sorrow & sighing triumphing victoriously over us. It isn't in despair with weeping & death eternally permeating & plaguing our existence. Just the opposite is true, actually. The victory has been secured by the blood of Jesus & one day he will return with fire blazing in his eyes & tear away the "covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations." "And the ransomed of the Lord shall return & come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness & joy, and sorrow & sighing shall flee away."

 

KKSM Elijah Moore

http://www.kksm.org/elijah-moore-interview/

You can donate by mailing check or card number to:

KKSM International

4920 South Gilbert Road, Suite 1-511

Chandler, AZ   85249

Please call us at 480-772-2999 or email us at:

www.info@kksm.org  if you have any questions.

All money donated to KKSM is tax deductible and a receipt will be mailed to you.

**********

When did you meet at the time King of Kings skateboard co founder Darren Wells?

Around 2002 at the ASR show in San Diego.

You, Shawn Plimmer, Luke Braddock, Zac Archuleta were on the very first KKSM tour… How has being on tour for many years changed your life?

Well, it’s made me appreciate traveling and the excitement of being around new people and places God created.

You guys lived in a Van for years how was that?
It was crazy, cramped, smelly and dangerous! It was a miracle Luke never blew the van up but he did run it out of gas in the middle of the highway because he was on the phone with his wife during his shift.

Was it amazing seeing so many skateboarders give there life to the Lord at the demos you were apart of?
Absolutely amazing! Years later I still have older kids and teens and young adults approach me telling of how our team impacted their lives.



What is the worst thing about tours?
I have to say not being grateful for every moment and not collecting lots of pics and clips of all the action.

What is the best thing about tours?
Traveling the world with the team family skating, preaching and hanging out! All the laughs and great moments!

You and Luke Braddock were the first Reliance Pros back in 03 how was that?It’s been a great experience. It was an amazing experience then and still is. Pretty much every skaters dream is to be pro and that happened for us. Having our own boards made us push ourselves and the brand fully.

What was your first pro model?
My first pro model was a graphic of a light house and angels in different shades of blue.

How was being in the first Burl Factor tour dvd?
That was an epic tour! I skated more, got injured more and enjoyed putting myself into making the video like no other tour! Bwall’s such an on point movie maker that everyone felt comfortable skating in front of the camera. The younger guys like Kight, Deezel and Dave were inspiring to ride with.

What was some of your nick names while on tour?
Gloss Richardson, Satin Black, Elder Skate.

Funny story from a KKSM tour?
Luke driving away from the gas pump with the pump still in the tour van! Luke’s the man!

Did you meet your wife on tour?
Yep. I met my wife Joy in Christchurch New Zealand on the NZ tour.


Where is your favorite place to travel?

New Zealand for sure! It’s a small place with everything. Skate, snowboard and surf all in a day. Not to mention tasty food and gorgeous land. Jurassic Park and Lord of the Rings were filmed there.

Did you recently almost lose your life?
Yep. I got really sick with pancreatitus over night and was in a coma for about 10 days and lived to tell by God’s grace and mercy.

Are you skating without kidney function?

Yep. Well they function at less than 30%.

Things going on in the future for skateboarding?
I’m always stacking clips! Just got another VX and an HD. I have a few pro models that I’m working on so go get one! I’m in the process of moving to AZ so my wife and I hope to be involved in a lot more KKSM demos.

What is God doing in your life right now?
Keeping me alive! Showing me just how much I need Him. We all do.

Advice to young skaters coming up in skateboard ministry?
Focus on Jesus. “The world and it’s desires fade away but the man who does the will of God lives forever.” 1 John 2:17

shout outs

God
Parents
My wife Joy
Darren “Pops” Wells
RIck “Chief” Weigele
KKSM Family
Reliance & Siren Crew
Dameon Rowe at Index
Teammates, friends & family

If you would like to Donate or find out more about helping Elijah continue to do skateboard ministry throughout the world visit his site

MOORE-LOVE.COM

CHECK OUT A FEW OF ELIJAH’S VIDEOS

SIREN & RELIANCE SKATEBOARDS

http://sirenskate.com/
http://www.relianceskate.com/

GET INVOLVED

Rob Bell - Commands Old but New (1 John 2.7-11)

May 29, 2011
Mars Hill Church

  To hear Rob's sermon - http://marshill.org/teaching/2011/05/29/1-john-2v7-11/ 

1 John 2, English Standard Version (ESV)
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+2&version=ESV

Christ Our Advocate

¹My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. ² He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. ³And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. ⁴Whoever says "I know him" but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, ⁵but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: ⁶whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. 

The New Commandment 

⁷Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. ⁸At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because^[a] the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. ⁹Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. ¹⁰Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him^[b] there is no cause for stumbling. ¹¹But 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. 

¹²I am writing to you, little children,

because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake.

¹³I 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.
I write to you, children,
because you know the Father.

¹⁴I write to you, fathers,

because you know him who is from the beginning.
I write to you, young men,
because you are strong,
and the word of God abides in you,
and you have overcome the evil one.

Do Not Love the World

¹⁵ Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. ¹⁶For all that is in the world— the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. ¹⁷And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

Warning Concerning Antichrists

¹⁸Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. ¹⁹ They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. ²⁰But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge.^{[c] 21}I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. ²²Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. ²³ No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. ²⁴Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. ²⁵And this is the promise that he made to us^[d]— eternal life.

²⁶I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. ²⁷But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.

Children of God

²⁸And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. ²⁹If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.

Footnotes:

a.       1 John 2:8 Or that

b.      1 John 2:10 Or it

c.       1 John 2:20 Some manuscripts you know everything

d.      1 John 2:25 Some manuscripts you 

Angelic Help

http://newwaystheology.blogspot.com/2011/06/angels-are-cop-out.html

by Mason Slater
posted June 6, 2011

[Quickly I breathed], "No not here!" It was 3:00am, I was on my way home from work, and my car had just died. For the past few miles of highway it had been acting up, and as I stopped at the red light at the top of the exit ramp it lost any ability to move - later I found out the transmission had failed.

The exit had two lanes, so even though I couldn't even move off to the side, other cars could get around me. I flipped on my four-way emergency lights, and sat there trying to figure out what I was going to do.

No cell phone (it was a few years ago), no idea why my car wouldn’t move, and frightened that some inattentive driver was going to rear-end me.

Suddenly lights shone bright in my mirror. I stuck my hand out the window to wave them around, but then their four-ways came on and a woman in her mid thirties knocked on my window.

She asked if I needed help and I explained my predicament. “Alright,” she replied “well first we have to get you out of this intersection. If you can still brake and steer I can push you with my car into that parking lot down the road.”

A few terrifying minutes later we had made it into the parking lot, and we got out to survey the damage. My car looked fine, but her's was a bit scraped up in front.

I thanked her profusely, and asked for her contact information so I could repay her for the repairs I knew her car was going to need. She refused. When I insisted she said it was okay and that she would just tell her husband it was like that when she came out of work.

After letting me use her cell phone to arrange for a ride, she drove off.

Over the next few days, almost every time I told that story I got the same response, “God sent an angel to help you.”

____________________

I was reminded of that night recently, when a friend was telling a similar story. He and his wife were broken down in the middle of the Appalachians when a man stopped to help them, drove a half hour each way to get a part to fix their car, and instead of letting them pay him back he left them with $100 to “get something to eat.”

My freind's response, “It must have been an angel, no one would do all that.”

____________________

Now, I believe in angels. They might not be a very central part of my faith, but the Bible talks about them and I have no reason to discount their existence.

But in situations like these, I’ve become convinced that most of the time angels are a cop-out.

Maybe we can’t imagine driving an hour out of our way, or scraping up our car, all for a stranger. Since we can’t imagine doing it ourselves, we don’t want to admit there are people far kinder and more generous than us, and we attribute it to angels.

Maybe we have such a low view of people, such a strong doctrine of the fall and human depravity, that we have no room for people who do these acts of love with no thought of gain for themselves. Angels then become an easy explanation to how anyone could do such a thing. They can't, only angels do.

Or, maybe, in those moments we are faced with the realization that the proper response to what was done for us is to pay it forward, to do the same for others, and that’s hard. Saying, “it was an angel” releases us from that responsibility.

It could be that the woman who helped me that night was an angel, but I don’t think so. I think it was just someone who took pity on a stranded driver at 3:00am, banged up her car to help him, and refused to consider repayment.

And, in many ways, that is far more powerful an idea than the suggestion that I encountered an angel.

What Faith Is: Accepting Conditions

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/juneweb-only/acceptingconditions.html

Eternity is inevitable, one way or another.

We may want to get used to it.

by Mark Galli
posted 6/09/2011

So you're fly fishing on some beautiful tail water (a river that flows beneath a dam), let's say below Navajo Dam on the San Juan River in New Mexico. You work your way through the waist-high mild current to a small island of sand in the middle of the river. You cast your line to some prize brown trout you see just a few yards away, and quickly get absorbed in fishing.

At about the same time you entered the river, engineers a few miles upstream released more water through the dam. Within minutes, the current becomes swifter and deeper. The island on which you stand soon becomes shallow water, but it is still a very useable lie from which to cast. So all seems well. But the waist-high water you waded through a while ago is now as deep as your body is tall. And it will only be getting deeper, and the current swifter, in the next few minutes. You are well aware of how many fishermen are swept away to their deaths in just such circumstances. But so intent are you on catching one of those prize browns, you ignore conditions.

To sin is to refuse to accept conditions. It's because we don't recognize conditions that we get ourselves into waters way over our head. Like some of the knotty theological problems we are trying to reel in.

Most of those problems touch on the justice of God, and one of the most troubling questions is: How can God punish people eternally for sins committed in a finite life? I make no claim to be able to "solve" this problem, any more than the early church theologians could "explain" how exactly Jesus could be human and divine. But it doesn't hurt to try to put this in a biblical, and, I would say, a realistic perspective. It begins by accepting conditions.

To be a human being created in God's image means to accept conditions, and one condition in particular: that we are creatures and not the Creator. The refusal to accept our condition and the striving to "be like God" (Gen. 3:5) is both the original and routine sin.

Take the usual sin: simple disobedience to God's gracious commands. God gives commands that we might enjoy the life he has given us. For example, we are told not to covet. But rather than submit to our creaturely status, we long to become command makers. We revise the commandment, as if we were gods, and actually create whole societies that encourage covetousness. I'm not convinced that capitalism requires covetousness, but it certainly knows how to exploit it. Note the recent Apple iPhone ads whose main rhetorical device is an appeal to covetousness. After showing you a bunch of cool iPhone apps, it concludes, "If you don't have an iPhone, well you don't have an iPhone."

Covetousness is in itself a refusal to accept one's material conditions. But more to the point here: any reshaping of God's gracious commands is nothing but a refusal to accept the conditions of being a creature.

There are more subtle ways we refuse to accept conditions. To be a creature in a finite existence means that some decisions and actions have irreversible consequences.

With two out, the bases loaded, the game on the line, here comes the pitch. Hit it well, and your team is world champion. Miss it, and .…

You stand at the altar and exchange vows with your love, words spoken that alter forever the course of your life.

You sit in the corporate HR office, debating whether to accept the offer. Signing it means giving up all other career options, maybe for the rest of your life.

You slip on the stairs and hit your head in a fall. You go into a coma for years. 

We love this condition of existence because it makes such moments dramatic, powerful, and meaningful. But we also hate it, because some small and seemingly inconsequential act—swinging a piece of wood; uttering verbal symbols; signing a piece of paper; slipping on piece of paper—can have such immense and permanent consequences.

That's one reason we're so taken with do-overs. We invent video games we can cheat at. We've created trial marriage (called living together) and temporary marriage (with no fault divorce) just in case we don't get it right the first time. We balk at any commitment so we can keep our options open as long as possible. Medical science is nothing other than an effort to have as many do-overs as possible in this life.

Rebelling Against Conditions

Surely some do-overs are good and beautiful—like many created by medical science. But there is one condition we really can't do anything about. And it troubles us deeply. The condition is what might be called the inevitability of eternity.

Once we've been brought into existence by an eternal God, even though our existence is finite, the consequences of our very existence remain eternal. From that point on, we will either enjoy eternal life with God, or suffer what the Bible calls "eternal death." In regard to the latter: whether one understands hell as conscious torment or annihilation, the consequences of rejecting God can't be anything but eternal. Once we've been created, there can be no other type of consequence regarding our existence—it's eternal in one direction or the other.

This idea is under assault these days. Some reject theism altogether, and thus even the possibility of eternal life. Such skeptics rebel against the idea that actions in this life have any eternal consequences, good or bad. But of course what they reject is only the possibility of eternal life; they seem to accept that we all will experience eternal death, permanent annihilation. So in the end, even skeptics acknowledge the eternal consequences of this finite existence.

Some believers reject the Judgment, even as taught by Jesus, because it teaches that rejection of God in a finite life has eternal hellish consequences. Instead, they postulate a universe of infinite do-overs that lead eventually to salvation—and eternal life—for everyone. This idea is not new; it's a version of the ancient doctrine of reincarnation taught in many world religions. A 2009 Pew survey found that 24% of American Christians believed in reincarnation. Given our society's resistance to accepting conditions, this shouldn't surprise us.

From a historic Christian perspective, reincarnation is a rebellion against conditions. The Bible seems to state pretty clearly that the nature of being a creature in an eternal universe is that our lives now have that quality wherein decisions and actions have consequences far beyond the finiteness of those decisions and actions. The teaching of the prophets and the apostles and Jesus are uniform on this point: they all accept this condition of finite existence. It is their acceptance of this condition that gives their moral admonitions such gravity, and their vision of life such meaning.

There is a lot of talk about how unjust or unfair this is—that finite decisions can have eternal consequences. To me, some of that talk sounds like a teenager rebelling against having to do homework or chores. Philosophical rebellion is respectable in our culture, but when we rebel against the very conditions of our existence, I'm not sure what to say: That God should have created a different world with different conditions?

Not Easy to Swallow

Our objection to the inevitability of eternity, of course, is one sided. We like the idea that good finite decisions might have happy eternal consequences. But of course, this is just as unfair as its opposite. Why should a finite decision be rewarded with infinite rewards? Maybe the universalist gets this when he postulates that what eternity is about is learning to make an infinite number of right decisions that will be awarded a life of infinitude.

I for one find this a dreary and hopeless scenario. What I know about myself is this: I am unable to make right decisions and to perform right actions, certainly not to the degree that they merit an infinity of reward. What I know about myself is this:

"For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me." (Rom. 7:18-20, ESV)

I very much identity with Paul here. I even identify with him when he resorts to the most dramatic language to describe our situation:

          "None is righteous, no, not one;

                     no one understands;
                     no one seeks for God.
            All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
                     no one does good,
                     not even one." (Rom. 3:10-12, ESV)

This is not easy language to swallow. An army of psychologists and social scientists and philosophers and well-meaning theologians try to convince us that the human condition is not as dreary as all that. But it strikes me that to accept conditions means to accept sin in all its dreariness.

It also means to accept another condition: "The wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23). To accept present conditions means to accept that we are dead men walking. That there is no hope for us. That all is lost.

So despite our confidence in the positive side of the eternity equation, from a biblical perspective, there is no hope that I can make a right decision or live a right life that will ensure that my finite efforts will be rewarded with eternally positive consequences.

It appears that there is something seriously wrong with conditions now. We simply cannot do anything to ensure that eternity will end up being a blessing for us. Instead, we're condemned—that's what it feels like to have to live under these conditions. Condemned to a tragic existence, forever.

No wonder we hate conditions.

Accepting Conditions

Then again, we know of another condition that transcends the condition we find ourselves in. As Paul put it, "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! … There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 7:24-8:1).

And how exactly does one avoid the condemned life, how does one participate "in Christ Jesus"? The idea is captured in an evangelical cliché that we've grown tired of. But the cliché works in this context. To participate in the life of Christ one need only accept Christ as Lord and Savior.

In his death and resurrection, Jesus has shown himself to be Lord and Savior of the world. The hopelessness of current conditions has been transcended by a new condition: "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them" (2 Cor. 5:19). To accept Jesus means to accept the new conditions: We are not condemned. History is not tragic. We are not sentenced to an eternity of do-overs, inevitably to fail in life after life. Eternal death is not our destiny. God is.

To accept Jesus means to accept conditions, and to live as if these conditions are true.

To refuse to accept conditions is to keep on fishing even though you are about to be swept away to your death. Even more sadly, to refuse to accept conditions is to refuse the help of the drift boat that miraculously comes floating down the river. Two men, who look to be man and son, row over to you and extend their arms for you to grab so they might pull you aboard. You just reply, "I'll be okay. Don't worry about me. Besides, I don't want to leave until I hook at least one of those browns."

Life as we know it is about conditions, and accepting those conditions as they are. We may wish that conditions were different, and we may throw a philosophical tantrum to display our moral outrage at the way God made things. But it won't change conditions.

Mark Galli is senior managing editor of Christianity Today, and author of the forthcoming God Wins: Heaven, Hell, and Why the Good News Is Better than Love Wins (Tyndale, July).