Living the Resurrection-centered Life

"Things fall apart and suffering and death dog our steps, but the reversal of cosmic entropy has begun in the resurrection of Jesus. Faith in the name of Jesus germinating from the Spirit’s witness is the seed from which will grow the restoration of all things."

– Dennis Johnson, The Message of Acts in the History of Redemption

This was a quote referenced by Brian Borgman in his excellent series on The Acts. He was making a profound point: when you read the sermons of the Apostles in The Acts, it was the resurrection - not the crucifixion - that was at the center of their understanding of the gospel. Reformed evangelicals often gripe about Roman Catholic crucifixes, but our understanding of the gospel may not be much more than an theological crucifix - Christ stuck on the cross - by comparison to the version we see preached and incarnated by the Apostles. It's a subtle difference, but I can't help wondering how my views of eschatology, evangelism, suffering, and so forth, might be altered after meditating on the centrality of the resurrection. It's worth pondering.

America: In the Beginning, God ...

Each entry below is the first line of the preamble to our state constitutions:

California 1879: We, the People of the State of California , grateful to Almighty God for our freedom...

Connecticut 1818: The People of Connecticut, acknowledging with gratitude the good Providence of God in permitting them to enjoy.

Maine 1820: We the People of Maine acknowledging with grateful hearts the goodness of the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe in affording us an opportunity .. And imploring His aid and direction.

Maryland 1776: We, the people of the state of Maryland , grateful to Almighty God for our civil and religious liberty...

Massachusetts 1780: We...the people of Massachusetts, acknowledging with grateful hearts, the goodness of the Great Legislator of the Universe In the course of His Providence, an opportunity and devoutly imploring His direction ...

New Jersey 1844: We, the people of the State of New Jersey, grateful to Almighty God for civil and religious liberty which He hath so long permitted us to enjoy, and looking to Him for a blessing on our endeavors.

New York 1846: We, the people of the State of New York , grateful to Almighty God for our freedom, in order to secure its blessings.

Vermont 1777: Whereas all government ought to enable the individuals who compose it to enjoy their natural rights, and other blessings which the Author of Existence has bestowed on man ...

Washington 1889: We the People of the State of Washington, grateful to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe for our liberties, do ordain this Constitution.

"If money talks then it tells lies" ...

Economists and psychologists have spent decades studying the relations between wealth and happiness and they have generally concluded that wealth increases human happiness when it lifts people out of abject poverty and into the middle class, but it does little to increase happiness thereafter. It hurts to be hungry, cold, sick, tired, or scared, but once you’ve bought your way out of these holes, the rest of your money is an increasingly useless pile of paper.

-Danny Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness

Justus: Update

After 3 days, JJ is back from the hospital - thank you for your prayers. He is slowly improving and seems to be stable. Thus far, we think that this was just a stomach bug his immune system was still too weak to stave off. His surgery/biopsy was cancelled and rescheduled for the first week of June.

The Brilliant Witness of J.S. Bach

A. N. Wilson was once a Christian, but “converted” to atheism, rubbing shoulders with Dawkins and Hitchens and others. but now he has started to believe again. The New Statesman has a Q&A with him and he reveals another fascinating aspect of this journey.

They ask: “What’s the worst thing about being faithless?”
Wilson: The worst thing about being faithless? When I thought I was an atheist I would listen to the music of Bach and realize that his perception of life was deeper, wiser, more rounded than my own. Ditto when I read the lives of great men and women who were religious.
Reading Northrop Frye and Blake made me realize that their world-view (above all their ability to see the world in mythological terms) is so much more INTERESTING than some of the alternative ways of looking at life.

Did you catch that? The music of Bach brings to bear a deeper view of life. Something to ponder about our own church experiences and whether they are cultivating a deeper and wiser and more rounded view of life.

- James H. Grant, Jr.

Absent Fathers

In the 18th century manuals on raising children are always directed primarily to the father. In the 19th century, you direct them to the mother. Part of that is social – what’s going on in the 19th century men are out of the home. They are at the factory 12-13 hours a day, 6 days a week. So the mothers become the main vehicle for raising the children spiritually and morally. But the consequence of that is a loss of male leadership in evangelicalism in the 19th century.

- Michael Haykin, 19th Century Evangelicalism

Kool-Aid Christianity

In our evangelistic zeal, we are looking for programs that will attract people. We think we have to put honey on the lip of the bitter cup of salvation. It is the story of the wedding of Cana all over again but with this difference: at the crucial moment when the wine failed, we took matters into our own hands and used those five stone jars to mix up a batch of Kool-Aid instead.

- Hughes Oliphant Old, Worship