partsofspeaking

I read on the Internet that a famous preacher and son of a famous preacher has gotten himself in hot water again for saying that Christians should basically ignore the Old Testament. Being a famous preacher with a big church (ironic here--the church only belongs to Christ) doesn't mean you are a good theologian. There is no understanding of the New Testament without the Old, the Hebrew Bible as it's now called (not sure on that, but I'll let it pass--it's not just for the Jews, and calling it that diminishes its importance to us). On the other hand, it's possible to get a lot of bad doctrine from the "Older "Testament. We live the New Testament in every way, but we understand it in the context of the contemporary Roman Empire, the millennia before its time as recorded in the tanakh, the Greek language and literature, and of course, mostly, its own testimony about Jesus. I am a firm believer that all Bible study must start with contextual understa...

A member of our family has recently come to Christ after many, many years of struggle with a variety of things.  There has been an amazing transformation in this person. It has caused my husband and me to reflect on being a new Christian. This person calls us frequently with Bible questions, some hard, some fairly easy.  Today this person asked, based on something heard on the radio, if Abraham was a bad guy.  My husband tried to help. Back in the day (sorry, I really don't like that cliche) it was the responsibility of the local church to disciple a new convert. That was my experience in the '70s as a teenager.  There were other organizations that could help--the Campus Crusade, the Young Life, etc.--but it was the church that did it.  There was less media intrusion, and fewer crazed voices with prosperity gospel or other misinterpretation of conservative traditional Christian theology. The pastor was the primary discipler, for better or worse, and they use...

"Not keep a journal! How are your absent cousins to understand the tenour of your life in Bath without one? How are the civilities and compliments of every day to be related as they ought to be, unless noted down every evening in a journal? How are your various dresses to be remembered, and the particular state of your complexion, and curl of your hair to be described in all their diversities, without having constant recourse to a journal? My dear madam, I am not so ignorant of young ladies' ways as you wish to believe me; it is this delightful habit of journaling which largely contributes to form the easy style of writing for which ladies are so generally celebrated. Everybody allows that the talent of writing agreeable letters is peculiarly female. Nature may have done something, but I am sure it must be essentially assisted by the practice of keeping a journal."

Baptists, arise. Paige Patterson deserves a pension.  He worked for many years.  Golden parachute, maybe not. He shouldn't preach at the Annual Meeting, and messengers will have to take a stand if he doesn't have the decency to stand down.  And he probably should not get free rent for the rest of his life. 

I rarely get hooked on a show any more, but I can't recommend THE CROWN highly enough. Addendum:  I wrote that a while back.  The first season is better than the second.  The second devolves into too much soap opera.  The writers seem bent on making Philip a philanderer, on making us like Margaret (or feel sorry for her).  These are highlight reels.  These episodes have little to do with the day-to-day actions of the Queen, who apparently never spoke to her children after giving birth to them.  So take the rest of this original review with a caveat.   All the episodes are wonderful--thoughtful, informative, supremely well acted and of the highest production values--but the one I watch most recently is still in my mind. Verangkeit weaves the stories of the Queen meeting Billy Graham, having been interested by his crusades in England in 1957, and the attempted return of the Prince of Wales to public life in England, and the exposure of the Mar...

I read books about leadership, most of them geared toward leadership of large organizations.  The topic of failure comes up a lot in these books.  Some employers want to know if the candidate has failed to see how he/she dealt with it.  Failure is framed as a good thing. Failure happens because a person takes risks.  Failure teaches. Sure. There's a lot of truth there.  Failure is inevitable, so we might as well have a positive frame for it.  But I'd just as soon not fail in the first place.  I wonder if some failure is due to imprudence, not just the inevitability of failure. In reframing failure, let's not treat it like a high value.  So I think, what are my big failures?  I've never lost a million dollars in a big business deal.  My failures are all little in comparison.  The succumbing to temptations, the hasty words, the shortcuts that pay back in spades.  No, these are not little, and they are failures.   They af...

Great article by Dr. Mohler.  https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2018/may-web-only/al-mohler-humiliation-of-southern-baptist-convention-metoo.html Judgment must begin in the house of God.  Always.   However . . . not sure how I feel about aligning our repentance with that movement.  There are two different dynamics going on. Hollywood still wants women to be sexual "free."  We want (I hope) holiness.  We affirm sanctity of life and dignity of all at all stages and stations of life.  Hollywood, well, not so sure. I'm in a flurry of blogging and Tweeting today.  Not so much on Facebook.  All my friends are there!