Jesus Doesn't Want You To Be A Better Dad...

A few months ago, Jonathan Phillips, a Mission Corp Missionary with the Church of Nazarene came to visit our church.  Jonathan is a friend of mine, a former coworker, and classmate at Nazarene Theological Seminary.  He's been serving in Romania for the past few years on a volunteer basis.  On one Sunday, he shared with our church a simple story of friendship and discipleship.  What Jonathan is doing in Romania isn't anything profound or groundbreaking, but simple, time consuming, and apparently, very effective.  

Jonathan began his talk by reading one of my favorite passages from the Old Testament, the first part of Deuteronomy 6.  The passage itself calls Israel, God's chosen and rescued people, to remember all of what God has done for them and all of the commands that God has given them.  They aren't just to remember these things; they are to talk about them day and night, to write them on their door posts, and to tell these stories to their children at bedtime.  All of this remembering and storytelling is so that Israel could become and remain the people God had called them to be.  Israel cannot become what God wants it to become apart from the constant telling and retelling of these stories.    

That Pretty Much Sums it Up…

I’ve been reading The Power of the Powerless, a collection of sermons written by German theologian Jurgen Moltmann, as a part of my daily devotions.  The sixth sermon, The Blessedness of the Peacemakers, is taken from Matthew 5:9 and hit me square in the face.  I’ve copied a rather lengthy quote from the sermon, which I believe, stands well on its own.  It’ll be worth your time to read.  I won’t make any comment except for one thing: I believe Moltmann’s words sum up rather nicely what I believe about what our call is as Christians in a world filled with hate and violence.  He says it far better than I ever could. 

  

”‘You are the children of your father in heaven.’  This reminder calls us out of the conflict.  Anyone who allows himself to be drawn into conflict, or carries on a conflict, is subject to the law of retaliation.  There is no other way of preserving an equilibrium in the struggle: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth –arm, rearm –rearm, arm.  But anyone who becomes involved in the law of retaliation towards his enemy is drawn into a vicious circle from which he can never escape.  He will become his enemy’s enemy, and a terror to the one who terrifies him.  He threatens what threatens him, and hates what hates him.  He increasingly takes his coloring from his enemy.  If evil is requited by evil, then the one evil takes its bearing from the other, and that is fatal.  We are only liberated from vicious circles like this if we cease to take or bearings from our enemy, and when another person is more important to us.

My Top 8 Books: 2011

Well, January 2012 is almost over.  I fully intended to write and finish a list of the best books I’ve read in the year 2011, by the end of 2011.  But it didn’t happen.  I went through my shelves, compiled a list and began to write.  Then…  No excuses, I just didn’t finish it before the New Year.  So, here’s a list of 8 of the best books I’ve read in the past year.  I haven’t attempted to provide a detailed review of each book, but I have said just a wee little bit about each one in hopes you might be interested enough to pick one of them up.