SOZO

In Adam, God has a creature, made in His own image, who He could talk with, give responsibility to,...

Tue, 08 May 2012 11:47:19 -0700

In Adam, God has a creature, made in His own image, who He could talk with, give responsibility to, and entrust the care of creation into his hands. Adam was God’s man in the earth, set here to rule it under God’s authority and direction. Because Adam was a living soul, able to see and hear God he was the only creature like God, who as a creature, could be God’s representative to manifest God’s ways in the earth. All of creation was made good, but it did not reflect the image of God himself. All of creation was under God’s control, but man was given the task of tending to it as one who was a part of the creaturely order.

"If Jesus is Lord then Caesar isn’t. If Christ is our Lord then the Constitution isn’t...."

Thu, 03 May 2012 14:43:12 -0700

“If Jesus is Lord then Caesar isn’t. If Christ is our Lord then the Constitution isn’t. Therefore, during election season, let’s not forget that both left and right are an illusion… a mere parody… of the sort of order that takes place when kingdom people make God their King.”

- Kurt Willems

Just me and Angelina bringing the light in the park today,...

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 16:56:35 -0700

Just me and Angelina bringing the light in the park today, hanging, eating and talking with our friends. #helpahuman (Taken with instagram)

Look at Jesus

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:30:39 -0700

Look at Jesus

Does our addiction to militarism, consumerism &...

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 16:54:53 -0700

Does our addiction to militarism, consumerism & entertainment reflect Jesus’ call? Pastor and former editor of Sojourners magazine Joyce Hollyday invites us to create systems of mass construction, not mass destruction.

Yep Jesus himself said that…

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 10:25:53 -0700

Yep Jesus himself said that…

Mimicking the counter-cultural behavior of Jesus

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 20:03:00 -0700

Excerpt from ”Speaking In Tongues part 3”

At times, Jesus accepts the honors being afforded to Him, but generally, He only accepts honoring or honorific statements when they come from those that do not possess any public honor (tax collectors, lepers, those that have been possessed by demons, unclean women, etc…) When the rich or the rulers attempt to honor Him, perhaps by calling Him “good,” He disavows the approbation. He routinely speaks of the first being last and the last being first. He interacts with tax collectors, who may have money and a measure of power, but are not looked upon as being honorable in the least. He touches lepers. He allows dishonorable women to touch Him. He is more than happy to take the lowest place at a meal, eschewing the places of honor, and instructs His followers to do the same. He washes the feet of His disciples, which is the role of a slave and a reminder of the slave’s shameful place. He allows children, who, as children, do not have a place in the honor and same pursuit (they do not have honor or shame accorded to them), to come to Him. When they do, He tells those who are listening to Him that they must enter the kingdom of God as little children—-unconcerned with the pursuit of honor or avoiding shame (which has nothing to do with a “childlike faith”). He ultimately ends up on a cross, which was the lowest and most shameful place of all, going there willingly as He embraced the role of Israel for the world.

wheelsofcheese: Pakistani Christians / Easter

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 16:04:48 -0700

wheelsofcheese:

Pakistani Christians / Easter

Psalm 91:4 - “He shall cover you with His feathers, And under...

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 16:03:51 -0700

Psalm 91:4 - “He shall cover you with His feathers, And under His wings you shall take refuge.”

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is..."

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 16:00:02 -0700

““Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.””

- Margaret Mead

Did Jesus Really Rise From The Dead?

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 21:34:06 -0700

Did Jesus Really Rise From The Dead?

Communion message at Academia Church 4/1/12

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 11:20:18 -0700

Let us not forget that this meal has a long history. A story, and we are apart of this story. A story of the Jewish people, when they were slaves in Egypt. The people of Abraham, called by God to be the light of the world. Our God brought them from Egypt with a mighty hand and stretched out arm. He condemned the Egyptians, but passed over them and brought them through the Red Sea and into the wilderness; gave them his law and brought them them into the promised land.

You must observe this event as an ordinance for you and for your children forever. When you enter the land that the Lord will give to you, just as he said, you must observe this ceremony. When your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ – then you will say, ‘It is the sacrifice of the Lord’s Passover, when he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck Egypt and delivered our households.’” (Exodus 12:24-27 NET)

The odd, flat bread had no leaven in it, because the people of Israel had to make their bread without leaven on the night they left Egypt. The bitter herbs remind them of the sorrow they had in Egypt. And so on. Even the funny way they sat at the table- they didn’t sit really, they leaned sideways, ‘reclining’ they called it-was supposed to say that they were God’s free people. Slaves stand, free people recline. The whole meal seems to say, this is who we are. This is who we were. This is who we will be. And this is who God was, and is, and will be.

Jesus
He had come into town, the triumphal entry. This time it WAS going to happen. This is it! He had gone into the temple and done something you never you’d never expected- attacked the animal-sellers and the money-changers, stopped the whole system for a few minutes. As if he was saying this whole thing Is out of line. It isn’t what God wanted to do, and God is going to get rid of it.
The crowds gathered, God had set us free from Egypt: now was the time for him to set us free from Rome, and Jesus was the king who would do it. What better time than Passover for this to happen? Especially with a man of God like Jesus to lead the way.
Passover almost here, and nothing had happen yet. What is he going to do? When would he give the signal?

Instead it’s “take this bread and eat it-it is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me” and “drink this, all of you: this is my blood of the new covenant. It is shed for you, and for many, so that sins may be forgiven”.
The world turned upside down! This was the Passover meal, the Egypt stuff, the freedom stuff. How could it be about Jesus’ body? And why should we do this in remembrance of him?
His blood? New covenant? Sins forgiven?
The expectancy was that God would eventually make a new covenant with Israel, his people, like when he had brought them out of Egypt. When he finally forgave Israel’s sins once and for all, redeeming them from all their troubles, giving them freedom and messiah becoming Lord of the whole world.
Yes, that was what the Passover was pointing forward to. But somehow the future seemed to have arrived in the present in the person of Jesus. He had changed it. Now it was about God doing what he had promised in a new way.
In Jesus God’s future came smashing into the present to meet us. God unveiled his plan for the world in Jesus himself, and supremely in his death and resurrection. Jesus announced that “the kingdom of God” was bursting into the present moment. It didn’t look like what people had expected. In fact it was quite opposite, more like the last becoming first and the first last. Eating with sinners, touching lepers, and healing the sick.
God’s future came into the present in Jesus, and so has become part of our past.
N.T. Wright quote:
“All of this is summed up in a brilliant little sentence in 1 Corinthians 11:26, ‘whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup’ says Paul, ‘you announce the Lord’s death until he comes.’ the present moment (whenever) somehow holds together the one-off past event (‘the Lord’s death’) and the great future when God’s world will be remade under Jesus’ loving rule (‘until he comes’). Past and future come rushing together into present, pouring an ocean of meaning into the little bottle of ‘now’”.

God’s future has arrived in the present in the very person of Jesus of Nazareth- his life, death and resurrection. In Jesus we can see what what God’s new world is going to look like. Bodies and all of creation will be transformed to share in the freedom which goes with the glory that God will shower on his people.
Put all this together and turn it into a symbolic action that we can participate in and what do we have? The food and drink that we can eat in the present that is brought to us from the future.The food and drink that we share in love with one another apart of God’s family, the food and drink that we pray for the spirit to come from God’s future to transform our present. The food and drink which symbolize the presence and love, the death and resurrection, of Jesus himself.

‘As often as you eat this bread,’ and drink this cup, you announce the Lord’s death until he comes.’
We go forward on our journey strengthen and given hope. And between faith and hope we are given love, because we are given Jesus’ very own presence.

Help a Human in full effect today! #helpahuman (Taken with...

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 15:33:09 -0700

Help a Human in full effect today! #helpahuman (Taken with instagram)

"Evolution of Adam" Reviewed

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 09:34:00 -0700

By Lawrence Garcia

The theory of evolution, it’s not going away. And for many, Christian or not, the evidence for evolution is compelling enough to warrant it as the most probable hypothesis for explaining human origins. Thus, for many Christians the ghosts of the sixteenth and seventeenth-century Scientific Revolution have been stirred and are once again haunting the church. The church of course survived the revolution, however, the challenges that, let’s say the heliocentric model posed to Scripture’s implied geocentric model, pale in comparison to the textual and doctrinal challenges that the theory of evolution pose. For one, Scripture portrays Jesus’ death as the single soteriological act that redeems man from specifically Adam’s primordial act of disobedience (e.g. Romans 5:12-19), and thus there are some theologians who might say, “If evolution is true, then Christ has died in vein and your faith is futile!” Implied in this position is the theological premise that for Jesus’ death to be truly effective necessarily demands a historical Adam. The big question then is, “How can the church make sense of its central tenets in lieu of the rising acceptance of the evolutionary model?” Peter Enns’s “The Evolution of Adam: What the Bible Does and Doesn’t Say About Human Origins” is a biblical scholar’s attempt at beginning to answer some of these urgent questions. Enns writes:

“My goal is to focus solely on how the Bible fits in to all this. The biblical authors tell a very different story of human origins does than science. For many Christians, the question that quickly surfaces is how to accept evolution and value Scripture as God’s Word. In other words, ‘If evolution is true, what do I do with my Bible?’”

Simply stated, Enns is proposing an evolution of Adam, not as an attempt to force Genesis 1-3 to accommodate evolution—a sort of exegetical procrustean bed approach, but rather that, “Our understanding of Adam has evolved over the years and it must now be adjusted in light of the preponderance of (1) scientific evidence supporting evolution and (2) literary evidence from the world of the Bible that helps clarify the kind of literature the Bible is.” In other words, the book isn’t a sustained argument for evolution per se, Enns seems to take it for granted, but rather a serious look into what kind of ancient text Genesis actually is. By examining the literary function of Genesis we will be able to both clarify and limit how Genesis can bear down on the rising conflict between the Genesis’ creation accounts and the mounting evidence for evolution (not a battle between “religion and science”). This approach has a certain strength to it as both sides of this discussion usually make the mistake of presupposing that Genesis is a literal portrayal of the creation of the cosmos (ancient historiography though not purely mythological in character was quite libertarian compared to the limits of modern historiography).

In order to classify the sort of text Genesis is we’ll need to perform a “genre calibration” where we “[place] Genesis side by side with primordial tales of other ancient cultures to help us gain a clearer understanding of the nature of Genesis.” We’ll likewise have to study the date of composition, authorship, and coherence of Genesis using Biblical criticism, that is, an “academic study of the Bible.” It is after pairing up Genesis with other A.N.E texts like the Enuma Elish and the Gilgamesh Epic—ancient creation and flood stories, and after having examined the text critically that we can conclude:

“It was written after the exile that Israel’s sacred collection of books came to be—not out of dispassionate academic interest on the part of some scribes but as a statement of self-definition of a haggard people who claimed and yearned for a special relationship with their God. The Bible, including the Pentateuch, tells a story for contemporary reasons: Who are we? Who is our God?”

Such were the hard questions Israel had to ask while languishing in Babylonian exile. The creation narratives, shaped around Israel’s own national story and seven-day liturgical life, thus become a resolute act of self-definition and theological reaffirmation in the face of national crises. But what happens when later interpreters like Paul employ this document to formulate their soteriological framework for the value of Jesus’ crucifixion? In order to deal effectively with this question we must keep in mind that two factors: “(1) the Jewish climate of the day, likewise marked by creative ways of handling Scripture; and (2) Paul’s uncompromising Christ centered focus… Paul is not doing ‘straight exegesis’ of the Adam story. Rather, he subordinates that story to the present, higher reality of the risen Son of God.” Thus, a synthesis between evolution and Paul’s (and ours) Gospel can be maintained because Jesus’ efficacious death still deals decisively with:

1. “The universal and self-evident problem of death.”

2. “The universal and self-evident problem of sin.”

3. “The historic event of the death and resurrection of Christ.”

What Enns has accomplished here by this genre-sensitive approach is a new avenue for this often stand-still discussion between creationists and evolutionists (and those in between) to finally move forward beyond the narrow either/or’s, such as “evolution or Adam,” “old earth or young earth.” First, for intra-Christian dialogue where the central tenets of the Christian kerygma can be maintained without compromise while one’s position on Genesis and evolution can differ dramatically, thus allowing for Christian unity to be maintained. Second, for those who maintain the false, over-dramatized tension between Scripture and science, can finally be equipped to make more informed judgments on the places where new discoveries may challenge old assumptions in the text without necessarily having to abandon a biblical worldview altogether. Finally, an informed book that both embraces what modern science is telling us and at the same time maintains a deep devotion to sacred Scripture and its center piece, the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Redemptive Love (part 2 of 2)

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 08:02:50 -0700

Redemptive Love (part 2 of 2) :

the foundation on which John’s presentation of love, as expressed in John 3:16 is built, which is love as the redemptive act of God, rooted in the way in which Israel understood their Creator God and His intentions for His creation, which was its complete restoration and redemption. this was to be accomplished through His Christ and through the community of His Christ as they mimicked Him and His expression of love…

Redemptive Love (part 1 of 2)

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 11:37:41 -0700

Redemptive Love (part 1 of 2) :

John 3:16 is to be understood in conjunction with Israel’s history, its conception of redemption, and in the context of God’s covenant faithfulness that is directed towards His redemption and restoration of His creation…

"A wise man does not accumulate for himself. The more he uses for others, the more he has himself...."

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 13:45:26 -0700

“A wise man does not accumulate for himself. The more he uses for others, the more he has himself. The more he gives to others, the more he possesses of his own. The way of heaven is to benefit others and not to injure.”

- Lao-Tzu (c. B.C. 550)

We sit, talk, eat and listen to good music. #helpahuman (Taken...

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 18:39:49 -0700

We sit, talk, eat and listen to good music. #helpahuman (Taken with instagram)

My 24 Day Challenge Results

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 11:31:25 -0700

Takes a lot of guts (pun intended) to post your shirtless picture all over the Internet but I knew I had to do it for motivation to follow through with the 24 day challenge. Well the results are in.

Lost 16 LBS
Dropped 6 total inches
Pant size went from a 38 to 34
Gained tons of energy (no longer feeling sluggish throughout the day)

All of this without working out. The 24 day challenge is a nice cleanse and nutrition program to kick start your weight loss journey. Now that I am on the right track with proper nutrition and eating healthier I am now going to start a two month workout routine next week to get to my goal weight. I started at a hefty 220 pounds and my goal weight is 180-185. My dream is to have a slamming pool party for my 30th birthday this August and I plan to have my shirt off the whole time!
For more information on Advocare and the 24 day challenge please visit my wife’s website here!

Communion Invitations

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 08:46:49 -0700

By David Byrd

In Luke fourteen, Jesus tells a parable of a great banquet. A man had planned the event, invitations had been sent, requisite preparations had been carried out, and food and wine had been prepared in accordance with the number of people that had accepted the invitation.

Though we will not take up time setting up the context for this banquet, what we must say is that this parable of the great banquet is set within Jesus’ own attendance at a meal to which He had been invited, which closely follows His speaking of, in chapter thirteen, the great messianic banquet that will be hosted by Israel’s God.

Luke, as an excellent story-teller within what is a culture that communicates its stories primarily in oral/aural fashion, builds on that which comes before, never leaving Jesus’ words unexplained.

This, of course, is why we can never look at portions of the Gospel in isolation, and why, in order to have any authentic and plausible meaning, they must be understood in relation to the multiple layers of narrative on offer.

Rather than get into interpreting the details of the banquet, or even explaining the nuances of the story, we will attempt to place the banquet within Luke’s narrative of Jesus, which stretches past the Gospel that bears the same name, and on into the book of Acts.

When we consider the nature of story, always realizing that details offered up early in a story will have bearing upon or come to fruition later on in the telling, we must be mindful that Luke sometimes brings resolution to a statement from Jesus within Acts, rather than neatly tying things off within the first half of his two-part series.

As we do so, we will also consider the mission of Jesus, as presented by Luke, bearing in mind that the mission of Jesus is defined by the situation within God’s creation, and within God’s plan of redemption for His world, as it is being enacted and carried forward by the people of His covenant.

To this end, as we hear the parable of the banquet, we should be able to find points of contact with Luke’s ongoing presentation, as well as the whole of the Biblical narrative, which gives shape to Jesus’ mission.

As Jesus opens the story, we know that the banquet is ready to commence. However, something strange and quite unexpected happens. Those who had been invited, and who had accepted the invitation, fail to follow through on that acceptance, offering up excuses as to why they cannot now attend.

One says “I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it” (14:18b). A second says, “I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going out to examine them” (14:19a). A third says, “I just got married, and I cannot come” (14:20).

Now, we will not dwell on the implausibility of the excuses, which is what enrages the spurned host, but we should add that it seems as if the point being made is that all that were invited made excuses, and therefore, were not going to be attending.

Rather than retaliate, as Jesus’ hearers would have expected the man to do, especially in a culture defined by honor and shame, the insulted party-thrower re-directs his wrath, re-extending his invitation in another direction.

This is where it gets even more interesting, and also where the narrative connections, both that of Jesus in Luke/Acts and Jesus inside God’s plan, take over and are revealed. “…The the master of the household was furious and said to his slave, “Go out quickly to the streets and alleys of the city, and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.”

Then the slave said, “Sir, what you instructed has been done, and there is still room.” So the master said to his slave, “Go out to the highways and the country roads and urge people to come in, so that my house will be filled” (14:21b-23). Now, how does this fit within the over-arching Biblical narrative?

Taking in the whole scope of Scripture, the offering of excuses reminds us of the oft-repeated offering of excuses to be found within the pages of our sacred writ.

While we can think about the excuses on offer from Jeremiah, Saul, Gideon, and Moses, as to why God cannot effectively use them, here we can be sent all the way back to the very first excuses of Scripture, which are to be found in the opening pages of Genesis.

There, effectively, the Creator God had made preparations for something wonderful (a banquet of sorts) and sent out His invitations. Those invitations, of course, are extended to the first divine image-bearers.

“God created humankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them, male and female He created them” (1:27). It is then that a directive (an invitation) is given to this pair. They are invited to partake in God’s intentions for His world.

“God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the earth and subdue it! Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that moves on the ground.’” (1:28)

Without getting into the order of the creation accounts on offer in chapters one and two, we go on to find that “The Lord God took the man and placed him in the orchard in Eden to care for it and to maintain it.

Then the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat fruit from every tree of the orchard, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die” (2:15-17).

Here, the invitation takes on specificity. Shortly thereafter, at least in terms of the narrative, we find that “the serpent was more shrewd than any of the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Is it really true that God said, “You must not eat from any tree of the orchard?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit from the trees of the orchard; but concerning the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the orchard God said, ‘You must not eat from it, and you must not touch it, or else you will die.’”’” (3:1-3)

Without offering up the remainder of this part of the story, as we all are quite familiar with how it turned out, suffice it to say that both Adam and Eve ate from the tree, thus introducing death into the world. They rejected God’s invitation.

Then what did they do? They offered up excuses. God asked “Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” (3:11b) What was Adam’s excuse? “The woman whom You gave me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it” (3:12). What was Eve’s excuse? “The serpent tricked me, and I ate” (3:13b).

Understandably, God is angry with these that have now declined His invitation of participation in His purposes. However, what the big picture of Scripture shows us is that God re-directs His anger.

That re-direction begins, in earnest, in chapter twelve of Genesis, when God invites Abraham to participate in His plan. Abraham’s acceptance of God’s gracious invitation is the prelude to and the ultimate cause of the promise of descendants, which looks toward Israel’s invitation to participate with God.

Now, while some look at the parable of the great banquet and see Israel as those that have offered up excuses as to why they cannot attend, and then accordingly see the extension of an invitation to the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame, along with a further extension of invitations to those that must be compelled to come in as the invitation to the church, it can be said that such an interpretation is incomplete, mis-directed, and quite unfortunate.

If Jesus is casting Himself in the role of the man that is hosting the banquet, then mention of the poor, crippled, blind, and lame fits nicely with Jesus’ programmatic declaration at the synagogue, as recorded in Luke’s fourth chapter, which is then worked out in Jesus’ public ministry, as He goes and reaches out to the poor, crippled, blind, and lame throughout Israel.

Putting the standard and unfortunate interpretation to the side, we can view the excuse makers as Adam and Eve, with the first round of additional invitations sent out to Israel. If that is the case, then the second round of additional invitations are sent out to the Gentiles.

These are the ones that must be urged, compelled, and cajoled to come in (14:23), especially when we consider that Israel has restricted the covenantal blessings to themselves, expecting the kingdom of God to benefit them alone, as they are seated at the places of great honor at the expected messianic banquet.

Though they are most assuredly invited, and continue to be invited to participate in God’s covenantal offering for the world, the Israel of Jesus’ day made it clear to Gentiles that the covenant was for them, being careful to keep the boundaries of covenant identification firmly in place and binding on any that wanted to place themselves in a position to enjoy the covenantal blessings of Israel’s God.

Are we over-reaching in this analogy? That does exist as a possibility, but let’s look closely at how Luke presents the second and third rounds of invitations.

First, the slave is directed to go out to (1) the streets and (2) alleys, where he will find the poor, crippled, blind, and the lame—-those to whom Jesus’ Israel-focused ministry is primarily directed, and who are the regular recipients of its benefits (think of what Jesus tells John the Baptist’s disciples in reference to His ministry within Israel—-“Go tell John what you have seen and heard: The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news proclaimed to them” 7:22) .

Then, once that is done, the slave is sent to (3) the highways and (4) the country roads, which is where he will find those that must be convinced to come to the banquet, as this would very much be a surprising invitation.

Why does that matter? Well, in wrapping things up, we turn to Acts, where Luke continues His story, often drawing to conclusion things begun in the Gospel. What do we find in the first chapter? We find something that could be considered an excellent parallel to the story of the great banquet. How so?

The parable of the banquet in Luke fourteen is prompted by an anonymous declaration of “Blessed is everyone who will feast in the kingdom of God!” (14:15b) So the immediate context of the story is the kingdom of God, and Jesus proceeds to provide a glimpse into His thoughts concerning the same.

In the course of the telling we find the directives with the four-fold destination: streets, alleys, highways, country roads.

In the first chapter of Acts, the disciples speak to Jesus and say “Lord, is this the time when you are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” (1:6b), thus providing the immediate context for Jesus’ statement to follow.

Again, as in Luke fourteen, sharing His understanding of the nature of the kingdom of God, Jesus answers by eventually saying “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (1:8a).

To this Jesus adds a directive with a four-fold destination, saying “and you will be My witnesses in (1) Jerusalem, and in all (2) Judea” (1:8b), the streets and alleys, “and (3) Samaria, and to the (4) farthest parts of the earth” (1:8b), which we can think of as the highways and country roads.

Such is the nature of God’s gracious invitation, this is the gracious invitation in which we participate when we come to this symbolic table, and this is the grace that we extend when we invite others to share our meal tables, capturing the essence of the proclamation of the kingdom of God.

Let us come now to give and receive, ever cognizant of the Gospel-preaching capacity of this ritual event by which we remember the meal tables of our Lord, and by which we gain understanding of our responsibilities for God’s kingdom and His world.