My good friend Tyson Guthrie (who wrote the other half of the Nicene Creed devo) has a blog that I hope (hint, hint) will be updated more regularly now that the summer camp season is winding down. One of his great regular pieces is called Brotherly Wisdom and includes a quote from a modern writer/theologian and a short summary of Tyson’s thoughts on the quote. Here is a great example from Tyson’s latest posts:

“…My peers and I were among the first ones to experience grade inflation, where we got A’s for excavating our feelings and “doing our best” at calculus. We were among the first to be programmed for self-esteem, as we learned that having a pulse made us wonderfully special. For as long as we can remember, we’ve been destined for superstardom. Some of us have been prepped for elite schooling since before we could use the potty, and we’ve been on the traveling soccer teams before we knew not to touch the ball with our hands. We’ve been stuffed full of praise for mediocrity and had our foibles diagnosed away with hyphenated jargon and pop psychology.
It’s no wonder we expect people to affirm us for everything, criticize us for nothing, and pay us for anything we want to do.” -Kevin DeYoung, Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God’s Will

DeYoung nails it. If you haven’t read this book, you should. In the age of the adultolescent DeYoung’s advice is sage, and his voice should be heard amidst and above the pseudo-spiritual ramblings of some/many popular Christian authors.

Check out Tyson’s blog here: http://heytyson.blogspot.com

One of my new favorite theologians is Stanley Hauerwas. Although he is not a fan of the title, he was named the Best Theologian in America by Time in 2001. In this clip he discusses his thoughts on the healthcare debate, but midway through makes a thought provoking statement about how we educate our nation’s Doctors vs. how we educate our pastors.

The whole thing is interesting, but be sure to hear what he says from minutes 1:30-3:00.

What do you think? Valid argument or not?

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This fall at The Village Church our Pastors are starting a series on authority. I am very much looking forward to this, since I have had quite a few questions about this for some time. For sake of good discussion, where do you rank the following sources of authority? If you have no idea, give it a shot. If you aren’t a Christian, please feel free to participate as well – maybe even give some insight into why none of these should be authorities in your mind.

In no particular order:

• The Pope
• Church Elders
• Scripture
• Your interpretation of Scripture
• Creeds & Confessions

Please rank 1 for highest authority over your life, and 5 for lowest authority over your life. I’ll share my rankings soon, but I’d love to hear yours for now, however informed or uninformed you feel.

It is easy to swing from one extreme to the other. You get burned in a relationship, and all the sudden you promise to never get close to someone else. You take a risk and get shot down, and all the sudden you vow to never risk again. This rarely plays out – but the instinct to over-react is still there. The same thing happens in Christianity.

In his regular Q&A, John Piper was asked if he had any words of caution for the “New Reformed” movement that has become more and more popular of late, especially in the younger circles. In his answer (available here) he makes the following observations:

On the dangers of the contemporary worship awakening:

The danger of the contemporary worship awakening is that we love loving God more than we love God.

On the dangers of the new reformed movement:

The danger of the New Reformed movement is making theology God instead of God God. Loving doing theology rather than loving God.

A great reminder of the dangers of each extreme. Thanks to @lukesammons for the link!

This is a preview of the Nicene Creed devo that Tyson Guthrie and I recently wrote. It has been a great joy to watch several Young Life Work Crew, Summer Staff and Assigned Team members walk through the Creed every day. This excerpt is from Day 4 “The Father”…

“The Bible is God’s revelation of Himself to humankind.  Don’t miss how big that is…God (infinite) reveals Himself to humans (finite).  In order to communicate truths that are way beyond our grasp, the Bible uses human terms like Father.  We all have fathers.  Some of us have bad fathers, or absent fathers.  Some of us have good fathers.  There are some ways in which earthly fathers help us know what our heavenly Father is like, and many ways in which our earthly fathers will hinder our thoughts of God.  For those of us who don’t know our fathers, or have abusive fathers, the very thought of a heavenly “father” is offensive.  “Why would I want another father?  All they do is hurt me…let me down.”  Even those of us with good, loving fathers can mislead us in our thoughts of our Heavenly Father.  We think of God as basically the same as us…maybe a little older and wiser.  A big cuddly figure who bandages our spiritual skinned knees.  So what does it mean that God is Father?  Three things: He is the Original Source.  He has a Son.  We can be adopted as His Sons and Daughters.”