« Odd Thomas: Autonomous | Home | Friday Foto Finish »
By Jeremy | March 7, 2007
+
Suspect arrested in kidnapping of 13-year-old MacGyver. My cousin Steven told me yesterday that this kidnapping took place moments from where he lives in Florida, and within minutes of the initial call to the police,
Word of Christ International Church's intercessory prayer team had been mobilized to pray. The boy's stepdad works with Rick, one of the church elders, so when he was notified of the kidnapping, he knew where to turn for prayer.
+ With all do respect to evangelicals who feel
this way about Rudy Giuliani, if marital failings automatically disqualify public officials from leadership, how did God manage to still use Abraham, Isaac, David, Solomon, and most of the Biblical heros of antiquity in their capacity as political leaders?
+ The teenage uncle who taught his
2 and 5-year-old nephews how to smoke pot is trying very hard to be
a mook. Time for a man to put an arm around him and
show him a better way.
+ Good for GOP front-runners Giuliani, Romney, and McCain to
speak out against Ann Coulter's "faggot" slur. I'm looking forward to Dobson, Falwell, Land, et al joining the chorus denouncing her.
+ What message does a Sean Hannity endorsment about a book about youth culture send, especially when that endorsement appears on the book cover along with his credentials from ABC News (Mickey Mouse) and Fox News (Rupert Murdoch)? Is the message (a) political or (b) spiritual?
+
Amazing Grace makes the
New York Times Best-Sellers List two weeks in a row.
Get you some.
Topics: news, random | 4 Comments »
Welcome to the professional website and personal weblog of Jeremy Del Rio. Whether you're a client, friend, or curious onlooker, please don't stay a spectator. Engage the conversation. Your contributions matter here.
(Two chapters)
(Commentary throughout)
(Study questions throughout)
March 8th, 2007 at 8:47 am
J, theological question for you to think about. Phrased in it’s broadest form… who is the hero/are the heros of the Bible? Are the O.T. saints to be revered for their ability, accomplishments, leadership skills, ethics, etc.? Or are they just jacked up sinners to whom God extended free grace? The truth is that the primary (only?) thing to be admired/pursued/mimicked is their FAITH. Interestingly, the Bible insits that even that faith was a gift from God, and so again our attention flows back to God, not men, not ever. His glory will not be shared with another. It’s his. All of it.
Solid example. David and Goliath. Who is that story about? Is it about the shepherd boy who displayed such courage and strength and leadership and killed the giant? And so we should try and be like David? David is the hero? We can be young and weak in the world’s eyes but strong in the Spirit? The little battles we fight well (lions and tigers and bears, oh no) prove to God/qualify us to be trusted to fight bigger battles? To me, that’s all b.s. The whole point of the David/Goliath story is that God’s people COULDN’T do squat, Israel sat on that hill powerless, Goliath would have crushed any of them, and so God has to come and deliverer them. Using David to do it was not primarily an affirmation of David or his leadership abilities (although clearly his faith in God was affirmed)… it was a statement about the power of God. God finds some scrawny kid with a freakin sling shot and has the giant killed; that’s how great God is… he uses the weakest kid in the camp (foreshadowing His accomplishment on the cross in the weakness of Christ). And so how is that story about great David? It’s not. It’s about great God.
Read the Hebrews role of saints. The whole thing celebrates not their character or leadership ability, but their faith. And, again, that faith points to God ins at least 2 ways… He is the giver of the faith and He is the object of the faith. And so role calling the OT saints is not about patting them on the back and saying how awesome they were… it is shouting how awesome God is. He gives faith! He delivers when we put our faith in Him! Look at these sinners and look what God accomplished through them! We should always look to the BIble and see God as the One we are longing to be like, not any men or women. And even if we connect with certain characters, like David or Joshua or Nehemiah, admiring them is primarily admiring God.
Clearly there are nuances to all this. I’m not saying that Nehemiah wasn’t a stud and that we shouldn’t learn some stuff from his leadership, etc. I’m saying that the point is not whether Abraham or David was old, young, fat, skinny, faithful, adulterous; the point is that God is so sovereign and faithful that he can even take totally jacked up people and actually get things done through them. But our incessant, myopic focus on the people is backwards. Campolo does the same thing with his definition of justice in another post on here; he makes it all about us. Justice is NOT primarily about me and my self-realization; it is about God and His character and His concern for right.
Also, connecting Giuliani with an Old Covenant saint is apples and oranges. But it is typical of evangelicals to try and moralize/biblicize everything. The question is: what are the Biblical qualifiations for serving in God’s established government of the state?
Also, comparing Giuliani with OT saints is comparing apples and oranges. They’re both fruit, but that’s about it.
Loving the videos of you guys.
March 8th, 2007 at 8:49 am
Woops, edit out that third to last paragraph.
Love to Judah and Di.
March 8th, 2007 at 1:21 pm
Well just the other night I began thinking about my life and what kind of legacy that I am leaving for my children. What message are they receiveing from me and more importantly how does that message compete with the rest of the world.
Well I began to realize – even now as I write this small comment that life is not like a box of chocolates that infact life repeats itself in so many simliar ways that my legacy just might be similiar or equal to someone before me. For instance – My father when he was a child he didn’t have the greatest relationship with his parents and it was so estrange that he ran away from home at age 11. Now ofcourse I didn’t leave home at that age but in a very real way, around that time I really didn’t listen to reason. I began framing my world as I saw it without any advice from those in my my immediate life (infact I remember later in life someone called me abnockous and a pompus azz because in their opinion I didn’t get it. Needless to say I love my dad and my friend but the relationship is arkward at times. But what’s my point? As I read the article the subject matter becomes open ended. I realize that still our young people are being framed in the likeness of this confused world just as I was at that age. Our former Mayor has a right to persue his career but at what cost… What is his legacy for his kids to look at. The mother and father who where in the house while the teens were allowing two babies to smoke pot – what kind of legacy is that?!
The young children that are kidnapped each day…We aren’t learning from our past mistakes and are still producing choas in many ways. Legacy is so important, even some close friends of mine who have material problems and can’t seemed to find a solution, who are at the brink of divorce are leaving an imprint of failure to their next generation.
Our mistakes that we make in life remain in our life well after we are gone and meet our maker. Those people in the article need to recognize that as they live and persue life.
My advice, take life in with a grain of salt and protect your legacy before your children allow others to frame it for you.
March 9th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
note: My rant above comes from receiving a book called ‘In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day’ in which this guy pulls two verses out of 2 Samuel about a guy you never heard of and moralizes the whole thing, wanting us to be like Benaiah and chase lions into show pits, inventing details all along the way to fill pages. Why do we do this with the Bible? Why do we need another hero other than Christ? And didn’t we learn that books pulled from obscure references are a disaster from Jabez? We say so much from so little and we say nothing from what is spoken of on every page of the BIble. Aaargh.