Summer Conference Notes, #1: The Church Seminar I

why study the church?
because if you're a Christian, understanding a healthy ecclesiology is an important step to maturity

what is the church?
- the avenue God crated to carry out His redemptive plan
- the Father's family, the Son's presence, and the Spirit's temple

the church really is first instituted in genesis 12 with abraham (emphasis on family)
at pentecost it takes on a more explicit form, but it is not new [translation: we are into covenant theology, not dispensationalism]

circumcision is no longer required because there is no physical requirement to enter the spiritual family
- so what about baptism?
~ explicitly commanded by Christ
~ physical sign is not the issue; the heart is (i.e., you can be saved without being baptized - does not negate the command to obey and be baptized, but rather demonstrates further the truth of sola fide)

there is a difference between what we see when we look at the church and what really is (visible vs. invisible distinction)

so why bother with the visible church?
- the invisible church must be expressed (like faith must have works) or it will be only a theoretical platitude
- going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than works do, but both of those things demonstrate an invisible truth, or belonging (works demonstrate faith; being involved in the visible church demonstrates membership in the invisible church)
- even Jesus did not ditch the visible church; the Man went to synagogue (clearly those people didn't know what was going on, as Messiah Himself was sitting there with them and they didn't know), Who of all people was the one most justified in not going
- immediacy of visible church prevents unpracticed benevolence and affection for others, which CS Lewis describes as "largely imaginary"

Pietism: a reaction to the intellectual emphasis of religion (experiential conversion, centralized individual inner life) which focused on emotion
Revivalism: experience, individualism, emotion, personal decision to be personally saved from personal sins, cognitive theologicial self-actualization
Problem with these: the church is more than a place to stoke the flames of individual hearts for Jesus

individualism is idealistic and detatched from reality and practice

incarnational church: you cannot believe in God in the abstract (if you believe Him, you will follow Him) - faith has flesh and blood

the submission of the church:
Jesus has been made "head over everything for the church"
this implies structure, which has developed over time and in accordance with need
two areas of submission to Christ through submission to
1) the Bible (central to worship & thinking
2) church leaders

sermon ought to be central to worship service because it is to be the Word of God preached - thus it should usually be expository

new testament letters are 1/2 doctrine and then half behavior impacted by doctrine

why are the particular people elders who are mentioned in titus 1:5? what pisition do they really practically have over my life?
qualifications: Paul lays these out pretty clearly, but basically we are looking for spiritual maturity
can church leaders really tell me what to do? there is biblical precedent for elders making a decision and the people following it - they cannot bind our consciences, but they do lead us in a real way

the point of church government is not dominion but stewardship

what does the church do?
eph. 4:15-16 "we will in all things grow up into Him Who is the Head, that is, Christ"
key distinction between kingdom and church
in/for the world: balance between (a) the push to spread the gospel and push out and reach (become culturally aware) and (b) protection against false teaching (prevent world from corrupting via interaction)
the church glorifies God as an instrument of redemption
christians have responsibilities the church does not have
kingdom of God: "God's sovereign rule in principle comes into concrete expression" - redemption of anything ("go find something that's broken and fix it")
nonchristians can bring God's kingdom to bear as well, they just are unaware of it
preachers are called to preach the Word, pray for flock, and disciple

Work & Bball Updates; Advice Question

favorite question i got today at b&n's children section: "i'm looking for books that babies can chew on." and yes, she was serious. i did have some such books, but isn't that a weird question?

today was mindnumbingly drudgery once they sent me back to "zone," but i did get two visits - one from my dad and one from my dear friend tiffany, who brought her two little boys with her. i must say - they were MUCH more well-behaved than most of the kids that come through there. it is such a mess most of the time because parents don't make their kids clean up after themselves. weird with a beard if you ask me.

i got to see the bug (that would be my brother) play a basketball game tonight - he was fabulous - scored 8 points and stuffed a few people a lot of times. and i love cheering loud. if only he liked to play baseball... oh well. you can't have everything. he has another ball game tomorrow night at 9.

i'm not so tired today as i have been - i think i'm getting used to the intensity of a "real job." my extroversion has been reaffirmed, as work that involves people i love and find invigorating (i LOVE helping customers), but zoning nearly led to brain-deadness.

i'm off tomorrow (and every sunday, thank God), so i will hopefully be able to dig into some of the fun stuff from summer conference on here tomorrow.

well, the mavs just lost. 7th game here we come. and can i just say i have loads of respect for michael finley, even if he did leave the mavs for the spurs? the man is phenomenal. mark cuban, on the other hand, is SO weird.

since this blog is, at least from what i can tell, frequented relatively heavily by men, i thought i would ask an advice question about cars. now i know that being male does not make you a car-freak, and that being female does not preclude you from being such a one, but odds are better that you guys know about this stuff. so here's my question: i have a 2001 nissan pathfinder that i love dearly but already as 71000 miles on it. i have the opportunity to get my grandfather's 2002 toyota avalon which has a very very very scanty number of miles wracked up on it. it's dented and scratched something fierce though. so what should i do?

Work & Basketball

not as catchy a title as "love and basketball," but the latter wouldn't be really be accurate.

so the job i'm doing is technically called "bookseller" at barnes & noble, and i'm focusing on the kids' section. i am EXHAUSTED - napped for 2 hours today when i got home, didn't watch the end of the mavs game because i was too tired (definite sign of exhaustion), and have generally been wiped. but i really enjoy it, despite the fact that there are creepy and gross things scattered throughout. but the kids section is muy fantastico and i know it pretty well and i know the books pretty well and it's exciting. AND they're now paying me $7/hour instead of a mere $6.75. and no, that does not mean i got a raise - they just changed policy in time for me to arrive.

so. despite (or perhaps partially because of) micah's utter disdain for basketball, i thought i would explain things a bit re: me and basketball. so here we go.

i live in a basketball family. my dad played in college (he's a whopping 6'11"); my sister now plays in college (she's a whopping 6'4"); my brother plays in middle school (he's a whopping 5'11 1/2", which isn't bad for a 13 year old). So basically, my mom and i live on a steady diet of basketball. it's a good thing i like to watch it or i would be a family traitor. i actually didn't for a while (long story), and it was bad. anyway, some tastes are acquired and i had no choice but to acquire this one. being the runt of the family - and the non-athletic one, to boot, although i love a good game of volleyball - i must say i am glad because it IS fun and i DO enjoy it on my own and plus, it is good for family morale. so no more picking on me for liking basketball or you answer to the family mafia.

not really mafia. but we grow 'em pretty big, so still be careful.

just kidding. we're not that insecure.

ps - i'm reading God Is the Gospel right now - the new john piper book - and it's mahvelous.

Basketball, Work, and Other Fun Life-y Sorts of Things

so the mavs had a phenomenal win last night - it was SUCH a last minute thing. it was all exciting and adrenalin-surging and such. it was fun. and now tomorrow night is really important to finishing out the series.

tomorrow i start work. i'm really excited about it. it will be really fun. that said, i am pretty nervous.

i still haven't unpacked hardly at all from the semester. but that's ok, i've gotten a ton of good chill time with mom.

right now i'm watching "the family stone," which is really fascinating. amazing how dreadful people can be to other people.

a brief bit of rambling

if you looked me over right now, you would never guess me and my pastey-white self had been to florida last week, or that i don't highlight my now very-blonde hair (darn sun will go after my hair but not my skin!), or that i want to live in a small town (at least for a while) but that i love big-city shopping. you wouldn't guess that i bought a long "book-lady" skirt today at old navy or that i took some amazing pictures last week and this weekend. you wouldn't even be able to tell that i do a killer-awesome monkey-face when pressed even just a little. but you would know that i love ruf. that's because i'm wearing the shirt.

Holla!

Hello faithful readers!

I have been AWOL. This you know well if you are indeed faithful readers. ;-) The moving thing kinda took over my life, and we don't have wireless internet yet. Then the RUF summer conference herd left and I only got back to home, family, and internet late last night. I'll be posting more very soon about the teaching and all that sort of rot. Right now I'm just trying to recover- I drove 13 hours yesterday and stopped for about 2 in the middle to tour RTS Jackson, which is no longer on the list. Oh, and Covenant Seminary is now on the list. Funny how when all the campus ministers you meet went to Covenant, it changes your perspective.

I love cheesecake and I think work starts on Wednesday.

are you rundown, tired, listless?

do you poop out at parties? are you unpopular? the answer to all your problems is in this little bottle: vita-meata-vega-min...

i'm a senior, i'm almost totally moved into my apartment, i bought a mattress today, and i am exhausted.

summer conference: T-5 days!

can you be a christian platonist?

This is a dangerous question because so many people have claimed to be exactly that. I trust that the real issue at hand is whether it is logically consistent to be a Christian Platonist, not whether people have tried very hard or actually pulled it off via compartmentalization. My answer, as a Christian, is no.

In the phrase “Christian Platonist,” “Christian” operates as an adjective, while “Platonist” is a substantive adjective. This means, frankly, that the most significant weight of this phrase is the “Platonist” part. That just won’t work.

Philosophy and religion are both difficult issues, particularly when they meet. In order to have consistency in your beliefs about the world, you have to have some sort of governing principle. You must have a foundation. For a Christian, that foundation should always be the Gospel. Scripture, then, is the final authority since it is the way God speaks to us and the primary way that we know Him. In itself, this is not something we can explain using only reason, and neither is much of what the Bible says. God incarnate? Virgin birth? Resurrection? These things are far from explicable, yet we have it on good authority – divine authority – that they happened. The rationality of Platonism would not accept this.

The Gospel is essential to Christianity, and it is in this particular area that we can examine the problem of Christian Platonists. Paul sums up the Gospel in Romans 5:6-10:

“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person – though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die – but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God.”

The basic assumptions here simply are not compatible with Platonism. Here we learn that the equation of Christianity includes the fallenness of man, the sacrificial love of God, and a heroic rescue by Christ from divine wrath. Let us look at these issues point-by-point.

Firstly, Plato’s dialogues assume quite the opposite state of man. Where Christianity pronounces mankind to be sinful and incapable of living a life pleasing to God, Socrates and his compatriots seek the good life, which they believe could be summed up by pursuing philosophy. People are fundamentally capable of using their minds to live the best way possible. But if that were true, then the sacrifice of Christ was ridiculous – people would need to be an example, not a sacrificial lamb. Any attempt to live the good life without Christ, to the Christian way of thinking, would be ultimately fruitless.

Secondly, Plato’s definition of love does not deal in terms that would allow this kind of radical sacrifice for one’s enemies. His stance on love, as displayed in the Symposium, is fundamentally about lack. God does not lack something that would compel Him to love us, but He loves us anyway.

Finally, the stance that the substitutionary atonement assuaged the wrath of God stands preposterous before the ideals of the Platonist. Part of what is required for all of this to work is the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, which Paul in I Corinthians refers to as far from popular among “reasonable” people: “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (I Corinthians 1:22-24)

Ultimately, the issue at hand is brought up by Paul in verse 25: “For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” Christianity requires that we yield to the superior wisdom of God. Plato is not such a fan of submitting to anything but your own reason.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

i am happy to say that not only is division v (math and science) over, but now my language requirement is done. i'm taking a break from greek for at least a semester.

today was the day we got the key to the condo and started moving in. tomorrow is the big day for moving though - psycho massive amounts of work will be done. i'm kinda pumped.

so far i haven't napped a bit. that's fun. i would have though i should have crashed and burned already... about 2 and a half hours of sleep before a greek exam is not fodder for a happy day, or so i thought. apparently that's not really true. at least not today.

only a little more paper proofing to do and one final (for blasted history of english common law) and then i'm FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

well, so to speak.

countdown

wednesday, may 3 @ 12pm i will be a senior.

that's way soon, man.