Don’t know how it got there, but this song was going through my mind this weekend, so I thought I’d plant it in yours as well. :) Video’s OK, but it’s the music that I’m really passing along.
In the continuing study of John 15, we came to verse 2 today.
He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.
Among the points, noting that God the Father does make the tough calls and cuts off those branches not producing and pruning those that do, is the question of what is spiritual fruit?
First, fruit is Christ-like character, and here we see a parallel with Paul’s list of the fruits of the Spirit from Galatians. And later on in John 15, Jesus talks about how one of these fruits comes about.
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
Our joy is complete when we follow Jesus’ example of following his commands.
Secondly, fruit is answers to prayer. Again, John 15 points to this.
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
Thirdly, fruit is soul-winning. Earlier in John, chapter 4, Jesus describes what doing his Father’s work entails; bring other to know Him.
"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor."
We don’t all perform the same task each time; sometimes planting the seed, sometimes watering it, sometimes reaping the harvest. But we should be laborers with Christ as part of the fruit He wants to see in us.
The gardener’s cutting and pruning are done because he wants a return on his investment, and because he wants the branches to flourish. That is what God the Father wants from us; flourishing. His correction is meant to bring that about.
[tags]sermon notes,Gospel of John,Christianity,fruit of the Spirit[/tags]
I’ve meant to do something like this for a while; post a thought from the recent Sunday sermon. Our pastor prepares notes with blanks to fill in to help memory retention, and they’re 3-hole punched to keep in a small notebook. I’m going to (try to) post just a thought from the sermon here at the beginning of the week.
(I attend Lilburn Alliance Church with pastor Fred Hartley. There is a link to the previous Sunday’s sermon on the main page of the web site, or you can subscribe to the podcast.)
The series our pastor is beginning a study of John 15, starting this week with just the first verse. The NIV translation of this verse is, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener." He covered the whole first verse, but I’m going to just touch on the first phrase of it. The literal translation of that phrase from the Greek is "I, I am, the true the vine…." No, that’s not a typo. If you look at the Greek version, even if you don’t know Greek (and I don’t), you’ll see the first two words meaning "I" and "I am", and a short one-letter word preceding each of the next two words, being the definite article "the". Again, I’m not a Greek scholar and I’m taking Pastor Hartley’s word for this, so feel free to comment if you find something different.
This construction of "I, I am" is (as I understand it) unique in Greek literature. This is meant to convey the fact that Jesus is the "I Am" of the book of Exodus. This is another of His many claims of divinity. Jesus used this construct on at least 6 other occasions, including one that got the religious leaders perturbed. (Again, the Greek translation shows this.) For those that suggest that Jesus never actually claimed to be the divine Son of God, these instances are some of those where he did, in a language that his hearers would understand.
Then there is the construction "the true the vine". Here, Jesus is claiming exclusivity, again using a language construct that his hearers understood. He is not a true vine, one vine of many truths. Instead he is the one and only vine that is true. There are other vines, but none that are as eternally true as Jesus. Again, this goes up against claims that Jesus is but one of the many ways to God. He never spoke of any other way but Himself, and he spoke of Himself as the single path to God the Father, in ways that both the people he spoke to could understand, and even more plainly for the rest of us that don’t speak Greek.
I’ve had a few discussions with folks in the past, going back to the Bulletin Board Systems of old (pre-Internet, for you young’uns) where I’ve heard the claims about Jesus never intending to claim exclusivity, and the many ways in which people try to shoe-horn Jesus into their own religion or philosophy. The problem is, and has always been, that Jesus didn’t ever allow for that in what He said. He fully intended to stand alone and unique in human history, and efforts to incorporate His teachings, and He Himself, into the religions of others is a testament to the power in His words, and the deception of those trying to claim Him.
A person’s faith is a window into their soul. For a politician, how he or she speaks about his or her faith will tell you something about how they will govern. Stephen Mansfield, author of the new book The Faith of Barack Obama, says that in examining the Senator’s faith journey gave him insight not only into the Democratic presidential nominee but insight into larger cultural trends as well.
“Barack Obama’s faith and his spiritual journey not only are shaping this election but also, as you tell the story and reflect on it, captures many of the trends that are most powerful and transforming in this age,” said Mr. Mansfield in a recent interview.
In a post entitled Why I Walked Out of Church, writer/artist Julie Neidlinger assesses what’s wrong with many of today’s churches (hat tip: WorldMagBlog):
A recent cover story at World Magazine about “NextGen Worship” inspired a strong desire to smack the pastors depicted in the article and in the photos. The cover photo alone enraged me, with the pastor wearing baggy jeans and untucked button-up shirt with flip flops and an ear microphone. Later, the same guy is shown out front of a church holding a paper Starbucks-like cup of coffee. Could he try any harder to be lame?
I’d have liked to have taken that cup of coffee and dumped it on his head. But it’s nothing personal against that guy or his beliefs or sincerity. It’s an anger at something else.
I’m not going to be one of those starched-collar Christians who, based on personal preference, say that this is a sign we’re going to hell in a handbasket and that all things are wrong unless they are done as they were with the Puritans. What I’m saying is that I can’t stand the phoniness, or trendiness, or sameness — or whatever I’m trying to say here — that the church seems to catch onto at the tail end, not even aware of how lame it is. The fact that this is not only actually successful in appealing to people, but attracts them, also disgusts me.
It makes me want to throw up.
It’s buying into some kind of lie or substitution of cool culture as being relevant when it isn’t.
The entire article is worth reading very carefully as Julie has a lot to say. No doubt there are many other people that feel the same way.
In the early 80s the hottest book to read, discuss, and ponder in the circles I traveled was the (then) recently published Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. One of the topics this popularized was the famous zen koan:
Has a dog, Buddha nature or not?
A Western perhaps mistranslation of “Buddha” nature might be “a soul”. The answer is not, “yes” or “no” but the retort by the master was “mu”? Mr Hofstadter’s intellectual answer to that puzzle is that “mu” is in essence, unasking that question. That is, a way of emphatically insisting that the very asking of the question implies horrible structural defects in your conceptual framework that leads to this question being askable at all.
This leads us to the question:
Has a fetus a soul or not?
One proposal to consider is not, the emphatic “no” by the pro-abortion rights crowd (or to be fair, the insistent “yes/maybe” by the pro-life crowd) but instead to assume that we’ve made a critical mistake in our structural worldview and conception of reality for which this question is being relevant is a sign of error, not a point to ponder. Read the rest of this entry
Often on the Shire Network News podcast, we’ll satirize extremist Islam by reading a new story and replacing the word “Muslim” with the word “Christian”. Upon hearing this, the listener (it is hoped) understands how really extreme extremist Muslims are because, for all the similar and worse treatment Christians are accustomed to, you never hear about mass groups of extremist Christians beheading someone who drew an unflattering cartoon of Jesus.
Indeed we have our Eric Robert Rudolphs, our lone gunmen outside abortion clinics, but the very fact that we know the first, middle and last names of these guys says there aren’t nearly as many of them as there are mobs of extremist Muslims killing teachers, killing anyone over cartoons, and burning churches.
But the BBC, not content to sticking to the “art imitating life” method of fiction, decided to try to paint a little non-existent moral equivalence on their TV canvas.
A recent episode of the series Bonekickers displayed a graphic scene depicting a moderate Muslim being beheaded by a supposed “extremist Christian”.
It’s being reported that BBC1 has received several telephone complaints from it’s viewers over the episode and earlier this week the corporation stated they ‘regret’ viewers had found the scene ‘inappropriate’, but defended their decision to show it.
Viewers were apparently shocked when actor Paul Nichollswas was seen using a sword to hack off a moderate Muslim’s head in an unprovoked attack.
Nichollswas plays a member of the fictional group called the White Wings Alliance. The fictitious group is far-Right evangelical group of Christians inspired by the Crusades.
Instead of being “ripped from the headlines”, as some TV episodes like to advertise, this seems to be the result of a late-night session of “Mad Libs”, mixing what’s really happening with nouns and adjectives describing Christians. “Give me an angelic adverb.”
The BBC, responding to criticism, insists that the story, in and of itself, is internally consistent, because…well…this sort of thing is believable.
We regret that some viewers felt the beheading scene was inappropriate. It appeared half way through episode one of Bonekickers, by which time the character’s ‘extreme fundamental belief’ had been revealed, providing the audience with a good build up to the scene in question.
This storyline looked at religious fundamentalism within a fictional Christian group, and one character in particular who took his beliefs to an extreme. His ignorance and misguided behaviour lead to the beheading of a peaceful Asian Muslim character in the drama. His actions are clearly condemned by leading Muslim and Christian clerics. The drama also has the balance of a Christian character that has a deep faith which she uses humbly and only for good.
In a media world where folks are falling all over themselves to not portray Muslims as the bad guys (as they did in the movie version of “The Sum of All Fears”, for example), the BBC goes out of its way to concoct a truly unbelievable scenario. Might some extreme group identifying itself with Christians someday behead somebody? It’s not out of the realm of possibility, but right now beheadings are pretty much a signature of extremist Islam. Even revealing a character’s “extreme fundamental beliefs” is not nearly enough to explain this, as there are plenty of extremist Christians, and yet no Muslims have lost their head over it.
I’m not a great student of recent politics, that is the politics of my lifetime, instead more of a casual observer or johnny come lately, in that my interest in politics is quite young. When I was in college and until just a few years ago, Politics was much like the weather, people talk about it, have opinions and all, but it really didn’t touch me (actually did far less than the weather) and the “little guy” of which I number have about as much effect on the weather as we do on federal politics. I am not well aware of the history of Mr Helms, nor have I walked a mile in his shoes nor understand how he thinks and sees the world. I don’t hate him, I don’t love him (any more than I would another stranger).
Mr Jessie Helms has died. Every single one of the liberal blogs I read have failed to say anything gracious (and some are definitely ungracious) at the passing of a man from this mortal coil. On reflection over their attitude on his passing, I find it a good thing that I hold no American and very few foreigners in a similar regard as the beheld Mr Helms. To reiterarate:
There is no American and very few foreign nationals whose death I would celebrate.
As they did today. I don’t hate as they hate, it seems. I can think of very few men on whose deminse I would react in a similar fashion. I think I had little good to say about the deceased when Mr Hussein and Mr Arafat died. It seems to me, if you are trying to rid the world of hatred and bigotry, one must start with oneself. In our liturgy, we repeat and strive to uphold each week, these words before the anaphora (Eucharist):
I believe and confess, Lord, that You are truly the Christ, the Son of the living God, who came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first….
The confession/statement goes on, but the important phrase (for this discussion) is emphasized. This does not mean I am a worse sinner than Mr Hussein, Josef Stailn, or perhaps Mr Helms. It does mean however, I am the first person whose sins are my concern. It is not for me to address the “other’s” sins while mine are lying plain before me. And … if you (on the left) hate Mr Helms, Mr Bush, or Mr Cheney then that sin is far more important to you to address than anything that those men have done or do that you find unrighteous. And no, I don’t think that to others your sin of hatred is being compared or worse then perception of the sins of those men whom you hate. What I am suggesting is that it is more important for you to address than the other.
When we think about the American Revolution, we tend to think about the war itself. But as John Adams once wrote, “The American Revolution was a change in the hearts and minds of the people.” As Jane Hampton Cook shows in her excellent book Battlefields and Blessings: Stories of Faith and Courage from the Revolutionary War, the change of hearts and minds took place over a period of 25 years before the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord. There is also no doubt that the Revolution would not have occurred if people of faith hadn’t been leading the way.
St. John Chrysostom wrote, just a few years ago (in the 5th century), the Divine Liturgy used in by the Eastern Orthodox. The link is to a wordle-ization of it.
As I mentioned a month ago, my three eldest kid would be doing short-term missions trips this summer. Two of them went to Waveland, Miss. earlier, helping with Katrina relief. The third flew out yesterday to Costa Rica for a week.
They’ll be working with Pura Vida Missions, running Vacation Bible school classes held in parks and public places in neighborhoods with a mission group, and helping in an orphanage.
Please pray for her safety and her witness, as well as for comfort at home. :) Costa Rica’s a long way away. Thanks.
[tags]Pura Vida Missions,religion,Christianity,missions,Costa Rica,Christian and Missionary Alliance[/tags]
The SCOTUS today offered a decision putting the US Constitutional law in line with Noahide law, that only if one takes a life it is just to take a life. Specifically that capital punishment is forbidden for a state to enact in response to the a particularly vicious rape of an 8 y/old girl in Louisiana. My remarks follow:
While other Christian groups and denominations may have doctrinal issues with the Latter-day Saints, they do line up on a number of political issues.
SALT LAKE CITY – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is asking California members to join the effort to amend that state’s constitution to define marriage as being between a man and a woman.
A letter sent to Mormon bishops and signed by church president Thomas S. Monson and his two top counselors calls on Mormons to donate "means and time" to the ballot measure. A note on the letter dated June 20 says it should be read during church services on June 29, but the letter was published Saturday on several Web sites.
Church spokesman Scott Trotter said Monday that the letter was authentic. He declined further comment, saying the letter explains the church’s reasons for getting involved.
The LDS church will work with a coalition of churches and other conservative groups that put the California Marriage Protection Act on the Nov. 4 ballot to assure its passage, the letter states.
In May, California’s Supreme Court overturned a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage, saying gays could not be denied marriage licenses.
"The church’s teachings and position on this moral issue are unequivocal. Marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and the formation of families is central to the Creator’s plan for His children," the four-paragraph letter states.
Mormons say they have 750,000 member in California, who could have a big impact.
What’s not clear in all of this, regardless of the addition of the Mormons to the fray, is how California will deal with the genie they’ve already let out of the bottle; what to do with marriage licenses that the amendment would directly affect. This quandary, brought to you by Judicial Activism(tm), is the result of liberals in government not letting the legislative process do its work and trying to usurp it. Some complained here in Georgia that the constitutional amendment that passed here was unnecessary since we already had a law against same-sex marriage. The California situation is a prime object lesson for why that argument was, at least, disingenuous.
[tags]California,Latter-Day Saints,Mormons,same-sex marriage[/tags]
When we read of the early church, there are accounts of entire nations converting to Christianity because their King or Prince converted. Our impression today is that this paints a very poor picture of the religious faith of those common people who converted on the “mere” say-so of their sovereign.
However, one might turn that around especially in our independent democratic age. For it might say more about what it truly means to have a King and Lord than about their personal devotion. As the Christians are a people lauding Christ as Lord … that lesson is one that might be taken more to heart.
Dan Trabue the other day asked about the basis, in Scripture and Tradition, regarding the reason for having the priest (and Bishop) always being male in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. For in Orthodoxy, much of what women are just now being allowed to do, has always been permitted in the Orthodox church. Woman are not ordained to the priesthood or episcopate, however can be ordained Reader or Deacon. Women can preach (give a homily), teach, serve the sick and infirm, join monastic orders and so on.
The reason they cannot serve at the altar is that the Bishop (and the Priest in his absence stands in for the Bishop) serves for the Church and his diocese as an Icon of Christ … and Christ was male. Icon and iconography was defended in detail by the 7th (and last) Ecumenical council. The idea of icon is a somewhat more complicated one than can be covered in one blog (very short) post but … hopefully that sheds some light on the matter.
