I don’t usually blog about work but I wanted to write about something God has orchestrated in my 
professional life. I work as a technical consultant for a local consulting firm here in Omaha. Just a couple of months ago I was doing a gig for one of our clients who is located in the heart of of downtown Omaha. I was traveling over an hour each way to do this gig. I also found myself doing basically the same kind of analyst work I’ve been doing for the past several years which is fine, but the travel each day was a killer. To shorten a somewhat long story I would just like to say that God ended that contract. He has also put me onto a project with some other consultants in our firm. I am only traveling half the distance for work and I am working with a dear friend who is a Christ follower, and with some other folks who have professional skills I dearly want to learn. The project will last a couple of years and I will be getting some wonderful hands on experience using development tools such as Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, SQL Server 2005 Database, and C# (Sharp).Net. Included with these tools I will be learning about Reporting Services in the .Net framework, LINQ which stands for Language Integrated Query which is used to easily hook queried data from a database into your code, and AJAX which is a group of interrelated techniques used for creating interactive web applications. With these techniques you can retrieve data from the web server in the background without interfering with the behavior of the existing web page. Needless to say I am extremely excited. I am giving all the glory to God. Ok, enough of the geeks stuff, now for some Romans.
Category Archives: Theology
Geeks and Romans
Step back, take a deep breath
and weigh it against the scriptures. That continuation of this post heading is from one of the rare critical
comments I found as I researched “The Shack” by William P. Young. This is the newest book being heralded in the Christian community. For the most part this book is getting rave reviews. Just yesterday (June 26th) the book received 10 reviews and all but one were given the highest mark (5 stars) by the reviewer. The book has been as high as #7 of the top selling books on Amazon.com. The book is hugely popular. It currently has over 680 reviews, with 527 of them ranking it 5 stars.
As a Christian I have seen many books get heralded as the next new great thing to bring you closer to God. To mention a few: “The Purpose Driven Life”, “The Prayer of Jabez”, “Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper”, “Wild At Heart”, “The Ragamuffin Gospel”. Each of these were gobbled up by the Christian community. Are we that desperate and thirsty to know God outside of His word? Do we abandon everything we know or don’t know about who God is as written in scripture? Someone explain to me why we latch on to what a man has written above what is found in the God breathed scripture. Why do we not step back, take a deep breath, and weigh the book against scripture?
Who can charge God’s elect?
It’s been a while since I have posted anything. I have been a little sidetracked since the passing of my
mother a few weeks ago. To be honest I have been having a hard time coming up with something to write about since attending the memorial. I had forgotten how natural it is to write about the things of Christ. As a believer in Christ and His gospel it should be at the forefront of your daily thoughts. Yesterday my son from Tennessee called to speak with my wife and I and in my conversation with him it naturally turned to the things of Christ. One of the many things we discussed were the promises to the believers found in Romans chapter 8. In particular verses 33 and 34. Two short verses with powerful implications for the believer. In verse 33 the apostle Paul poses the rhetorical question:
Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?
Much like what we read in Job, Satan stands in heaven accusing those that belong to God. How can he accuse? He does so because we still continue to sin. But as I mentioned above, Paul’s question is rhetorical because the believer should know full well that the punishment for our sins, past, present, and future, were satisfied by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Believers have not done anything to save their selves from the deserved punishment. For if we did, wouldn’t Satan’s accusations be credible? But thanks be to our Lord Jesus Christ that our sins were paid by Him and the rhetorical question has an answer. This is found in Paul’s proclamation in the next verse.
It is God who justifies.
If it is God who justifies the sinner through the sacrifice of His son Jesus Christ, what leg does Satan have to stand on as he accuses? It is God who justifies the believer, His own, His elect. What this means for the believer is since God justifies, the righteousness of Christ is imputed to the believer. In other words the sinlessness of Christ is attributed to the believer and God declares us righteous. If we have the righteousness of Christ then the accusations of Satan are null and void. He cannot make a charge against God’s elect. I am so thankful that God is the one who declares me righteous through Christ’s death and resurrection, and not something that I earn. God, who is rich in mercy and grace, is the only one who can declare you free from all charges. Forever!
Soli Deo Gloria!
Two authors, two movements
The other day I found a link to an article in Christianity Today that features a conversation between two
contemporary authors. The article is providing a forum for each of these authors to address each other with observations and questions about each others camps so to speak. The authors are Collin Hansen who authored “Young, Restless, and Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists“, and Tony Jones who wrote “New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier“. The conversation will continue over several days and makes for some interesting reading. The guys are very civil toward each other and bring up some questions that have interested me. Through the discussion I have learned a little more about the emergent church and the logic behind some of their theology or determined lack of it. It is interesting because they each mention the movements virtually being driven in part by discussions in the blogosphere. Imagine that? There are many blogs and bloggers mentioned that we all frequent. Go check it out and use the links provided to view each days discussion.
Emergent’s New Christians and the Young and Restless Reformed
Music Review Tuesday – Delirious?
When I think of Delirious?, I think of modern Christian worhip music. They have released many worship albums, and have several well known worship songs including: “I Could Sing of Your Love Forever”, “Deeper”, and “Lord, You Have My Heart”. Delirious? began as a worship band for a youth outreach event called “Cutting Edge”. This event was created by Arun Community Church in Littlehampton, West Sussex, England. They have been a favorite in our household since purchasing and listening to their “Glo” album in 2000. I have loved their mix or worship centered lyrics and modern rock music. The band Delirious? features Martin Smith on vocals and guitar, Stuart Garrard (also known as Stu G) on guitar and backing vocals, Jon Thatcher on bass guitar, Tim Jupp on keys and piano, and Paul Evans on drums and percussion.
Their new album is called “Kingdom of Comfort“. It was released in the U. S. on April 1st, 2008, April Fool’s Day. I wonder if there was an intention to it’s release on that particular day? They did have an album titled “King of Fools” released in 1997. “Kingdom of Comfort” was inspired by the band’s recent missions trip to Cambodia and Mumbai, India. The band’s guitarist Stu G is quoted as saying:
Seeing children looking for scraps on the rubbish dump they call homes in Cambodia and the education and feeding projects in the slums of Mumbai India really had an impact on us. It wasn’t possible to simply proceed with business as usual. We had to ask ourselves, what am I building? A kingdom of comfort? Or a kingdom of heaven?
The most ridiculous story I’ve ever read.
But it presents a very thought provoking subject. The potter and the clay. Who made who? Go to “Lump of Clay Tells Potter What To Do“at the TBNN site and read the whole story.
Soli Deo Gloria
A super clear depiction of The Trinity
There is one God and He eternally exists in three persons. This is
one of the most difficult characteristics of God to understand. Even though it is a difficult characteristic or doctrine, it is a hill to be defended even to the death. This is the doctrine known, in Christian circles, as The Trinity, or The Godhead.
The other day while listening to a sermon I was reminded and affirmed of this doctrine and truth about God. In all the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) there exists a perfect depiction of The Trinity in action. The most descriptive, I believe, is found in Matthew chapter 3. The context of the passage is that Jesus is being baptised by John the Baptist and after He comes out of the water The Godhead is evident. Here is what scripture says in Matthew 3:16-17 (ESV).
16 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.
This is such a powerful passage in scripture. God the Son is baptized, God the Spirit descends on the Son, and God the Father affirms His Son. There are other passages in the Bible where this One God in three persons is evident. But this one continues to amaze me. This is where Jesus begins His earthly ministry and where He is made known to those who were witnesses. Would you have followed this God-man? Would you have been His disciple? How many followed Him after this is not known because the very next verse indicates that He was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. It is an awesome and wonderful thing when scripture continues to affirm our beliefs. It is a far better thing when we base our beliefs on Holy Scripture.
Robin blogs about Truth and human reason
My wife Robin wrote a great posting about God’s will and truth compared to man’s reasoning. Read it here.
All are yours!
One of the things that used to frustrate me was to read or 
hear some theology promoted by a respected bible scholar that differed from a theology I had called my own. I would attend a conference and hear something from one scholar and compare it to something I heard or read by another. Why do they have to differ on things? Why can’t they all agree on everything? Do we take sides and oppose those who do not agree with a certain theology? Now I am only talking about secondary theological issues. For example I am not talking about a comparison of someone who believes in the Trinity and someone who does not. The one who does not believe in the Trinity should be opposed because it completely undermines the teaching of scripture. I am writing more about the differences such as amillennial vs. pre-millennial, or a non-cessationist vs. a cessationist.
I am reading through 1 Corinthians and Paul addresses this latter kind of opposition in the church in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. He starts out by addressing the issue of those in the Corinthian church who support the teaching of one apostle like Paul and oppose the teaching of another such as Cephas or Peter. What was happening in the church was Paul would come and teach and evangelize the church and then he would be gone. Then someone else like Apollos would come along and teach with a differing style or pet theology, much like those scholars mentioned above, and the members would create a source of opposition to those who followed the personal teaching of Paul. Paul is writing here to rebuke this opposition in the church. In verses 21-23 of the same chapter Paul encourages the church by writing this:
21 So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, 23 and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.
A pivotal point in evangelism
Just recently I visited a blog site that listed some of the 
most recent messages they had listened to. One of those most recent messages was by one of the pastors (Erik Raymond) of my home church, Omaha Bible Church. The message was about Ashael Nettleton and was part of a series of messages called “Giants of the Faith” done by the pastors, elders and some lay leaders of our church. The audio can be heard here. I was curious because I don’t remember hearing that particular message so I listened to it.
Asahel Nettleton was indeed a giant among many of the faith. He lived at a time in history that had seen a great awakening in spiritual revival based on the truth of the scriptures. Nettleton was an evangelist who had great impact in the churches he was invited to speak in. Those churches encountered many conversions. In fact it has been reported that he was responsible for leading over 30,000 folks to Christ in a time when the population of the entire nation was only about 9 million. The uniqueness of those conversions was the large number who remained faithful to Christ. Asahel Nettleton never pastored a church or authored a book, and yet he was certainly been regarded as one of the most successful preachers in history. Nettleton held to the doctrines of grace and the sovereignty of God in all things.
Upon This Rawk 