Deep conversation, do read:
So tonight I had to hear this speaker for a class.
The speaker's name was James K.A. Smith
Basically, to greatly summarize, he wants to challenge Christian Education and the Church for being too academic. He believes that because we are made in the image of God, we are beings created to love, and the biggest fall of our culture is a misdirected love. We love things of this world and not God.
He also said that we as human beings always worship something, and what we worship comes out in our actions. He used a mall as an example, that we are allured by it, we get a buzz, we're told that that's where our happiness comes from, when we come home to the dishes and the lawn and homework, and whatever new thing loses it's newness and the new clothes are not so new.
He says the church needs to stop being a mall.
He felt that the reason why our culture is so alluring is because it targets us at our core, and the church as an institution only wants to feed our minds. I did have some problems with what he was saying. Namely, that it is the work of the Spirit. The question was raised as to who does the work, is it church, or the Spirit? One prof at trinity asked about the translation of the word mind in romans 12:2.
I do agree with some things he said, namely that we underestimate the power that culture has on us and that we don't think about it enough. I have been called immature and told that I always over analyze things. The example of being immature is because there's a worship song that my school does on occasion that has this in the middle of it:
I want to run, I want to hide
I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside
I want to reach out, and touch the flame,
where the streets have no name,
I want to feel, sunlight on my face
I watch the dust cloud dissapear, without a trace,
I wannt to take shelter, from the poison rain,
where the streets have no name
...
and when I go there, I go there with you, it's all I can do.
I don't know if you know, but this is a U2 song from back in the 80's. I don't think it belongs in the middle of a contemporary worship song. I certainly don't think people should blindly sing it just because the words are on a screen. And I also certainly don't think it's scriptural for me to be called immature for refusing to do something blindly.
But the point of this is that I always analyze and check things with scripture.
Anyway,
afterward, Johnny and I were just talking about stuff. We first were analyzing the speaker, discussing different things. I first I rattled off the two things that I felt negatively:
well I think Jesus is the second Adam because
He is the second Adam. Scripture makes that very clear.
The question came up about using the things of this world, because some people who stuck around to talk with him (I think) were offended that he was talking about malls and things, and they wanted something clear cut. He took like five minutes without really answering the question, and this scripture popped in my mind, but I couldn't find it in the moment because I have this thing where I always think everything is in Romans somewhere:
those who use the things of this world, as if not engrossed by them
Sometimes, just quoting scripture makes things so much easier, and a lot of the times he was taking us on intellectual circles.
Emily then joined us, and we summarized summarized the speaker for her, and then the conversation somehow migrated onto predestination and free will and the elect. Emily is still grappling with what scripture says, but it's good in that she's not taking a stand hastily. She's working on it slowly.
At this point, I'm not going to get things in order, but I'm going to try my best to get it all down:
Emily asked about this scripture:
Romans 10:14-15
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!
This totally supports what I told her in a previous conversation, about us being a messenger, and on how God is soveriegn but it also depends on the messenger.
Emily posed this question, after the stuff about being a messenger came out:
So, do you think you guys are part of the elect?
It took me about a second to say, yes and Johnny immediately followed with his response after waiting for me.
Phillip and the Ethiopan eunich is also a perfect example. That man was reading scripture, seeking truth, and his heart was ready to receive it. But someone had to come to him- a messenger, in this case Phillip, to actually deliver the message.
So I as a believer know that God sent someone to me.
After we talked about the balance that between knowledge and Spirit, and how some people have one or the other but most dont' have both, I asked this question:
if some people are on the knowledge side, and some people are on the spirit side, then how is it that that us here now are having this conversation? are we elect?
Johnny's answer was yes, we are. But that doesn't mean, he said, that all those other people are not. It depends on what stage they are at.
The other thing to note is that my roommate came up, and listened for a while, but threw something about there that a prof here at trinity said that made us all think:
If we're in Christ, we no longer sin.
And we really had to sit on it for a couple of seconds, but I'm inclined to agree. Jesus says that we are no longer slaves but brothers, psalm says that our sins are taken as far as the east is from the west, and Paul says that we died to sin, how can we live in it any longer? If God chooses to look at us as not being sinners, that is, he chooses to not see our sin, then it would have to be to him that we do not sin. We as human beings do sin and rebel against God, but perpetually it has to be that to him we do not. For if he saw us with sin after the fact, then Jesus would have to be crucified again, no? If his sacrifice is good once for all like scripture says and we believe, then once we accept it we can no longer, in fact, sin; at least in God's eyes.
Finally, the most important thing for me and we circled back to this a couple of times, is that we do what we are created to do. The speaker said that we love because we are created to love. And Johnny said that if someone gets up there and does what they're made to do, everyone will know. People who have gifts get recognized if they have that gift. And that all comes back to me questioning. I'm not as excited as I once was about Spanish. And the fact that I have no contact with kids this semester doesn't bother me all that much either. But the speaker did remind me of the reason why I want to teach in the first place: is that kids are pretty much who they're going to be by the time they get to high school. They're lost to the church. I want to teach them right before they enter high school so they can be influenced by whatever God wants to do through me. And while I have gone through apathy when it's come to my studies, this conversation has definitely fired me up, much more than a night of praise and worship, which was going on when we were having this conversation.
I defintely need to get more in the word, and have more conversations like this.
I'll tell you one thing: Johnny and I defintely sharpen each other, like iron sharpens iron.
The speaker's name was James K.A. Smith
Basically, to greatly summarize, he wants to challenge Christian Education and the Church for being too academic. He believes that because we are made in the image of God, we are beings created to love, and the biggest fall of our culture is a misdirected love. We love things of this world and not God.
He also said that we as human beings always worship something, and what we worship comes out in our actions. He used a mall as an example, that we are allured by it, we get a buzz, we're told that that's where our happiness comes from, when we come home to the dishes and the lawn and homework, and whatever new thing loses it's newness and the new clothes are not so new.
He says the church needs to stop being a mall.
He felt that the reason why our culture is so alluring is because it targets us at our core, and the church as an institution only wants to feed our minds. I did have some problems with what he was saying. Namely, that it is the work of the Spirit. The question was raised as to who does the work, is it church, or the Spirit? One prof at trinity asked about the translation of the word mind in romans 12:2.
I do agree with some things he said, namely that we underestimate the power that culture has on us and that we don't think about it enough. I have been called immature and told that I always over analyze things. The example of being immature is because there's a worship song that my school does on occasion that has this in the middle of it:
I want to run, I want to hide
I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside
I want to reach out, and touch the flame,
where the streets have no name,
I want to feel, sunlight on my face
I watch the dust cloud dissapear, without a trace,
I wannt to take shelter, from the poison rain,
where the streets have no name
...
and when I go there, I go there with you, it's all I can do.
I don't know if you know, but this is a U2 song from back in the 80's. I don't think it belongs in the middle of a contemporary worship song. I certainly don't think people should blindly sing it just because the words are on a screen. And I also certainly don't think it's scriptural for me to be called immature for refusing to do something blindly.
But the point of this is that I always analyze and check things with scripture.
Anyway,
afterward, Johnny and I were just talking about stuff. We first were analyzing the speaker, discussing different things. I first I rattled off the two things that I felt negatively:
well I think Jesus is the second Adam because
He is the second Adam. Scripture makes that very clear.
The question came up about using the things of this world, because some people who stuck around to talk with him (I think) were offended that he was talking about malls and things, and they wanted something clear cut. He took like five minutes without really answering the question, and this scripture popped in my mind, but I couldn't find it in the moment because I have this thing where I always think everything is in Romans somewhere:
those who use the things of this world, as if not engrossed by them
Sometimes, just quoting scripture makes things so much easier, and a lot of the times he was taking us on intellectual circles.
Emily then joined us, and we summarized summarized the speaker for her, and then the conversation somehow migrated onto predestination and free will and the elect. Emily is still grappling with what scripture says, but it's good in that she's not taking a stand hastily. She's working on it slowly.
At this point, I'm not going to get things in order, but I'm going to try my best to get it all down:
Emily asked about this scripture:
Romans 10:14-15
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!
This totally supports what I told her in a previous conversation, about us being a messenger, and on how God is soveriegn but it also depends on the messenger.
Emily posed this question, after the stuff about being a messenger came out:
So, do you think you guys are part of the elect?
It took me about a second to say, yes and Johnny immediately followed with his response after waiting for me.
Phillip and the Ethiopan eunich is also a perfect example. That man was reading scripture, seeking truth, and his heart was ready to receive it. But someone had to come to him- a messenger, in this case Phillip, to actually deliver the message.
So I as a believer know that God sent someone to me.
After we talked about the balance that between knowledge and Spirit, and how some people have one or the other but most dont' have both, I asked this question:
if some people are on the knowledge side, and some people are on the spirit side, then how is it that that us here now are having this conversation? are we elect?
Johnny's answer was yes, we are. But that doesn't mean, he said, that all those other people are not. It depends on what stage they are at.
The other thing to note is that my roommate came up, and listened for a while, but threw something about there that a prof here at trinity said that made us all think:
If we're in Christ, we no longer sin.
And we really had to sit on it for a couple of seconds, but I'm inclined to agree. Jesus says that we are no longer slaves but brothers, psalm says that our sins are taken as far as the east is from the west, and Paul says that we died to sin, how can we live in it any longer? If God chooses to look at us as not being sinners, that is, he chooses to not see our sin, then it would have to be to him that we do not sin. We as human beings do sin and rebel against God, but perpetually it has to be that to him we do not. For if he saw us with sin after the fact, then Jesus would have to be crucified again, no? If his sacrifice is good once for all like scripture says and we believe, then once we accept it we can no longer, in fact, sin; at least in God's eyes.
Finally, the most important thing for me and we circled back to this a couple of times, is that we do what we are created to do. The speaker said that we love because we are created to love. And Johnny said that if someone gets up there and does what they're made to do, everyone will know. People who have gifts get recognized if they have that gift. And that all comes back to me questioning. I'm not as excited as I once was about Spanish. And the fact that I have no contact with kids this semester doesn't bother me all that much either. But the speaker did remind me of the reason why I want to teach in the first place: is that kids are pretty much who they're going to be by the time they get to high school. They're lost to the church. I want to teach them right before they enter high school so they can be influenced by whatever God wants to do through me. And while I have gone through apathy when it's come to my studies, this conversation has definitely fired me up, much more than a night of praise and worship, which was going on when we were having this conversation.
I defintely need to get more in the word, and have more conversations like this.
I'll tell you one thing: Johnny and I defintely sharpen each other, like iron sharpens iron.