The Rambling Disciple

We all experience loss at some point in our lives. We live in a world that has been broken by sin, and that brokenness permeates our lives. Loved ones die. We experience tragedies. Illness leaves people crippled and bedridden. The response we have is grief. We mourn for those that have left us. We weep for those that are hurting and can do nothing about it. Sometimes we don't have the words to express the emptiness and pain that we feel. The book of Lamentations is simply a human being expressing their grief. The author witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Babylonians. This person has seen the very symbols of Judah's covenant with God set ablaze by idolaters. They witnessed their people being killed and dragged off in chains. This is a book of grief. Background The book of Lamentations is traditionally said to be written by Jeremiah. The book itself does not indicate who the author is. All we know is that whoever wrote the book witnessed the fal...

The last two Historical Fridays we have been examining the differences in the way Eastern culture and Western culture has affected Christianity. I think it has been made clear just how much a cultural idea can influence faith. I encourage everyone to not only examine other cultures and their influences, but also your own. American culture has had a huge impact on Christianity in America, something we will discuss eventually. Today we are going to look at the West and East and see why neither influence is necessarily a bad thing. Really what happened was that each culture emphasized a different aspect of the Christian faith. The West emphasized the legal aspect and the East the philosophical aspect. The West, the East, and Us So what can we learn from these cultures and the way they shaped churches? Well first off it helps us to look at our own churches and identify where we stand. Most of the people reading this blog (I assume) are from the West. We are more heavily influenced b...

There are few people in the Bible that endured as much as the prophet Jeremiah. God called upon him to prophecy to Judah during a time when no one would listen. He was arrested, beaten, ignored, and cut off from his own people. In fact throughout his forty some odd years of ministry, there are only two people shown to have listened. Two!  The time frame of Jeremiah's ministry is very different from that of Isaiah's. Isaiah prophesied during the days of a good king, Hezekiah, who listened for God. There was still a chance for Judah to be spared from judgment and repent. Jeremiah's message is much more bleak than Isaiah's. He preaches that the judgment is coming no matter what, the only thing the people can do is surrender. Background The book of Jeremiah was written by Jeremiah with some assistance from his scribe, Baruch. It was written in pieces over the course of Jeremiah's ministry, which roughly ranged from roughly 630 BC to 590 BC. The pieces were then...

Last we discussed the way that Western culture has shaped the Christian faith. The Roman legal system permeated the West and it found its way into churches. This is neither a good nor a bad thing. The cultures we live in have always influenced Christianity. The problem arises when we try to make the cultural elements of our faith the essential truths of the Gospel. This was the problem Paul faced in writing his letter to the Galatians. The people in Galatia were being told that in order to truly be a Christian they must first fully submit to Jewish culture. Now Paul was a proud Jew. He loved his heritage and the culture he grew up in, but he didn't let it overtake his faith in Jesus. Today as we look at the East and the influences  therein I want state again that I am not trying to draw a dividing line between fellow believers. What I am trying to do is highlight the cultural differences between the way we all express our faith in Christ. It can be eye opening to learn how some...

Isaiah is one of the most well known prophets in the Bible. The passage in chapter 53 is probably one of the most often quoted passages of all time. The story of Isaiah's call by God to minister to Israel in chapter 6 is a favorite of many. Still the book of Isaiah is far more than just these two chapters.  Background The prophet Isaiah prophesied in Judah roughly from 740 BC to 681 BC. In Isaiah 1:1 it states that Isaiah lived in the days of kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Isaiah worked almost exclusively in the southern nation of Judah, but he did prophecy concerning the northern nation of Israel at times. The book of Isaiah was written by the prophet Isaiah. Some scholars think that the book was written by multiple people instead of just one. The problem with this is the assumptions those scholars make. First they assume a person's style of writing cannot change over time. Isaiah had about sixty years to minister and write. My own writing style has changed...

Today we continue our discussion on the two major strains of Christianity in the world by beginning with out own; Western Christianity. To clarify these next few weeks are examining how two very different cultures have influenced the same faith in radically different ways. I am not trying to draw distinctions between Christians or label anyone as right or wrong. Understanding how the culture we live in affects our faith is extremely important. This week and next week we will be examining two very broad culture systems; the West and the East. There are thousands of sub cultures within both of those categories that have further shaped peoples' faith in Christ. We are simply looking at the broadest possible categories. The West When we are talking about the West we are talking about Rome. Roman culture is the foundation that all of Western Civilization is built on. The genius of Roman culture was its legal system. The Roman system of laws was complex and effective. Their law sy...

It is always interesting to me how different sections of the Bible seem to have common themes that tie the books together, even when they are written by various authors. Paul's letters all focus in one way or another on the importance of faith. The wisdom literature is timeless and focuses on passing down knowledge. Still if there is one group of books where a common theme is most prevalent, it's the prophets. There is a concept that runs throughout the prophetic books of the Bible that is very important to understand before reading them. When these books were written it was assumed that the recipients already knew what this was. This is the concept of the day of YHWH. The Day of YHWH As we go through the prophets we will see this concept pop up again and again. This idea of the day of YHWH is actually very important to the Bible as a whole and even carries over into the New Testament. Before getting into the prophets it is important to understand what this is. A qu...

When we look around at our churches today, unity is typically not one of the words that come to mind. Just driving around town where I live I can count at least a dozen or so different types of churches. There are Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans, Churches of Christ, Christian Churches, Catholics, and the list goes on. In the past, and now, we typically focus on what makes us different from the other churches around us. The Churches of Christ, the group I'm affiliated with, in particular likes to do this. We focus on the different ways we worship, conduct services, administrate, and preach. Sometimes our very identity is based on how different we are from others instead of what we do. What if I told you that we had far more in common than we think? The majority of churches in America are actually much closer together than we realize. The biggest division in Christianity isn't between Baptist and Catholic or Lutheran and Church of Christ, but between the West and the East. ...

The first seventeen books of the Bible are historical in nature. They detail the history of God working through and with Israel. The next five books that we just covered are poetic in nature. They speak from various emotional states and are intended to be timeless. The next section of the Bible is a mixture of these two kinds of books; the prophets. The prophets are largely poetic but are firmly rooted in specific points in history. These are the books that contain a message for a specific group of people at a specific time, but the messages themselves are typically poetic. This is one reason the prophets are largely ignored in our churches. Why Are the Prophets So Tricky? The first reason why so many Christians avoid the prophets is identical to why they avoid books like Song of Songs or the majority Job; poetry. We simply don't know how to deal with Hebrew poetry. This isn't surprising since poetry is culture based. The metaphors, analogies, and extremes we would use...