The Rambling Disciple

"He must have been ghastly to behold." That quote has stuck with me these last several weeks. I heard it when listening to a series of presentations on the Crucifixion by Fleming Rutledge at a preacher's conference that was taped some years ago. These words struck me and I became somewhat transfixed by them. Jesus, while hanging upon the cross, must have been horrible to look at. He would have been a mangled man, barely recognizable as human. He would have been naked, covered in blood, and displayed in the fullness of shame for all to see. It would have been ghastly to behold. Yet that ghastly visage is the focal point of our faith and salvation. It is when we look upon the mangled man called Jesus that we see the fullness of divinity itself. The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, in all it's shame and horror, is the fullest revelation of God there has ever been. On the cross we see the full love of God on display for all to see. On the cross we see the seriousness of sin i...

"Don't be a doormat!" That's a phrase I think many of us have heard throughout our lives. If not that specific idiom, then we've probably heard something that means the same thing. "Don't let people walk all over you!" "Don't be a push over!" These are all things we hear constantly and is the theme in many of our favorite movies (George McFly in Back to the Future, for example). Over the past several years I've started hearing this sentiment more and more in the context of Bible study. We'll be discussing something about love, grace, sin, or something else about how we should live and it feels like we inevitably end up at "Don't be a doormat!" Many of the books that are out there about leaving behind some admittedly harmful and abusive religious contexts are largely themed around this.  It comes up when discussing how we deal with our culture, deal with those we disagree with, and how we treat people in general. It...

Right now there is a trend of people, mostly but not exclusively younger people, who are rejecting the faith they were brought up in. This trend is usually called "deconstruction" because the people going through it are slowly but surely tearing down the constructs of their faith. This is not necessarily a bad thing. All of us need to "deconstruct" some of the false things we have been taught in order to get at a truer faith in God. Many end up rejecting God or Christianity entirely. What I find interesting is that most who have and are going through this process grew up in more conservative, fundamentalist backgrounds. Often these are places where conservative politics were interwoven with faith to such a degree that Republican politics and Christian discipleship are viewed as the same thing. The views on Scripture presented are often narrow, legalistic, and hostile to discussion. Take, for example, creation. Many fundamentalist churches teach Young Earth Creationi...

At the beginning of last year I preached a sermon, a subsequently posted a blog, about my theme word for the year. Every year I try to have a word or theme to focus on and better understand. Last year's word was grace, and boy was it appropriate. With our society, and sadly many Christians, unable to have meaningful disagreements and conversations anymore it was easy to forget that we need to show people grace and depend upon God's grace and not our own righteousness. This year my word is growth. I want and need to grow. I want to grow closer to Jesus. I want to grow personally in many areas. I want to expand my horizons and push myself to grow as a Christian and as a man. I want my congregation to grow closer to God.  I'm keeping it short this week, but I encourage you to find a theme word for the year. It doesn't mean limiting yourself to just things that directly have to do with that theme, but it does help focus our attention a bit. We can't do everything at onc...