|
| Next two classes: Current events...
Cloning, terrorism, and other topics...
Suggestions welcome.
Comment below.
| | |
| non-buddhists, non-muslims, non-atheists::
Having finished our overview of the time line of history over the past 2000 years, we spent today's class looking at how things fit together.
The church: word, worship, witness, works of mercy... which of these is the priority?
If the goal of the church and our individual lives as Christians is to glorify God, what will it look like?
It is so easy to fall into using Christian lingo and to miss out on the daily opportunities to show love, grace and mercy to the glory of God in concrete, simple ways.
The story of the church is the story of God as he reveals himself to us, pursues us.
On the one hand you have a downward moral spiral in man. As Pastor Thomas put it, we find that going through the motions is not enough to get the law of God into our hearts. That's the bad news.
The good news of the Gospel is that God has taken steps to reach out to us. He did it through his covenant with Abraham. He did it in giving Moses the Law. He met with his people in the tabernacle. He met with people in the temple.
Jesus said, destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days. His crucifixion and resurrection three days later proved him to be right. It is as true for us as it was for the early church: our bodies and lives are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
The church is not just an institution. It is not just any organization. It is God's chosen way of revealing himself to our fallen world. | | |
| the days of our lives ::
it's been a while since we updated. we apologize for that. we have had a lot to process in our class. many of you have some great questions and we appreciate your participation.
here is a recap of where we are thus far -
postmodernism : : we have finally reached our current times in our study of church history. you may learn in school or from reading that the times in which we live is called postmodernity.
there are a few things about this period of time that are worth mentioning::
-we believe that there are many points of view, ways of approaching the truth
-we realize things are not the way they are supposed to be, the world is messed up
-we don't hold authority and institutions with great respect and honor
with this in mind, we find that being a church is rather difficult to say the least. so how then are we to live as christians then? the answer is by faith, hope and the greatest of these, love. people are longing to see how real our faith, hope and love are.
:: revelation 2-3 a review of the good, the bad, the ugly.
we read jesus' words to the churches in these chapters. he had some good things to say to some and warnings to others. we can observe here that there are some things that are really important to him and challenge us to listen and appropriate the lessons into our lives.
there are a lot of churches that have no life in them. they are just dead corpses. they look like churches outwardly, they have religiosity, but not a true first love. the glory of God, his presence has left them.
we face the same struggles today as the churches that were under evaluation here. they had to defend against false teachers, they faced persection, they struggled with complacency.
these chapters urge us to not lose sight of our first love and continue to strive together in defending the Gospel.
How are we doing so far? | | |
| Jan 5 :: Recap
Inspiration, tradition, reason.
After the middle ages, there came a time when reason came to dominate society. This period started in the late 1600's and continues, to some extent, today. In the textbooks you'll read about The Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment and modernism.
The general idea is that you can figure things out. And if you can figure things out, you can make it better. Modernism is marked by an optimism in the abilities of man. And as we talked about in class, this led to some challenges for the church...
1. The bible. If the newest discovery represents the state of the art, then does that mean the old things are out-of-date? Does it mean the Bible is out-of-date?
2. The sovreignty of God. If all things have a cause, then is God responsible for natural disasters and times in our lives when we feel pain? If God is in control, why does he allow bad things to happen? If he isn't in control, then who is? Should we then rely on science or ourselves?
3. Christ. Was Jesus really the son of God? Can miracles really happen? Was Jesus just a really moral person? Was his death on the cross just an example of self-sacrifice for us to follow instead of a necessary act of atonement for our sins?
4. Original sin. Are people really bad? If everyone works hard and is nice to everyone else, won't the world turn out alright? Will science lead to progress and progress to a better life for all?
These are the issues that people who rely solely on reason have to wrestle with. This is the cultural mindset that we and our teachers have grown up in. These are questions that we and our friends, believers and non-believers have to consider.
As for us, the church, we should have a balanced perspective. Faith is not a blind acceptance, but a real experience. God commands us to love him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. We balance inspiration (God's revelation to us in his word), with tradition (doctrines, sunday worship, and other things) and reason (the use of our minds to understand God's will and his creation.)
| | |
| Jan 5 :: Science and the Church
This week, we will be fast forwarding a few centuries into the Enlightenment era. This is a time when science takes on a more prominent role in society.
We'll be looking at how these changes in society impacted the church then as well as today. | | |
|
