Not enough time

I am getting close to finishing Divine Conspiracy, but with substitute Sunday School teaching and the interesting study of Romans going on at our Church, I am torn in too many directions. Too much cool stuff to read is actually the problem.

I used to complain about how shallow our lessons in Sunday School were (years ago), but lately the material we use talks about spiritual transformation, faith and service. The writers quote C.S. Lewis and Thomas Aquinas, what is going on with the SBC? Actually I hope I am seeing a trend away from anti-intellectualism in our churches. I do not claim to be an intellectual, I just like to read what intellectuals who happen to be Christ followers say. For too long we have taken for granted as truth what some men behind pulpits say, when those men have not done honest sincere study of the scriptures to determine the full scope and meaning of God's message to us. Some people do not know when to take Scripture literal and when to take it metaphorical. Or the biggest mistake is not taking to account the historical context in which the words were written and what the worldview was of the writer and the original reader  at that time.
Why not study what our early leaders in the faith had to say outside of Scripure? And why not read what other people think, who are educated and dedicate their life to exegetical study of Scripture? And why not keep up on scientific and archaelogical writings that confirm our faith? Instead of a knee jerk reaction against science, when scientific research often confirms "intelligent design" and other possible thesis that bolster proof of a Creator God.?

I will get done with Willard's book eventually, but I am at the part where he recommends reading the 4 Gospels, so now I have something else to read.

Oh yeah and our guy who is behind the pulpit ( in front of it actually) is not like the above mentioned guys behind the pulpit, and neither is our JV Pastor or our Youth Guy or our Music Guy......

Service and Discipleship

It seems a lot of our Sunday School lessons have had similar themes to Divine Conspiracy. This weeks lesson is about service. I think service and Christianity should be inseperable, but in todays church culture we seem to have found a way to seperate the two. For instance by the way we say so and so has been called to full time SERVICE or so and so has been called to part time SERVICE, what does that mean? Would Paul recognize such terms? I suppose by todays definition Paul would be a part time servant of God or a bi-vocational preacher. ( He made tents to support himself wherever he went)

Aren't we all called to full time service? Should not we be Christians 24/7? I think where we failed is we rely on what we believe more heavily than on what we do. Now I am not advocating merit based salvation, merely saying that we do not seem to address any doing or action to being a Christian. We have taught people that believing correctly "gets us in". Which is a problem in itself. The Great Commision does not tell us to get a bunch of people saved, it tells us to make disciples. So what is the greatest service that we can do for Christ? Make disciples. Our actions should merely reflect a transformation that is supposed to take place (or begins to take place) when we "believe correctly". Since getting to heaven is everyone's goal the discipleship part gets forgotten. Thankfully there are guys around like Dallas Willard and Todd Littleton who are teaching true servanthood, and having us focus on becoming apprentices to Christ. This is correctly teaching what it means to become a Christ follower, and for this I am thankful.