Monday, November 30, 2009

ARE YOU A CAVEMAN?


The concept is fabulous.
. . . If we CHRISTIANS only trade a worldly thing for a Christian thing..... it's not a renewal ...

It's like dressing up a CAVEMAN in a suit.

Maybe that's why there are so many Christians that disappoint people by occasionally acting in an "unChRistiAN" way--- maybe because they are just the same old worldly person dressed in a Christian suit?

The Bible promises RENEWAL.
Colossians 3:10-17 says to PUT ON the new self.
And nothing about just switching from worldly music to Christian music, going to church on Sunday morning instead of sleeping late, or just wearing a cross instead of a peace sign! - - - RENEWAL, not mere SUBSTITUTION!

Col 12-15: "So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful."
That should be our prayer.
That should be our desire.

Here is a biblical paraphrase by Sam from Jesusbranded:

"Be changed by the renewing of your mind, for it does not have the things of God but rather is concerned with the affairs of men; men who come near to me and honor only with their lips, but whose hearts are distanced from me, whose worship is comprised only of rules taught by themselves- As far as the heavens are from the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts greater than your thoughts; so give ear and hear me, that your soul may live:
THIS IS LOVE: NOT THAT YOU LOVE ME, BUT THAT I LOVE YOU- you are my child, with whom I am well pleased."
(Romans 12:1 / Matthew 16:23 / Isaiah 55:3, 9 / 1 John 4:10 / Luke 3:22)

Friday, November 20, 2009

BE CAREFUL WITH YOUR CHOICES

CHOICE
made often enough becomes
A HABIT
which reaps
A PERSONALITY
which reaps
CHARACTER
which determinesDESTINY

Thursday, November 19, 2009

THE PARADOX OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY IN MY LIFE
+
RESPONSE OF MY OWN WILL

ARE YOU AUTHENTIC?

The Bible says in 1 John that followers of Jesus are increasingly known by five “marks."
An authentic Christian increasingly

loves deeply,


obeys faithfully,

lives authentically,


knows completely and


believes confidently.

How are you doing?

.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

WHAT'S THE MESSAGE?


Ah, the good old King James Bible. What could sound more beautiful? But many don't seem to have an ear for it. Go to any Christian bookstore--- or any bookstore, for that matter-- and you will find many translations of God's Holy Word.

But are they all the same? Obviously not. There have been many translations written for many different purposes. For example: We see in the KJV a "formal equivalence," which means a word for word translation. The New American Standard Bible (NASB) is also translated word for word, but it's authors sought to render the grammar and terminology in contemporary English terms.

The New International Version (NIV) is a dynamic equivalence, or "thought for thought" translation. These translators made more of an attempt at interpreting the meaning for the reader, while the translators of the KJV and NASB leave you free to make the interpretation yourself.

Another translation of the Bible would be the "paraphrase." Into this category are the translations The Living Bible, Phillips Paraphrase, and The Message. These were written by men in an attempt to contemporize the Bible. For example, Kenneth Taylor wrote the Living Bible so his children would more easily understand the Bible. A paraphrase of the Bible should not be used as a Christian’s primary Bible. We have to remember that a paraphrase is what the author thinks the Bible says, not necessarily what the Bible says. In fact, often we find in these books that they can be very misleading and actually not what the original texts intended.

I am disturbed at how much New Age terminology and obvious occult references are in The Message Bible by Eugene Petersen. I have read that people who have been brought out from New Age beliefs have said that if they had read Mr. Petersen's version of the Bible, they would have never left those practices for the salvation of Christ because they would have thought they were on the correct path. Mr. Petersen also waters down the condemnation on homosexuality, the submissive role of a wife, and the place of Jesus as Lord. These are things to beware, Brothers and Sisters!

As for me, I can not see where these is any value in The Message for serious students of the Word. And I cringe at the thought of this book being read from the pulpit. God's word does not need help from us. It is the Living Word of God that alone has the ability to transform lives!

For further information on The Message:

http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/04/smith-deceived_on_purpose.htm

http://www.morethancake.org/2007/09/the-message-is-not-a-bible-translation-part-1.html

http://www.bible-researcher.com/themessage.html

RE-IMAGING GOD
IN THE SHACK
• By Mary Kassian •
....April 6, 2009

WHATS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

This week, Christians around the world will commemorate Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. It was at a Maundy Thursday service at the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan, in 1984, that a four-foot bronze statue of Jesus on the cross was unveiled. But to the shock of the congregation, the image of Christ on the cross was, in fact, an image of Christa. It portrayed Christ as a woman, complete with undraped breasts and rounded hips.
Betty Friedan, the main force behind modern day feminism, predicted that the question of the eighties would be: “Is God HE?” The Christa sculpture was the liberal church’s response to the question. And although Evangelical Christians have been much slower to consider female gendered God imagery, the recent phenomenon of the multi-million best-seller, “The Shack,” indicates that Evangelicals, too, are succumbing to the feminist pressure to image God in feminine ways. It’s a scenario that I predicted almost 25 years ago.
If you haven’t read it yet, and are amongst the un-Shacked evangelical minority, here’s the story in a nutshell. Mack’s youngest daughter Missy is kidnapped and murdered in a remote mountain shack by a serial slime, called the Daisy Bug Killer. Mack goes through a denial-grief-anger-bitterness cycle until he receives a letter in his mailbox from God who tells him to go back to the shack to confront his point of pain and suffering. When Mack gets to the shack he blacks out and awakens to find himself in a cabin complete with a manifestation of the Godhead. But this is no ordinary Godhead.
God the Father, called “Papa,” is a She. An Aunt Jemima pancake cooking Mother. Think Whoopee Goldberg in an apron. And Sarayu, the Holy Spirit with an Assyrian name, is a wispy ethereal female. Think life-sized Tinkerbell emitting rainbows and sparkles. Jesus is a human “male” - the one the three members of the Godhead collaboratively spoke into existence as the Son of God (umm… go figure). Then, in a bizarre twist that defies the orthodox image of the pre-incarnate Christ, another woman, “Sophia” appears as the divine personification of God’s wisdom. And in the end, Papa contributes to the gender-bent confusing mess by setting aside his/her female cross dressing persona for a slightly more familiar masculine one- a grey haired man with a hip ponytail.
Forgiveness and healing from pain is a valid biblical motif - one to which I am profoundly committed. But the way we heal is by running toward the God of the Bible, not by killing off or altering the parts of his character that we find politically incorrect. Not by coming up with an image of a God that is more palatable to our modern-day sensibilities. Not by altering God-revealed truth about the Trinity. Not by thinking we need to “help” God with his image. Over the years, I’ve witnessed thousands of women come to a place of healing and wholeness through the redeeming power of the unvarnished foolishness of the gospel.
The Shack contains terribly wrong concepts about God. Plain and simple. If you think it doesn’t, then you’re well on your way to accepting the image of the Christa on the cross. In a few years, you might be hanging her up in your church. I don’t think I’m overstating the case. In my book I’ve carefully documented the way it happened in mainline churches. The arguments used to justify their feminist Christa are the same ones the Shack uses to justify its feminized version of God. In essence, there’s no difference between the artistic image of a feminized Jesus (a.k.a. “Sophia”) hanging on a cross and the artistic image of a feminized Aunt Jemima Papa god in a book. If the latter doesn’t offend you, then the former really shouldn’t.
I’ve had good friends tell me that I’m missing the point of the Shack. Maybe I am. But maybe, just maybe, they are. Maybe they are getting caught up in the emotion of a heart-wrenching story and are failing to notice the horrendous theology that under girds it. The authors claim that “at its core the book is one long Bible Study.” This isn’t an ordinary story book. It’s a book that seeks to transform people’s ideas about God. The fiction is merely a vehicle for the theology.
How we image God matters. So the image of God the book presents matters. It matters a great deal. I seem to recall that God wasn’t terribly amused when his people imaged him in the wrong way, as a golden calf. If you’re not convinced that we should refrain from imaging God as female, and are interested in understanding more about the feminist theology rampant in the Shack, check into my book, The Feminist Mistake. If you take the time to understand the impact that feminism has had on society and church, then maybe you’ll understand my distaste for the Shack’s feminine god rendition.
When it comes down to it, my primary interest is not to engage in a debate about the merits of the Shack. It’s OK if you liked the book. There are some good messages in it, and parts that I liked very much. And it’s apparently helped people in some significant ways. So that’s the good part. But I do want you to think about the false gender-blended image of God this book insidiously presents. And I do want you to base your thinking about God and masculinity and femininity on Scripture, and not on the spirit of this age. The thing that bothers me the most about the Shack is that it wraps destructive ideas up in an appealing package and feeds it to people who have neither the discernment nor the desire to carefully separate truth from error. Most Shackites don’t have a clue about the magnitude of the implications of messing with Trinitarian imagery.
Here’s the thing. In the Old Testament, God instructed his people to reject female goddess images and images of God as a bi-sexual or a dual-sexual Baal/Ashtoreth-type collaboration. God hated this imagery so much that he had his people destroy it and all those who promoted it. The New Testament Church also fought hard against teachings that sought to incorporate female images of God alongside the male images - the Gnostic heresy, in particular. And now, it seems that the same ideas are knocking once again…. and many are throwing the Church doors wide open and welcoming them in.
What’s the big deal? Why can’t we image God as female? The main reason is that God defines who God is and how we are to image him and relate to him. God has chosen to reveal himself with male imagery. Father is HE. Son is HE. Holy Spirit is HE. That’s not to say that God is male. He encompasses everything that is good about masculinity and femininity. But that doesn’t mean that we have the liberty to think or refer to him as female. That’s crossing a line we have no right to cross.
The gender imagery that God has given us is highly important. It reflects critical truths about the nature of the Trinity. Calling him “she” violates his character and important imagery about the nature of our relationship to him. As C.S. Lewis observes,
Common sense, disregarding the discomfort, or even the horror, which the idea of turning all our theological language into the feminine gender arouses in most Christians, will ask “Why not? Since God is in fact not a biological being and has no sex, what can it matter whether we say He or She, Father or Mother, Son or Daughter?”
But Christians think that God Himself has taught us how to speak of Him. To say that it does not matter is to say either that all the masculine imagery is not inspired, is merely human in origin, or else that, though inspired, it is quite arbitrary and unessential. And this is surely intolerable: or, if tolerable, it is an argument … against Christianity. It is also surely based on a shallow view of imagery. Without drawing upon religion, we know from our poetical experience that image and apprehension cleave closer together than common sense is here prepared to admit; that a child who has been taught to pray to a Mother in Heaven would have a religious life radically different from that of a Christian child. And as image and apprehension are in an organic unity, so, for a Christian, are human body and human soul.
The innovators are really implying that sex is something superficial, irrelevant to the spiritual life… [But] one of the ends for which sex was created was to symbolize to us the hidden things of God. One of the functions of human marriage is to express the nature of the union between Christ and the Church. We have no authority to take the living and semitive figures which God has painted on the canvas of our nature and shift them about as if they were mere geometrical figures… [God images himself as masculine because]…we are all, corporately and individually, feminine to Him.
…The male you could have escaped, for it exists only on the biological level. But the masculine none of us can escape. What is above and beyond all things is so masculine that we are all feminine in relation to it.
(Quotes from C.S. Lewis Essays Notes on the Way and That Hideous Strength.)
There’s a whole lot more to be said about the importance of accurate gender imagery and the importance of honoring and preserving masculine imagery for God. But I’ll leave it at that for now. Hopefully this post has alerted you to some popular false ways of thinking that are both insidious and dangerous. The nearly universal frothing of the Christian community over the Shack shows me how very much the philosophy of feminism has influenced even the Evangelical church.
For those of you who are interested, here’s a more detailed critique of the Shack by renowned Christian reviewer, Tim Challies

About the Author: Mary Kassian, the founder of Girls Gone Wise, is an award winning author, internationally renowned speaker, and distinguished professor of Women's Studies at Southern Baptist Seminary.


Saturday, November 7, 2009

MAINE MARRIAGE VOTE

By now it is no surprise that gay marriage was defeated in Maine on election day. Here are some thoughts as I go through the various websites and the comments written there:

This is not a civil rights issue. I am truly sorry that so many people are so wounded about this, though. My heart goes out to those who are in this situation. But that doesn't mean that I agree with changing the definition of an established institution to cater to the desires of one group of people.

You don't have the right to have something that belongs to someone else.

You don't have the right to change the definition of something that has existed for thousands of centuries.

You don't have the right to redefine my relationship to validate your own.

To change the entire meaning/purpose/definition of marriage to suit one group of individuals is obviously going to upset the people who have vested interest in that union.

I am so tired of all the belittling and hate-filled talk from the gay community against people who simply don't want their sacred institution changed. Since when can't there be a civil disagreement? You can't marry just anybody. There are parameters. You can't marry your mother, father or grandmother. You can't marry your sister, brother or first-cousin. You can't marry a child. You can't marry someone of the same sex. You may WANT to. You may feel it is your RIGHT. But that's not the purpose/meaning/definition of marriage.