NT Wright on Heaven
Almost everyone is picking up on this. Time Magazine has a nice mini-interview up with NT Wright on his views of heaven, continuing his life after life after death theme.
Jewdaism
I better put this lightly or I may be ostersized for even mentioning it. What of the the promise in the old testiment to the jewish people that God would bless them. Did not God say that the jewish people were Gods chosen people? Now I know that any modern thinking mind has already skipped past my cordial banter. Yet in my mind it must be said. What about the new age converts to jewdaism. Obviously thay are not blessed!. I hate to sound condescending yet it doesn’t make sense that I would automatically be entered into a drawing that was several centuries old would it?
My point if one was to convert to Jewdaism now at later state in life not having any prior conviction or ancestry connection would be ridiculous. So you can’t think that you will gain the same blessing if you come in at a later date to the decree. It just doesn’t make sense that any one would think that they would gain some sort financial gift as a result of becoming a Jew. Just a thought!
Dave Walker is my hero
Dave Walker (the cartoon church guy) is proposing a rather fun experiment. Top Verses has a bunch of top 10 lists for Bible verses, and after some searching he was able to determine that 2 Chronicles 31:7 is apparently the 30638th most popular of the 31101 verses in the Bible. He had this thought (with which I heartily agree) and this idea:
The failing, of course, is that one could be led to believe that the verses most often published on the internet are therefore the most important verses. My own view is that the most important themes in the Bible come not from picking individual ’soundbite’ verses out of context, but by looking at the overall message of entire books. Surely that is how it was intended to be read.
Feel free to post your own devotional thoughts on 2 Chronicles 31:7. It would be great if we could bump it up to the top 5. This would perplex a lot of people, which I’m all in favour of.
Not that I’d suggest mischief or anything(!), but it would be fun to game the system a little bit.
So then it hit me!
We have been trying so hard to keep a structured pub night going these past few months it’s been great. But then it hit me we are having better conversations on the off nights then on the on. Our conversations during old Chicago visits and kips and the weddings are more real than the ones we try to stay on track with on scheduled nights. I have had the opportunity to sit down and talk with various people at various stages of there lives and I feel good about just gaining there trust and being there friend. However as time has gone on the topics get a little deeper and they have been bring up Christianity.
Granted little things like you better pray hard that this thing doesn’t blow up in your face is more of a common threat phrase. Yet I still feel like there is a reason people make these types of comments. Maybe it’s just human nature to think about God in time of stress. However my theory is that people see something you as you interact with them and they start to feel more willing to share there lives with you. A casual conversation about music such as the blog before this can lead to many open doors.
I was talking to my PM the other day and I had showdown playing on my computer. He asked if I liked listening to that kind of music. I said of course but it’s not what you think. Then I told him it was Christian and he nodded his head. I said I would rather listen to this type of music if it had a more positive message other than kill your mother. He kinda agreed and then brought the subject to nine inch nails. Ok thats cool they have a lot of good songs that are not all bad. Regardless this got me in the door. Then he said I should meet his wife because she was a big Christian music fan. She has gone to sonshine several times and loves the scene now my foot is way in the door. More to follow as I feel him out to see where they both stand spiritually and why!
The more I experiment the more I come up with conversation starters and trust gainers.
Nathan
Filtered Ears
So last night was different than any other pub night except that we tried to go over to BWW. The line was long and we decided to fall into a familiar routine at Old Chicago. There’s something romantic about meeting in the same place every week. The group feels more local and traditional.
On with the story…Dave and I got talking about music through course of a thousand conversations. I mentioned my one sided listening habits as they pertain to pop music. My upbringing has fostered a bias towards the christianese music. My mom and dad really did not appreciate secular (in there words the worldly music). I fought to even listen to DcTalk when I was 13. They didn’t like the idea that DcTalk would even use the word SEX in on of there songs. Granted here’s how the lyrics went “I don’t want, I don’t it want your sex for now”. The song goes on to talk about waiting until your married to have SEX and all forms terrible stuff right! I mean seriously people whats wrong with um bop um bop bop um bop come on. Not that I like Hanson but you get the point thats what I was listening to when DcTalk was BIG.
So too make a short story longer than it really needs to be heres what we talked about after my clouded skewed view was exposed. I made that comment that I really did not mind the secular genre. That being said, I mentioned that I maybe own like two CD’s of other artist. By other I mean the worldly ones, now I sound like my parents. So any hoot, I said there was a disconnect in my mind that there could be a Christian who just happened to be a secular artist. There are a fair number of people who go mainstream or start out not having any affiliation with the so called evangelical filtering system. They may not have there music in the Christian book store but they can still believe can’t they.
Dave having come from a catholic background was not really even exposed to the Christian music scene that much. So his comment was well there’s music we sing in church and there’s the music that is played on the radio. Fair enough but what if you there is an alternative to mainstream radio and secular music. See thats the tricky part because there is a huge industry built on bashing innocent secular artist’s by saying there music isn’t moral enough to listen to so we listen to “Relient K instead of Blink 182″ sure there are some artists out there that are terrible at dumping filth into songs. But if we are to take music for music and lyrics for what they are then we have no case. There is an incredible wealth of music in the mainstream industry that has a very good message. My eye’s were opened to the short wave world I live in trying to make Christian music my staple diet.
I guess the moral of the story is that there are Christians in the world who make music. Not just Christian music and not always completely theologically based, but music not the less. So it’s my challenge to all of you who have been boxed in by the Christian music scene to explore the world of music a little more. Look at music for what it is and why it’s there and find something new that has depth and value outside of the Christian book store.
Nathan (Guardian of Pub Night, and the free theological expression of saints over and large glass of Guiness).
More Topic Fodder
In the several months we’ve been meeting, we’ve considered, but have not yet discussed all the different ways of looking at end times questions. Eschatology is a HUGE topic, and there’s so much to cover. Over at Ars Gratia, I put up a post with some summary links to various end times topics. If we do decide to tackle this, they might help everyone get familiar with all the seminary jargon that’s likely to get thrown around. I hope the links helps, or at least confuses the snot out of everybody. 
What is the Gospel?
A few times, our group has asked the question, “What is the Gospel?” Len at Next Reformation has some good thoughts, and he quotes a longer piece at Christianity Today’s site by Scot McKnight. He asks what “gospel” is being preached at struggling churches, and compares it to this:
Put your confidence and trust in Jesus and live with him as his
disciple now in the present Kingdom of God (Matt 6.33; Rom 8.1-14; Col
1.13; 3. 1-4; John 3.1-8)
Give the articles a read and let us know what you think.
