Mercy Me and a Gospel Concert
Last week my son and I went to see the Christian band Mercy Me. Even though I’m not really a fan of the band, nor do I listen to Christian contemporary music (I don’t listen to much of any kind of music anymore), it was an enjoyable concert. It was held at the arena where I understand the Stanley Cup Champion Tampa Bay Lightening play ice hockey (there were plenty of banners), and while it wasn’t packed, it was a substantial crowd. For a Christian band that’s been around for 27 years, I was impressed. The production, sound, and musicianship was impressive, and lead singer, Bart Millard, has a powerful voice and a winsome demeanor. His life was the inspiration for a hit movie staring Dennis Quaid called I Can Only Imagine, the name of a song he wrote after his father died. He is also clearly in love with Jesus, and the reason I write about it has to do with that. (more…)
Final Thought Experiment: The Revelation of God in Christ
God has revealed himself to us in creation, Scripture, and Christ. My first thought experiment post was on creation, and my second on Scripture. Now we come to the ultimate thought experiment, Jesus Christ, the Jesus who was from Nazareth who claimed to be Israel’s long awaited (400 years!) Messiah, and the Savior of the world. Here is our thought experiment: try to make sense of reality without Jesus. One time atheist C.S. Lewis tried and realized the futility of such an exercise. He came to this conclusion:
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else.
That’s what Jesus does, he makes sense of everything, all the puzzle pieces that puzzle us can now fit into the biggest of big pictures. Without him, all you have is the pieces, and they will never fit together because there is no universal (big picture) into which the particulars (the puzzle pieces) fit. Speaking of Russia in 1939, Winston Churchill’s description fits life without Christ perfectly: It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. (more…)
Another Thought Experiment: Seeing Revelation in Scripture
In a previous post I mentioned that most mornings as I pray I thank God for his revelation in creation, Scripture, and Christ. I suggested a thought experiment that encourages us to see God’s invisible qualities as we encounter creation every day, his eternal power and divine nature in everything. As we see the invisible God made visible in creation, we are driven to God’s further revelation of himself in Scripture, in our Bibles. As I’ve delved deeper into Scripture over the years, I’ve come to see God’s revelation of himself in the text of his word as even more amazing than his revelation in creation, and that is saying something. I used this phrase speaking creation: “The beauty, majesty, the improbable incomprehensible preposterous complexity of it all.” I suggested it should always and often leave us dumbfounded. I’ve come to feel this way about the Bible; it continually blows my mind. You would think that after 43(!) years as a Christian who has engaged the Bible almost daily that I might be a bit tired of it, you know, the same thing over and over and over. Nope! I find, literally every day, amazement on every page. It’s almost as if this book that claims to be the word of the invisible God who created the universe is as infinite and boundless and profound as its author! It is. The deeper I go, the more I realize . . . there is no bottom! Could any other merely human writing endure such scrutiny, and criticism, and passion for thousands of years, and convince millions, even billions of people, that it is divine? (more…)
Do You Want To See the Invisible God? Try This Thought Experiment
Most mornings when I pray I find myself thanking God for revealing himself in creation, Scripture, and Christ. I think how futile existence is without God’s revealing himself to us. Without that revelation, the human race is like a blind man in a dark box groping around without any way out. Every which way he runs looking for an exit he only finds a hard, cold wall, so he looks and runs harder. The history of philosophy is a perfect picture of the endless futility inside the box, speculation built upon conjecture based on assumptions based on nothing but human reason or human senses. Such thinking will only take humanity as far as human reason and senses can go, which is far, but not outside the box. The brilliance of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle is a testament to just how far human thinking can take us, but soon descended into philosophies not nearly as brilliant, like Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Cynicism. Many other great thinkers came after, but without revelation it was all just a big intellectual food fight. (more…)
A Porn Star and the Awesome Power of the Gospel
I’ve been a Christian for more than 42 years, and I am more blown away by the grace, mercy, and love of God in Christ than I have ever been. It continually astounds me how God in Christ can take lives wrecked by sin and guilt and shame, and turn them into something beautiful for their good and his glory. Some time last year I started listening to conversion testimonies I found online, and it’s been enlightening, to say the least. I’ve written about this previously, but I used to think testimonies were of limited value because they were essentially subjective, about a person’s experience of God, and not based on the objective truth revealed to us in Scripture. I no longer believe that because God’s work in his people’s lives is amazingly revelatory. And in every testimony I’ve heard salvation is accompanied by a desire to read the Bible and go to church. Experiences that don’t drive people to God’s word and God’s people are not from God. (more…)
Recent Comments