Tuesday, September 13, 2005
The Basics
I have an awful memory. I'm not a techno-geek because I think technology is cool, I am a techno-geek because without my Palm Tungsten I could not remember if it was the day I was supposed to go to client X or Y. I think the reason I love the physical sciences and math is that there is so little you have to remember. Given the 6 postulates, I can come up with all of Euclidean geometry as I need it. All I have to remember to remember my geometry class is 6 simple statements. Makes it easy!
The reason I loved the simple gospel discussion I had with Adrian Warnock, and others, 8-9 months ago is analogous. Christianity should be simple -- one should not have to read Calvin's Institutes to be a Christian. That's why I love this post from Unveiled Face.
My intellect thirsts for heavy duty study and thought, but my soul is refreshed every year teaching the basics to high school kids. How is your soul refreshed?
The reason I loved the simple gospel discussion I had with Adrian Warnock, and others, 8-9 months ago is analogous. Christianity should be simple -- one should not have to read Calvin's Institutes to be a Christian. That's why I love this post from Unveiled Face.
I just want to emphasise the need to regularly and explicitly describe the gospel in order to keep it central and to ensure it never becomes "assumed". It is so easy to allow our focus on any kind of entailments or points of differentiation to rapidly exceed our focus on the gospel as soon as the gospel is assumed rather than explicitly stated at every possible moment.If you keep your focus on the gospel the rest of being a Christian will fall into place, and if you lose touch with that gospel, no matter how much you read and how hard you work, you'll wander from the path God wants you on. (Sometimes I wonder if this is not an example -- not that Christians aren't supposed to worry about the poor, it's just that there is more to it than that.) Mick put it this way
And it's so easy to assume the gospel in our personal lives. Recently, I was really struggling with some ill health and other discouragements, and I found that I needed to deliberately and actively recall the gospel - I had to literally fight to keep the gospel at the front of my mind. That just makes so much difference; to find security in a God who did not spare his own Son in his infinite mercy and love!When we forget God's love and sacrifice, when we forget what He did for us, when we forget Him, we stray.
My intellect thirsts for heavy duty study and thought, but my soul is refreshed every year teaching the basics to high school kids. How is your soul refreshed?
