Saturday, October 11, 2014
Comic Art
Iconic Covers - Rainbow Batman
Because not all iconic covers are good iconic covers
comic art comic books comics iconic covers rainbow Batman
Because not all iconic covers are good iconic covers
comic art comic books comics iconic covers rainbow Batman
Friday, October 10, 2014
Growth in Dependence
Mark Roberts:
Christ growth maturity
Still, the foundational truth of Ephesians 4:16 is that growth of the body comes "from him," that is, from Christ....AMEN
Only when we recognize that Christ is the source of our growth, only when we depend on him for our maturation, will we grow in all ways into him.
Christ growth maturity
Friday Entertainment
Thursday, October 09, 2014
Debate?
A while ago there was this media event a debate between Ken Ham and Bill Nye on creation/evolution. iMonk and Out of Ur both thought it a bad idea. My reaction? ***YAWN***
Both Paul Pastor and Chaplain Mike need to understand what was really going on here - media, media, media - by calling it an "exercise in rhetoric" they are giving it more importance than it really has. It's entertainment. I write about it now, well, well after the fact to avoid feeding the beast.
What is a fascinating comment to me is following the rhetoric charge, Mike says and Paul quotes, "...not a serious search for truth." This is, I believe, undeniably correct and important. Truth can be found by a variety of means, rhetorical argument is but one of them. But, by definition, such rhetorical argument is a matter of nature, not super-nature. Truth about super-nature cannot be fully discovered by natural means. When we attempt to do so, we ceded necessary and important ground in the discussion.
In my experience most people that raise intellectual, scientific and apologetic objections to the Christian faith do so specifically to fight the work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts. Often, in engaging in debate on these maters with them we aid this diversion and hence fight the Holy Spirit. It is important to listen with more than our brain when such things arise.
Holy Spirit apologetics
Both Paul Pastor and Chaplain Mike need to understand what was really going on here - media, media, media - by calling it an "exercise in rhetoric" they are giving it more importance than it really has. It's entertainment. I write about it now, well, well after the fact to avoid feeding the beast.
What is a fascinating comment to me is following the rhetoric charge, Mike says and Paul quotes, "...not a serious search for truth." This is, I believe, undeniably correct and important. Truth can be found by a variety of means, rhetorical argument is but one of them. But, by definition, such rhetorical argument is a matter of nature, not super-nature. Truth about super-nature cannot be fully discovered by natural means. When we attempt to do so, we ceded necessary and important ground in the discussion.
In my experience most people that raise intellectual, scientific and apologetic objections to the Christian faith do so specifically to fight the work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts. Often, in engaging in debate on these maters with them we aid this diversion and hence fight the Holy Spirit. It is important to listen with more than our brain when such things arise.
Holy Spirit apologetics
Illuminated Scripture
Wednesday, October 08, 2014
Thankfully, It's True
Mark Roberts:
But because God does not change, and we are to aspire to be more like God, then we should aspire to be unchanging ourselves. Now, because we are being restored, we will of course always be changing, but we must be careful in how we change. We change through addition, not shifting. By that I mean that has we work out one aspect of life and move on to another, we do not ignore or discard what we have just learned, we add to it. If we are learning how to praise got loudly and with the cymbal, it does not mean we can begin to ignore the necessity of humble confession. We do not exchange the buddy Jesus for the Lord of All - we learn that we are allowed to be buddies with the Lord of All - we learn deference and familiarity. We become bigger, not merely different.
We become bigger until we reach the point where we don;t change because we have it all.
addition change growth
As you experience transitions in life, whether they are welcomed or not, it is reassuring to know that God does not change.Too often in church debate you hear things like "Things change." Well, guess what - somethings do not change. They are anchors to which we must attach ourselves. That is what Mark is saying when he talks about reassurance.
But because God does not change, and we are to aspire to be more like God, then we should aspire to be unchanging ourselves. Now, because we are being restored, we will of course always be changing, but we must be careful in how we change. We change through addition, not shifting. By that I mean that has we work out one aspect of life and move on to another, we do not ignore or discard what we have just learned, we add to it. If we are learning how to praise got loudly and with the cymbal, it does not mean we can begin to ignore the necessity of humble confession. We do not exchange the buddy Jesus for the Lord of All - we learn that we are allowed to be buddies with the Lord of All - we learn deference and familiarity. We become bigger, not merely different.
We become bigger until we reach the point where we don;t change because we have it all.
addition change growth
Tuesday, October 07, 2014
Humanity
Justin Taylor quote Malcolm Muggeridge:
To think otherwise is a failure to come to terms with sin. It is an attempt to pretend that we are "OK" as we are and that God seeks to make us better when instead we are severely disfigured and broken things seeking to be restored to our created beauty. Understanding our brokenness is mandatory to our coming to terms with the restorative process. A broken thing cannot function properly - it must be acted upon to restore functionality. We cannot participate in our own restoration to humanity, it must be granted to us.
humanity restoration sin
. . . it has become abundantly clear in the second half of the twentieth century that Western Man has decided to abolish himself.I love that phrase, "Having wearied of the struggle to be himself." too often when discussing spiritual transformation I hear people talk about becoming "super-human," or some variant. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sin has made us sub-human and the transformation offered by the Holy Spirit restores us to our humanity. We, in fact, struggle to be ourselves.
Having wearied of the struggle to be himself, he has created
his own boredom out of his own affluence,
his own impotence out of his own erotomania,
his own vulnerability out of his own strength;
himself blowing the trumpet that brings the walls of his own city tumbling down, and, in a process of auto-genocide, convincing himself that he is too numerous, and labouring accordingly with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer in order to be an easier prey for his enemies;
until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keels over a weary, battered old brontosaurus and becomes extinct.
To think otherwise is a failure to come to terms with sin. It is an attempt to pretend that we are "OK" as we are and that God seeks to make us better when instead we are severely disfigured and broken things seeking to be restored to our created beauty. Understanding our brokenness is mandatory to our coming to terms with the restorative process. A broken thing cannot function properly - it must be acted upon to restore functionality. We cannot participate in our own restoration to humanity, it must be granted to us.
humanity restoration sin
Kitty Kartoons
Monday, October 06, 2014
Quoting...
Justine Taylor quotes Dietrich Bonhoffer on the tension of alone and community":
I know in my own life my desire to be better increased exponentially when I got married. And yet it is I, on my knees before God that needs to get better.
alone community
Let him who cannot be alone beware of community.The military talks about the fact that soldiers fight for the person next to them - not for abstracts and not for a nation, but for the guy next to them. I think that is true for what God tries to do in out lives. We don't let God fix us because of the law or anything so abstract - we do it because of the people next to us.
He will only do harm to himself and to the community. Alone you stood before God when he called you; alone you had to answer that call; alone you had to struggle and pray; and alone you will die and given an account to God. You cannot escape from yourself; for God has singled you out. If you refused to be alone you are rejecting God’s call to you, and you can have no part in the community of those who are called. “The challenge of death comes to us all, and no one can die for another. Everyone must fight his own battle with death by himself, alone. . . . I will not be with you then, nor you with me” (Luther).
But the reverse is also true: Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.
Into the community you were called, the call was not meant for you alone; in the community of the called you bear your cross, you struggle, you pray. You are not alone, even in death, and on the Last Day you will be only one member of the great congregation of Jesus Christ. If you scorn the fellowship of the brethren, you reject the call of Jesus Christ, and thus your solitude can only be hurtful to you. “If I die, then I am not alone in death; if I suffer, they [the fellowship] suffer with me” (Luther).
I know in my own life my desire to be better increased exponentially when I got married. And yet it is I, on my knees before God that needs to get better.
alone community
