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Our Sunday Roundtable- Week 6

Would you rather eat an orange, freshly picked from a citrus grove in Southern California or an orange-flavored piece of candy, picked up at the gas station?  Both items look and taste kind of the same, but the effect each one has on the consumer couldn’t be more different.  Both taste good, but only one is good for you.  We tend to think of sophistication as a good thing.  About an incomprehensible piece of modern art, we might say: “How sophisticated!”  Of a university’s course offering in situational ethics, we might say: “How very brave.  How very sophisticated!”  We might even be persuaded to buy the world’s most sophisticated beverage: water-flavored water.  For all the allure of sophistication and the envy it produces, its meaning and definition is not very attractive.  To sophisticate something is to make it less natural or simple; to alter or pervert it in some way.  It’s an old Middle English word derived from the Medieval Latin sophisticare, meaning to tamper with, disguise, or trick.  In this week’s reading for our Sunday morning roundtable discussion, Desi Maxwell makes the case that much of modern Christianity is too sophisticated; more corn syrup than citrus.  We’ll be challenged to shed the synthetic in pursuit of the authentic and to inventory our faith to see how much of our thought and practice has Christ’s trademark on it.  Prepare to find your walk energized and your faith freed.  See you Sunday morning!

 

Click Here to read the article for Week 6

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Praying for Zeus

May 27, 2018

Psalm 82

God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:
2 “How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah
3 Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. 4 Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”   5 They have neither knowledge nor understanding, they walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. 6 I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; 7 nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.” 8 Arise, O God, judge the earth; for you shall inherit all the nations!

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Our Sunday Roundtable- Week 5

Robert E. Lee, the great Civil War general, was on his deathbed when he took a deep breath and exhaled a final order: “Strike the tent.” These last words were those of a pilgrim whose life here on earth was spent sojourning. He knew that his beloved Virginia was never his home or final resting place. The picture he paints of a man breaking camp to head off in a new direction was one he’d experienced many times as a soldier serving on a military campaign. When the order’s given, it’s time to move on. To strike a tent was to pull its pegs, wind its guidewires, and fold the canvas into the pack. Lee wasn’t fleeing the earth. He wasn’t retreating or on the run. He was breaking camp for Kingdom come. So, what exactly was the tent that Lee was looking to have taken down and packed for the journey across the Jordan? We tend to understand a man’s essence to be found in his soul and we tend to think of his physical body as but a house; an instrument for our spirit’s expression. But when we die, what should be done with this house? What is a proper way to dispose of the “remains”. While the Bible doesn’t give clear directives on the question or post any prohibitions, our practices do say something about our worldview and our hope. This week’s article for discussion is Grave Signs, written by Russell D. Moore. This somewhat provocative essay by the president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, challenges its reader to grapple with the question of whether cremation is consistent with biblical Christianity. Our aim will not be to decide the right and wrong of the matter as much as it will be to use the issue as an exercise in understanding; a kind of theological obstacle course run. Please consider joining us for what will likely be a lively discussion on death. God bless our study!

 

Click Here to read the article for this week, entitled “Grave Signs”

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The Digital Gospel

May 20, 2018

Romans 6:1-4

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

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Midwife to Joy

May 13, 2018

 John 16:20-24

20 Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. 21 When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. 22 So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. 23 In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. 24 Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

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