John Piper: Youth Ministry

I recently listened to John Piper talk on the topic of Youth Ministry.
His sermon was very good and really challenged me.
It is a free listen at desiring God.com, where you can stream it or download it.
I highly recommend listening to it.

Here are some things that are stirring me still as I reflect on his sermon:


Let the Word of God burn in our hearts!
If we youth ministers really let the Word of God resonate in our hearts and minds, if we truly reflected on and memorized the Word before we began teaching our students...can you imagine what our sermons would sound like? Imagine the impact of the Word in our students' hearts and minds?
If the Word of God was burning in our hearts, then it would begin to burn in our students' hearts as well.
We would start a revolution, a fire for God!
Sometimes we just work week-in, week-out. We do enough to get by, maybe read over our message twice and the Word of God is not quite resonating in our own hearts, let alone our students'!

Let us pray over the Word before we begin studying for our sermon/talk. Let us slow down! Let us settle on the Word. Let us delight in the Word. Let the Word BURN in our hearts! Open our eyes Lord to the WORD of God! Let the Word shock our students' lives. Let us have ONENESS with God and His Word! That is radical but it is real.
This is how to start a revolution! Take delight in God's Word in your own life. Take care of your walk. Let the passion of God's Word pour out and infect our students!

Question Time....

How do we go about making church, a family ordeal? More family oriented?
It has been my experience that teenagers stay at church when their families (their parents) are committed, involved with, or at least encouraging their teens to go regularly.
The past two years, several teenager have left our ministry. Many of them did not have too much agianst us or our ministry, they simply did not have the encouragement from parents and other family to continue going.
When their parents quite going or started slacking off, slowly they began to follow suit.

So I am asking my blog audience for some ideas, suggestions, on how wto connect with parents and keep the entire family churched...

Hellenistic culture

In my Intro to Old Testament and especially more so in my Intro to New Testament classes, we talked about the "Intertestamental period." This it the chronological history and time between the date that the last book in the Old Testament was written and when the events in the first book of the New Testament were taking place. This is the time where we do not have internal Biblical text to portray history. But we do have external text, outside of the Bible that clue us in on history.
This period of time is sometimes overlooked. It is an important time in history, and important time especially for Jewish and Christian history.
This is where it gets fun, because there are several theories when it comes to dating the books of the Bible:
Typically it is thought that the last book of the OT was Malachi and it is dated around 450-441 BC. Then the first book of the NT is not completed till about 37-50 AD (this is a very conservative estimation). Some scholars think Matthew could have been the first Gospel completed as early as 37AD, while many more scholars believe that Mark was the first Gospel completed around 50 AD. There are other theories as well with more liberal and later dates.
But nonetheless the events addressed in the Gospels occurred from around 1AD-34AD.
This means that we have about 400 maybe even 500 years without anything written down. A silent period from the mouth of god, if it were.
This period is known as the intertestamental period, because the time (historically) is in-between the two Testaments.
One of the main features of this time period for Israel, (and is a big reason why there are not any writings from this time period) is Diaspora. Another big issue for Israel at this time is Hellenism.

The Jewish Diaspora during the Hellenistic period, should not be confused with either the Babylonian or the later Roman Diasporas. This diaspora was not pure brute force. It was in part, a voluntary movement of Jews into the Hellenistic kingdoms that created the Jewish presence outside Judea, especially in Ptolemaic Egypt .

This Diaspora was wedged between two worlds, on the one side were the Hellenistic values of the Greeks and on the other was the Mosaic law. The various ways the Jews of the Diaspora, especially the Jews in Alexandria, balanced these two extremes, through the emphasis of common values and loyalty to the monarch, dictated its existence in the Hellenistic World.

Hellenistic culture was brought on by the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC spread Greek culture and colonization over non-Greek lands.

The Greek culture and influence left Hebrew Jews only a handful of options: They could embrace Greek culture, abstain from Greek culture, or mix with Greek Culture.

Some Jews continue to live in Israel and lived snobby. They hated Greek culture, they thought they were better than the Greek influence and lived a traditional lifestyle away from the world.

Some Jews fully embraced the new Greek cultures and fads. They went so far, as to abandon their Jewish and Hebrew traditions and religion.

Some Jews lived a life of balance. They lived in but not of the world. They embraced the culture but they continued their faith. For example the 72 scribes who translated the Hebrew Bible into Greek.

In a later post I will describe how the Hellenistic culture looked a lot like America in recent years .

Christian Community

2 Corinthians 1- “He [God] comforts us in all of our troubles so that we can comfort others. When others are troubled, we will be able to give them that same comfort God has given.”

Sometimes passages from the Bible strike me hard, as they always should....

Today this verse reminded me of how Christian faith is suppose to look like. As it was in Acts.

We are suppose to be a community of believers always ready to help each other.

The world saw that picture of Christianity imagine how many more converts we would have!!

IN Christ,
Alex

Have you ever wondered about Chapter and Verse numbers?

The purpose of the chapters and verse numbers was to facilitate reference. These divisions sometimes ignore logical and natural divisions.

If you keep up with my blog you know that sometimes I feel that they should be ignored sometimes when reading the Inspired text because they can be frustrating, they are not diviney inspired. And they sometimes distract us from the full context of a story, text.

It is likely that the original manuscripts did not even contain basic punctuation, far less an organized numbering system for each sentence.

But there remains a question....
when were verse and chapter numbers added to bible?

Until I asked this question, myself, I did not realize how the texts of the Bible through-out history have been divided. The Original Hebrew Manuscripts of the OT first was divided at each paragraph with Hebrew letters separating each paragraph.
around the time of the council of Niche the NT also was divided into Paragraphs.

Churchmen Archbishop Stephen Langton and Cardinal Hugo de Sancto Caro determined different schemas for systematic division of the Bible between 1227 and 1248. It is the system of Archbishop Langton on which the modern chapter divisions are based.

Verse numbers came later: Rabbi Isaac Nathan around 1440.


Okay so I do need to mention this...there are some groups who believe that the chapter and verse numbers have some significance and relevance to us today. CodedBible.com has a very strange theory, but it seems like a conspiracy to me.


Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapters_and_verses_of_the_Bible
http://www.bible-researcher.com/chapter-verse.html
http://www.biblebelievers.com/believers-org/kjv-stats.html

Million Voices

A song by Barlow Girls
it is exciting
Here is an excerpt from the chorus:

"We’re a million strong and getting stronger still
They’ll remember we were here
With a million voices breaking silence till
They’ll remember we were here"


Worldwide: 2,039 million Christians
In America: 225 Million
(these are estimates)

The song is saying we are here to spread God's word, and His love. We shouldn't be afraid to speak up, we have God behind us.

In the future people should look back and remember the Christians. We can and should leave an impact, this will happen when we are walking in the Holy Spirit!

Want a website

If you ever want a great website designed cheaply see me!

I am your man!

Alex

http://alexdolinwebdesign.blogspot.com/

Young Earth or Old Earth?

A recent question I came across sparked a rant...the question:
"If Biblical creationists believe that man and dinosaurs lived at the same time, where is the evidence?"
Answers In Genesis has a through article on this topic.
This has sparked my interests, even though I am still not sure if I agree with all of the conservative ideas and theories of Ken Ham and the guys at Answers in Genesis.

I recommend that you check out the article...

My highlight is the evidence from the Flood. And what I find very interesting is that both Young Earth and Old Earth Christians use the Flood evidence to support their arguments. This is so cool because even though, our time frames are quite different, it still goes to show that the evidence from the flood is so significant...how do non-Christians deal with it?

Now my rant and what I am learning:
Some times I spend a lot of time on complex, non-essentials. Before I go into too much depth, I will admit that this is a non-essential. We as Christians are free to argue and free to agree to disagree...in the end it is not important. We are all going to be living together in Heaven in the end...in fact my step-dad chooses not to argue for any side because he brings up an awesome point, he said, "I choose not to answer your question, because it distracts me from what is truly important." He relieves that sharing the Gospel message and living the laws of the Bible are what is truly important not debating specific theological issues. I

As far as non-essentials go this one is fun to talk about, very interesting...and I will say I am no expert. I am still struggling through this issue myself and am extremely open to all sides of the debate.
Here is what I know and think of each side so far....
Ken Ham and the extreme conservative...believe that 6 day Creation is literal and actually occurred in 6 days!
This I always find so interesting and no one has really given me a good answer so far, (...I have studied the Answers in Genesis website and I even visited the Creation Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio...), but I always think to myself...yes, but the word for DAY in Hebrew "yom," has several possible meanings...(even Answers in Genesis will admit that.)

The conservative, young earth believers are so set on the literal meaning, they never really even addressed the other liberal theories. They pretty much ignored the idea that "yom" could be interpreted differently and instead merely gave me "If the earth were a billion years old then..." arguments. While, had not heard some of these external evidence arguments before (I was impressed by some of them) I still was left wondering...because I value the internal evidence of the Bible. And so far, I think it is still possible to go either way according to Internal Biblical evidence. We know that with God all things are possible, even an old earth scenario. Besides there is some great external evidence that they are also ignoring when they are making their philosophical conservative arguments. (But this blog post is not my time to get into all these arguments, sorry for wetting your appetite.) Creation Museum did do a good job though of presenting the Gospel, that was impressive and honorable, for a conservative or liberal theologian!

The staff at Apologetics.com did a show on this topic and they are Old Earth proponents. It was a little surprising to me, but I really liked their arguments. They used a lot more internal evidence from within the Bible. They gave the "yom" argument, as stated above but they also referenced several other Bible texts (one particular in Hebrews) showing how God's idea of time is completely different from ours as humans! We have no idea for sure how long each "yom/day/time period" consisted of in Genesis. It might have been thousands or even millions of years between each "day." One really strong point that stood out from their arguments was from Creation account itself....One the third 'day', God lets the plants bear fruit....(this will take more than 24 hours normally). After day five God lets the animals be "fruitful." And agian after day six God allows man to be fruitful, produce things, and fill the earth...
THe question could be asked, did God creat them with fruit or did he LET them create fruit over time?
Now agian, using my own words agianst myself, God could have done it in 6 days, sure! All things are possible with God!

Finally my final point is that I want to side with the Bible above and beyond choosing sides or picking the most correct solution. Sometimes this makes me seem like a flip flopper (or more conservative on some points and more liberal on others) but this is partly because people look at issues with a false dichotomy too many times. When in reality the middle ground is sometimes best. Be open on issues but back your self in the Word of God!

A new kind of Theologian

Theology is a passion of mine. I love studying it. I am no expert. In fact one reason why I love theology so much is because it makes me think and I challenge almost everything in it while it challenges everything in my life. My main source is the Bible. I struggle with the issues regularly. There are tons of resources, classes, theories, and what not but the most important is what the Word of God says.

What really gets me going, is the fact that there are quite a few other Gen Yers who are really strong in Theology. But they are not limited to specialization. You see, us Gen Yers are tired of all the categories, all the specific politics that is within anything, including theology.

Instead of fighting between conservative and liberal theologies, the next Generation of theologians are wise in that they want to work together. They want to know what the essentials of our faith are. They want to engage culture and share the Good News, instead of gaining respect among the elite Christians fighting for their side of an issue. Instead they want to use their arguments in real life. They want to led people to Christ and be well-informed. Instead of merely arguing theology, they want to live theology. We are at a point where we can do big things through the love of Jesus. At point where we can do what truly is essential in our faith, evangelism.

Okay, yes we must be careful NOT to fall into extremely liberal thoughts. For example we do not want to be so engaging that we loose our doctrines. We need to be engaging but we do not have to compromise our doctrines and standards. We can be emerging but not emergent! And the beautiful thing is that many Gen Y theologians understand this. We are sort of trying to get the best of both conservative (strong doctrines) and liberal (engaging culture) theologies.

The point is we are able to dig into our roots, the Bible. We are to be "in but not of the World!"
And I am so excited that a lot of young theologians are ready to make social changes real, engage our neighbors with the true Gospel, and yet not loose the actual doctrines of the Word of God. We ourselves need to remian in the Wword, but also we are called to disciple followers.
Evangelism is part one, discipleship is on-going and continual!

OT laws in real life

In my Into to Old Testament class this summer, I learned a lot.
One of the most memorable things from the class is this article.
Dan Hayes talks about how the OT law applies today in real life and how it does not.

It is a great read. I highly recommend that you check it out.

But the law has a place in today's Christianity....
It is important.
What I find beautiful though is that the Christianity is not just the law.

Christianity is the law and the Gospel.

Through the law we realize our flaws, our falleness, and our need for help.
Through the Gospel we come to know our Savior, our friend, the grace and mercy that we need. The only way to fulfill the law is by accepting the Gospel.

It is so wonderful!