From Knowledge to Wisdom

Down a rabbit hole to ecclesiology

I really will have to break this addiction. But the Internet around One Year Bible Blog has been such fun, especially since we collected the list of OYBB Bloggers. I was just reading a piece on Laura's Writings about ECCLESIOLOGY AS MISSIOLOGY and the thought that "missiology precedes ecclesiology". Now, this terminology is not part of my daily vocalulary vocabulary, so I had to check "ecclesiology" on Wikipedia. Then I followed Laura's links and found a delightful piece from Australia about being and doing church. Luch, check this out re your 'haunting thought' on OYBB a few days ago:

I sometimes wonder if people in my own faith community are trusting more in me, our staff, and in our well run church than they are in the Lord Jesus.

So many wild ideas, and only one lifetime to appreciate them.

Aware that my poor wife does not understand why I am spending so much time on the computer these days the following paraphrase occurred to me:

"And God said it is not good for man to spend all day at his work on the computer and then again all evening on the computer in his attic. I will send him another gadget to take his attention." Oops 99:1

OK, that's it. Logging off for the evening NOW!

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One Year Bible Blog - 22 Jan - Why?

There is a discussion today on One Year Bible Blog about the need for prayer in solitude following Jesus' practice. In a comment by Luch there is a good challenge for us One Year Bible Bloggers. Luch writes:

The point for me is that I need to make sure these times dialoguing with God through the One year bible is a time of authentic solitude. It's out of this time that I develop the keen awareness of 'others'--seeking for community, and that I realize that community nor bible reading in solitude are ends in themeselves, but that God intends to bless others through us by empowering us through solitude and community to serve others in our world and faith communities.

One of the tendencies I see in people is to keep consuming and consuming lots of spiritual input without ever becoming channels of blessing. Instead they end up like the Dead Sea with no flow out.
I pray that as our one year bible blog community continues to journey that God will use each one of us wherever we are in the world to bless others as we "hold out the word of life" Philippians 2:16

I see this as a reminder of the "circle of spiritual life". Jesus call us to salvation through repentance, we become His people, members of His Body, co-heirs, co-creators, workers in the harvest, declaring His Kingdom.

I think we should take up Luch's challenge and make sure we don't just remain consumers of the Word. We are called to so much more.

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One Year Bible Blog - 21 Jan - War

Some verses from Psalm 18 on the One Year Bible Blog caught my attention today:

³¹ For who is God besides the LORD ?
       And who is the Rock except our God?
³² It is God who arms me with strength
       and makes my way perfect.

³⁴ He trains my hands for battle;
       my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
³⁵ You give me your shield of victory,  (NIV)

Just for a moment I thought "this is what Brian Doerksen's Fortress 144 is based on":

All praise to you my rock
Who trains my hands for war!

but, of course, Brian's song is based on Psalm 144:

Props - today's new word

Well, I am amazed! Never before have I come across the phrase 'give props'. According to dictionary.com it means 'proper respect' as in "I have to give my props to the governor for the way he handled the problem."

Mike uses the phrase a couple of times in today's One Year Bible Blog:

"What I like about this reply from Joseph is that he is giving props to God for his "gift" of being able to interpret dreams."

And Dwayne uses it in his post tracked back here:

"Props to Andrew B  for his idea of making a blogroll of the bloggers who have been participating in this discussion."

How did I miss this? Is it new street language in some region of the English speaking world?

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One Year Bible Blog Bloggers

Updated 2006-01-20 and 2006-01-23
see further updates in the list in the right column

We are nearly three weeks into the One Year Bible Blog and I have been collecting the links to blogs referring to OYB. Some of them are very regular and some maybe have just one reference. In no particular sequence:

    tallskinnykiwi.com Andrew Jones who pointed me and others to OYBB
    Chip Bennett
    Three Chord Wonder
    Musings of MicahGirl
    Daily Bible Study 2006
    Peregrine Sojo - Kitty's Kronicle
    Dwayne'sWorld
    ...As I Walk
    Dcypl's Discipleship - Conversations on the Journey
    Bald Man Blogging
    Laura's Writings
    Life in the Slow Lane
    made to praise him
    Walk before Me
    Becoming
    Daisy's Journey
    [Technorati] Tag results for one year bible

With more than 2,000 people signed up for the e-mail there must be more OYB blogs out there.

Neither Cory at Bald Man or myself have really cracked the Technorati tag issue yet.

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Blog Redesign Due

According to BBC News First impressions count for web. Internet users make up their mind about the quality of a website in the blink of an eye. This weblog is now about a year old. Overdue for a facelift!

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One Year Bible Blog - 14 Jan

Proverbs in the One Year Bible Blog readings for today is again on wisdom.

Proverbs 3 NIV
13 Blessed is the man who finds wisdom,
       the man who gains understanding,

14 for she is more profitable than silver
       and yields better returns than gold.

15 She is more precious than rubies;
       nothing you desire can compare with her.

Nice confirmation of the title theme of this blog. But, I wonder again if I am making any progress in this adventure. What actually is the target? Today Wikipedia defines wisdom as:

One Year Bible Blog - 10 Jan

Following the One Year Bible Blog readings for today in Matthew 8 where many are healed by Jesus I had similar questions to those put by Mike. Should we expect to see healing among us in the consistent way it appears to happen under Jesus authority?

I do believe people are healed today by Jesus through the Holy Spirit. I have seen people healed in this way.

The question for me is - why does it not happen more consistently?

I respect Mike's caveat. We do not undermine people's faith by saying they were not healed because of lack of faith.

Yet, I think we need to look at the bigger picture of the life of the church, the people of God, and seek to understand why we are not living in the power of the Spirit as was promised.

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Holy Spirit, Word, Discipleship

I spoke for our gathering again today based on the Revised Common Lectionary readings Genesis 1:1-5, Psalm 29, Acts 19:1-7, Mark 1:4-11 This is an exciting set of texts with foundational key themes: the Holy Spirit, the Word, baptism with the Spirit, discipleship, obedience - Evelyn laughed when she saw my first draft notes - you're going to cover all that in 10 minutes!

The texts are worthy of Pentecost. It is notable that they come here in the church calendar. We have just been celebrating the birth of Jesus and then we have these texts on baptism and not only baptism in water but baptism in the Spirit.

This is why Jesus came – not only to bring forgiveness of our sins but to make us part of the process with Him and the Father and the Spirit.

Finding Wisdom

The One Year Bible Blog section from Proverbs today is right on the theme I started out with on this blog:

Proverbs 2
The Benefits of Wisdom
¹My child, listen to me and treasure my instructions.   ²Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding.   ³Cry out for insight and understanding.   ⁴Search for them as you would for lost money or hidden treasure.   ⁵Then you will understand what it means to fear the LORD, and you will gain knowledge of God.
NLT

But, maybe I should not be searching so much in books and writings of man, but listening to God Himself. Is that the meaning of verse 1?

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God's Risk on Freewill

In the holidays we've been watching a few things including Battlestar Galactica. Great stories showing the power of love and loyalty among humans. (Well they look and sound like humans!)

It occurred to me that this story illustrates the risk God took when he gave His creatures free will. The scenario is rebellion by the robots that humanity had created to be of service to them. (Like I, Robot a year or two ago but on a cataclysmic scale.) The robots have evolved and developed an attack strategy such that there are only a few thousand humans left fleeing across the galaxy looking for somewhere to hide.

In our reality, firstly God risked rebellion by the angels. Then he risked rebellion by mankind and he risked mankind being infected by the rebellion by the angels. His intention was to create beings with personality who could enter into relationship with Him. I think real relationship between persons can only exist if there is free will. Maybe this point starts a step earlier, real personality can only exist if it has free will.

But it seems a huge price is being paid to make it possible for us to have an existence in which we can be in relationship with God. Firstly, the whole rebellion by the angel who became Satan and those who have fallen with him. Secondly, the fall of mankind and the chaos and suffering that has caused through hundreds of generations. In the One Year Bible Blog we are just at the beginning of that story.

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One Year Bible Blog - 1 Jan 2006 (Updated)

So here we go. Starting today. Following the One Year Bible Blog team on the journey. Will I make it? Have I the stamina?

Proverbs 1 NLT
²The purpose of these proverbs is to teach people wisdom and discipline, and to help them understand wise sayings.   ³Through these proverbs, people will receive instruction in discipline, good conduct, and doing what is right, just, and fair.   

There we have it - 'wisdom and discipline'. Can I take the discipline? Will I be disciplined? But I did say I wanted to be a disciple.

Last night we watched a film (Serenity). One of the recurring questions was "Are you willing to die for your beliefs, for your goals, for your fellow men?" And the implication was that to get to where you want to be you need to be prepared to die. So, let the old man die and the new one be born again as we go through this discipline together in 2006.

And thanks to TSK for the tip.

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