From Knowledge to Wisdom

What are we missing and why?

On OYB a while ago I posted a comment about my feeling of missing something in my own life and in the life of the church:

I miss the manifest presence of the Spirit in myself and in the church today. Not completely, there are signs of His presence. But, from these passages in John's Gospel, it seems there should be so much more .... "streams of living water flowing" sounds like more than a few drops or a trickle. "If you follow me, you won't be stumbling through the darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life." sounds like more than a flickering torch light in a huge dark cavern.

John replied:

I am interested in hearing what you think the reasons are for a "dryness" (trickle) of the Holy Spirit in:

the church
a church
Christians
You

And if so inclined - How to increase the flow in the areas you talk about?

So this is an attempt get my thoughts together on this topic.

Blogging on One Year Bible Blog

Seems like Mike on One Year Bible Blog was a bit disappointed with the volume of comments the last couple of days, so he put a provocative question.

I was tempted into posting extensive comments. The topic was the death penalty and Leviticus 24:17 in today's readings - "Anyone who takes another person's life must be put to death."

My first comment seemed to provoke at least this reaction. So I responded with a second comment.

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OYB Symphony

Playing catch up today on One Year Bible is like listening to a magnificent symphony. Having been travelling on business for a week and losing track of OYB, I read seven days today to get up to date.

All the Law in Leviticus 9 to 19 provides a sombre bass theme with detailed specification of the definitions of unclean food and circumstances of daily life which make one unclean, the sacrifices to be offered and the procedures to be followed to become clean again and the cases where the sin or defilement is such that banishment or death are the only remedies.

Mark provides the dominant theme of the Glory of the coming Kingdom. Mark is very compact, so in a week of readings we get through a lot. Jesus is travelling around the Galilee area. Huge crowds gather and follow wherever he goes because he is healing all the sick and driving out demons. We see the miraculous feeding of huge crowds twice. Jesus walks on the water and calms a storm. Even when he gets away to the Mediterranean coast for peace and quite, people find him and seek healing for their sick. But it seems the disciples are still not really getting it. They experience all these miracles, they hear the teaching about the nature of the Kingdom, Jesus gives them personal inside tutorials on the parables. But some how they are blinded, until Peter is inspired, "You are the Christ" (Mark 8:29)

Priesthood of Believers

On OYB this morning we are deep into Leviticus and the ordination of Aaron and his sons as the first priests of a new order of priesthood as instructed by God through Moses.

Mike on OYB refers us to some commentary on Bible.org about the Principles of Priesthood. and Arising from the rules in Leviticus for the priests to receive a share of certain types of sacrifice, Mike also asks our views about payment to professional clergy in churches today and funding of other types of ministry.

These are questions which have been occupying my thoughts for a while as I consider the whole question of how we should be church, the extent to which we need institutions and structures, and how they should be ordered and governed. One of the points I do not understand is raised in the Bible.org article, that is how we continue to run with a professional priesthood. The article by Bob Deffinbaugh explains the following principles from the NT:

Blogging on One Year Bible Blog

Frequency of posting here is dropping, I think. There are only 24 hours in a day and most of them are committed already. My blogging time is currently being spent on and around the One Year Bible Blog. This search shows the pages on OYB where I have posted comments.

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Quote of the day

⁹ Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still;
       teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning.

¹⁰ "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
       and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Proverbs 9 (NIV)

So, this is the way from knowledge to wisdom.

 

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Songs Become Part of Us

On the One Year Bible Blog today there is some discussion about music, Christian and secular.
It seems to me that the song matching today's story of the Israelites is Sara Groves' "Painting Pictures Of Egypt".

  I’ve been painting pictures of Egypt
  Leaving out what it lacked
  The future seems so hard
  And I want to go back
  But the places that used to fit me
  Cannot hold the things I've learned
  And those roads were closed off to me
  While my back was turned

I listen to a mix of contemporary Christian songs and secular stuff. Some favourites are Third Day, Rebecca St James, Delirious!, Jennifer Knapp, Matt Redman. U2 score very high for me. Not sure which side of the Christian/secular line you place them (I suppose such a line does exist?). They seem to be on both sides! Interesting quote from Bono of U2:

"I often wonder if religion is the enemy of God. It's almost like religion is what happens when the Spirit has left the building."

And in another place he said:

"Can a song make a difference? Songs can change the world. They're not like movies where you see them once or twice - songs become part of you. They're more like smells. Freedom has a scent and it's like the top of a new born baby's head."

I recently experience that "songs become part of you" very vividly. The first LP I bought when I was a teenager in the 1960's was Bob Dylan "Highway 61 Revisited". My children recent gave me the CD version for my birthday. Listening to it I re-discovered that those songs are part of me, engraved in my head somewhere, vivid memories come flooding back of hitch-hiking through England on a wet day singing "Like a Rolling Stone" to comfort myself. So, you should be careful what music and lyrics you listen to - they all become part of you. Including a paraphrase of Genesis 22:

  Oh God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
  Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"
  God say, "No." Abe say, "What?"
  God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but
  The next time you see me comin' you better run"
  Well Abe says, "Where do you want this killin' done?"
  God says, "Out on Highway 61."

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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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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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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