Elshof: dying to self

[without planning I turned to Elshof's book to blog whatever the next quote happened to be, immediately after my last post....]

If I'm going to be a disciple of Jesus then I'm going to be dying...if I'm not dying that will be clear over time.  But if I'm not dying and I'm going to continue to think of myself as a disciple, I'll need to be self-deceived either about the call of a disciple to die or about the fact that I'm not dying...

If on the other hand we are dying to self, we will find that the need for self-deception dissipates over time.  We'll not need to deceive ourselves about the call of the disciple to die to self, since we'll have heeded that call.  We'll not need to deceive ourselves to the degree to which we are not yet dead, since we'll also be aware of the degree to which we have in fact died.

So let's not merely use the spiritual language of the cross and self-mortification.  Let's adopt proven and effective plans for putting to death the various addictions that prevent us from moving more fully into the life of Jesus.  Let us move out of the darkness and into the light with respect to our sin.  The less we have to hide from ourselves and others, the less we'll be moved into the direction of self-deception.

I Told Me So, p.114-115

Schaeffer: dying to self

[Apology:  I messed up the paragraph formatting on this one and can't see how to put it right!]

Schaeffer makes the point, from Luke 9:22ff, that the pattern of Jesus' life was:  rejected-slain-raised;  but not just for Him:

The order - rejected, slain, raised -is also the order of the Christian life of true spirituality;  there is no other...

...if we forget the relationship of this order to us as Christians, then we will have a sterile orthodoxy, and we have no true Christian life.  Christian life will wither and die;  spirituality in any true Biblical sense, will come to an end...

...so I must ask, very gently:  how much thought does the necessity of death by choice provoke...how much prayer do we make for our children and those we love that they may indeed be willing to walk, by the grace of God, through the steps of rejection and being slain? ...  We must not think that we can rush on to the last step without the reality of being rejected and slain, not just at that point in our lives when we become Christians but as a continuing situation in our lives.

[Badger:  I wonder how much truth to this is indicated by my own instinctive hope that we can get through this bit and onto the the more positive, really spiritual stuff? And by how I was struck at his list of verses concerning our need to die to self? He clearly states there are huge positives next to such verses, but:]

We must walk through the first half ("knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him") before we can get on to the second half (" that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin"). I think I perceive that most Christians even read the first half of those verses faster, in order to get to the second, "happy" part of the verses, but this is a mistake. We love to skip along, but one does not get on the other side of the door without going through it, and we do not get to the second joyous part of these verses without passing through the first part.

I am to face the cross of Christ in every part of my life and with the whole man. The cross of Christ is to be a reality to me not only once for all at my conversion, but all through my life as a Christian. True spirituality does not stop at the negative, but without the negative - in comprehension and practice - we are not ready to go.

True Spirituality, pp 22, 23, 25, 26.

Elshof: Why we believe we're not well off (great quote!)

In explaining self-deception in regard to how well off we are by global standards, Elshof suggests we keep within a sphere similar to our own where have agreed to not ask awkward questions:

This is why the lifestyle in the next stratum up from wherever you are situated will look to you as though it teeters on the edge of exorbitance and gross materialism - but it won't look so to those situated there.  For them it will be the strata above them that satisfies that description.  We surround ourselves with those willing to ignore the questions with respect to our particular standard of living.  In so doing, we make possible a blindness not otherwise possible to the grip of materialism.  The last thing a rich man wants to do is accuse his rich neighbour of being too rich.

I Told Me So, p82

Elshof: concern and anger

Concern is a convenient disguise for anger, since 'concern' for someone is a perfectly legitimate sentiment, and it seems to justify many of the behaviours  one would expect from someone who's just plain hurt and mad.

I Told Me So, p72

Schaeffer: contentment as an index to spirituality

...I am to love God enough to be contented...

If the contentment goes and the giving of thanks goes, we are not loving God as we should, and proper desire has become coveting against God.  This inward area is the first place of loss of true spirituality.  The outward is always just a result of it.

True Spirituality, pp 9 & 11.

Schaeffer: taboos and underneath

Often, after a person is born again and asks "What shall I do next?" he is given a list of things, usually of a limited nature and primarily negative...

...there almost always comes into being another group of Christians that rises up and begins to work against such a list of taboos;  thus there is a tendency toward a struggle in Christian circles between those who set up a certain list of taboos and those who, feeling there is something wrong with this, say "Away with all taboos, away with all lists."  Both of these groups can be right and both can be wrong, depending on how they approach the matter....

...when I take hold of [a list of negatives] and say "This is too superficial", and I push it aside, I must see what I am doing.  I am not confronted with a libertine concept, but I am confronted with the whole Ten Commandments and with the law of Love.  So even if we are dealing only with  outward commands, we have not moved into a looser life; we have moved into something much more profound and  heart-searching.  As a matter of fact, when we have done with our honest wrestling before God, we will find we will be observing at least some of the taboos on these lists.  But having gone deeper, we find that we will be observing them for a completely different reason.  Curiously enough we often come around in a circle through our liberty, through the study of the deeper teaching, and we find we do want to keep these things.  But now not for the same reason - that of social pressure.  It is no longer merely a matter of holding to an accepted list in order that Christians think well of us.

True Spirituality,  pp 4, 5, 6

for Mintie

Elshof: Kierkegaard on procrastination

...if a person does not do what is right the very second he knows it is the right thing to do - then for a start the knowledge comes off the boil.  Next comes the question of what the will thinks of the knowledge.  The will is dialectical and has underneath it the whole of man's lower nature.  If it doesn't like the knowledge, it doesn't immediately follow that the will goes and does the opposite of what was grasped in knowing...but then the will lets some time pass;  there is an interim called "We will look into it tomorrow".  During all this the knowing becomes more and more obscured, and the lower nature more and more victorious...and then when the knowing has become duly obscured, the will and the knowing can better understand one another.  Eventually they are in entire agreement, since knowing has now deserted to the side of the will and lets it be known that what the will wants is quite right. (Kierkegaard, 'Sickness Unto Death')

Beliefs are sometimes demanding.  Often they break in on us unexpectedly and take to ordering us around like uninvited tyrants.  One minute we're sailing happily through life.  The next we find ourselves with an uncomfortably demanding belief.  This tyrant takes office and issues an imperative with such compelling force that we're unable to look him in the eye and say "no"....While the tyrant will have nothing of direct defiance, though, he can often be appeased by  the promise of deferred obedience.  If we promise him obedience later, he'll often take the bait.  And if we put him off long enough he might just go away.

I Told Me So, p40-41

Image/Word

"A video-streamed sermon on the Incarnation would be ironic at best and offensive at worst." And when most people are consuming electronic media ad nauseum, then the primary medium for a countercultural church must be an unplugged one.

Adopting and baptizing the new visual technologies is a losing strategy as well. The church will never do it as well as the culture. If James Cameron can spend $500 million, invent a new camera and new 3D techniques in order to produce the most visually stunning film ever recorded, and you can't remember a single character's name, do you really think your church budget is going to somehow do a better job of telling the Jesus story with PowerPoint, YouTube clips, or an internally-generated video? Even if you have the budget and artistic talent within your church to make quality films, because it is an image-based medium, it cannot penetrate the surface the way word-based communication can.

The new media techniques being employed in our churches may distract us from being bored in church for a little while, but beyond that they have no staying power because they have little authority. And they have little authority because they reflect the seen reality rather than the spoken truth. Take a great sermon from a hundred or a thousand years ago. When we read it, the message is still authoritative, and often still applicable. But watch a video of your favorite preacher from five or ten years ago and I guarantee it will be somewhat embarrassing. The visuals will take away from the message. Wow, just look at those clothes! The sincerity and theology is obliterated by the dated look of the fashion of the time. The authority of the word is eroded by the overwhelming power of the visual.

Leadership

Tiger Dad

I saw someone at the airport the other day who really caught my eye.

Her beautiful, long blond hair was braided back a la Bo Derek in the movie "10" (or for the younger set, Christina Aguilera during her "Xtina" phase). Her lips were pink and shiny from the gloss, and her earrings dangled playfully from her lobes.

Granderson went on to note that the girl was eight years old and to denounce the corporate executives who planned such a product: "[H]ow do people initiate a conversation in the office about the undeveloped chest of elementary school girls without someone nearby thinking they're pedophiles?" he wondered. The concerned writer and parent reserved his sharpest words for parents, however. "It's easy to blast companies for introducing the sexy wear, but our ire really should be directed at the parents who think low rise jeans for a second grader is cute." Parents, after all, "are the ones who are suppose to decide what's appropriate for their young children to wear, not executives looking to brew up controversy or turn a profit." In the most memorable line of the article, Granderson concluded his denunciation by referencing Amy Chua's recent book:  "Maybe I'm a Tiger Dad," he said.  

CT 

Elshof: attention management

William James said that "my experience is what I agree to attend to.  Only those items I notice shape my mind."  The most common strategies for long-haul self-deception involve the management of attention.  Through habitual and systematic management of my cognitive gaze, I can come to believe things that I wouldn't believe were I to attend indiscriminately to my surroundings.  Through attention management I exercise a degree of control over what comes into my mind.  And this, in turn, affects what I believe.

I Told Me So, p32

600!

It's a tradition now - every centenary I say

THANKS!

 to Dickie Mint for suggesting using a blog in the first place.

Elshof: Satre defining self-deception

Jean-Paul Sartre's characterisation of self-deception is, perhaps, the most concise and helpful for our purposes.  According to Sartre, to be self-deceived is to avoid using rational standards for evidence whenever it suits our purpose.

I Told Me So, p.27

The Books #6

It doesn't give an overall theology of prayer, it moves back and forth between story/biography/teaching points, it has no 1,2,3 guides, nor really any suggested schemes for praying.

But this is the book which has had the most effect on me with regards to prayer.  Unlike many books which systematically lay out what it is and how we should go about it, Cymbala's book leaves me feeling that prayer is real, living, necessary, vibrant - not simply a good idea or a healthy duty.   His simple story of the broken down church he inherited and the dire situation which nearly finished him off but instead drove him to prayer - which led ultimately to the Brooklyn Tabernacle - could have been a shiny, rags to riches, success story.  But instead one is left feeling that he simply found himself on a path which perhaps many of us miss, and it's a path that deep down we have been looking for.

It's not a polished book and, like everyone to whom something big has happened, it occasionally downplays other things God wants us to do.  But it is simply the most motivating book on prayer I have ever read

Prominence in the shot

If something is part of the story, make sure its prominence in the film is in proper relationship to its prominence in the storyline.

CT

Keller: becoming the preacher you can be

...it requires many years and hundreds of sermons before a preacher becomes as good as they have the capacity to be. Some of that means the preacher staying put and becoming involved enough in the lives of the people and city so as to be able to address their questions and issues well from the Scripture. Some of that means coming to understand the Bible well enough to always make it clear. Some of it means years of repentance and prayer that creates an increasingly holy, transparent character. 

Redeemer Blog (as previous post)

Keller: gathered preaching, dispersed ministry

There are indeed many "incarnational" approaches to ministry that do not require a gifted speaker, and we should use them all. In fact, I would argue that in a post-Christian culture, preaching will not be effective in the gathered assembly if Christians are not also highly effective in their scattered state. In our times, people will be indifferent or hostile to the idea of attending church services without positive contact with Christians living out their lives in love and service. Therefore the incarnational "dispersed" ministry of the church is extremely vital and necessary. 

Nevertheless, it is a mistake to argue that people in our society will not come to hear "real preaching." The fact is that, even in a very post-Christian city, if the preaching is of high quality, people will be brought and will come back. They will be shocked at how convicting and attractive the gospel message is, and they will feel like they've never really heard it before (even if they have been raised in a church).

Redeemer Blog

Future Shelf

Luther on the Lord's Prayer

The Lord’s prayer binds the people together, and knits them one to another, so that one prays for another, and together one with another; and it is so strong and powerful that it even drives away the fear of death.

Tabletalk 338

Keller: someone is always mad at you

Leadership brings a steady drumbeat of criticism and misunderstanding, even when things are going well. When things go poorly, people vent their frustration and anger on those in charge. A newly ordained pastor once said to me, “I didn’t know that, once you become a leader, there’s always someone mad at you!”

Tim Keller