nakedpastor

“Your enemies will define you, so make them interesting. In this case (Achtung Baby) it starts to be the hypocrisy in your own heart—you realize that’s the more interesting enemy” (Bono).

Last night Lisa and I were invited to dinner by people who are a part of our church. They wanted us to meet friends of theirs, Shane and Alli Magee from Ireland. They have their own blog called FAKE REPUBLIC. Check it out to find out more about them. VERY interesting people that we instantly engaged with. We enjoyed beer and wine and ate lots of wonderful food as we laughed and talked and debated late into the night. Half way through the evening, I invited Shane to speak at our church meeting this morning. He spoke from John 8, the story of the woman caught in adultery. We’ve been learning lots about grace at Rothesay Vineyard, and it was so cool for Shane to be so much on the same page while at the same time challenging us to push even further into the truth of God’s unconditional love and grace as was exemplified in Jesus. Thanks Shane and Alli. I feel we established a relationship personally as well as with our church that will continue. Till we meet again! We love you.

This is a painting I did last week that is up for auction on eBay. Click the button over to the left to go to my eBay store. Off to church. I look forward to seeing everybody. Talk later!

“The wilderness episode for Jesus means suffering transcendently the versatility of death’s aggression against human life.” (William Stringfellow)

I’ve been reading a very meaty book, Alister E. McGrath’s, T. F. Torrance: An Intellectual Biography. Torrance argues for 3 levels of theological engagement:

1. Evangelical and Doxological Level: Here, the Christian believer has an experience of the reality of God as a “basic undefined cognition which formally shapes our faith”. It is at this level that God is apprehended “intuitively”, without any real analytical or logical process of thought. It is a meeting, an encounter, an experience with God. At this level, the believer begins to appreciate the “evangelical pattern or economy of the redeeming acts of God in Jesus Christ”. It is from this point that theological reflection begins.

2. Theological Level: At this stage, the believer “progresses from the Christian experience of God to an apprehension of the general theological structures which underlie this experience”. Christians begins to “feel their way forward to a deeper and more precise knowledge of what God has revealed of himself, even to the extent of reaching a reverent and humble insight into the inner personal relations of his Being”. In other words, the Christian begins to make sense of the Gospel’s proclamation of the Triune God who has been met and experienced.

3. Higher Theological Level: This stage involves “moving from a level of economic trinitarian relations” to “what God is ontically in himself”. In other words, the believer now begins to discern and try to understand at the deepest levels the inner coherence of the three persons of the Trinity.

To summarize, I believe this can be basically understood in this way: The believer first has a personally encounter and experience with God. Secondly, the believer moves to a level of understanding the acts of God in Jesus Christ. He begins to discern how God does things and how his acts are consistent with his nature. Finally, the believer now moves to a deeper understanding of the inner triune character of God as revealed in Jesus Christ through the Gospel.

“Ah, life is terrible, but you can learn to be lucid and dance and be joyful using the very degraded material of your life!” (Richard Foreman, playwright)