I grew up in Michigan so this really caught my eye. The Free Press is reporting that the city of Hamtramick is considering allowing the broadcast of Muslim calls to prayers over loudspeakers. When I was growing up, Dearborn was where a lot of the middle level Ford executives lived. My girlfriend lived there for a while. Now Dearborn is a strong Muslim community. Things change.

I don’t think we need to fear this as long as the lazy, comfortable church in America will get about her business. There are many Muslim nations that we cannot go to and preach the gospel. It is illegal. But having Muslims come here, where it is protected by law is a fantastic opportunity. But there is a lot of work to be done. There is a lot of fear and misunderstanding on both sides. We need to start with dialogue. Islam respects the Bible and Jesus. Islam misrepresents them fearfully but at least it respects them. Islam is monotheistic. There are some points of commonality to start with. We can’t/didn’t/don’t go to them, God has brought them to us, so lets take advantage of it!

I have overlooked the epistle of Jude for too long. Do you remember ever reading this? I don’t:

Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. – Jude 5 (ESV)

This is totally cool! The point Jude is making here is that Jesus will judge false teachers who have crept in so he points out that Jesus did that with those who grumbled in the desert after leaving Egypt under Moses. Jude also points out that Jesus likewise imprisoned the fallen angels (Jude 6).

Here is something else I forgot was in there:

just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. – Jude 7 (ESV)

Pro-homosexual Christians claim that Sodom and Gomorrah were judged not for homosexuality but for violating hospitality customs. They had no right to demand Job hand over his guests. How rude! Rude enough for God to overturn them.

Yea. Right. Well the above text ought to blow that interpretation right out of the water. They were judged for sexual immorality, not sexual inhospitality and that immorality was “unnatural desire”. Seems to agree with Paul in Romans 1:26-27. Likewise, Dr. Feinburg pointed out in my ethics class that if anyone had violated hospitality customs, it was Lot! He brought strangers into the city without presenting them to the city elders to prove that they were not spies or terrorists.

This verse also ought to say something to those who believe in annihilationism. The punishment is eternal fire. Likewise verse 13.

It ends in a great doxology too.

This was from an Internet friend (names and placed modified):

A man named Keith here in Corum, MA was raised in a Mormon family, married a Jehovah's Witness, and lived across the street from a Christian Scientist Church. About a month ago two other men in our church and I had the opportunity to sit down with him and go through the Scriptures together. We covered everything from salvation by faith alone to the Trinity and Deity of Christ. At that point we could see confusion still over the role of works. He started attending our church and bought a concordance. Last week he looked up every verse in the Bible that has to do with salvation or justification. I visited him Friday night and saw that he had written out in his own words a beautiful statement on justification that was simply a compilation of thoughts from the verses he had read. He understood the need for repentance and faith and embraced the Lord Jesus and His work. He is seeing immediate changes in his desires and actions and wants to be baptized to show himself a disciple of Christ. Give praise to the Spirit for His regenerating work and praise to the Son for His sacrificial work and to the Father for His election and calling. What joy to simply see the word have its effect and see that no matter what tools of confusion the enemy may use he cannot thwart the sovereign hand of God.

It is amazing to see what God can do and overcome. The hardest heart is clay in His hands. Soli Deo Gloria

John who asserts that “God is love” (1Jn 4:8& 16) also asserts that “God is light” (1Jn 1:5). So why is it that some absolutize the fact that God is love and not that God is light? More importantly are they wrong? In all three places they are the exact same construction. Why is the attribute of love elevated above all else when light is not?

In reflecting on this it occurs to me both are true and both are primary (as far as any attribute of God can be ‘primary’). The difference between the two is not in structure or truth, but in meaning. We can take the term “love” as literal because that is pretty clear that it is. However, what about light? What did John mean by ‘light’? If you look at how John uses “love” (agape) you see that it is pretty consistent and pretty literal. Love is love. But when you look at how he uses “light” (phos) you see he often uses it as a metaphor for truth.

So we can absolutize both “God is love” and “God is light” and at the same time not compartmentalize God’s attributes. Sproul speaks of the concept of God being love as God being “the source, the ground, the norm, and fountainhead of all love” (Sproul, Loved By God, 5). The same is true of “God is light”. God is the source of all truth. He is creator of everything and “it is impossible for God to lie” (Heb 6:18). God is truth.

Imagine if we did with “God is Light” what others do with “God is Love”. The ultimate good for mankind then is to luminesce. We should all glow.

I didn’t realize how conservative African churches are till this semester at school. It has come up in class a couple of times. When the American Episcopalian Church ordained Deacon Gene Robinson as bishop, African Episcopalian bishops condemned it.

Now they’re putting their mouth where their money is. They are rejecting funds from the rich western churches that condone homosexuality:

“We will not, on the altar of money, mortgage our conscience, mortgage our faith, mortgage our salvation.” – Archbishop Peter Akinola

But this doesn’t appear to be a one-issue decision. The African churches need to stop being dependent on western money. The Archbishop recognizes this and he also recognizes that this will be hardship and sacrifice.

What brave souls. “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 4:19 ESV) I wish more western churches were so brave.

beloved these are perilous days
when your culture is so set in it’s ways
that you will listen to salesmen and thieves
preaching other than the truth you’ve received – Derek Webb

Don’t mean to be a braggart but both my local and state taxes are done and the refunds spent. Hope everyone else is done! :)

At least the Episcopalians know how to have fun! (via Christdot)

From Gospel Fundamentals Part One Chapter 3:

Our Father in Heaven loves us, and He knew we would need help. He knew we would be very sad if we could not have bodies of flesh and bones and could not return to live with Him forever. We needed someone to help us. Our Father in Heaven wanted someone to be our Savior. Two of our brothers offered to be our Savior.

Our oldest brother, Jesus, asked our Father in Heaven to send Him.
[SNIP]
Satan, who was called Lucifer, also asked our Father in Heaven to choose him to be our Savior.

Oh, yea and from Gospel Fundamentals Part One Chapter 1:

The good men who have seen our Father in Heaven have said that He is real. He lives. He looks like a man.

Our Father in Heaven is not an idol or an animal. He has a body of flesh and bones. His body looks like a man’s body, but it is different.

His body will never die. His body feels no pain and cannot become sick.

I just can’t think of anything less Christian!
(via Aaron)

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ – Mark 12:30 (ESV)

The love Jesus demands that we exercise toward God, as He cites Deuteronomy 6, springs from the whole person–heart (which, as you know, signals not mere emotion but the entire personality) and soul and mind and strength. That mind is explicitly mentioned is of no small importance. We often think of loving God with our “heart” in the modern sense, that is, with our emotions; we merely serve God with our minds. This text suggests our understanding is distorted. We are to love God with our minds, as well as with our heart and soul and strength. These are not mutually exclusive categories, and I need not probe them here. My point is that at least some of the tension you feel may be because you think of devotion toward God in categories that are too narrow. Unless you feel on a “high,” you wonder if your love has slipped. – Carson & Woodbridge, Letters Along the Way, 168.

The story didn’t end in the grave.

1 Corinthians 15:3-8 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

Romans 4:25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

1 Corinthians 15:12-13 Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

This is Easter Sunday.