I have tinkered with the idea of starting a theology specific blog in the past and maybe keeping this one a secret for friends and family. I've come close to doing it a number of times. Theology can be a heavy subject and if I ever write something (or a series of somethings) that creates a bit of a stir on the internet I would rather not have prospective employers / colleagues (and haters) read some of my more silly, personal, or unfinished entries. If they dig far enough they will still find them, it is the internet after all, but for now it is advantageously and prudent for me to begin separating my theology posts from my personal posts.
Now the question must be asked: "how do you start a theology blog?" My first answer was to maybe start at the beginning with Genesis 1:1 and talk about the creation of the world. This is a logical place to start and perhaps even a very good place but I wasn't quite sure where to take it from there except to maybe continue on through the Pentateuch and talk about the creation of humanity, a Christian understanding of gender, The Fall, the effects of sin in the world, the Tower of Babel, The Flood, and on and on through The Bible until I hit the end. While logical the structure is too rigid and it would take too long to reach anything that is explicitly Christian as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all share a common past.
Then I thought maybe I should start with the birth of Christ. This is another logical starting point. Start with the birth of the man upon whom your entire religion is based on. I had intended to do this *before* Christmas, but life, work, children, and disability conspired together so that I could not do much of anything except keep the house clean and hungry mouths fed let alone write theology.
Then in the midst of preparing to host Christmas and appeasing one overstimulated child and another teething child I thought that it might be best if I start a Christian theology blog *before* the birth of Christ; during the season of waiting which the Church has called Advent. Why Advent? Because it is immediately and universally relevant and prepares the reader to understand the birth of Christ. "Yes, Advent," the gears in my head turned happily at the thought. A parallel between what the world was like before Christ arrived and how the world is like now that he has arrived but has not yet returned. The hopes and fears of all the years and how all of creation looks to Christ forward and backward, yearning and groaning in expectation. And then, as my wife pointed out to me, 'waiting' has been my own personal theme for the last ten years; another piece clicks into place.
And so I have decided to begin with Advent, the season of waiting. Unfortunately I might have to wait to write it. Christmas was waited for, came, and is now gone for another year and I should do some research on the topic as a typical Baptist upbringing didn't really celebrate or understand Advent except that it had something to do with it almost being Christmas and lighting 5 candles. The celebration of Advent is rich with symbolism and tradition... I would like to do it justice.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Saturday, December 19, 2015
30 years old and 2015 in review
Today is my 30th birthday. I feel old but I know this is supposed to be my prime. I feel tired but I know I have been abundantly blessed.
It's hard to believe I was furiously thesising a year ago, working at a breakneck pace to finish a rough draft of chapter 4. Thomas Watson was first and foremost on my mind most of the time. I finished that thesis. I got a B+. It was a respectable grade. I graduated and have a nice little display on the wall with my degrees, my funny hat, and my theology hood.
We moved on grad weekend. Packed everyone and everything up and drove across Canada in a four day blizzard. We got settled in a nice house in Barrie that worked well with our physical needs and is ideally situated by a park and a library with a fenced in back yard for our son to play in.
I burnt out. The two years previous had not been kind to us and our mettle was tested; then the pressure was off for a moment and I had, what many counselors would consider, a graceful crash.
Our second son was born and our life was forever changed again.
The next few months were kind of a blur. We got connected at Willow Creek which was really good. Health started to return to us which was greatly needed. I helped out Church on the Hill in Orillia with Bible Study and built them a website.
I had to change my priorities in life a few times. I am grateful for my wife and have no idea what I would do without her.
Sammy has grown quickly and is by all means a good baby. Jonathan was diagnosed with autism and we spent three months going to parental classes to help him learn language. We got in close with Tori's parents who have been absolutely wonderful to us throughout everything.
I got full time work at The Source call centre where I get paid decently well to deal with varying levels of crazy on a day to day basis. We got news that our best friends were getting a divorce and that threw us (perhaps me especially) for about three months. Tori and I worked on our own relationship, taking time for honest conversations and serving each other.
Now we're hosting Christmas in just under a week and have been connecting with my sister and Tori's brother and sister-in-law through Heroes of the Storm and World of Warcraft.
It's only been a year since thesis and I want to study again. I suppose that means I'm a lifer. Oh well. Maybe next year I will have time. I suppose I could make time but what would I drop from my schedule? Life is very full right now and I am often tired.
So that was my rambli-oistic year in review. We cram a lot into life. Now on to 31 I suppose. May the Lord grant us wisdom and direct our steps according to his will.
Greg Out
It's hard to believe I was furiously thesising a year ago, working at a breakneck pace to finish a rough draft of chapter 4. Thomas Watson was first and foremost on my mind most of the time. I finished that thesis. I got a B+. It was a respectable grade. I graduated and have a nice little display on the wall with my degrees, my funny hat, and my theology hood.
We moved on grad weekend. Packed everyone and everything up and drove across Canada in a four day blizzard. We got settled in a nice house in Barrie that worked well with our physical needs and is ideally situated by a park and a library with a fenced in back yard for our son to play in.
I burnt out. The two years previous had not been kind to us and our mettle was tested; then the pressure was off for a moment and I had, what many counselors would consider, a graceful crash.
Our second son was born and our life was forever changed again.
The next few months were kind of a blur. We got connected at Willow Creek which was really good. Health started to return to us which was greatly needed. I helped out Church on the Hill in Orillia with Bible Study and built them a website.
I had to change my priorities in life a few times. I am grateful for my wife and have no idea what I would do without her.
Sammy has grown quickly and is by all means a good baby. Jonathan was diagnosed with autism and we spent three months going to parental classes to help him learn language. We got in close with Tori's parents who have been absolutely wonderful to us throughout everything.
I got full time work at The Source call centre where I get paid decently well to deal with varying levels of crazy on a day to day basis. We got news that our best friends were getting a divorce and that threw us (perhaps me especially) for about three months. Tori and I worked on our own relationship, taking time for honest conversations and serving each other.
Now we're hosting Christmas in just under a week and have been connecting with my sister and Tori's brother and sister-in-law through Heroes of the Storm and World of Warcraft.
It's only been a year since thesis and I want to study again. I suppose that means I'm a lifer. Oh well. Maybe next year I will have time. I suppose I could make time but what would I drop from my schedule? Life is very full right now and I am often tired.
So that was my rambli-oistic year in review. We cram a lot into life. Now on to 31 I suppose. May the Lord grant us wisdom and direct our steps according to his will.
Greg Out
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
When Christian Friends Fall Away
I have not written nearly as often as I intended to. Something came up that has thrown me off balance for two months. Two dear friends of mine are getting a divorce and I fear that one of them has fallen away from the Lord.
It's always saddening when a Christian friend falls away from the faith. As a graduate of Briercrest and having lived at the school for ten years I've made a lot of Christian friends and I've also seen some of them, and others, fall away.
The amount of students that stop going to church after their Christian education is concerning and nearly all of them slip into worldly habits and philosophies that reinforce their life in the flesh when we are commanded to live in the Spirit.
I have Christian friends who as soon as they left Christian community went back to drinking and partying and sleeping around which is tragic. They live in the flesh and not the Spirit; it is as if the teachings of Jesus and the traditions of the Church have made no difference in their lives and so they go on in their sins not realizing that they must repent if they are to be counted with the believers of Christ. (Matt 3:8, 4:17, 11:20, 12:41; Mark 1:4;15, 6:12, Luke 3:3;8, 10:13, 11:32, 13:1-10, 24:47; Acts 2:38, ... I could go on)
But this incident between my two friends shook me because we were so close and I honestly did not see it coming, although I believe The Lord prepared me for the news over time. He was a firecracker personality who cared deeply for others and had many spiritual gifts. He aced his premarital counseling course, was a spiritual leader in the community, and even lead within the Church. She was a gentle soul with gifts of teaching, counseling, and musical talent. She loved to build into new leaders, work with children, and organize / run summer camps. Together they were a pastoral force to be reckoned with, a potent power for good in the world. I stood with them at their wedding and they stood with me at mine.
Over time our friendship became strained as our lives took different directions. They left Caronport to pursue jobs elsewhere and aside from two brief points of contact we nary saw nor heard from them for three years. Then the news. He left her for a boyfriend.
I was shocked. Our mentor and pastor was physically ill and brought to tears. We reached out to her and found that her family and church were very supportive and we offered our support such as it was at a distance. After weeks of agonizing prayer and soul searching I confronted him. The message that continually came to me in my prayers, which became clearer, louder, and more forceful as time went on was that this was sin. Leaving your faithful wife is adultery, a black sin that is unquestionably wrong for one who knows the Lord and bound himself in Holy matrimony, especially to a Christian wife. The reasons for the divorce were not good enough, and he knows it. His new lifestyle was inherently sinful, instead of walking by the Spirit he gratifies the desires of the flesh. The Lord's grace will cover it but if he refuses to let it go but he will not be able to serve the Kingdom as he was intended to and the place that was appointed to him will be given to another. He must repent of his sins and be reconciled to The Lord and to his wife.
There were so many scripture verses and themes flowing through my mind I can not recount them now. He listened patiently to the message I had for him, He thanked me and said that he would take into consideration and that he knew that I cared for him because I called. My heart both sank and was strangely relieved. It sank because I know that line of conversation as his flowery and diplomatic rhetoric for making someone think the best of him while avoiding going any further into the topic. I suspect the Lord has sent him many messengers to tell him the same message I was given, mine being one of the last. I was strangely relieved because even though I could sense that he was deflecting and would not take the message to heart I had given him the message the Lord had commanded me to give.
What followed afterwards was a long process of meditating and praying upon what had happened. I may write more about this topic later.
Greg Out.
It's always saddening when a Christian friend falls away from the faith. As a graduate of Briercrest and having lived at the school for ten years I've made a lot of Christian friends and I've also seen some of them, and others, fall away.
The amount of students that stop going to church after their Christian education is concerning and nearly all of them slip into worldly habits and philosophies that reinforce their life in the flesh when we are commanded to live in the Spirit.
"But I say, walk in the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do." (Galatians 5:16-17)
I have Christian friends who as soon as they left Christian community went back to drinking and partying and sleeping around which is tragic. They live in the flesh and not the Spirit; it is as if the teachings of Jesus and the traditions of the Church have made no difference in their lives and so they go on in their sins not realizing that they must repent if they are to be counted with the believers of Christ. (Matt 3:8, 4:17, 11:20, 12:41; Mark 1:4;15, 6:12, Luke 3:3;8, 10:13, 11:32, 13:1-10, 24:47; Acts 2:38, ... I could go on)
But this incident between my two friends shook me because we were so close and I honestly did not see it coming, although I believe The Lord prepared me for the news over time. He was a firecracker personality who cared deeply for others and had many spiritual gifts. He aced his premarital counseling course, was a spiritual leader in the community, and even lead within the Church. She was a gentle soul with gifts of teaching, counseling, and musical talent. She loved to build into new leaders, work with children, and organize / run summer camps. Together they were a pastoral force to be reckoned with, a potent power for good in the world. I stood with them at their wedding and they stood with me at mine.
Over time our friendship became strained as our lives took different directions. They left Caronport to pursue jobs elsewhere and aside from two brief points of contact we nary saw nor heard from them for three years. Then the news. He left her for a boyfriend.
I was shocked. Our mentor and pastor was physically ill and brought to tears. We reached out to her and found that her family and church were very supportive and we offered our support such as it was at a distance. After weeks of agonizing prayer and soul searching I confronted him. The message that continually came to me in my prayers, which became clearer, louder, and more forceful as time went on was that this was sin. Leaving your faithful wife is adultery, a black sin that is unquestionably wrong for one who knows the Lord and bound himself in Holy matrimony, especially to a Christian wife. The reasons for the divorce were not good enough, and he knows it. His new lifestyle was inherently sinful, instead of walking by the Spirit he gratifies the desires of the flesh. The Lord's grace will cover it but if he refuses to let it go but he will not be able to serve the Kingdom as he was intended to and the place that was appointed to him will be given to another. He must repent of his sins and be reconciled to The Lord and to his wife.
There were so many scripture verses and themes flowing through my mind I can not recount them now. He listened patiently to the message I had for him, He thanked me and said that he would take into consideration and that he knew that I cared for him because I called. My heart both sank and was strangely relieved. It sank because I know that line of conversation as his flowery and diplomatic rhetoric for making someone think the best of him while avoiding going any further into the topic. I suspect the Lord has sent him many messengers to tell him the same message I was given, mine being one of the last. I was strangely relieved because even though I could sense that he was deflecting and would not take the message to heart I had given him the message the Lord had commanded me to give.
What followed afterwards was a long process of meditating and praying upon what had happened. I may write more about this topic later.
Greg Out.
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