Layup drill on the left and getting ready for jump ball on the right
Titus gets ready to play some D (left). Looks like he is going the wrong way on the right
More defense and the final score
Saturday, June 13, 2015
Titus’ First Game
Tuesday, June 09, 2015
Reading Through Galatians
Galatians was written right after the 1st missionary journey and ,most likely, right before the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15. It may even have been used as testimony at the Council for the principle that Gentiles should be welcomed in the church without having to become Jews. “Judaizers” (people who wanted to add Jewish requirements to the Gospel) had infiltrated the church and were perverting the Gospel and discrediting Paul’s apostleship. Thus, Galatians was written to defend Paul’s apostleship (authority) and the truth and reliability of His gospel and through that to defend justification by faith, sanctification by grace and Christian liberty. The main message of Galatians is “Because God pronounces us righteous by grace through faith alone we must also live by God’s grace through faith alone in the power of the Spirit, free from the law and free from sin, to serve and love God.”
The Bible divides history into two ages: ‘this age’ and ‘the age to come’. It tells us, moreover, that ‘the age to come’ has come already, because Christ inaugurated it, although the present age has not yet finally passed away. So the two ages are running their course in parallel. They overlap one another. Christian conversion means being rescued from the old age and being transferred into the new age, ‘the age to come’. And the Christian life is living in this age the life of the age to come. 18
Paul writes to show that the gospel of grace is from God and is the only true and effective way to be righteous. Only the gospel of grace can bring salvation and peace with God. This message comes with authority directly from Jesus and God the Father. Only the gospel of grace based on Jesus’ sacrifice for us brings salvation and peace with God. The problem was that the Galatians had deserted the gospel for a perverted, false gospel that brings condemnation. First Paul had to defend the divine origin of the gospel he preached. God alone was the source of Paul’s Gospel. Paul didn't make it up. It was a revelation from Jesus Christ. His life change caused by his conversion, without human influence, shows the power of his gospel. Though Paul did not get his gospel from the apostles, they recognized the truth and authority of Paul and his gospel. They agreed that Titus need not be circumcised, agreeing with Paul that salvation came by grace through faith alone without Jewish ritual or law. They agreed that the authority of the gospel of grace was even greater than that of Peter or any apostle and that we are justified and live righteously through Christ living in us by grace through faith, not through any Jewish rites or practices.
Paul was very gentle with ‘weak’ brethren, whose conscience was over-scrupulous. He was ready to make policy concessions, as when he later circumcised Timothy. But on a matter of principle, when the truth of the gospel was at stake, he stood firm and would not budge. Galatians 2.9, 47–48
Once we have been united to Christ in His death, our old life is finished; it is ridiculous to suggest that we could ever go back to it. Besides, we have risen to a new life...The whole tenor of our life has changed. Everything is different now, because we ourselves are different. See how daringly personal Paul makes it: Christ ‘gave himself for me’. ‘Christ … lives in me.’ No Christian who has grasped these truths could ever seriously contemplate reverting to the old life. Galatians 2.17-21, 65–66
In chapters 3 and 4 Paul shows through his own personal experience and in scripture that true righteousness has always come by God’s grace received through faith. Abraham received righteousness by faith and we enter in to his blessing in the same way. Trying to be justified by the law can bring only a curse. Only redemption by Christ will counteract the curse of the law and bring the promise of the Spirit and blessing. The promised covenant through Christ was before the law and is superior to the law; in fact the law's purpose was to show us our need for Christ. Because we are “in Christ,” We inherit all His righteousness, benefits and promises.
We do more than describe the cross as a first-century event. We actually portray Christ crucified before the eyes of our contemporaries, so that they are confronted by Christ crucified today and realize that they may receive from the cross the salvation of God today. Galatians 3.1-6, 74.
Not until the law has bruised and smitten us will we admit our need of the gospel to bind up our wounds. Not until the law has arrested and imprisoned us will we pine for Christ to set us free. Not until the law has condemned and killed us will we call upon Christ for justification and life. Not until the law has driven us to despair of ourselves will we ever believe in Jesus. Not until the law has humbled us even to hell will we turn to the gospel to raise us to heaven. Galatians 3.15-22, 93.
He then gives three pictures to show that living by grace is superior to living by law. The first is adoption: Faith is superior to law as being a son in the house is superior to being a slave. We do not need the law because we have the Spirit and intimate relationship with the Father. The second is his own example: Be free like me to become like Christ. Legalism and ritualism is slavery that actually leads to idolatry. Instead bee zealous to be like Jesus. Don’t be zealous to enslave yourself. Real life change through relationship with him. The third example is an allegory of the story of Hagar and Sarah showing that we must make a choice. Legalism and grace cannot exist together. Legalism always enslaves, always persecutes true faith and never makes one holy. So we must choose grace, oppose legalism and live freely in the victory Christ provides.
The way to live the Christian life is to remember who and what we are. The essence of Paul’s message here is: ‘Once you were slaves. Now you are sons. So how can you revert to the old slavery?’...By the grace of God we must determine to remember what once we were and never to return to it; to remember what God has made us and to conform our lives to it. Galatians 4.1-11, 109–110.
In seeking to win other people for Christ, our end is to make them like us, while the means to that end is to make ourselves like them. If they are to become one with us in Christian conviction and experience, we must first become one with them in Christian compassion. Galatians 4.12, 113
In chapters 5 and 6 Paul counsels us to Live FREE as the power of the Spirit in us produces Jesus’ character and actions. Take a stand for the freedom Christ has provided and don’t let anyone enslave you with legalism. The only actions that count with God are actions that come from faith expressing itself through love. Legalists are heretics who must be exposed, rebuked and opposed. Real liberty does not indulge the sinful nature but allow the Spirit to produce Christ’s character in you. The purpose of the law was to teach us to love God and each other. So the key is to be attentive and obedient to the leading of the Spirit. Then the character of Christ will be produced and the sinful nature crucified. This is superior to keeping rules.
What Christ has done in liberating us, according to Paul’s emphasis here, is not so much to set our will free from the bondage of sin as to set our conscience free from the guilt of sin. The Christian freedom he describes is freedom of conscience, freedom from the tyranny of the law, the dreadful struggle to keep the law, with a view to winning the favour of God. It is the freedom of acceptance with God and of access to God through Christ. Galatians 5.1-6, 132.
It is not enough to yield passively to the Spirit’s control; we must also walk actively in the Spirit’s way. Only so will the fruit of the Spirit appear... the first and great evidence of our walking by the Spirit or being filled with the Spirit is not some private mystical experience of our own, but our practical relationships of love with other people. And since the first fruit of the Spirit is love, this is only logical. Galatians 5.24-6.5, 154-155
Liberty sets us free to serve Christ and each other. Service in Liberty restores the fallen gently and takes responsibility for its own life and growth. It is generous in meeting the spiritual and material needs of others. Living a life of Christian liberty is not easy but it it has tremendous benefits. To live in liberty brings persecution, often from fellow-believers. To live in liberty removes boasting because only Jesus in you counts. To live in liberty is to share in Jesus’ persecution and in the benefits of His grace.
We are to love and serve our enemies, Jesus said, not only our friends. Thus, a ‘patient continuance in well-doing’ is a characteristic of the true Christian, a characteristic so indispensable that it will be taken as evidence of saving faith on the Judgment Day. Galatians 6.6-10, 172.
Saturday, June 06, 2015
Sunday Reading, A Fellowship of Differents #8
The final section of the book is entitled Flourishing. In other words, how do we accomplish being and doing what God has called us to be and do? The bottom line is that this is a supernatural task and is only accomplished by the power of the Spirit that dwells in us. McKnight quotes Jimmy Dunn, “The Spirit of God transcends human ability and transforms human inability.” To be and do what God wants us to be and do we must be empowered and transformed by the Spirit.
In chapter 18, We Have Landed, but We Want the Land, McKnight explains that we have the Spirit (we have landed) but if we want to experience the land we must trust and be full of the Spirit. All the apostles, and even Jesus, needed the Spirit to do what they did. All Christians have the power of the Spirit within them to transform us to be like Christ and to do the work He has called us to do. It happens the same way that the Christian life started, through belief in God’s promises. The Spirit’s work in us is then progressive; we are not fully redeemed until the final kingdom. “All things are new because the Spirit is God’s personal presence that empowers us to flourish in the church.”
We need to drink this in big gulps: Jesus, Peter, Paul, and each of us need the Spirit. The same Spirit at work in and through Jesus is the same Spirit at work in Peter, Paul, the early Christians, and you and me. 193
Christians need the Spirit because even though the new day has come, even though transformation is happening, and even though new creation is thawing Satan’s deep freeze of death in the cosmos, the battle is still on. 196-7
When we look around, we don’t see that glorious kingdom so much as broken, wounded, and messed-up fellow Christians on a journey. In fact, we see tensions, divisions, and hassles with one another. That is why God has sent the Spirit into us — to transcend our natural abilities to love one another and to transform our inabilities to dwell with one another in a way that witnesses to God’s grand experiment, the church. 199
In Chapter 19, The Exposure Challenge, the point is that we maximize the transformation the Spirit makes in our life by exposing ourselves to His influence. The more we are in His presence, the more we will be like Him. McKnight uses Dallas Willard’s picture of “sowing to the Spirit,”
To “sow” is to commune with God, to speak with God in prayer, to trust in God, to request of God, to rely on God, to read God’s Word, to practice spiritual disciplines before God, to fellowship with God’s people, to celebrate Christ in the Eucharist, and to worship and devote oneself to love, obedience, and service. In other words, sowing is about exposure — constant exposure to the God whose grace transforms. 201
We expose ourselves to the Spirit’s influence as we are in the places He is working, exercising the gifts He gives us and allowing others to benefit us through their gifts. When we look for what God is calling us to do in His church we will find our own gifts. As the Spirit works within us we become “bolder and brighter.” That is we grow in “graceful boldness” to influence others and the brightness of God’s wisdom and knowledge that will connect others to Him.
We must also see the paradox here that God’s gifts make us bigger by making us needier! How so? What we learn from the gifts is that God gives to us a gift, but he gives everyone else a gift too, so that we need one another if the body of Christ is to function well. 204
Chapter 20, Pete the Mechanic, is concerned with Christians fulfilling the vocation God has called them to do. Vocation and ministry should not be separated. Paul the tentmaker is a better picture of the way we should be doing ministry than the “full-time pastor.” McKnight says, “My aim here is not to convince ministers to get a “real job,” but instead for those with “real jobs” to comprehend that we are called to flourish in our gifts through that job.” 211. We flourish by doing our “ministry” through our vocations. (Honestly, I think I have had a much more effective ministry as a missionary as a school teacher/administrator than as a full-time pastor). God calls us to do ministry where we are and through who we are. If we do our work as ministry, all those seemingly insignificant acts of love will have eternal significance.
What we do now also prepares us to do what we will do then. What we do now will become the raw materials of what we will do then. What we do now, however incomplete and however below even our own standards, will one day be swallowed up into God’s redemptive perfection, and our work will radiate with God’s own glory. 217
Friday, June 05, 2015
An Old Testament Theology of Prayer
Chapter 3 continues the discussion of our master-servant relationship with God as expressed in Prayer and Thanksgiving. Because we are God’s servants we have a claim on Him and are able to call on Him to provide what is needed for our service. God is a good “lord” who encourages engagement and interaction with His servants and delight in meeting his commitment to us. We can cry out in confidence to God because, “our master is committed to us, under obligation to protect us as the other side of our commitment to serving him.”
Prayer is basically communication with God and there are many ways to do it with various types of content. We come to god “with empty hands” and expect him to act for us in certain ways. Prayer is a two-way conversation in which both parties are expected to come away from it with action. Prayer may be done in a traditional form or with individual creativity, it may be done in privacy or together with the community. It cannot be programmed, God’s divine word may interrupt at any time. God wants us to come to him and ask for him to follow through on his promises and be frank with him, although we always come as a servant. Goldingay also speaks of the “impossibility of silence” in heartfelt prayer and advocates the involvement of the whole body as well as the mind and spirit in our prayers.
"The art of praying is neither something ritual" in the sense of something that follows a set form and might be expected to work on that basis, "nor an individual meditation. Rather it is communication." Prayer involves words...It involves words addressed to someone else, not words that simply help me articulate something for myself; it is an exercise in person to person communication. 192
We pray because we are invited, because we are commanded, because we are grateful. 201
The nature of a master's relationship to a servant places obligations on the master, like those of a covenant. Indeed they are those of a covenant. The servant serves; the master provides and protects. As the people of God, we appeal to God on this basis. 203
The second section is concerned with the prayer of Protest. “Much prayer in the First Testament is neither temperate nor calm. It involves confronting, calling out, summoning, crying out, asking questions, asking for grace and attention and encounter, challenging and claiming.” (209) When it seems that Yhwh is not listening, the prayer needs to get his attention and encourage him to act. We cry out to draw attention to our pleading so we will be heard and acknowledged. These prayers often take the form of challenging Yhwh to remember his past acts and promises and bring the supplicant’s situation back into the proper relationship with Him and the world
Prayer does not have to express the niceties. It does not have to observe social or liturgical or theological proprieties. 213
An appropriate response when God is not doing what an earlier promise implies is to protest at what God has been doing, to remind God of what that word said, to urge God to act in accordance with that word, and confidently to acknowledge our dependence on God's doing so and our commitment to act in the light of that confidence. 228
Many of the prayers in the OT are a Plea for God to change the situation they are in. “A commonly articulated Christian conviction sees prayer as not designed to change God, but to change me...Christian faith has thus abandoned a key scriptural conviction about prayer...The First Testament sees prayer as designed to change the way God is acting, to change the circumstances and to change other people.” (230) These urgent challenges ask Yhwh to make a decision and take action. “Prayer does not accept things as they are.” Nevertheless, God sometimes will answer with a “No,” but the pray-er continues to keep asking. These prayers plead with God for mercy, restoration, relief, justice, protection and for setting things right. The prayer comes out of the weakness of the needy person and asks God to put down the powerful and reasons that, when this happens, God will receive praise and honor. Of course, the danger in this kind of prayer is when the ones making the prayer are oppressors themselves.
If we belong to the powerful not the weak- to powerful nations, powerful groups within nations- and want to become people of prayer, psalms such as this (69. 79) invite us to identify with weak people and pray with them and for them; we also need to find ways of evading the prayers that are properly prayed against people like us. 246
Using the Psalms involves being aware of the ease with which we can claim to be on the side of faithfulness but be wrong. The Psalter implicitly recognizes that all worshipers are inclined to see themselves as faithful and others as the faithless, but that it is easy to fool ourselves. 250
The OT always has several examples of the prayer of Confidence. These prayers express “confidence that God is trustworthy and will act.” Many psalms reflect God’s answer to their plea and teach that God will do similar things in the future. Thus the next time need or danger arises these prayers become confidence builders for the community. They also encourage the unfaithful to repent and depend on God because Yhwh is involved in His world. They encourage individuals and the believing community to remember, believe and have hope.
(Psalm 13) recognizes that it takes God to fix things. Other gods cannot do so, political agencies cannot do so, and we cannot do so. Prayer lies in the space between trust and its vindication, and lives with the tension of what is and what will be. 258
Psalm 94 confronts stupid people in a similar way...It would be impossible to imagine that Yhwh is involved only in religious questions or questions of the spirit, though Yhwh certainly is so involved. As a statement of confidence, the psalm affirms that Yhwh is also involved in the rest of our lives...As a statement of confidence, the psalm affirms that we can also look for that involvement now. 260
"There is no private piety in the Psalms." People pray in the company of their family and friends, appeal to the way Yhwh is committed to the people corporately, and when their prayer has been answered, give thanks before the "great congregation" (Ps 22.25). 267
Most OT prayers are for others: Intercession. “Intercession involves standing before the court of heaven urging it to make a decision on behalf of the people we are concerned for, and then to implement that decision.” (267) God invites and expects his people to work with Him to serve his people through intercessory prayer. Somehow, prayer changes God’s mind. Goldingay points out that most often the intercessors are the prophets and it is part of their commission. Telling the prophet not to pray (Jeremiah and Ezekiel) is a sign of terrible, impending judgment. The intercessors are seen as “lookouts” who pray for the city and then are able to call it to repentance. Interestingly there is both a call to pray for enemies and against the faithless. In intercession we identify with the powerless and suffering and focus our rage and protest into asking God to address the situation.
Prophets who want to do their job properly and safely will focus on prayer as much as on prophecy. 276
The Psalms make the assumption that Yhwh is or should be committed to the powerless, the neglected and the falsely accused. It is an assumption with a basis in Israel's experience; it matches Yhwh's actions in delivering Israel from Egypt. It is an assumption that is further vindicated by the incarnation and crucifixion. These events express in the most vivid way possible God's identifying with the powerless, the neglected and the falsely accused. The exodus story and the prayers in the Psalms presuppose this identification. We seek to draw people into prayer that accepts this assumption. 286
Another very important type of prayer in the Old Testament is the prayer of Penitence. “The essential nature of penitence involves owning what we have done and turning from our waywardness.” (287) This involves “coming to your senses,” confession, acknowledging guilt, and turning from it. There is a realism about our own weaknesses and general sinfulness and an expectation of hope that God understands and will forgive. This must happen on both an individual and corporate level. It involves appeal to Yhwh to cover.carry away our sin, to remove it, pardon it and renew his people to right and joyful relationship. The penitent would then respond to this with sacrifice and praise.
Confession of sin is about facts more than feelings. Praise, prayer and thanksgiving all focus as much on what Yhwh has done or not done, on what other people have done and on what has happened, as on my emotional response to it. Expressions of penitence do that with remarkable rigor. They can involve a sense of shame and disgrace, and grief like that of a mourner (Ezra 9.6, 10.6) but they are more characteristically an acknowledgement of wrongdoing and a turning from it. 291
It is integral to the notion of confessing sins that we do so publicly. This reflects the fact that nothing we do fails to affect other people. Our holiness contributes to the holiness of the community and builds it up before God. Our wrongdoing takes away from the holiness of the community and imperils its relationship with God. 297
Wherever I look in my life, I see waywardness, great waywardness, so all I can do is ask Yhwh not to look in that direction but to focus instead on "your compassion/commitment/ goodness" and to pardon me "for the sake of your name," in light of who you have reveled yourself to be (Ps 25.11). Act in light of who you are, not in the light of who I am. (summary of Psalm 25) 303
Goldingay concludes his discussion of prayer with a discussion about the prayer of Thanksgiving. This prayer looks back to the act of God in the past, but also looks forward to the future in anticipation of how God will answer the pleas of the future. It is a response to an act of God. It is done publicly with words, music and acts of sacrifice. It may involve public confession or testimony to teach others about God and how He acts. The move from plea, to penitence to thanksgiving changes us into what God wants us to be.
"Praise perfects perfection" and "thanks complete what is completed." It makes the praiseworthy act "overflow into the present and the future." 308
Thanksgiving thus has in common with penitence that publicly acknowledging something is integral to the notion. It is this that makes thanksgiving testimony. While thanksgiving can take place in the privacy of the heart (though only with difficulty, because thanksgiving implies enthusiasm), in its capacity also as testimony it cannot do so. And a reluctance to give public testimony to what Yhwh has done would cast doubts on the genuineness of the gratitude. 317
Praise, protest, plea and thanksgiving (and penitence and a life of commitment) work in a dynamic interrelationship. This interrelationship is not linear but circular, or rather spiral. Prayer may begin with praise or protest or plea or thanksgiving according to the circumstances of the worshiper. It may simply undertake that form of address of God, or it may move that distance around the circle, and it may then go round it again. Indeed one's life with God involves repeatedly navigating this circle, though not in a repetitive manner, because each time I come to a staging point in that circle, I am a different person relating to God in different ways from what was true the last time. 322
Thursday, June 04, 2015
Reading Through 2nd Corinthians
In 2nd Corinthians, Paul, in the midst of a crisis in leadership there, is trying to show the Corinthian church what true godly leadership looks like. We can recognize real Christian leaders by the way they live out the cross in a ministry willing to sacrifice and suffer for the truth and for the benefit of God's people. They understand that it is internal character change, brought about through the Spirit, which is important and not external ability. Such leaders should be obeyed, honored and supported. True Christian leadership is “cross-shaped,” it leads the way Jesus led.
It is striking that while the basis of Paul’s apostleship was Christ’s Damascus Road call, the evidence he gives in support relates to his lifestyle—a lifestyle characterized by the sacrifice of Christ expressed in apostolic ministry...While the source of Paul’s authority was Christ, his authority was attested not by marvels or mysteries but, as Barrett helpfully puts it, ‘in the pattern of death and resurrection stamped upon his own life and work’. Sacrifice and self-giving were for Paul, as they remain for us, indispensable evidence of genuineness as Christian believers. 24–25
Real Christian leaders are motivated by a sincere love for Christ and desire for His people to grow. The share their own experiences of suffering and deliverance from Christ to comfort others. They lead with open, truthful plans based on Christ's promises and love for God's people, without hidden agendas. They are reconcilers and restorers who lead by forgiving, reaffirming and comforting in public and private discipline. They handle well adversity suffering and rejection based on God’s calling and promise, with an eternal perspective. 1.1-2.17
Lively and open relationships provide the best context for the word of God to work out its purposes among us. This is why the local congregation is so highly regarded and referred to as ‘the church of God.’ 2 Corinthians 2.5-11, 47
Those who engage in ministry must speak only the ‘word of God’ and they must do so ‘before God’. The newcomers’ style of ministry warns us of the ever-present temptation for ministers to project and to commend themselves on the basis of ‘image’, or what Paul calls ‘face’. While the minister needs gifts appropriate to his calling, let him come not in the strength of those gifts but in the power of the word of God. 2 Corinthians 3, 58.
It is one thing to possess the appropriate ordination documents or the framed university degree proudly displayed; but are there ‘living’ letters? The confirmation of one’s ministry lies in the effects of that ministry in human lives. This will depend upon having ministered a pure, undiluted gospel and also upon having taken people into our hearts. To do the former alone could mean inflexibility, while to do the latter alone could mean sentimentality. The proper balance lies in faithfulness to the gospel and pastoral love of the people. 2 Corinthians 3.2, 61.
Troubles help us to understand that there is no future for us here in this tawdry, fading existence. Therefore we focus, increasingly, on the unseen, resurrected and glorified Christ (4:4–6, 14). Bodily needs are important, certainly; and so are the needs of others. Yet what we are to long for is not the pleasures and possessions put before us by the advertising agencies in the media, but the promises of the gospel in the Bible. 2 Corinthians 4.16-18, 94.
To our minds this present existence is solid and real, whereas our coming existence seems shadowy and insubstantial. Paul teaches us that the reverse is true. The life which is to come is strong, permanent and real; the present life is lived among the shadows. 2 Corinthians 5.1, 98
Real Christian leaders are focused on grace, not the externals. In their preaching and teaching they share a clear message of reconciliation with God. Their preaching is content oriented rather than fancy rhetoric. They have a persevering open, integrity in life and ministry and are separated from false doctrine and practice. That is their life matches their preaching and they what they ask others to do. Leaders are bold to confront in love. 5.11-7.16
The message that Christ was crucified for us, therefore, draws forth from us our dependence upon him. To withhold our faith and love from him would be perverse and ungrateful. Moreover, since our sins demanded so high a price for their forgiveness, we conclude that they must be deeply offensive to God. We are left with no honourable alternative but to ‘die’ to sin and to live for him who, as our representative and substitute, died and was raised. 2 Corinthians 5.21, 119.
This speaks both of our very considerable privilege in acting as colleagues of God and also of the resources of divine power by which be enables us to make his appeal to others. We are not helpless and alone as Christ’s representatives. God has made us partners, co-workers with himself in his great rescue mission to reconcile the world to himself. 2 Corinthians 6.1, 122.
These verses, let it be repeated, of themselves do not call either for total separation from the world or for withdrawal from Christians with whom doctrinal differences exist. They all relate to the specific exhortation not to engage in idolatrous meals or services, which apparently (some of) the Corinthians had continued to do...Paul’s words continued to have application wherever Christians are potentially entangled in idolatry, the occult or pagan religious practices. Christians may be joined to unbelievers socially or by an existing marriage; they are not at liberty to participate in their religious worship. 2 Corinthians 6.14-7.1, 130–131.
Our eyes need to be open and our hearts generous with compassionate care. Above all we must resist the temptation to run away from people’s needs because we do not think we can cope. The troubled do not usually expect us to solve their problems; but they do appreciate our concern and prayerful support. What matters most to people in distress is not ‘saying things’ but ‘being there’. 2 Corinthians 7.5-16, 138
In chapters 8 and 9 Paul talks about the gift that he was raising from the Gentile churches for the Jerusalem church as an example of the kind of thing leaders should be doing in their churches. The offering should be sacrificial and participated in by all. It is an excellent spiritual service done as God gives ability, with purity of motive. Administration should transparent and handled by people of proven integrity. Giving should be planned, committed and a generous expression of love. This would demonstrate faith in God and His care for His people and produce an increase in thankfulness, praise and prayers. 8.1-9.15
First, we need gladly to receive the Lord Jesus Christ in our hearts, thankful for his sacrificial saving work on our behalf. Secondly, in all matters related to giving and gifts we ought to imitate his generosity. Clearly the self-giving death of Jesus is a major motive for our generosity. 2 Corinthians 8.9, 144.
God’s grace towards us reproduces his graciousness within us. Since God’s grace towards us is infinite and not measured out, we who receive it are to show generosity without measurement or calculation. We are not under compulsion. Thus ours is to be a ready, not a reluctant, response. God loves a cheerful giver (verse 7) because he is himself a cheerful giver. 2 Corinthians 9.6-15, 152
Good leaders do things God's Way, not in human ways, and in God's power. They use God's methods, packing high-powered, divine weapons, but “the meekness, kindness and gentleness of Christ” always govern their use. God’s leaders persuade rather than intimidate, reason and coax rather than beat up. They are motivated by God's approval not human approval as evidenced by a refusal to compare ministries. They do good without expecting something in return and would do the job without the title or the salary. 10.1-13.6
Let it be said that preaching, whether based on the New Testament or the Old Testament, whether exegetical or thematic, fails at its most critical point if it does not on every occasion bring the claims of the Lordship of Christ and his saving power into the clearest focus. Only this gospel can make that which sets itself up against the knowledge of God, namely rebellious unbelief, obedient to Christ. Paul’s very humility, which they despise, what he calls the meekness and gentleness of Christ (verse 1) indicates that he is himself a man whose every thought is captive to obey Christ. He is the living embodiment of what he proclaims. 2 Corinthians 10.1-7, 159.
Godly leadership focuses attention on God, not self. They keep the focus on Jesus. They sacrifice to build up the body and avoid the silliness of boasting about one's own accomplishments or abilities. In fact they are open and even “boast” about weaknesses and suffering because they point to God's power. 11.1-12.10
It is clear from this passage that the pure gospel alone joins us to, and keeps us in a right relationship with, Christ. A sincere devotion to Christ is possible only where the true and authentic gospel of Christ is taught and heard (verse 3). Christians need to think about what they are being taught rather than being impressed by who is teaching them, however winsome he or she may be. 2 Corinthians 11.1-4, 164.
It is a temptation to use one’s position or one’s gifts, or both, to create a circle of admirers. Such a person exercises his ministry in the name of Christ but is really involved in an ‘ego trip’. More subtly, the minister may encourage people to lean on him like a crutch, out of his own need to be needed. Alternatively, the minister is capable of being corrupted by the power given him in the church so that he becomes a bossy authoritarian who must always have his own way. It must always be remembered that the word ‘minister’ means ‘servant’. 2 Corinthians 11.16-33, 175.
The grace and power of God interlock with human lives at the point of mortal weakness. Schlatter wrote that ‘the self-centred conception of faith which understands faith as participation of God’s power by which one is brought higher life … a desire to be bound to the exalted Christ without appreciating God’s grace in the crucified one, a filling with the Spirit which blesses one with one’s own greatness … all this was in the deepest sense un-Pauline … and unapostolic’. 2 Corinthians 12.1-10, 179
•Godly leaders draw the church away from sin and its consequences. They Invest their lives in others and earn respect. Then their people will grow in Christ-like character and see Christ’s power in them to grow spiritually. Real leaders produce “cross shaped” churches that are full of joy and mended, restored people who are comforted, encouraged and held accountable. Such a church is unified and displays the peace of Christ, 12.11-13.14
Paul is reminding the Corinthians that their ‘mending’ does not lie within themselves but with the grace of Christ, the love of God and the Spirit’s fellowship. The grace of Christ removes aggressiveness, the love of God dispels jealousy, while the fellowship created by the Spirit destroys bitterness. As God answers that prayer, the problems so manifest in Corinth and in every troubled church will be overcome. 2 Corinthians 13.14, 188.
Wednesday, June 03, 2015
1st and 2nd Grade Promotion
Left, Titus gets his achievement award and (right) Courage waits for her ceremony to start
Full family involvement in the ceremony!
Tuesday, June 02, 2015
PIU June Matching Funds Drive
Below is our latest PIU Rising Tide donation letter. Our fiscal year will be closing at the end of this month and we are in our final effort to make our annual budget. This year one of our board members and our admin staff have put up $6000 in matching funds for June donations. Thus, a June donation is doubled. Please consider a donation that would help make Christian higher education accessible to the young people of Guam and Micronesia. God Bless
There are several ways to make a donation to PIU
You can mail it to: Pacific Islands University ~ 172 Kinney’s Drive ~ Mangilao, Guam 96913
You can Donate Online: www.PIU.edu/make-a-donation
You can Donate by Phone: (671) 734-1812 or Fax: (671) 734-1813
Pacific Islands University is recognized by the Internal Revenue Service as a 501 (c) (3) tax-exempt nonprofit religious corporation (Tax ID# 66-0480546). Your contribution is tax-deductible.