Thoughts For The Morning

Listening to new Jay-Z right now. Digging the song, "Empire State of Mind"... and thinking of Kris and Sha.
Dang Alicia Key's nails it on that song.

I am teaching in Saturate next Tuesday and am excited about it. Talking about hypocrisy.

Looking at Galatians 2 where Paul "confronts" Peter and says that what Peter had done "was wrong". Actually the language in translation is softer than originally. Paul was essentially Peter that his hypocritical actions condemned him before God.

I love the fact that these first followers of Jesus couldn't get this stuff right. They fought and argued. They used phrases like, "It seems best to us..." (Acts)

Sometimes I think the greatest miracle is that the church survived the first 20 years.

Anyways... so here is my thinking with hypocrisy.

I sort of always had this idea that the way to avoid hypocrisy is to do more good and less bad. So that your life has less hypocrisy and more Jesus... or something like that.

However, I think now that the way to move away from hypocrisy is simply to admit that you are a hypocrite.

Just be honest.

Come out to Saturate next Tuesday and let's explore this idea further.

Thank You Adam

For introducing me to Remi Gaillard. These are worth the watch. There's a lot more where they came from!

This Weekend With Austin

We now have several hundred middle schoolers ready to shoot hoops in order to raise money to build a school in Sattur, India for Dalit children.

This weekend our friend Austin Gutwein is coming to LCBC to speak to our middle schoolers. He, like most high schoolers, has also written a book that I am loving. If you are around LCBC this weekend, grab a copy.

So here we go. Our hope and dream is to play a small part in the freedom of the Dalit people. Our hope is that this school will help advance the kingdom in this world. That there would be Dalit children in Sattur who are released from the chains of poverty as a result of this school. That some of these children would become doctors, teachers, plumbers, and pastors and they would in turn keep the light shining. That the Dalit people of Sattur would have their humanity given back to them.

We have got to get this school built.


Because, like we told hundreds of middle schoolers last weekend...

the light will win.

Wilkinson

John is about to bring the thunder this weekend. I just stumbled into his office and saw his notes. Here they are if you can make sense of them. But don't try, just come out to LCBC this weekend and get thunderstruck.

How Did Jesus Know So Much

My friend John and I were talking yesterday about something he had once heard that I thought was fascinating. He heard Bart Campolo once unpacking the story that Jesus told of the good Samaritan (Luke 10). There are so many cultural nuances to this story that Jesus told and Bart was walking through them. He talked about what robberies would have looked like back then and how they happened with frequency.

Side note, Kenneth Bailey writes some excellent stuff on this passage and many others regarding the cultural nuances at play that we never see with Western eyes.

Anyways, Bart Campolo landed on an very interesting little thought.

How would Jesus have known such detail to that story and told it like he did...

unless perhaps he was the one beaten,

left lying on the side of the road,

ignored by the religious leaders,

and finally helped by a half-breed.


Was Jesus the beaten, bloody guy on on the road?


That gets my imagination running.

Next Question

Why does Jesus seem to care so much about hypocrisy? There are other issues Jesus spends almost little to no time on, like lying, sexuality, etc...

Yet he seems to be vehemently, almost violently, opposed to hypocrisy. Reserving his harshest words, and many of his warnings about hell, for hypocrites.

Why do you think that is?

What is it about hypocrisy that gets Jesus so cranked up?

Gossip

In a few weeks, we are talking about gossip in our middle school gatherings. Some of the responses were great.

My favorite was... "Gossip is like reading this blog."

So true. Like reading any blogs for that matter. You get the details, or supposed details, of someone's life without having to make any relational commitment to them. Gossip indeed.

Good stuff!