Bully's Blog

“The great human hunger is for love—for communion. Power, wealth, pleasure, freedom—each of these are powerful motivating forces which can seduce us into imagining that their presence will complete what is lacking in our lives. They are false lovers, idols that demolish our humanity rather than fulfill it. Yet we can make idols of people as well, especially if we think that by loving and being loved only by others near by we will find completion. We will find ourselves once again suffering set back and brokenness as a result of making either our love for the other person or group, or their love for us, the measure of our acceptance. Continue reading

or Desperate Housewives and Accidental Bride-icide

One Good Friday at a Baptist church we used to attend, we were treated to the creepy sight of a mannikin onstage in a wedding dress. [1] The lady speaker (who is not the pastor) told us of a dream she had in which she saw the church as a bride. In the vision, Jesus was brushing the bride’s hair. Ew.

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There’s nothing better than theologians who basically agree on lots debating the finer points. Jordan and Wilson have  different ideas on what a classical education should consist of. Somehow, I agree with both of them. Typical fanboy. You can watch the video here.

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I have a friend who owned and ran a small restaurant for six years. Very hard work. He tried to sell his business for the last three of those years without success. We prayed and he sold it at 9.20am the next morning.

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Other friends also have a business. They are well past being ready to retire and have been trying to sell their business for a couple of years. Their prayers seemed to be answered but the buyer dropped out. What is God doing?

The hidden God has you where you are for a reason. The bad things in life crush us to show us what we are. If good comes out, it is a fragrance that blesses and encourages everyone. If bad comes out, and we are like a lanced boil, we can still use it as a step towards obedience and healing in our lives and others. It’s better to be like the son who verbally disobeyed his father then thought better of it.

Mike Lawyer’s exhortation at ChristKirk on March 7 is encouraging:

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Illustrations by Simon Smith. Music by Explosions in the Sky.

Band of Brothers – 1

It’s a temptation to water down the Bible to make it palatable for “normal” people (let alone watering it down for ourselves!). Problem is, before we know it, what we are teaching bears little resemblance to the actual Bible. The Bible has odd corners where we think it should be smooth, and it says nothing about many things we moderns deem crucial. So let the hungry eat cake.

Many youth leaders, and even pastors, present the Almighty as being desperate for our company. Although He is not needy, what He desires is more than relationship. He wants “friends,” but His definition of this word is not ours. Even if we don’t go down the track of using the actual phrase “heavenly buddy” in our teaching, we are still further off the biblical mark concerning friendship with God than we might have thought possible.

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Some great quotes from an interview by Barbara Demarco-Barrett with author Mary Karr:

“[My young son] came flouncing in in his Power Ranger pyjamas and said “I wanna go to church.” I said “Why?” and he said, “To see if God’s there.” It was about the only sentence he could have said that would have gotten me to go. So we did this thing we called God-a-rama in which we went to various temples and mosques and zendos. I had no interest in going to church so I brought a latté and a paperback.

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From Peter Leithart’s blog:

Jay McInerny reviews First Chapter: How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read by Pierre Bayard in the NYT. He says in part:

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Heavenly Father,

Today we celebrate
Your work in Your Son,
the One who said,
“Behold, I make all things new.”

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God knows us infinitely better than we know ourselves. God has said that celibacy is “not good.” It is not good for the man and not good for the church. A celibate clergy will distort the gospel in subtle ways without meaning to do so, because they are living in an unsatisfactory situation.

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