Jan
24
2012
“Rivers of water run down from my eyes,
because men do not keep Your law.” Psalm 119:136
I might bag out [1] the Biblical Horizons crowd for their views on baptism, but otherwise they are giants. They have a hold on Scripture and history that enables them to understand the times.
Rich Blesdsoe recently made the observation that the unbelief which constantly confronts us Western Christians is quite a different animal to the demonism found in other cultures. We don’t suffer the full-scale “possessions” seen in pagan cultures. The rebellion is just as self-destructive, as crazed and zealous, and just as much a “nothing” as the idols of the pagans, but it is a different kind of nothing. What’s going on in our culture?
[This post has been refined and included in Sweet Counsel: Essays to Brighten the Eyes.]
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Comments Off | tags: Demons, Ecclesiology, Edwin Friedman, Islam, Postmillennialism, Reformers, Rich Bledsoe | posted in Biblical Theology, The Last Days, The Restoration Era
Aug
1
2011
.
One more Friedman post. Rich Bledsoe commented that the Biblical Covenant structure is very apparent in Friedman’s writings. Here’s a few of Mr Friedman’s principles for understanding the nature of true and false leadership (I have left quite a few of them out, as they wouldn’t make sense without his elaboration). For the whole outline, you’ll just have to get the book.
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4 comments | tags: Edwin Friedman, Leadership, Rich Bledsoe | posted in Biblical Theology
Mar
21
2011
Here’s a great post from Doug Hayes’ blog, republished here with his permission.
When Rich Bledsoe was with us at Family Camp he mentioned a paper he wrote: Sex and the City, [PDF] which we have now placed on the RCC website. It is an interesting piece of biblical social commentary worth thinking about.
Bledsoe contrasts the great ancient cities with the great city of God, the New Jerusalem and their respective sexual commitments and activities. At the base of his comments is the presupposition that it is important for us to think about cities because “the entire planet is ‘metropolizing.’ Everywhere, human beings are leaving their rural roots and are moving into the city.”
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Comments Off | tags: Babylon, Culture, Doug Hayes, Eschatology, Marriage, New Jerusalem, Postmillennialism, Revelation, Rich Bledsoe | posted in Biblical Theology, Quotes
Mar
14
2011
Richard Bledsoe has posted an interesting article in two parts on the Biblical Horizons blog.
“The great question for the emerging East, for Asia and other awakening third world areas, for an emerging nation like China is, ‘what fate awaits them?’ They are now emerging from an analogous paganism that the West emerged from centuries ago. Here an amazing quotation from David Aikman, the Time Magazine religious editor. He is a quoting from ‘a scholar from one of China’s premier academic institutions, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing, in 2002.’
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2 comments | tags: China, Church Growth, Church History, Communism, Culture, Rich Bledsoe | posted in Biblical Theology, Christian Life
Jan
17
2010
After a friend pointed out that New Orleans and Haiti are big on voodoo, I read this insightful piece from Rich Bledsoe. It is reproduced here with his permission:
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2 comments | tags: Haiti, Mission, Postmillennialism, Rich Bledsoe | posted in Quotes
Apr
10
2009
Bad Death
“Anytime a judgment is passed on a situation, it means that situation or state of affairs, will be so radically altered as to virtually bring it to an end. It will be (in varying degrees and sizes) the end of one world and the beginning of another. One must be mature to deal in death, because passing a judgment always brings a death. And it is to this situation that Paul speaks when he says, “The spiritual man judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.”
If we refuse to judge when the necessary time comes, then we forestall the called for death and the cost increases. It never decreases. To live in appeasement of what should be judged is to make the final price of death far higher.”
From Rich Bledsoe, On Becoming A True Judge
http://biblicalhorizons.wordpress.com/2008/01/22/on-becoming-a-true-judge/
Comments Off | tags: Justice, Parenting, Rich Bledsoe, Wisdom | posted in Biblical Theology, Ethics