Here’s a Christmas card that I like. Some Christians struggle with the idea of sending secular cards with Santa Claus, snowmen or winter scenes on them. The religious cards may have a nativity scene or wisemen following the star to Bethlehem but are wildly inaccurate based on a careful study of the text. Christmas Card Theology is a post from all the way back in 2009. Rethinking the Angel Choir and Rethinking the Wise Men are better written with scripture references included. Those posts are ancient by internet standards but we’re talking about the Bible here.
Intro: Thoughts and laments as the MLB season winds down; Collision, debate series between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson; Here is a link to Michael’s 2006 post on culture war.
Message: Gary Lamb, transition from pastor to real world. The Gary Lamb post at his website is no longer available but here is another blog post from 2009 if you want more backstory.
There’s money in them there walls. If you haven’t come across this story yet, you will. It has just gone viral but the event actually happened back on November 10th. A plumber was removing a toilet at Lakewood Church in Houston and discovered several hundred envelopes filled with cash and checks inside the wall! Back in 2014 the church reported $600,000 had been stolen from their safe. If this is that money, the plumber wonders, why did the person who stashed it never come for it? Right now they have more question than answers. The truth is stranger than fiction.
This is how I spend Black Friday. Well, it would be nice but truth be told I am pretty much no longer capable of sleeping in. I’m in bed most nights by 8:30 or 9 and up at 5 or 6 AM whether there is a reason to be or not. A few years ago we were at my brother’s house for Thanksgiving. The meal was over, things were winding down, people were starting to leave. He knew that our coffee maker had gone out and I would be looking for one. He showed me the Walmart Black Friday circular, which had new items coming out onto the floor in phases. The sale actually started that evening, Thursday at 6 PM, at which time I could get a Black & Decker drip coffee maker with automatic timer for the low price of $11. I fell for it. My first clue was that no parking spaces were available. Before 6 every space was filled and cars were parked at the fuel center, on the sidewalks, on the grass… I didn’t even know our local Walmart had any grass until that moment. I got in and found my item in about 15 minutes. It then took another 1 hr. 45 min. to check out. EVERY… REGISTER… WAS… OPEN… but a sea of moving people looked more like boats unloading at Ellis Island in the 1920’s than the Walmart checkout lines I was used to. Never again my friends, never again. There is nothing in there I need or want that badly.
Here’s a question I encountered online this week. God created. Is he still creating?
The creation week narrative in Genesis 1 and 2 describes everything that God made in six days and on the seventh day he rested. He said that his work was finished when he saw that everything was good. The final act of creation was to make man in his image. “Male and female created he them.” I believe that God created the world and everything in it and that humanity, made in his image, was made to be creative. He told the man and woman to be fruitful and multiply, a command later repeated to the family of Noah after the flood. Consider this passage from Genesis 5:
Intro: Spiritual pilgrimage for Chicago pizza; Polish style chess set; Abraham Piper surveyed his audience to see what blogs they read; Ken Ham State of the Nation (the Ken Ham post exists in the iMonk archives but none of the videos work); this Eric Dudley video does play and will give you further insight into what Michael talks about on the podcast. Q&A #1: If God knows everything about our lives why would he create people that he knows will ignore him and go to hell?
Message: Question #2: A situation involving a university student in a Praise & Worship group with a conflict between theology and “revivalism” culture. Question #3: What do you make of the verse that many will say “Lord, Lord…” but he says “depart from me I never knew you?”
I have preached a couple of sermons lately from Revelation. One of things I stressed is that some people wrongly avoid the book entirely. They were given bad advice to avoid reading and studying it, and some believers go through life afraid of it. That’s ridiculous.
Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.
Ghostbusters: Afterlife is the first movie I’ve gone to see in a theater since the end of summer 2019. I have waited a long time for this. Originally scheduled for a summer 2020 release, the date was pushed back at least twice. I was not disappointed. In the information age where things are leaked, often deliberately from someone inside, they did manage to keep a few things secret and surprise us on opening day. I will not spoil it and if you think it looks good in the trailers but can’t quite tell yes, it’s everything you hope it will be and then some. The movie is rated PG-13 so for the sake of family Christian heads up you might want to find the small children a sitter. There is less sexual innuendo than the original movie but they allow more salty language in everything than they used to.
Intro: Health concerns and risks of passing a common cup due to the H1N1 swine flu virus. Michael discusses the “scaremongering media” and its intrusion into Christian worship. And this was 2009.
Modern verse-by-verse exegesis and expository preaching. Most people can read the Bible and understand it.
Message: Greg is a former student that left the faith. Reflections on the nature of ministry and the fact that “this happens sometimes.”
Please Note: There are only a few podcasts left. #165 will be the end of the line. We started this series somewhat in the middle (#105) and then I received some earlier episodes from a couple of generous listeners. I don’t have them all but in a few weeks we will go back back to near the beginning and move forward until the well is dry.
The Master's Table 