My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my  commandments with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. Proverbs 2:1-6 ESV

In many ways this is the story of God working in my life. From an early age God showed himself to me and gave me the grace to see that I was not his child. He remade me His very own and gave me the desire to want to know him. For all of my life I have struggled with selfishness. My selfishness even extends into how and why I learn. To learn and not share what you have learned in humility is contrary to the will of God. I am to serve others with the knowledge that God alone has given me. I can take no credit for what the LORD has allowed me to learn. God has broken my selfishness and given me a love to serve others that is not my own.

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace. 1 Peter 4:10

I used http://www.wordle.net to make word clouds of this site so far. Word clouds are a great way to visualize the words used in writing. The bigger the word gets the more it was used. What do you think?

Although written in 2005, the book Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey was one of my favorite books to read in 2008. She explains many ways to understand  the Christian worldview.

“To talk about a Christian worldview is simply another way of saying that when we are redeemed, our entire outlook on life is re-centered on God and re-built on His revealed truth.” (p. 46)

“The first step in conforming our intellect to God’s truth is to die to our vanity, pride, and craving for respect from colleagues and the public. We must let go of the worldly motivations that drive us, praying to be motivated solely by a genuine desire to submit our minds to God’s Word – and then to use that knowledge in service to others.” (p. 354)

In the book Living at the Crossroads : an introduction to Christian Worldview, Michael W. Goheen and Craig Bartholomew define worldview in this manner: “worldview is an articulation of the basic beliefs embedded into a shared grand story that are rooted in a faith commitment and that give shape and direction to the whole of our individual and corporate lives.” (p.23)

Goheen and Bartholomew discuss Ecclesiastes 3:11 and say that this verse explains why we need stories. God has given us a sense of beginning, middle, and end. The authors also make this statement:

Our heart, the religious core of our being, is directed either toward the living God or toward an idol, and the grand story that we indwell is an expression of the direction of our heart. Grand stories and worldviews are, as a result, always rooted at their deepest level in religious faith, whether that is in the living God, in human ability, in some other aspect of God’s creation, in an impersonal spirit pervading the universe, or in any of the multitude of other idols that humans manufacture. (p. 24)

This book is a new resource on worldview and gives practical insight to how to live out Christian worldview in a variety of fields.

He Is Not Silent: Preaching in a Postmodern World,

The biblical story is unlike any other story. The protagonist is God. He is present throughout all 66 books. He does the unthinkable, his motivations are unfathomable, and his nature is unknowable. There is no magic power in its words, or recitation. To simply know how to tell the big story of the Bible will not change anyone’s life. The biblical metanarrative is powerful because the Holy Spirit rewrites the lives of those who put their faith in Jesus Christ and enables Christ to live in us as we are brought into perfection as new creations. To know the big story of the Bible requires that one lives the big story of the Bible. When people see Christ lived out, it makes the biblical metanarrative powerful. Mohler describes the biblical metanarrative: “The Bible’s storyline consists of at least four great movements that are absolutely necessary: creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. Without these four movements, we cannot understand ourselves as human beings or our place in God’s work. With them, we can understand the entire sweep of Scripture’s story.”

The world sees the big story of the Bible as foolish and utterly despicable. There is not one thing redeemable, remarkable, or reasonable to be found in the biblical metanarrative. There is not one thing that gives glory to anyone but God. God clearly states that we can offer him nothing in return for everything. There is no way to understand the biblical metanarrative unless God grants you understanding.

The biblical metanarrative is so much more than a story, for it is the inspired and living word of God. No summary of it truly encapsulates and no study of it is ever complete. In the book, , Living the Cross Centered Life : Keeping the Gospel the Main ThingC. J. Mahaney says, “Never be content with your current grasp of the gospel. The gospel is life-permeating, world-altering, universe-changing truth. It has more facets than any diamond. We will never exhaust its depths.”

Thankfully, it is not required that Christians understand the Scripture on their own. We have the Holy Spirit who is ready and able to reveal God’s truth to us. Mahaney adds, “Each time we memorize, pray, sing, review or study the gospel, we must ask the Holy Spirit to open our eyes and bring the gospel alive to us again. He is quick to hear and faithful to answer. But his help must be actively sought.” This is the secret to all spiritual growth; nothing worthwhile happens in the life of a believer unless God does it.

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.  We know that our old self  was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.  For one who has died has been set free  from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.  For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Romans 6:1-14 ESV

Cover via Amazon

“It is not enough to condemn culture. Nor is it sufficient merely to critique culture, copy culture or consume culture. The only way to change culture is to create culture.” This quote is from the book jacket of Andy Crouch’s new book Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling.

The author discusses the typical Christian responses to the subject of culture and demonstrates why criticism, condemnation, copying, or simply consuming culture are nothing but deadends when it comes to fulfilling the cultural mandate: “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’”

Genesis 1:28 ESV

Crouch defines culture as “”what human beings make of the world” p.60.

To help the reader understand what a pervasive concept culture is, the author analyzes the culture of an omelet.

Crouch asks some challenging questions in Part 3 of his book, Calling. He also illustrates why we can’t change the world; but also asks the reader to examine the cultural power that God has given you, to see where God has given you cultural grace, and to see what communities God has placed you in.

One comes to understand that culture making is something that we should all be involved in. Buy this book today.

Culture-Making website

Isaiah 29:15-16 ESV

Deuteronomy 4:15-24 ESV

It is so easy to create an idol. We struggle with worshiping the created rather than the Creator. God’s jealousy is like a consuming fire, only his mercy to us can contain it.

Lift up your eyes all around, and see;
they all gather together, they come to you;
your sons shall come from afar,
and your daughters shall be carried on the hip.
Then you shall see and be radiant;
your heart shall thrill and exult,
because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you,
the wealth of the nations shall come to you.

A multitude of camels shall cover you,
the young camels of Midian and Ephah;
all those from Sheba shall come.
They shall bring gold and frankincense,
and shall bring good news, the praises of the Lord.
All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered to you;
the rams of Nebaioth shall minister to you;
they shall come up with acceptance on my altar,
and I will beautify my beautiful house.

Who are these that fly like a cloud,
and like doves to their windows?
For the coastlands shall hope for me,
the ships of Tarshish first,
to bring your children from afar,
their silver and gold with them,
for the name of the Lord your God,
and for the Holy One of Israel,
because he has made you beautiful.

Isaiah 60:1-9 ESV

The day is coming when God’s children will be made radiant and beautiful like their father. He will transform us by his glory and presence.

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever n follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

John 8:12