Why Dr. Voddie Baucham Trusts the Bible

I can dig this. Voddie has a sweet name and a sweet story: raised by a single Mom who was a Hindu living in South Central LA. He ended up getting out of Oxford with a Ph.D and he's a lecturer and a Christian minister. Here's why he trusts the Bible. It's not because he believes it, or because it worked for him, or because he was raised to believe it:

"The Bible is a reliable collection of historical documents written down by eye witnesses during the life time of other eye witnesses that report supernatural events which took place in fulfillment of specific prophecies and claim to be divine rather than human in origin."

Theology is a Science

Right when I think I've read C.S. Lewis' most celebrated work, I find a true gem. I've been slowly cutting my way through God in the Dock, which is a compilation of his work that was un-archived at the time of his death. It is a smattering of articles, lectures, and sermons that were never released in book form until the great Walter Hooper put it together.

I'm on his tenth entry. It's a lecture given to young ministers and leaders of the Anglican and Welsh Church in 1945. The title is "Christian Apologetics" and I can't believe I hadn't read any of it yet. Part of it's beauty is that it is a rare time in which Lewis is lecturing to a group of priests and pastors. He was a popular lecturer at the time and a renown novelist, but rarely did he speak at conferences for the clergy. With this audience in front of him, Lewis' tone is rare and increasingly captivating for those of us who have read most of his work.

I also love it because he articulates something that I've been searching for (as usual).

His primary thesis is to stray away from defending or preaching Christianity just because "you like it or think it good for society or something of that sort." Rather, Lewis says, we are to preach and proclaim and defend Christianity because we know it to be true. There is a huge difference. Christians are not promoters of a good societal antidote, but we are heralds of the Truth, a greater reality.

Because we are heralds and defenders of what is true, what is actual reality, there exists no piece or aspect of Christianity that we should shy away from.

"Science progresses because scientists, instead of running away from such troublesome phenomena or hushing them up, are constantly seeking them out. In the same way, there will be progress in Christian knowledge only as long as we accept the challenge of the difficult or repellent doctrines."

A scientist is good at what he does not because he only knows the new theories, but he is so strong in his conceptualization and knowledge of the foundations laws of nature that he knows exactly when a new one develops.

We must be completely solid in the ancient truth and proclamation of the Scriptures, that God in his infinite love and grace has revealed to the world who he is through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ the Lord, and whoever should place their life in his hands shall be redeemed. In our absolute rigidness of this Truth, let us boldly explore that which we do not know. For it will only more perfectly shape our love for the primary Truth.

Theology is more scientific than you might think. Christians tend to be afraid of launching into the mysteries of our faith. Yet this would eliminate one of our basic human functions: discovery.

You know the basic revelation, now go boldly into that which might be true. Answers are ahead.

Why the Baptists Got Rid of It

For your consideration:

Conquered Words: September

This is my monthly post where I tell you what I have read and (ever so briefly) what I thought about each work. If you haven't read these books, then read this blog and pretend that you did!

EMBARRASSING.

This is way late, but I blame getting back to the university and a growing church! So bam.

Here, then, is what I read over that fine month of September.

1) Adam's Return: The Five Promises of Male Initiation by Richard Rohr (Crossroad Publishing Company, 166 pages). I have heard a little too much about this book and had to pick it up. SO GLAD I DID. Raves. Rohr is a Catholic Priest who at the onset of the book swears he's not a scholar, but let's be honest, all priests are scholars. I grew up around them in Catholic school (and no, I didn't) and got to see the life they lead: it is filled with study, something the evangelicals have lost. Anyways, this book is a fascinating look at what every culture has taught their boys before they became men. Five things that every single culture in world history has taught their men…except ours (modern Americanism). Ready for the five? Life is Hard. You are Not Important. Your Life is Not about You. You Are Not in Control. You are Going to Die. Make all the arguments you want, but it's my observation that I was taught the exact opposite before I knew Christ. Rohr goes way beyond his bounds and halfway through I realized this is not a spiritual book, but a gender studies book. Read it.

2) The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer (Crossway, 119 pages). Yes, I've read it before. Too much to say about this book. This blog, my whole ministry and thought life is thanks to C.S. Lewis and A.W. Tozer. They are my intellectual mentors along with the Greeks. Tozer is someone you must read, but someone you don't just read. You drink. Also, please don't read Tozer until you're out of high school. Just trust me. You'll need him sophomore year at university.

I started Radical by David Platt because David Brooks of the New York Times wrote about it but I never really got into it. I'm a little overwhelmed with what God should have me do thanks to Joel's current series and a couple of documentaries I've watched. I'll be leaving to pray for a day at the end of the month…I'll sort things out there and maybe pick up Platt's book again.

Keep reading, friends.

What Makes Us Wise?

I've been thinking about this Proverb (25:2) for about three years.

"It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out."

I was reminded of it when I read this passage from Richard Rohr's book, Adam's Return:

"In general, what you see in the true sage is a balancing act between knowing and not knowing, between intelligence and not needing to be intelligent, between darkness and light...The wise man also knows that he does not know. This humble window of openness, this willingness to know that we do not know, has a much used and misused word to describe it: faith. And Jesus praises it even more than love." (pg. 128)

True Christian faith is active, right? Then isn't part of that activity one's imagination and intellect? "Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and with all of your soul, and with all of your mind, and with all of your strength."

Wisdom is not waving the magic wand of "belief" over all of the things you wish to be true and then calling it "faith." The Bible is not true because you "believe in it," God is not living and active because you believe in Him, and Jesus did not raise from the dead because you "believe in it." Either the Bible is true or not, either God is real or not, and either Jesus was who he said he was and did what he said he did or not. Belief statements are not always truth statements. The wise man finds the sacred ground between concrete truth and the wild, mysterious beauty of God.

Wisdom and faith are linked in that they are the mark of the sage: He seeks that which he does not know, understanding that what he seeks may be eternally concealed.

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)

Translating Literature

Michael Cunningham wrote this awesome piece for The New York Times about the nature of translating literature. Firstly, it's just a well written essay. But secondly Cunningham draws on something I'm very interested: a subject called "Writing and the Ways of Knowing." He begins with suggesting the difficulties of translating novels but asserts, "that the original novel is, in a way, a translation itself."

Writing itself is a translation of thought, which is a translation of revelation or invention (that's Aristotle, ladies). I often think about this when I read my Bible. With such a sacred text, it's easy to read it and begin to place its subjects (namely God himself) in boxes of definition. However, what we are reading serves as just the very elementary pieces of God and his work on the earth. The Bible is an introduction to who God is - more of a, "God For Dummies" if you will. For we cannot handle more than the fringes of his glory.

The article goes nowhere near the spiritual, but it certainly got me thinking, which consequently gets you reading my aimless thinking.

So sorry.