Crucifying Each Other February 1, 2010
Posted by noelwalker in Devotional, Forgiveness, God, Grace, Jesus, Life, Mercy, Peace, Personal.Tags: Forgiveness, Grace, Jesus, Sara Groves
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First let’s review; the gospel is: Jesus was born, lived a sinless life and died in order to satisfy the wrath of God for my sin, and to remove it once and for all. 1 John 2:2; 4:10 By absorbing the punishment for my sin Jesus has preserved God’s honour as being truly just and totally righteous. When God looks at my sin how can He just ‘let it go’ if my sin has wounded someone else? How is that just or fair to them? My selfish heart wants grace for me and my sin, and justice for everyone else.
Jesus has also entered the world and bears the shame and the pain we cast on each other. In the Peasant Princess Study we are doing, Mark Driscoll says, “Someone in your marriage is going to be crucified: either you let Jesus be crucified for the sins in your marriage or you will spend your married lives trying to crucify each other for their sins.”
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More Love Not More Words January 28, 2010
Posted by noelwalker in Abortion, Church in Culture, Faith, God, Grace, Life, Mercy, Peace, Unity.Tags: Abortion, Forgiveness, Grace, Love, Pro-Life
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Tim Tebow, quarterback of the Florida Gators has been making headlines this year with his passionate witness for his faith. He routinely writes Bible verses on his eye black patches (he’s even promoting my blog!)
The Toronto Star featured an article today about a battle brewing on the horizon. Tim Tebow and his mother Sam will be featured in a 30 second commercial during this year’s Super Bowl; not one with bikinis or beer, horses, or hamsters being shot through a cannon. This ad is paid for by a Pro-life group in the US and supporters of the Pro-Choice movement are furious that CBS is allowing this ad to be shown during the Superbowl.
“An ad that uses sports to divide rather than to unite has no place in the biggest national sports event of the year – an event designed to bring Americans together,” Jehmu Greene, president of the Women’s Media Center, said in a statement this week. “This un-American hate doesn’t have a place in this all-American pastime,” Kierra Johnson, executive director of Choice USA, told Fox News.
Here we see the great paradox of the Postmodern Western Culture: The only thing we can’t tolerate is intolerance.
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Brothers in Error January 25, 2010
Posted by noelwalker in Church in Culture, Church of Christ, Devotional, Faith, God, Gospel, Grace, Jesus, Life, Mercy, Peace, Personal, Prayer, Random, Unity, apologetics.Tags: Brother in Error, Church, Crisis, Division, Doctrine, Help, Ministry, Unity
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I read an article this week where an author talked about a congregation which follows a worship practice that he believes to be incorrect. He holds these brothers ‘in error’ and insists that fellowship with this group should be abandoned.
A wise man once said,“Brothers in error are the only kind of brothers I have.” There are often two problems with abandoning fellowship with a fellow believer in Christ with whom we have doctrinal differences.
The first problem is that if you are of the opinion that your ‘brother in error’ should be delivered over to Satan (1 Tim. 1:20), you are likely operating with a mistaken definition of what false teaching really is.
“Teacher,” said John, “we saw a man driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.”
“Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “No one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us. I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward.Mark 9: 38-41
The disciples are operating with the assumption that if you are with us you are O.K. ‘Affiliation makes you right’, but Jesus does not agree. In this case Jesus commands a policy of non-interference. “Do not stop him.” A good deed done in the name of Christ cannot be used for evil.
A Word About Coffee God And The Stars January 23, 2010
Posted by noelwalker in Devotional, Evidences, God, Personal, Random, apologetics, religion.Tags: Betelgeuse, creation, Evidences, God, Science
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Warning: This blog entry contains a Science geek-out. Reader discretion is advised!
Last night when we got home from Kids Night Out at church the kids were noticing the stars and that got me started. Mars is out right now in the early evening (look east for a red steady looking ’star’) This led us to my favourite constellation right next door: Orion the hunter. We looked at Betelgeuse, the top left shoulder of Orion which is a massive red giant about 640 light years away. It is so large that if it were placed where our sun is it would envelope the orbits of the first five planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter)!
Everything I know, and have ever seen rotates in an orbit that would drop into this star without even noticing. And then there are other stars in our galaxy that make Betelgeuse look like a runt. We could go on and on with this idea so I’ll stop there.
Betelgeuse is nearing the end of its life. Anytime time in the next few thousand years it will lack the density to hold it’s mammoth surface up and collapse in on itself triggering a colossal supernova, and leaving behind a tiny neutron star smaller than our moon but so dense that a teaspoon of it would weigh hundreds of tons! I could go on with this idea too. (It may have already happened!)
It’s Not All About You! It’s The Gospel! January 2, 2010
Posted by noelwalker in Devotional, Faith, God, Gospel, Grace, Jesus, Life, Personal, Random, Spiritual, religion.Tags: Bible Study, Grace, Jesus, The Gospel, Widow's Mite
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In Mark 12 a woman is noticed by Jesus putting two small copper coins into the treasury. 
These coins are called a lepton and represent the smallest denomination of currency possible (like throwing in one cent). Jesus says that she has put more into this treasury than all the heavy hitters who have paraded by dropping in their big donations.
“They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”
Mark 12: 43
The way this text is traditionally preached in churches is, ‘Look at that good old lady. She was trusting in God and gave even though she had nothing left. You should be like the little old lady.’ The problem is that if you look at the context, Mark seems to think that there is more going on here than just that. Jesus warns against the teachings of the Pharisees in v. 38 – 40 saying, “They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. Such men will be punished most severely.”
Planning for the End of the World January 1, 2010
Posted by noelwalker in Church in Culture, Church of Christ, Devotional, God, Life, Random, religion.Tags: 2010, End of the world, Future, Happy New Year, HNY, New year, Planning
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Here’s a word you will read more about in 2010: “Apophis” It’s the name of an asteroid detected in 2004 that will come within 30, 000 km of the earth on April 13, 2029. That’s close. While it will miss the Earth, it will likely take out a satellite or two on the way by. By comparison the moon is 150, 000 km away from earth. The picture on the right shows a simulation of the path the asteroid will follow (the gray bar is the margin of error). The Russians made news yesterday by announcing that they are going to plan a mission to blow it up
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Top 3 Verses That Never Seem To Get Mentioned At Christmas December 15, 2009
Posted by noelwalker in Christmas, Devotional, God, Peace.Tags: Christianity, Christmas, Devotional, Jesus, Nativity
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One upside of Christmas time is the increased awareness of Jesus in Western culture but I often wonder if misplaced attention is better than no attention at all. Western culture today is more than willing to put a baby Jesus on the shelf with all the other truth claims and religions that are out there but today’s Western culture is very resistant to granting Jesus His ultimate authority. Part of the irony is that tolerance and plurality are of the highest value in our culture, only if you agree with what our culture tolerates. Our culture says, ‘You can believe anything you want as long as you believe the same as us.’ I can believe that Jesus is, “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14: 6) and that “salvation is found in no one else” (Acts 4: 10-12) as long as I don’t really think that is true.
The claims of the Bible are not actually exclusive at all! Anyone who trusts in Christ alone can be saved! The offer of salvation is open to all, but not open for redefinition. In this time of nativity scenes and plastic icons, here are three verses about Jesus that seem to get missed as we celebrate His birth:
1. Col 1: 19 “… in Him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell…”
The thought that the fullness of the Creator that made the Grand Canyon was contained completely in the form of a homeless urchin, lying in a feed trough absolutely blows my mind. We often revel in the humble form of Jesus but the reciprocal statement is also true: How profound is it that this humble baby was, at the same time, in full form, lacking nothing, God Almighty in the flesh. Jesus was that humble but at the same time he was that Majestic! Col. 1: 19 reminds me of Jesus’ undiminished holiness.
Blown Away December 11, 2009
Posted by noelwalker in Devotional, Evidences, God, Life, apologetics.Tags: apologetics, creation, Evidences, God
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Sorry while I geek out here for a bit. NASA released a new picture Tuesday from the new camera installed in the Hubble Space Telescope last fall. It is a picture of a microscopic portion of the sky (1 / 50 of an degree square). This portion of the sky would easily fit behind the head of a pin held at an arms length.
This picture completely blows you away if you just give it a little thought. Virtually every speck in this picture is a galaxy. Click on it to get a high resolution image and see. An average size galaxy has 150-200 billion stars. How many is that? Consider the following:
There are approx. 5 000 Cheerios in a 575g box. How do I know this? Thank OCD and the Internet. Sobey’s in Beamsville has 38 boxes on the shelf tonight but imagine if every shelf on every aisle in the store had only Cheerios. Sobey’s in Beamsville would have just less than 50 000 boxes of Cheerios. (24 aisles x 5 shelves x approx. 12 boxes deep x approx. 32 boxes wide) So one Sobey’s has 250 million Cheerios. (5 000 Cheerios per box x 50 000 boxes = 250 000 000 Cheerios)
Repentance December 8, 2009
Posted by noelwalker in Dependence on God, Devotional, Forgiveness, Grace, Jesus, Jesus' Nature, Life, Mercy, Personal, Tiger Woods, religion.Tags: Adultery, Apology, Forgiveness, God, Jesus, Repentance, Tiger, Tiger Woods
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It’s ironic that last week I wrote about the power of honest confession at precisely the same time as a tragically poor example of confession was unfolding in Florida. Perhaps you heard about it. (if not pick a newspaper website and go read).
The story began a couple of weeks ago. First an article in the Enquirer claimed that Woods was having an affair, then 36 hours later he and his wife had some sort of fight that caused an early morning accident outside their home. Woods then says nothing, nothing, nothing. Then three hours after a waitress comes forward with a phone message recording, Woods issues a statement where he:
- admits he’s not perfect
- admits ‘transgressions’ against his family (read wife)
- lectures the media about his entitlement to privacy
- says “I will strive to be a better person and the husband and father that my family deserves.”
Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Things You’ll Never Hear a High School Teacher Say December 8, 2009
Posted by noelwalker in Christmas, Devotional, Funny, Random.Tags: Christmas, Christmas List, Teachers, Top 10 List
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At the GLCHS Christmas party last week one of the party games we played was coming up with a top ten list on a given topic. My table was given The Top Ten Things You’ll Never Hear a High School Teacher Say. Here’s what we came up with:
10. Your dog ate your homework? Is he O.K.?
9. (In the last 5 minutes of a staff meeting) Excuse me, there is one more think I would love to get everyone’s opinion on.
8. Of course yesterday’s test is marked.
7. Unless I’ve got 28 kids in my class I just don’t feel like I’m teaching.
