Ref Fest 2014

• Reformation Festival

'Together' & 'Bread'

I have just started reading, A Meal With Jesus by Tim Chester.
Just two pages in:
      "Few acts are more expressive of companionship than the shared meal…"
      "The word 'companion' comes from the Latin 'cum' (together) and 'panis' (bread)."

I got the recommendation for this book from Francis Foucachon who is an ardent missionary as well as a 5-Star chef.

Thinking it's gonna be good.

As you rise up, as you walk by the way, as you run errands...

Ethan, who just finished reading Vern Poythress' Christian Interpretations of Genesis 1, related to me that one subject that was broached but not answered was, "Why did God rest on the 7th Day?" Ethan then went on to offer an answer to that question. 'Rest' doesn't mean that God was tired but that he was pleased…like a painter viewing his finished work. 

I agreed. Rest implies satisfaction, pleasure.

Then I pointed out that when we say that God rested what we mean is the Trinity. The three persons of the Godhead 'rested'. The rest was communal.

Through my son's initiation into this subject I started reflecting on the fact that on the Sabbath, we too should be looking back on our recent six Days with pleasure and satisfaction. Our 'works' (words, thoughts, deeds) should be something that we, too, can look back at with a righteous pleasure each week.

Pretty good conversation for just taking the trash to the dump.

Just Sayin'

Everyone who has a public forum should be given the common curtesy of explaining further, their words and actions.
Who in their right mind would want to be deprived of that privilege for themselves?

Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgement you judge, you will be judged; and with what measure you use, it will be measured back to you. 

Perhaps the majority of debate is directly connected to this very curse.

Think: How Pastors Kill Wonder

ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity

Manna, not Bacon

I am concerned about the emphasis that the Reformed Church has with knowledge. Didn’t the apostle Paul say something about this?

Was there ever a prophet or an apostle who chided his audience for not knowing enough? I think the charges always had something to do with faithful living and lifestyle. And yes, we need to be informed as to how to walk before the Lord but how much info did ‘Joe Israel’ need to accomplish this back in the days of the patriarchs and kings?

As I read the Old Testament, it looks like it was basically:

Ø Don’t move landmarks

Ø Treat strangers well

Ø Bacon is taboo

Ø Attend worship

Ø If you take a vow you can grow your hair long

Ø Remember, there is a greater than Moses coming

What with Jesus saying (in contradistinction to the teaching of the Pharisees) that His yoke was easy and His burden was light…how much do Christians need to know to please the Lord?  

Two Economies by Wendell Berry

Some time ago, in a conversation with Wes Jackson in which we were laboring to define the causes of the modern ruination of farm land, we finally got around to the money economy. I said that an economy based on energy would be more benign because it would be more comprehensive.

         Wes would not agree, “An energy economy still wouldn’t be comprehensive enough.”

         “Well, I said, “then what kind of economy would be comprehensive enough?”

         He hesitated a moment, and then grinning, said, “The Kingdom of God.”

         I assume that Wes used that term because he found it, after that point in our conversation, indispensable; I assume so because, in my pondering over its occurrence at that point, I found it indispensable myself.

         (Berry then draws a conclusion about the subject of conversation he and his friend were having regarding farmland)

         …the thing that troubles us about the industrial economy is exactly that it is not comprehensible enough; that, moreover, it tends to destroy what it does not comprehend, and that it is dependent upon much that it does not comprehend.

         In attempting to criticize such an economy, we naturally pose against it an economy that does not leave anything out, and we can say without presuming too much that the first principle of the Kingdom of God is that it includes everything; in it, the fall of every sparrow is a significant event.

         We are in it whether we know it or not and whether we wish to be or not. Another principle, both ecological and traditional, is that everything in the Kingdom of God is joined both to it and everything else that is in it; that is to say, the kingdom of God is orderly.

         Berry continues:

         …we live within order and…this order is both greater and more intricate than we can know. The difficulty of our predicament then is made clear… (And here he continues his thought regarding economies and how they affect farmland) Though we cannot produce a complete or adequate description of this order, severe penalties are in store for us if we presume upon it or violate it.