The Bible Answer Man: Watchman Nee’s Impact on the Western World
In the past few months I’ve been in the midst of a job transition which has taken up most of my free time so I haven’t been able to post recently. But I think this remarkable video taken last week at the dedication of a new meeting hall for a local church will make up for it. Listen to Hank Hanegraaff, the host of the nationally syndicated “Bible Answer Man” radio program and president of the Christian Research Institute, speak about Watchman Nee and his “wasting” his life for the Lord Jesus (Matt. 26:8). According to Hank, perhaps the two greatest minds to have ever come out of China are Confucius and Watchman Nee.
Parables of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke: the Four Types of Soil and the Honest and Good Heart
The parable of the sower and the seed (Luke 8:4-18) is a beloved and well-known parable appearing in all three synoptic gospels. So important is this parable that the Lord Himself undertakes to explain the parable, lest there be any misunderstanding. The sower is the Lord Himself and the seeds are the words of the gospel which are sown into men’s hearts. Whether the divine life proclaimed through the gospel takes root or not and becomes fruitful depends on the condition of the recipient’s heart. While the parable is familiar by virtue of repetition, each gospel has its own distinctives and that is certainly true in Luke’s gospel. Read the rest of this entry
A Response to Alain de Botton’s “Religion for Atheists”
This past weekend I happened across an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal which contained excerpts from Alain de Botton’s newest book, Religion for Atheists: A Non-Believers Guide to the Uses of Religion. The title of the op-ed was changed to read “Religion for Everyone”, probably because the editors felt it would attract a broader audience. While I have not read the book (it publishes in the US in March), the extra-long op-ed piece — presumably inclusive of the “choicest” portions of the book — grants enough of a basis for this response.
De Botton’s goal is quite simple: “to reclaim our sense of community…without having to build upon a religious foundation”. To this end, he chooses idealized religious customs and considers how to clone them for society-at-large. This has been done before, of course (see: Socialism). Read the rest of this entry
Book Review: “The Lord of the Ring — In Search of Count Von Zinzendorf”
If you read my previous review of a recent biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, then you know that what really interested me was the influence the Moravian Brethren had upon Bonhoeffer and his conception of the church and even what we may call the church life. In this post I look at a biography of the seminal figure behind the Moravian Brethren (outside of Christ, naturally): Count Nikolaus Ludwig Von Zinzendorf. This will be the second of what I anticipate to be a trilogy of reviews related to the German/Moravian contribution toward the organic church life — that elusive, harmonious, authentic, and transformative living of believers described in the early scenes of the church in Acts 2 and still sought after today in the closing chapters of church history. Read the rest of this entry
Parables of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke: New Cloth, New Garment, New Wine, and New Wineskins
For the first part of this year, my small group will be reviewing selected parables and illustrations from the Gospel of Luke during our weekly Friday night meetings. This series of posts will be a summary of some, but certainly not all, of the highlights.
The first group of parables we considered were in Luke 5:36-38:
And He also spoke a parable to them: No one tears a patch from a new garment and puts it on an old garment; otherwise, he will tear the new garment, and also the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the new wine will burst the wineskins, and it will be poured out and the wineskins will be ruined; but new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. Read the rest of this entry
The Word of the Cross (4): Epilogue
Making my way through the Minor Prophets as part of my year-end Bible reading schedule, I came across this previously unnoticed but indescribably sweet verse, which is a most fitting coda to my previous posts on the word of the cross:
And someone will say to Him, What are these wounds between Your arms? And He will say, Those with which I was wounded in the house of those who love Me. (Zech. 13:6) Read the rest of this entry
In Hoc Anno Domini
Each holiday season I always enjoy reading the Wall Street Journal‘s annual republishing of an op-ed piece entitled In Hoc Anno Domini, which has run continually since 1949 (if the link is dead, just Google the title above). It’s refreshing to see America’s largest newspaper by circulation (2x that of The New York Times) steadfastly and unashamedly publish something related to Christ and His gospel.
But each time I read it, I have to ask myself, what gospel is being announced here? Is it the gospel of Jesus Christ, or is it adopting the language of Christ to herald a different gospel? Read the rest of this entry
Preaching the Gospel to Steve Jobs
No, I have not preached the gospel to Steve Jobs and I don’t know know anyone personally who did, although I trust that somewhere along his course in life someone at someplace at sometime announced Christ to him. Whether he received Christ in his heart is unknown to me, and it is not my job to speculate here.
But since his passing I have occasionally thought to myself, How would one preach the gospel to someone like Steve Jobs?
This consideration has coincided with my campus ministry’s year-long exploration into “The Life and Letters of the Apostle Paul“. This past week we were on the topic of Paul’s visit to Athens in Acts 17:14-34. It’s a famously rich portion which gives insight into how the apostle Paul preached the gospel to the secular intellectuals of his time. Three insights which freshly stand out to me are the following: Read the rest of this entry
The Word of the Cross (3): Five Spontaneous Results of Seeing the Crucified Christ
As a conclusion to my earlier posts on “The Word of the Cross”, I was impressed to see that a fresh revelation of the crucified Christ will spontaneously result in the following subjective realizations:
1. We will hate our sins.
We will realize that Christ was wounded because of our transgressions and that He was crushed because of our iniquities (Isa 53:6). It was not the sins of other men that caused Him to die. It was not the plot of Jewish religionists or the cowardice of Roman politicians which led to His death. The subjective realization of the sinner is, “Christ died because of my sins.” Read the rest of this entry