SOS Discipline - Daily Proverb and Red Letter Reader
It’s easy to be a fool. Just repeat what you hear. cf Pr. 10:18
How you see a matter is how it is going to be. cf Mt. 9:29
Neither time nor place matter alone, nor without you. cf Sun Tzu 6.17
From Today’s Stack
The Summary Purpose of Man
And Its Sevenfold Reflected Stands
A reconsideration of Rick Warren’s singularity of theological insight, with intention toward catholicity of Truth.
As creatures, the God-given polarity of personal duty to the greater whole and private care for one’s own are the summary purpose of Man which unfolds in seven reflections.
Worship: Man is created to receive pleasure by leading the Creation in songs of praise, love, adoration, and reverence to God.
Fellowship: Man is made for community, where the love of God is expressed in love for each other.
Discipleship: Spiritual growth, the sanctification of one’s life as set apart to follow Christ, is the daily impetus of Christianity.
Kindness: What Man is given, he is given to share, whether talents or treasures. Every believer is uniquely redeemed, chosen, and regenerate in order to fulfill special offices that arise “at such a time as this.”
Witness: Speaking the Gospel of Jesus Christ to others, being prepared to give an answer for hope and peace of conscience that the Holy Spirit delivers, and making new Christians is a primary reason the world is not ended yet.
Toil: If Man will not work, he shall not eat. Christianity is not a “get out of fallen life” card, but a special dispensation of grit and endurance (“hope”).
Rest: Rest is Godly. Christianity redeems rest from the flood of debauchery and dissipation that swallows the world whole in desires and lusts, setting the believer free to simply be still and know that Jesus is God.
From Without Flesh
Put It Back
People are not listening to us because we have nothing to actually say. All that we market, and all that we strategize, and all that we mimic amounts to a gibberish babbled on the wind.
Good old-fashioned pragmatism ought to give us pause in any case. Once a world-religion has spent a century and billions of dollars doing anything, only to simultaneously embark on the most precipitous decline in its two-thousand-year history, it’s probably time to stop tinkering with the formula and take another look at the original recipe.
It is precisely the words of Jesus that are ***the thing*** that ancient Christianity fearlessly sought to convert unbelievers ***into***. Even should the earth have opened up and swallowed them into the sea, they would have merely continued to repeat the everlasting things of God with their mouths. They died willingly, merrily even, because they were convicted that such everlasting things made them into everlasting people. The last thing they would ever conceive of doing would be changing in order to convince more people to join them. Such a tactic would be the very defeat its own purpose.
If you want to diagnose a problem with something, the first step is to pair back all the things you’ve customized. Slowly remove everything that wasn’t part of the original working specs. Doing this, you may find the problem was caused by something you’ve added. Then again, once you’ve gotten all the way back down to the core design, you might also discover that a key component has gone missing. What matters then is that you go in and put that missing piece back.
For the Church in any age to make such a diligent search is a good idea. This always means going back to the Words of Jesus.
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