Lions Win the Superbowl!
Oh man, as a life-long Lions fan, I can’t describe to you what a beautiful thing this is: Lions win the Superbowl! And, they beat the Colts—one of the teams I hate the most.
Notes on Genesis 1:26-27
Last Sunday (July 25, 2010) my message discussed the meaning, implications, and importance of the phrase “God created man in his own image” from Genesis 1:27-27
. The audio for that message is available here and here (on iTunes).
I read a number of things that helped me understand this phrase, but one of the most helpful articles I read is called “Men and Women in the Image of God” by John Frame. This article was a chapter in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. Frame’s article especially helped me understand how the human body images God which is by function, not by form, since God is pure spirit and does not have a physical form. Although I read Frame’s writing on this in the book, the same article appears to be available online here. I recommend it for more information on the image of God in humanity.
She’s the Pastor’s Wife, Not the Church’s Wife
In a recent post, Brian Croft gives this advice to young/new pastor’s wives:
Find another seasoned pastor’s wife to call to share openly, seek counsel, and be prayed for every week. In the same way only a pastor knows what it is like to be a pastor, so too only a pastor’s wife can know the pressures and stresses she faces.
This is good advice. However, many churches need to have their expectations for a pastor’s wife adjusted. She is not the assistant to the pastor and certainly not the assistant to the church family. “Pastor’s wife” is not a role or office in the church; it is a role in the pastor’s family and that is all.
Certainly a pastor’s wife should be a growing Christian and a member of the church. As a member of the church, she is responsible to use her spiritual gifts for the growth of the body. But her primary role before the Lord is to be a loving, submissive wife to her husband and a diligent mother to their children, if they have them. Yes, she may—and should—serve on a worship team, do hospitality, pray, give counsel and advice, and teach other women and children. But she is required to do these things only if she has been gifted by God to do them and her service in these areas are part of her diligent walk with God, not because she’s “the pastor’s wife.”
My wife has been involved in children’s ministry at every church where I’ve been a pastor, even when she was a medical student and, later, a medical resident. Currently, she teaches children’s Sunday School here at Calvary. She also has been the primary piano player at two churches where I’ve served as a pastor and she has even filled in here at Calvary on one of our worship teams a few times. But I thank God that none of these churches expected her to do any of this as a pastor’s wife. Instead, like every other Christian, she found her place of service according to her gifts and desires to serve, not because of some unwritten job description for pastors’ wives. And that’s the way it should be. Though it shouldn’t be her only ministry, a pastor’s wife’s best ministry is to be the helper God created her to be for her husband.
On a related note, guys who are headed for pastoral ministry should not choose a wife based on her list of abilities. I was told growing up to find a woman who could play the piano because I might be in a small church where that was needed. Well, that’s exactly what happened in two churches where I served. But being a phenomenal musician is secondary to being a strong Christian and a loving wife and those are the qualities you should be seeking. If you get a talented wife with spiritual problems, she will be a detriment to your ministry, no matter how well she sings or plays. Likewise, a godly wife who will love and support you will be the greatest benefit to your ministry, even if her spiritual gifts have her serving behind the scenes.
Intelligence and Weirdness Are Not Correlates
I’m studying at Panera Bread today and just overheard two employees talking about a third person. One of them said, “She’s really smart, but weird. A lot of smart people are strange, you know, like, eccentric.”
Not in my experience. In my experience, smart people aren’t weird and not-so-smart people aren’t weird. Weird people are weird. I see no correlation between a person’s intelligence and his or her social skills. The nerdy smart kid is a high school stigma that people carry into adulthood, but it ignores millions of Ultimate Fighting fans who are both average or below average intelligence but also lacking in social giftedness.
And we’re all weird in some ways. Take, for instance, my passion for the Detroit Lions….
It does look amazing.
Great looking new Apple store in Shanghai. What do we get here in Ann Arbor? Briarwood….
From businessinsider.com:
Apple is opening a new store in Shanghai, China and it looks like another beautiful retail spot.
Link: http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-china-store-2010-7#-1
Celebrate This Milestone with Me
Please pause, reflect, and rejoice with me for achieving this important milestone in my life.
Studying the Gospels and Acts Notes
I have uploaded the completed first edition of the notes for my class How to Interpret and Apply the Gospels and Acts. You can download the whole thing right here: Notes from Studying the Gospels and Acts
I had uploaded the audio from the first of these classes, but the rest of the audio will take some editing. My plan is to do that editing over the summer and upload the remaining audio from each class one by one. So, stay tuned for that.
Notes on Ephesians 6:5-9
Sunday I preached on Ephesians 6:5-9, continuing our series on the book of Ephesians. As I mentioned in my introduction, I intentionally skipped over Ephesians 6:1-4 because Mother’s Day is coming next Sunday and that passage serves up a nice Mother’s Day message.
Because Bible study is important to us here at Calvary, I want to give you a little more information about why I think it was OK for me to preach Ephesians 6:5-9 BEFORE I preached Ephesians 6:1-4. Context is crucial to correct Bible interpretation, so normally it would not be OK to take something out of order this way. But in this instance, the context functions in a slightly different way than normal. Key phrase in context that conditions Ephesians 6:5-9 is Ephesians 5:21: “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” This is the controlling statement and the next three paragraphs after it (5:22-33; 6:1-4; 6:5-9) all give applications of that statement. Here’s a pretty little picture that visualizes what I mean. Click on it to make it bigger:
Now, don’t misunderstand me: I don’t think Paul’s order for submission: wives/husbands, children/parents, slaves/masters was arbitrary. Clearly he was working his way through the household addressing people in order, so that the slave/master relationship follows the child/parent relationship logically and in priority. In that way, then, preaching on the slave/master relationship ahead of the child/parent relationship disrupts the logic of Paul’s application of Ephesians 5:21. But nothing that is said about slaves/masters in 6:5-9 is dependent on what is said about children/parents in 6:1-4. As long as you understand that children have higher rank and priority over slaves, there is nothing lost by studying 6:5-9 (slave/masters) before 6:1-4 (children/parents).
About Sermon Notes
Photo Credit: mtsofan
Every time I prepare a message for my preaching ministry, there is always more material than I can actually use in the sermon itself. Some of this material is interesting (to me, at least), but not relevant to the message I’m preparing. Using it in the sermon would provide a distraction, so I leave it out. Other times, there are implications and applications from what I am preaching that I don’t have time to cover in the sermon itself. Instead of throwing all that work into the metaphorical trash can, I intend to put it out here where you can read it and we can discuss it, if you choose to leave comments.
Stop the Insanity!
0 CommentsFriday • July 30, 2010 • by Brian
Whenever you write a document using a computer, you should basically never use tabs. Ever. If you are writing an outline, this is especially true; if you are going to send the document to another person for any reason, this is doubly especially true.
Also, you should NEVER press enter (or return for Macs) at the end of a line. EVER. Not in a Word document, not in an email. Nope, never. There is no exception to this rule. Ever.
For, you see, if another person needs to make the font bigger or smaller or doesn’t have the font you used, that nice looking little document of yours is going to look like it was produced by someone who is insane. It will be a mess. And, instead of easily formatting it for themselves using a handful of keystrokes, they will have to go line by line through the document reformatting it to make it look like you originally did. So, save everyone the effort and aggravation and learn a few simple techniques.
For more on this, please buy and read twice: The PC is Not a Typewriter or The Mac is Not a Typewriter.