hearing God’s voice

I believe that we can know God’s will. I believe that God speaks. I believe that we can hear from God.

That has not changed. What has changed is how I picture that and thus participate in it.

I used to teach a weekend class called “a Map and a Compass”  that focused on reading the Bible and hearing the voice of God’s spirit. It got great feedback, bore lots of fruit, and gave our congregation(s) a common language with which to engage in dialogue and mutual learning.

I don’t know how much of it I would change if I taught it these days but I definitely would add something major to it. It is more that a word picture or a metaphor – it is an actual understanding that I was lacking

End of the (gullible) World!

The minute the earthquake in Japan happened, I told several friends that two things were coming: 1) talk of the end of the world  2) talk of God punishing Japan

But I was not prepared for was the quality of the sample that was to come. This article details the prophetic take of Cindy Jacobs [it opens in a new window] .  She is an authoritative leader in Intercession Prayer circles and someone that I am very familiar with and had even quoted during my college years (the mid- 90s).

“In the early nineties, the Lord gave me a prophecy for Japan that it was a “sickle in the hand of the Lord” that will be used for great harvest. The physical geography of the islands look like a curved sickle with the handle being the island of Hokkaido in the north. One could also say that it looks like a curved sword. Where Japan has historically been a sword of war across Asia.”

3 words of wisdom on love wins

Beside the release of my interview with Brian McLaren on the Homebrewed Christianity podcast [link]  (also available on Itunes), I have been busy reading all week. I have gotten a pretty good survey of all the big discussions going on in, around, and because of the release of Rob Bell’s “Love Wins”.

my fellow student Bill Walker has a very insightful take, asking “is this really about theology?”  at the end he quotes a buddy

“In such a climate, is it really possible to be moderate?

bad guides

I was reading a big serious book tonight and I found a great little quote. It is from Ludwig Wittgenstein – who has a lot of interesting things to say (but that is for another day)

In teaching you philosophy I’m like a guide showing you how to find your way round London. I have to take you through the city from north to south from East to West,

the C.S. Lewis Bible

I referenced C.S. Lewis earlier this week. I am always surprised by how much people like C.S. Lewis.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that I own and have read almost every book that is out. When I was an evangelical youth pastor, he was my go-to voice for apologetics and devotional material.

I bought the “Year with C.S. Lewis” the week it came out (ironically, at the Borders bookstore that had just opened in my town). I took a year off reading the Bible for morning devotions (I needed a break) and spent my quite times with his thought of the day. I have bought a dozen copies over the years as gifts for friends that I thought might like it.

So I just found out that they have released a C.S. Lewis annotated version of the Bible.

the Tao of C.S. Lewis

I was sitting in Comparative Theology class listening to a presentation on Taoism and something really struck me. It was a quote.

The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name.  (Tao Te Ching, chapter 1)

Now, I am not under the impression that all religions teach the same thing and I am not interested in downplaying real and substantial differences.  But there is an aspect to our Christian tradition called the apophatic tradition that is important if often neglected – and it ties in here.
I had never heard of the apophatic way (Via Negativa) before seminary. I was raised with and trained for ministry in the cataphatic tradition. It was all positive, presence, blessing. In fact, if those ‘good‘ things are absent, I was taught to ask “what is wrong”.