from here: http://thegospelcoalition.org/article/are-you-happy-pharrell-vs.-augustine

Are You Happy? Pharrell vs. Augustine

Jun 16, 2014

Would you say that you’re happy? Your answer will depend on whether you think about happiness as the pop singer Pharrell does or like the early church theologian Augustine.
“It is a certainty that all people want to be happy,” Augustine wrote 1,600 years ago in The City of God. It’s less certain, however, when “they ask who is happy or what makes them happy” (X.1). Men and women through the centuries have wrestled with understanding the essence of happiness. Is it pleasure, a positive state of being, wisdom, or even a goddess like the Roman deity Felicity? Or is happiness simply one of those things that you know when you see it—or when you feel it?  
Pharrell ventures to portray happiness in his latest hit, "Happy." The song invites you to bust out that dance you like to do when no one’s around (for amusing examples, watch the people in the music video). Pharrell gives happiness a force all of its own: “happiness is the truth.” Happiness is an energy and power that inspires you to dance and be really positive about life. Why “can’t nothing bring me down?” Pharrell’s response: “My level’s too high” and “because I’m happy.”  

If You Feel Like a Room Without a Floor

If you assess your ultimate happiness Pharrell-style, you will be sorely disillusioned and let down. Maybe you sang and clapped along with it (or some other uplifting song) in the car this morning, but later on in the day you found yourself down about something once again (need not worry, someone thought ahead and made a 24-hour music video with the song on repeat to help you tune out any negativity). The truth is that viewing happiness as all about having high levels and unceasing positivity will lead to misery. Hard things in life will inevitably bring you down, and you’ll need more than carefree feelings and happy dance moves to carry you through those times.

Our happiness is as stable as the finite and fickle things that we devote our love and desires to. Augustine wrote, “Many people are miserable because they love what ought not to be loved, and are still more miserable when they enjoy it” (VIII.8). Augustine knew this reality intimately. "But my sin was this, that I looked for pleasure, beauty, and truth not in [God] but in myself and his other creatures,” he wrote in The Confessions, “and the search led me instead to pain, confusion, and error” (I.20). Maybe you’ve experienced this reality as well, as a job, relationship, or possession has failed to deliver the happiness you expected. Maybe your merry “room without a roof” was really a room without a floor to stand on.

'By Whose Indwelling Alone the Soul Is Made Happy'

Be relieved to know that you don’t have to feel pie-in-the-sky all the time to say that you’re a happy person. So how can we know if we’re happy? For Augustine, the happy person is one who knows and participates in God’s love, goodness, beauty, and grace. The following principles that Augustine developed in The City of God provide a framework for viewing happiness rightly.

Happiness is a gift. — When we understand that happiness is a gift from God, we will seek him for it. Augustine challenged the ancient Romans for turning God’s gift of happiness to mankind into a goddess to be worshiped. Seeking happiness while ignoring its source makes no sense. For no one “can escape unhappiness who worships happiness as a goddess and forsakes God, the giver of happiness, just as no one can escape hunger who licks at a picture of bread and does not ask for real bread from a person who has it” (IV.23). God depends on nothing other than himself for happiness because he is unchanging, eternal, and perfectly good, and he loves to share his happiness as a gift to mankind. He gives us life, creation, relationships, and so much more, but most importantly he gives us himself for our happiness.

The pursuit of happiness is tied to the pursuit of righteousness. — Like a fish on dry land, we will be miserable if we try to live in a way that we weren’t meant to live. Augustine believed, “No one is happy unless he is righteous” (XIV.25). We are most happy when we align our hearts and actions with the supreme good. When we desire the supreme good “not for the sake of anything else but for its own sake alone,” it will “leave us nothing further to seek for our happiness” (VIII.8). Since the supreme good is God himself, men and women will be most happy when they desire him supremely and delight in imitating his righteousness for its own sake. Unrighteousness and misery result from not loving God supremely and spending our desires on wrong things.

Happiness consists in love for God. — Our happiness is as strong and lasting as the things we love. If we look for it in “things that are material, temporal, mutable, and mortal,” then our happiness will be superficial, short-lived, and fickle (VII.19). But if we devote our “love to the one supreme good which is the immutable God,” then our happiness will be eternal (X.1). The love of God also frees us to find genuine happiness in things of this world—like relationships, food, music, recreation, work, learning, and so on—because they derive their goodness ultimately from him. The love of God also teaches us to have a right love for self, and it moves us to love our neighbors and promote their happiness.

The gift of happiness that comes from participating in God’s love and goodness looks different than Pharrell’s Happy song. It may inspire positivity and good feelings, but its main goal is to motivate you to love, gratitude, and grace. If you want to be happy, love God more.

Ryan Hoselton lives in Louisville with his wife, Jaclyn, and their daughter, Madrid. He earned an MDiv and ThM from Southern Seminary, and he writes for Christ and Pop Culture and Historia Ecclesiastica. You can follow him on Twitter @ryanhoselton.

from here:  http://thegospelcoalition.org/article/god-play-soccer-with-you

God Doesn’t Play Soccer with You

Jun 19, 2014

Like most suburban kids my age, I played soccer as a child. It's great, right? Good exercise for young bodies, lessons in sociability, the value of teamwork, sacrifice, frustration, and the joy of a game well-played. It's also one of the earliest experiences in understanding human choice and action I can remember. Soccer is all about learning to coordinate your own body and mind through instinct and training, as well as that of your teammates and opponents. You pass the ball, they receive it, pass it back, and you shoot. Or they have the ball, you run up, slide-tackle, take the ball, hope the ref doesn't see it, and you shoot. Such is human agency in little league.













I've recently noticed a popular tendency to think of our interactions with God in a similar fashion. Did God do that, or was that me? Did my doctor heal me, or did God? Did I decide to pray, or did God decide that I would pray? We imagine ourselves on a field of sorts, playing soccer with him—either God has the ball to pass, shoot, and dribble, or I do. God might be a much bigger, stronger, faster, and smarter player, and he may take the ball from me at times, or pass it to me depending on the situation. Essentially we're on the same playing field.

With a version of the soccer-field-God in place, we see disputes flare up as to how God plays the game. Does he monopolize the ball all the time in order to ensure victory, or does he hang back sort of coaching us so we can make real passes and take real shots? Is God totally sovereign and in control of his creation, or does he give us real free will to make choices that matter? We're then tempted to collapse the tension in one of the two directions depending on our other theological commitments, with disastrous results. Deny freedom and you cut the nerve of moral responsibility leading to apathetic disengagement, while downplaying sovereignty can lead either to panicked efforts or a Hamlet-like paralysis of the will.  

I want to suggest, however, that this popular tendency is misguided. While it's absurd to think we can solve the riddle of human responsibility and divine sovereignty in a short article, there are three classic theological concepts that we must keep in mind if we're going to avoid the worst mistakes in our thinking on these matters.

God Who Creates 

The fundamental divide at the heart of all of our biblical reasoning about the relation between God and humanity is the Creator/creature distinction. According to the Bible there are fundamentally two kinds of reality: God and everything else that God made. Though God is presented as immanent and present to all of creation, the narrative of Israel's dealings with God begin with his transcendent command to create the world (Gen. 1:1). The Lord is he “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Rom. 4:17). It is by "faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible" (Heb. 11:3). As Kevin Vanhoozer says, "To confess God as Creator is to acknowledge him as Author of all that is" (Remythologizing Theology, 65).

From this it follows that we don't exist on the same level of being. Though we use images drawn from creation to describe him, the Bible is clear that the Lord is unique and incomparable to any created thing: "To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him?" (Isa. 40:18). Read the rest of Isaiah 40 and witness the stark contrast between God and any limited, finite thing we might think to measure his infinite majesty against. Given that perspective, we need to get clear of the idea that God is an actor like any other, or a character operating with a will just like the rest of us.

God Who Preserves 

Flowing from this first point is the idea that all things depend on God for their being. The psalmist declares, "O Lord, you preserve both man and beast" (Ps. 36:6), and "When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust" (Ps. 104:29-30). In fact, Paul says that all things are currently held together through Christ (Col. 1:17), just as the author of Hebrews reminds us that "he upholds the universe by the word of his power" (Heb. 1:3).
God, then, is not only the origin of all things not himself, but also the constant source of all existence. He didn't just set the world to spin on its own strength; he upholds it by his power. If he took his hand away, it would fall away into oblivion. In theological language, he "preserves" creation, maintaining all natural, biological, chemical, physical, gravitational, and whatever other processes in working order, functioning according to the pattern he decreed in Christ. Creation has its own proper existence and is real—but at every moment it depends on God's active will for its continued integrity.
So we, too, are part of what is being upheld at every moment by God's hand. For this reason it's a confusion of thought to say that God has to give his power away for us to have it. It's only by a constant acting of his power that we currently have any power at all!

God Who Concurs 

In this light we can make sense of the classical tradition including Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed theologians who spoke of the idea of divine concurrence, that God's action runs underneath, cooperatively funds, and supports "secondary causes." While God sometimes acts immediately and directly in the world through extraordinary means like miracles, usually he does so through mediate, indirect, and ordinary means like the functioning of the natural order and human wills that he maintains. The earth spins round the sun because God concurs with the natural force of gravity to keep it in its orbit. In other words, it's not theologically or biblically appropriate to say either God is the sole cause of all events, nor that he is excluded as a cause from any event. Rather, he is guiding them toward their appointed ends in ways that are appropriate to their own created reality.
Assuming something similar at the human level, Paul says, it's important for you "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13). You lift your hand to scratch your nose because you freely chose to, but also because God is simultaneously concurring with your powers of volition, nervous system, muscles firing, and ligaments involved.

To be sure, the classic theologians were also careful to say that God doesn't will or concur with every action in the exact same way—he is not the author of evil, though he does permit it. Still, the important point to capture is summed up by Aquinas: "When the free will moves itself, this does not exclude its being moved by another, from whom it receives the very power to move itself" (Summa Theologica, 1, q. 83, art. 1, reply 3).

Maintaining the Tension

With these distinctions in mind we begin to see that while God does interact with us on the field of history, he isn't just another player—he's the reason any of us can play the game. That said, because of preservation and concurrence, he sustains us in such a way that we really are playing the game. So if you're tempted to say that your choices don't really matter because God's in control, you're ignoring that God is at work even in our choices. And if you're tempted to be overwhelmed at the weight of human responsibility, remember, you're not a demi-god whose autonomy extends beyond God's will. He's still in charge.

The Bible and good theology simply won't allow for either of those simplistic answers.

Derek Rishmawy is the director of college and young adult ministries at Trinity United Presbyterian Church in Orange County, California, where he wrangles college kids for the gospel. He got his BA in philosophy at the University of California, Irvine, and his MA in theological studies at Azusa Pacific University. Derek blogs at Reformedish and Christ and Pop Culture. You can follow him on Twitter.

from here: http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevinwax/2014/07/15/the-progressive-appeal-to-an-imaginary-calendar/

The Progressive Appeal to an Imaginary Calendar

 

Are you conservative?

Or are you progressive?

Both terms bother me.

To be a “conservative” implies that your primary impulse is to conserve something valuable from history or tradition. But not everything from history or tradition is worth “conserving.” Much of the past has been relegated to the dust heap, and deservedly so.
To be a “progressive” implies that your primary impulse is to progress beyond the present and lead the way toward better days. Sounds great. But not everything we foresee in the future is worth pursuing. Much of what society considers progress today could one day be tossed aside as ridiculous.
So, conservatives appeal to the past, and progressives appeal to the future. And since the problems of the past are on full display and the problems of the future are often unknown, the conservative task is difficult in every generation, for the conservative must make a careful case for retrieving and cherishing good aspects of the past without wanting to “go back.” The progressive has an easier job, since the term itself implies growth toward the common good.
But when we take a deeper look at how the progressive label is applied, we often see people appealing to an imaginary calendar instead of providing sound argumentation.

The Imaginary Calendar

There’s no reason to assume that the position we hold to is right because it’s Tuesday and not Monday. And yet, that’s the kind of ”appeal to the calendar” we often witness in popular progressive circles.
To paraphrase our secretary of state’s warnings to Russia: “We’re living in the 21st century now! You just can’t do that anymore.” To which the Russians giggle and proceed to defy the calendar we have imagined into existence.
“I realized it was time,” politicians say about why they are now in favor of redefining marriage. “It’s time” may be rhetorically powerful to some, but it shouldn’t be confused with actually making a case.

• N. T. Wright calls vague appeals to “the future” a smokescreen.
• C. S. Lewis believed it was chronological snobbery to appeal to progress as if the future is assured and the past is irrelevant.
• G. K. Chesterton believed that democracy means listening to the dead, not just the living. Dissenting is a sign of life, for ”a dead thing goes with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”

Progressives want to be bold and courageous, to take their place at the vanguard of the future, but there’s nothing particularly world-changing about seeing where the train of history appears to be chugging, throwing yourself on top of the engine, and then imagining you’re the one making the train go.
Besides, if the past is any indication, the history train makes plenty of unpredictable turns.
Progressives and Eugenics
100 years ago, progressives were falling all over themselves to affirm eugenics. Sterilizing people from unwanted groups would purify the gene pool and lead to a better society. Who could be against that? 
Most people today, thankfully.
Those who dissented from the cultural orthodoxy surrounding eugenics a century ago were seen as hopelessly backward, but it was their position that stood the test of time. The “progressive” eugenicists eliminated themselves from the pool of popular opinion, although remnants of eugenic thought still persist in institutions of higher learning.
Progressives and Abortion
One of the most contentious issues facing our nation today is that of abortion. Views on abortion that get called ”progressive” always seem to be in favor of relaxing restrictions. Why is that so? If we see the abortion debate from the standpoint of protecting humans from a violent demise, then shouldn’t the protective measures enacted in the last decade be seen as “progressive?”
Flash back 200 years ago. “Progressive” doctors like Horatio Storer were rallying to expose abortionists, shut down abortion mills, and protect women and children. All their work was later undone by a “progressive” Supreme Court decision that sanctioned the slaughter of fifty million little human beings. See the problem? The label of “progress” lets us down.
Progressives and Divorce
When it comes to marriage, somehow it’s “progressive” to relax divorce laws and make it easier for a couple to abandon their covenant commitments and walk away from their children.
But has no-fault divorce led to “progress” for the family? It’s only progress if you see marriage as a commitment based on romantic feelings, and the needs of children as second to our emotional unions. Today, the world is full of children who know firsthand the pain of broken families, who, when grown, often repeat the cycle in their own lives.
Progressives and Sex
It’s “progressive” to say that all consensual sex between adults is acceptable. But has this led to progress for women? Is cohabitation without marital commitment “progress” for the family? Whatever one thinks about sexual morality, is it accurate to call the sexual brokenness and female degradation we see today “progress?”
It’s “progressive” to argue for sex-change operations, as if we are purely spiritual beings whose physical bodies are irrelevant to who we really are inside. But what if, a century from now, people look back at today’s “progressives” with horror: How could they celebrate the mutilation of their bodies? They thought this was progress?
Progressives and Marriage
It’s “progressive” to be for same-sex marriage, overturning the male/female definition of marriage that has been supported by every civilization for thousands of years. But just how is it progress to envision a family unit where a child is denied the blessing of a mother and father?
In the past, we’ve mourned the tragedy of a child losing a mother or father to death or divorce. Today, we’re seeking to enshrine such a vision into law, to celebrate a family where gender is irrelevant. Is this progress? Or is the bandwagon trampling common sense?

The Myth of Progress

The list could be multiplied. A century ago, the progressives were the ones smashing saloon windows and pushing Prohibition. Today’s progressives look back at such antics as antiquated and backward.

All this to say, progress and progressivism are powerful myths, but they remain just that – myths. Just as the conservative needs to carefully consider what in the past should be “conserved,” the progressive needs to think deeply about how we define “progress.”

After all, totalitarian regimes from Nero’s Rome to Hitler’s Germany have always claimed their policies will usher the world forward in a utopian state, and they use both “conservative” and “progressive” arguments to make the case. The Russians thought they were pushing progress during the Cold War, with Kruschev saying “History is on our side and we will bury you.”

Today, the United States imagines a calendar of progress solidified by our military and economy, with our way of life responsible for spreading freedom to the world and overcoming evil. But not everything we view as “progress” is worth spreading.

Progress must always be measured by a standard.

We make progress as we work hard and move toward an ideal. The temptation, however, is to change the ideal. And that’s why we’d rather trade the ideals of heaven for the shifting sands of popular opinion. To exchange God’s design for human flourishing with our paltry human inventions.
So take note. What passes for “progress” today is often just a slow and steady burrowing into the ground. And the minions below don’t care what we call ”progress,” as long as we are in descent.

Resist the digital / embrace the analog

Another refreshing and inspiring post .. from here: http://theartofsimple.net/resisting-digital-embracing-analog/

On resisting the digital and embracing the analog

Irecently spent ten days in Tuscany with Kyle and some writer friends, and my re-entry has been a bit more brutal than I would have guessed. Picture this: rolling cultivated hills seen usually on wine bottles or in b-grade hotel art—absolutely everywhere you look; air sweet as honey, food you’ve only dreamed about. Sounds like a scene from a General Foods International Coffee commercial, but it’s real.

Add fantastic conversation with nine other lovely friends including, but not limited to, some of your favorite things: in my case, books and writing. These people understand the weird world you live in, and you are grateful for the empathy.

Also, there is no Facebook when you’re out and about. Also no email.

Not having a good international data plan for my phone, I simply turned off the cell phone bit of my phone (I’m super techy, obviously) and rendered it only a wifi-capable device. No Yelp for dining recommendations, no Google Maps for directions, and no email to check, Twitter to refresh, or Facebook to scroll if I had a few minutes of downtime.

And it was glorious.

I thought I was alright at this back in my normal life, but I didn’t realize all my knee-jerk reactions to whip out my iPhone for so many little things. Without access to it in Tuscany, we’d simply ask a local for the location of their favorite gelato spot, and then walk there based on his spoken directions. We’d breathe in the beauty around us instead of wondering what we were missing online. (Granted, this was somewhat easy because we didn’t really want to be anywhere else, but that’s just it—no phone to check added to our contentment of the here and now.)

Sure, Italians have their smartphones, but other than taking pics or the occasional phone call, I didn’t really see them out all that much. And once we’d return to our village, we’d have wifi access again—but the pull wasn’t really there for me. Other than posting to Instagram (for whatever reason, that’s the one digital space that really doesn’t exhaust me), I barely glanced at my phone, even when I could.

I just… didn’t want to. I was enjoying the real world too much.

I’ve been back for three days at the time of this writing (a week and one day at the time of publication), and never before in all my travels have I been so aware of the loud yelling that is the echo chamber of the Internet. Since I’ve been overseas quite a bit, this is really surprising to me.

Perhaps it was because I was in a place of such otherworldly beauty with the best sort of company? Or maybe the Internet has gotten even louder in the past year? Not sure. Either way, as soon as I had access again, I wanted to turn it right back off.

And so I am, in a way. It’s a tricky business, when you make your living off the Internet; try as you may, you can’t bury your head in the analog sand forever. But you can set tighter, healthier boundaries, and that’s just what I’m doing.

I’ve written an email manifesto, per my husband Kyle’s suggestion, and have added it to my email signature, for my own peace of mind. He witnessed how immediately stressed I became when I first opened my inbox after my hiatus, and for me, it’s just not worth the physical and mental pressure it adds. Email is little emote than someone else’s agenda for my time, and as my friend Myquillyn says, if someone has an emergency, they’ll find a way to reach me.

I’ve barely been on Facebook, the loudest place (for me) on the Internet. It has its usefulness, sure, but I’m so much more aware of its tendency to replace a digital existence for the real world around me. I love that it helps me stay in touch with faraway people I love. I don’t love that it compels people to share every little thing, and to scream at each other WITH ALL CAPS and vie for more page views with black-and-white statements said only to get a rise out of others.

It sucks away the beauty of life, and if Tuscany taught me anything, it’s thatbeauty matters.

So, I’m barely opening Facebook these days. I may be missing something, but right now, I don’t care. I need to keep up with this blog’s page because, like it or not, it’s one of our top three sources of traffic, and well, livelihood and all. (I really have a complicated relationship with Facebook, I’m learning.) But I’m not going to dedicate much creative energy there because, well, the goal in my work and in this online space that I love isn’t to have a brilliant Facebook page.

I’m back to writing more analog-style. I loved rediscovering in Tuscany my love for journaling, so I’m reacquainting this simple habit back to my real world (this will no doubt be a lifesaver on our big trip as well). In fact, right now I’m writing this entire post with a Bic pen and a Moleskine notebook. At 3:30 a.m., no less (jetlag and all).

I’m grateful for the Internet, I am. I’ve found some of my favorite people there, and it allows me to provide for my family, doing what I love. But it’s just so LOUD. And I don’t love that.

Tuscany reminded me of this. My love of travel is teaching me this. And I remember why I love living simply: so that I can say no about whatever the culture is screaming “yes!”

What are you learning these days?

from here: http://www.aholyexperience.com/2014/07/planned-neglect-saying-no-to-good-things-so-we-can-say-yes-to-the-best/

How to Plan Neglect: Saying No to Good Things So We Can Say Yes to the Best

When I sat down to eat dinner with Randy Alcorn and his beautiful wife, Nanci, they immediately feel like the oldest family friends, the kind of down-to-earth, salt-of-the-earth, Jesus-loving people that you’d find worshipping at a little country chapel with a bunch of farmers. You couldn’t meet nicer folk anywhere who humbly and warmly walk out the serving love of Jesus. (Nanci and I found ourselves accidentally knocking on the wrong hotel door on the way back to our rooms and I never felt more side-splitting grace and friendship for my messiness.) Randy and Nanci have loved on our kids, sending them some of their best reads ever, and their friendship is mentoring grace.  Randy‘s an author of more than 40 books and the founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries (EPM), a nonprofit ministry dedicated to teaching principles of God’s Word and assisting the church in ministering to the unreached, unfed, unborn, uneducated, unreconciled, and unsupported people around the world. I couldn’t be more honoured to welcome Randy to the farm’s front porch…

by Randy Alcorn

There are times when I’m overwhelmed with seemingly endless opportunities to do good things.

I have to weigh what I can or should say yes to against what I need to say no to.

Seems like every year of my life I have to say no to more good things. (Young mothers and fathers may relate to this, as those children need a lot of attention, and so does your marriage, and there’s no end to the things, both bad and good, that could distract you from either or both.)

I take my commitments very seriously, but on a few occasions I’ve had to back out of things I’d said a year ago I could do,  back before I knew I would be physically exhausted and ill and my wife would be scheduled for a knee surgery.

I hate to disappoint people, but in those times it becomes clear that I have to be carve out time to fulfill my most basic commitments and do what I believe God wants me to (e.g. be with my wife when she needs me).

I have to make sure I am living to please God, not everyone else.

We shouldn’t say yes to something just because it’s a good thing or even a great thing.

When saying no to good things, I always remind myself what Nanci and I have learned over many years:

I must say no to people concerning the vast majority of good things they invite me to, in order to be available to say yes to God concerning that small number of things He has truly called me to.

Sometimes we tend to say yes to too many of the good things, leaving us exhausted and unable to bring our best to those relatively few God-things.

There are only 168 hours in the week no matter what we do (and during a third of those we should be sleeping!)

If we have X number of people to make time for, they have to come out of the same small pie of available time, and pretty soon the slices of the pie get smaller and smaller. You end up having dear friends who no longer get a sliver, because it’s been divided so many times.

As with people, so it is with causes.

Rather than a large number of causes that we have tiny little investments in, better to have a much smaller number that you’re wholeheartedly engaged in, giving your very best.

Ask God for wisdom as to which these should be, and God will give it (James 1:3).

But NEVER say yes without asking whether this is one of those exceptional things God really wants you to do. Tell Him that unless He smacks you in the side of the head and makes it clear, you will assume He DOESN’Twant you to do it.

This is planned neglect.

We need to neglect doing the things that countless people want us to do, so that we will be available to do what God wants.

And sometimes He speaks in a still small voice, while people speak in a big LOUD voice. We have to make sure we’re listening. To do that, we need to put our ear to His Word and pray and seek His face.

I want to be available to listen to God and follow Him when He gives me those totally unexpected divine appointments.

But if I’m booked so tight there’s no room in my schedule for unanticipated God moments, I’ll miss them, and thereby miss some of life’s greatest joys and opportunities and occasions for gratitude.

If you don’t give yourself room to breathe, you won’t give God room to move.

Instead of exhausting ourselves doing many secondary things, may we do a few primary things well.

And that begins with our daily time with God.

When Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet soaking Him in, and Martha was mad because Mary wasn’t doing what she wanted, Jesus said to Martha, “only a few things are necessary, really only one; Mary has chosen the better portion, which shall not be taken from her” (Luke 10:42).

So, decide what you are going to neglect this week in order to pay attention to God.

Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. (Ephesians 5:15-17)

Randy Alcorn’s ministry  focus at EPM is communicating the strategic importance of using our earthly time, money, possessions and opportunities to invest in need-meeting ministries that count for eternity. He accomplishes this by analyzing, teaching, and applying the biblical truth.

A New York Times bestselling author, Randy has written more than forty books, including the bestsellers Heaven, The Treasure Principle, and the Gold Medallion winner Safely Home. 

Randy resides in Gresham, Oregon, with his wife, Nanci. They have two married daughters and are the proud grandparents of five grandsons. Randy enjoys hanging out with his family, biking, tennis, research, and reading.  All of our kids have been devouring Randy’s books with the highest recommendations, and Shalom will earnestly tell you that she’s never read a better book (“ever! ever!”) than Randy’s book “Heaven for kids.” Simply, Randy’s library of books in our home has profoundly strengthened us as a family…

Contradict: They Can't All Be True

From here: http://thegospelcoalition.org/article/contradict-they-cant-all-be-true

Andy Wrasman. Contradict: They Can’t All Be True. Nashville, TN: Westbow, 2014. 255 pp. $19.95.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could simply (and legally) replace all of those COEXIST bumper stickers with another that reads CONTRADICT? High school teacher Andy Wrasman has recently written a helpful book that discusses the problems of pluralistic thought and why Christians should remember that even though religious believers of all types should coexist harmoniously, the essential claims of the major religions stand in opposition to one another.

In Contradict: They Can't All Be True, Wrasman distinguishes between two types of pluralism: social and literal. Social pluralism is used to describe diversity in society. Literal pluralism is the view that everything is one, or true, despite apparent distinctions (5). Wrasman mainly interacts with literal pluralist notion that “all religions are spiritual paths leading to the same destination.”

Twenty Facts About the Five Major Religions and the Law of Noncontradiction

It is important for Christians to understand the beliefs of the major religious systems. Wrasman aids us in this area as he presents “key figures, places, events, historical dates, doctrines, and rituals for Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam” (19). From Vishnu to the Eightfold Path, Wrasman helps readers understand the central beliefs of these religions.

Wrasman also explains the important role that the law of noncontradiction plays in religious truth claims (64). This law helps us to see that if “a statement is true in one context, the exact opposite of that statement cannot also be true in the same context” (64). Wrasman goes on to demonstrate the contradictory beliefs that abound between the major world religions and explains the need for a solid testing method that evaluates all religious truth claims.

A Religious Litmus Test That Works

Wrasman suggests that each religion should be subjected to a religious litmus test. This test, which he draws from history professor Chauncey Sanders’s work, consists of an external, internal, and bibliographical method (92). Wrasman then shows the overwhelming evidence that supports the accuracy of the New Testament documents. With more than 5,000 fragments or copies of the New Testament available, it is hard to see how the New Testament documents do not pass the bibliographic test with flying colors (106).

Wrasman then turns to examine the internal and external evidence of the New Testament. After a long journey of exploring both the internal and external claims, Wrasman concludes that the Gospels pass the internal test because they were authored by eyewitnesses or those who used eyewitness testimony (151); they also pass the external test because authors outside the Bible affirm the claims and authorship of the Gospels (151–152). So Wrasman concludes that Christianity does indeed pass the religious litmus test.

Evangelism and the Contradict Movement

Wrasman concludes that after hearing the historical claims of the Gospels and evaluating the evidence, one must decide whether or not to submit to the only unified message that rings true (158). According to Wrasman, Christianity stands out among all the other religions because it is the only paid religion (Jesus was your substitute) and the only religion from God himself (168–169). As he concludes, “Christianity has the ring of truth with its detailed disclosure of facts, consistent message, fulfilled prophecy, and unique standing as the only religion that offers divine redemption through the work of its founder, who claimed to be God incarnate.”

In the final chapter, Wrasman discusses 20 of the most common questions he's encountered while sharing the “contradict message” on college campuses. With evangelistic experience on multiple campuses, this section is particularly helpful,

Conversation Starter and Guide

Contradict will help a lot of conversations get started. Wrasman provides Christian believers with a great starting point for understanding and evaluating many of the world’s religions. He should be commended for writing a substantive apologetic book that's also practical on so many levels. The strongest sections are where he offers a concise guide on interacting with skeptics and other religious adherents. Many readers will find Wrasman's sections on the “20 facts on the 5 major world religions” and “20 questions that are most commonly asked when sharing the contradict message” invaluable.

This is a solid book apologetically, theologically, and practically. I pray it will open the eyes of many believers to the importance of evangelizing in a pluralistic age. 

​Matt Manry is the director of discipleship at Life Bible Church in Canton, Georgia. He is a student at Reformed Theological Seminary and Knox Theological Seminary. He is also an editor for Credo Magazine and Gospel-Centered Discipleship. Matt blogs at Gospel Glory.