John 13:35 NIV “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

As far as the discussions here, at GF on Sunday, and life in general, the fact is people are at different places and at different levels of maturity and intellect.

Having a couple of options for those different types people to get involved in some discussions here would be nice, and surely would get more people involved here.

Men and women, spiritually mature and those new or struggling, really smart people and then those like me.

We are all different parts of one Body. A one size fits all approach to theological, spiritual, biblical, or issues of the day here on this site will only attract a certain type of person. In this case about 5 people that are all leaders at GF in one form or another.

Not trying to promote any Anti-supernaturalistic presuppositions here. Not dumbed down Christianity either. Just options for some simpler discussions based on the teaching or other topics. Did you like my $64 words in this paragraph?

Deep and important issues can always be discussed on a simpler level sometimes.

This is a great tool for the Body at GF. It would be nice to see more than the regular 5 people and some women too. That’s all.

Humbly submitted for your comments.

I’m pretty sure I’m not likely to be charged with fostering anti-intellectualism, so let me observe something without fear of being misunderstood:

We may have people ’round these parts who sound pretty smart. We may even have a few people who are pretty smart, and that’s great. In the end, intellectual prowess, IQ, a big library, a big vocabulary, sophisticated philosophy, and impressive smarts count for nothing.

Love’s the thing.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

– 1 Corinthians 13:1-2

The challenge remains to develop the gifts we’ve been given — whatever they are — and deploy them for the spread of God’s fame and the advancement of his kingdom.

Some of us have been given the grace of being able to put ideas about the things of God into words for his glory. For my part, I pray for greater grace to put my ideas about the things of God into action for his glory.

The words are worthwhile, but they only go so far…

I have stated in the past that the brain power given off by many of the men at GF on these blogs makes me want to sometimes tape my head with duct tape to keep my head from exploding. This is very intimidating to me and I am sure it is to others as I am closer to the intellectual prowess of George W. Bush and most on here are closer to the intellectual prowess of George Will.

GF is blessed with so many godly men and women that are very very smart and I am sure have a very high IQ. With that comes very deep theological thought and very big words. You know who you are and never ever change! We need to smart guys to keep us in line.

Still I long for some simpler discussions from time to time where everyone can get involved and not feel stupid when a point is made with words from the “common folk”.

The recent über-blog on Homosexuality and parenting was one of the greatest ever for me personally as we went all over the spectrum from the intellectual to emotional to the practical.

Anon was right that there are only about 5 regulars and I am a semi-regular at best. However I am also generally the most longwinded and trying hard to keep things to a nutshell going forward.

This forum should never be a replacement for genuine fellowship with the body or one on one discipleship. However it is a great source as a weekly supplement and learning tool. To make us think. We need to be more transparent with each other anyway and be willing to express opinions that might not be popular while knowing that we will not be buried for expressing them.

Promoting the blogs at GF on Sunday would be nice. Having a women’s issues forum, men’s issues forum, and simple issues of the day forum with items in the news would be nice to discuss from a spiritual perspective.

This takes time and commitment from ones choosing to moderate these forums. Dan, Eric and Ken…..I salute you for making this forum possible and giving us great topics to think about as the most regular contributors.

Dave I salute you for keeping things running here and for being the official Hezbollah representative on this blog.

There’s my opinion for the day. I am shy aren’t I.

Thanks guys (and girls) for sharing all of your wisdom and insight with all of us!

Perhaps … they [women] prefer to interact in a more personal manner.

Perhaps. Maybe the main demographic of women at GF have time to meet during the day or throughout the week. Maybe a formal survey is in line but, as they currently are, do you see the blogs as adding value to the teaching on Sundays or challenging you in your personal growth? Is there a value or benefit that you think the blogs could address but currently aren’t?

…it is all too easy to misinterpret tone and meaning and to take offense … and such misunderstandings can be especially harmful to women’s relationships.

I would not generalize this to gender/sex — as if offense is not harmful to men’s relationships — but to our American culture’s inability to discuss ideas without internalizing them on a personal level. If someone rejects our ideas then we tend to feel personally rejected. Oz Guinness, C.S. Lewis, and Tolkien have all addressed this. Lewis and Tolkien were able to disagree as they discussed very personal ideas/creations/artwork over a few pints* but still remained friends and held a very strong mutual respect for each other.

Your statement communicates that the medium itself makes it risky to engage in discussion. I wonder how much of people’s concern is about the inherent nature of the medium and how much is about the possibility of being engaged, possibly even challenged?

One of GF’s goals is to be a safe environment to ask questions and engage in discussion — I wonder how “safe” the blogs are REALLY considered. I don’t mean this as an insult but as an observation, maybe not even safe enough to associate one’s name with their ideas? It could just be a personal conviction about online security, but if it’s not, please accept our apologies as it isn’t anyone’s intention to engage in personal attack.

…it seems that overall there is only a handful of men consistently involved in the discussions … I don’t know that it [however you interpret what C.A. is suggesting ] would necessarily incline any more women or men to join in.

Exactly, I would love to have more of the body involved but the question is, “Why aren’t more people joining in now?” Is it life pattern? Issues of safety? Lack of confidence in one’s ability to communicate in two or three written paragraphs? The blogs and/or comments add no value? No issues, just prefer to lurk? General lack of awareness/advertising?

Based on the answers to those questions we can know how to focus our efforts to use the web to edify (encourage and challenge) the body and spread the fame of God on a global level. It’s easy to think of it as banter between a handful of men, but it’s all Google-able.

Again, thanks for your input and willingness to speak up. I hope that we can make the Grace Blogs a blessing to you and others.

*If it’s a cultural issue, maybe we should adopt the Southern Baptist Convention’s approach to “pints” and say that discussing ideas is too much of a social risk, and therefore unbiblical, so we should ban it altogether. Sorry, just pickin’ on the ideas held by the SBC.

Cool! I don’t remember this discussed in great detail anywhere, (GF or anywhere else)and might have missed that Sunday.

You and Dan are of the “few” that I spoke about then.

Obviously ladies are free to join in and surely are welcome but you must admit that is very very rare here.

Blog discussion of why the pain in childbirth and “monthly” issues from a Biblical and female perspective would be some fascinating reading. It might even stop me from typing and maybe try to just read a little more on here.

You all can hope anyway.

Dan discussed it this summer in the Ephesians series. I just refered to it as friend of mine was expressing frustration over the Bible’s non-PC view of marriage.

As for the demographic of the GraceBlog participants, there is no limitation on who is allowed to participate.

C.A. said: “Men are better computer nerds anyway…”

Ladies, I would ask him if that was stated as a fact or a challenge.

For the Anonymous blogger all I can say is that 99.99999% of the entries and 100% of the forum leaders on this site are men. Unfortunate but true. Men are better computer nerds anyway and I figure you would find similar stats for the blogosphere in general.

Now back on topic….

Obviously our sin nature and state from birth are equal for both men and women. For all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. Because we are all men here, most opinions are naturally from the male perspective.

There are also many times we discuss very manly issues. Other than the really long blogs recently on homosexuality.

Adam and Eve disobeying God in the garden earned them a threefold punishment if you will. One for all mankind, and one for each gender. Obviously the most important was eternal separation from God, and Christ was the only possible solution to save us all. God bruised the serpent’s head by the seed of a women who was our savior Jesus.

Few seem to discuss the other two punishments/curses from God that came from this same sinful act of disobedience. Eve was cursed and all women were to follow with pain in childbirth, and all men were cursed to work/toil the earth/ground. This seems to be a curse for each gender that there is no solution or resolution to this very day that I can see. I am not hearing about women being born again and never needing an epidural after that. Or any men trusting Christ and then immediately winning the lottery so they never have to work again.

These are possible spin-offs for another couple of blogs, but are two subjects that I don’t ever hear debated or discussed anywhere. Anyone game to take this one on?

I just thought it was an interesting subject and a great segway that could spark some great discussion with a GF women’s blog. That’s all.

Thanks for coming to my defense Eric! Would love to see Donna out here if she was interested, and I might even poke Mary with a gentle stick to log in and check it out once in a while.

It seems that you are trying to distinguish between the twofold nature of our falleness (which is a good thing). The first part of our falleness has to do with our very nature-it is dead, full or guilt, and is not capable of the hypothetical life of “good choices.” David seems to say as much in Psalm 51 where he states that “…in sin did my mother conceive me.” We are sinful by nature-even my 11 day old son, Ezra, who has committed no sinful acts, stands guilty before our holy God becuase of the sin nature that is imputed or given him because of Adam’s guilt.

The other part of our falleness is the actual sinful acts that we committ. Not only are we sinners by nature, but we fulfill that “destiny” by carrying out the sinful lusts of our nature every day by lying, lusting, not loving the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind, etc.

It is only when we see the utter depravity of who we are and that we stand GUILTY on all accounts in front the holy and righteous Judge of the Universe that we can see how incredible His grace and mercy are. That is why looking at sin and its effect on us is so important-it enables us to see our God in a much grander and awesome scale. Prais Him for his forgivness and mercy!!

Are you saying if we were somehow able to live a perfect and sinless life since birth that would not be enough? Interesting thought.

No, I’m not saying that. I’m just pondering the condition in which we are born. We tend to think of sin as “lying, stealing, lusting, killing.” So a new father is standing in the delivery room holding his new child. That child hasn’t ever lied, stolen, lusted or killed right? So it’s a sinless, perfect little baby right? I would have to say no. As we learn in the OT, sin isn’t so much about the action, it’s about where your faith and trust is. (King David killed many in obedience to God.)

But that baby doesn’t measure up to the glory of God and is only concerned about and motivated by one thing … self. Who knows what child birth would have been like before the fall but now we are born into a situation where we have no choice but to be sinful right from the get go. Unlike Adam and Eve, we don’t get the chance to stop trusting God from our beginning.

Interesting take on your blog, but I would have to ask you to explain your comment about sin not being just an action but at “the core of our being”.

Sin is what we do physically or mentally against God right?

Are you saying if we were somehow able to live a perfect and sinless life since birth that would not be enough? Interesting thought.

We have a sin nature passed down from Adam and it is impossible for us not to sin, but this would be similar to the scripture about the sins of the father passing on to other generations as our sin nature is passed from Adam.

Is it also not accurate to say that God created Adam perfect and capable of being perfect and sinless from his creation? He and Eve chose to sin right? But we are not created “perfect” as Adam was or we would also be capable of living a sinless life. Mmmmmmmmm.

I am sure there is some cult of sect that believes this is possible here and now.

So in a nutshell without any great “interlectural” prowess (President Bush reference) we are paying for Adam’s sin.

A similar topic that would be just as timely for the ladies (Donna should have her own women’s issues blog IMO) is “Why am I responsible for having to go through such painful childbirth because of Eve”? Similar in some ways and an interesting parallel to this blog.

Goodnight and thanks again. Again…no Kool-Aid for me.