Grace Blogs

How’s that for a headline? (Update: Be sure to read on to the next post.)

Krista and I went to see The Dark Knight on Saturday. It was an impressive film; we really enjoyed it on a number of levels—the production values were exceptional, Heath Ledger’s performance was amazing, and the characterizations and plot offered plenty of food for thought. (BTW, is Batman really Bruce Wayne, or is Bruce Wayne really Batman?)

But to tell you the truth, by Sunday morning I had pretty much moved on.

Then, this morning, I read this commentary by Ray Ortlund:

Visually stimulating. Technologically impressive.

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Evangelists who don’t shift gears smoothly in conversation tend to use the “can’t find it—grind it” strategy.

I don’t drive stick. I did—once, in 1991. I learned what “can’t find it, grind it” means. I also learned about stalls. A one-mile drive took more time than walking the same distance. That was enough. I like my automatic transmission just fine, thankyouverymuch.

If only personal evangelism came with an automatic transmission… too often sharing the Gospel is more like my ordeal driving stick: lots of stalls, abrupt stops and starts, and sounds that make you cringe. Oh, and you often don’t get very far, either.

Joe Thorn considers this

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You’re driving. You hear a phone number on the radio, and you know you’re going to forget it if you don’t write it down… what to do?

I have carried a voice recorder in the car for a few years now for this sort of thing, but I might be using it less now that I have discovered jott.com. Here’s how it works:

Call Jott. (On my phone, it’s speed-dial 5.) Jott recognizes me with caller ID. Jott asks, “Who do you want to Jott?” (Nevermind that it should be “whom.” It’s free, so I let it slide.) I say, “Myself.” Jott says, “Jott yourself.” I say, “7708886461.” You can hang up or …

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It is no security to a natural man, that he is now in health, and that he does not see which way he should now immediately go out of the world by any accident, and that there is no visible danger in any respect in his circumstances. The manifold and continual experience of the world in all ages, shows this is no evidence, that a man is not on the very brink of eternity, and that the next step will not be into another world.

—Jonathan Edwards

Dr. Randy Pausch may have come to your attention during the past year. At Carnegie Mellon University, he delivered a now-famous “Last Lecture” about fulfilling your childhood dreams, and it

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ChristianAudio.com is having a $9.49 sale on lots of downloadable books from June 13-22.

One notable inclusion in that list is the The Listener’s Bible NIV, narrated by Max McLean. If you don’t have a Bible you can listen to, here’s a great chance to pick one up at almost 90% off. This is no cheesy production — I have McLean’s ESV reading and it’s fantastic. I highly recommend McLean’s work.

Some others:

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A number of Evangelicals have jointly issued An Evangelical Manifesto. Here’s an excerpt:

All too often we have trumpeted the gospel of Jesus, but we have replaced biblical truths with therapeutic techniques, worship with entertainment, discipleship with growth in human potential, church growth with business entrepreneurialism, concern for the church and for the local congregation with expressions of the faith that are churchless and little better than a vapid spirituality, meeting real needs with pandering to felt needs, and mission principles with marketing precepts. In the process we have become known for commercial, diluted, and feel-good gospels of health, wealth, human potential, and religious happy talk, each of which is indistinguishable from the passing fashions of the surrounding

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Boys will be boys… there’s a time and a place for giving the Y chromosome its due. But CNN has a piece titled “Why He Needs a Room of His Own” featuring these glimpses into American domestic life (emphasis added):

Sal Guarisco, a 51-year-old sales manager from Atlanta, negotiated a mantuary with his wife, Wendy… “It’s a place to decompress so that by the weekend you’re not hiding out,” Sal says…”Sal has a lot he needs to escape from, so it’s good that he has a place to go,” says Wendy…

Jill Scully, 31, of Pescadero, California, doesn’t sneak up on fiancé Nicholas Woodman, 32, in his lair, a barn outfitted with $13,000 of race car simulation

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There is only one reason to be a Christian: because it’s true. —Francis Schaeffer

Toward the end of the “Does God Exist?” teaching from April 20 (which was re-recorded and includes extra material we didn’t cover in church—call it the “director’s cut”), I offered the following “either/or” version of the Gospel:

Either God exists, or he doesn’t. The Gospel says he exists, so… Either we’re accountable to him for our lives, or we’re not. The Gospel says we’re accountable to God for our lives, so… Either we’re in trouble with God, or we’re not. The Gospel says we’re in trouble, so… Either God offers forgiveness, or he doesn’t. The Gospel says he offers forgiveness through faith in Jesus …

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So first she tasted the porridge of the Great, Huge Bear, and that was too hot for her; and she said a bad word about that. And then she tasted the porridge of the Middle Bear, and that was too cold for her; and she said a bad word about that too. And then she went to the porridge of the Little, Small, Wee Bear, and tasted that;and that was neither too hot nor too cold, but just right; and she liked it so well she ate it all up…

Last week’s “God Question” about the existence of God got into some deep science that hopefully didn’t lose too many people. I wanted to follow up on that by

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Douglas Groothuis quotes evolutionary biologist Richard Lewontin on the evolution-at-all-costs attitude present in much of modern science. Lewontin says,

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes

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