I’m going to a church retreat this weekend, and right after that I will be going on vacation with my family. We are going to a family reunion in Montana to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of my parents. It will be good to see all my family members again.

So… I won’t be posting much for a while. If I manage to borrow an Internet connection and have time I might post something, but otherwise I will be back in mid-August.

This post has been moved to my technology blog.

I have wanted to write on worship for quite some time. This is not going to be a long article, but I just read something from Rick Warren that I wanted to share:

If you have ever said, “I didn’t get anything out of worship today,” you worshiped for the wrong reason. Worship isn’t for you. It’s for God.

You can read the whole article here. We live in a consumer drive society and unfortunately that deeply influences how we approach the Christian life. All the advertising say “It’s all about You!” and “Have it Your way!” but in worship we bow before God and admit that it is not about us. It’s about Him.

Here is one more quote from Rick Warren:

“The most common mistake Christians make in worship today is seeking an experience, rather than seeking God. They look for a feeling, and if it happens, they conclude that they have worshiped. Wrong. In fact, God often removes our feelings so we won’t depend on them. Seeking a feeling, even the feeling of closeness to Christ, is not worship.”

In the class I took last month from Bill Hull he shared a quote about worship. The story is that as a woman was leaving church she commented to a friend, “I didn’t really care for the worship today.” Her friend replied, “That’s alright, we weren’t worshiping you.”

Here is a good article on how authentic worship can be used by God to touch the lives of seekers.

Todays CC Times has an article about a progressive spiritual symposium going on right now in Berkeley. The article cites one of the organizers, UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff, describing two different views of God:

He discussed how two views of God — the Supreme Being as a nurturer and as the authoritarian — have clashed in the past.

In today’s religious disputes, studies show the followers of the nurturing God, the progressives, outnumber the followers of the Old Testament God.

So apparently the “progressives” follow the loving, nurturing, tolerant God and the conservatives follow the angry, judgmental, authoritarian OT God. Right.

This is such a common statement about God that I just had to say something about it. The supposed contrast between the “authoritarian” OT God and the loving and “nurturing” NT God has been around for a long time. The only problem is that it does not really match what is actually taught in the Bible. The OT has a whole lot to say about God’s “lovingkindness” and His long patience with Israel. The NT has a lot to say about God’s wrath against sin. (Maybe professor Lakoff has never read Revelation!)

But it is not really OT vs. NT. It is about a popular view of God that sees Him as existing to encourage and care for us without any moral absolutes. It is really a designer god (here I switch to a small “g”) made after our own image. People have always wanted a god who would do nice things for them without asking anything in return. Why not just make up whatever god you want to believe in? But we can’t just invent our own reality.. we need to believe in th God who actually exists. (We have institutions where we care for people who insist on making up their own reality.)

The whole OT God vs. NT God thing is really a false dichotomy. A common rhetorical device is to give people two options, A and B, in such a way that A is a caricature of the position that you oppose and is described in a way that nobody would ever want. Choice B described in a very attractive way. So of course the audience immediately goes for choice B. This is an easy way to steer people in the direction that you want them to go (unless they take time to think for themselves).

The truth is that God’s authority and His nurture are not mutually exclusive. We can at least imagine (and some of us have experienced) a human father who loves and nurtures us but also exercises authority in the home and disciplines us when we need it. There is no inherent contradiction between these two qualities. They only appear contradictory to anyone who sees love as meaning that I get to do anything I want without any restrictions. But that is not what real love is like, as the parent of any 4 year old who prohibits him or her from running out into the street can understand.

The real problem is that people want to do their own thing without any interference from God. The name for this attitude is “rebellion.” We want to be our own gods, without any interference from the real one. Or as the Bible puts it,

10 As it is written,
“There is none righteous, not even one;
11 There is none who understands,
There is none who seeks for God;
12 All have turned aside, together they have become useless;
There is none who does good,
There is not even one.”

I have just installed the Scripturizer plugin by Glen Davis for Wordpress, so now all the Bible references will automatically have a link to Bible Gateway so that you can read the passage. But unfortunately this won’t work on the crossposted article in Xanga.. so you will have to come to my real web site to use it.

After my somewhat whimsical post the other day about fitness I would like to share a few thoughts about theology and fitness. What are the reasons to get into good shape? Why should we or should we not bother? How much is enough? How much is too much?

When I am at the gym I can’t help but noticing certain people who seem to work out several hours every day. I go to work out on different days and at different times of the day, and and there are certain people who are always there. I kid you not.. I think that they must live at the gym or something. They literally spend hours sculpting and perfecting their bodies to get the look they are going for. It’s to the point that they worship their bodies or something. It’s especially sad when they get older. They work harder and harder to try to regain the look they had when they were 25, but it is a losing battle. The god that they worship is made of dust, and sooner or later it will become dust again.

Then of course there is the rest of us. Most people barely exercise at all. Even if they are not overweight, they run out of breath if they have to walk up several flights of stairs. Some Christians even sort of spiritualize their laziness by claiming that they just focus on spiritual things. But that is a mistake. There are some good reasons to take care of your body (without worshiping it):

1. Your body actually does not belong to you, it belongs to God (1 Cor. 6:19-20). You are a steward of His property, and so you had better take good care of it.
2. Your body and your soul are connected, and one affects the other. The Bible is actually very holistic in how it approaches us as human persons. If you are in poor condition physically it can make you lethargic or depressed and can actually affect your spiritual life.
3. God cares about your body and will redeem it. Salvation is not only for the soul but for the body as well (Rom. 8:23). The concept of a good soul trapped in an evil body is an idea that comes from Greek philosophy, not the Bible.
4. God has a purpose for your life, and in order to accomplish that purpose you are going to need your body. It is tragic to have your life and ministry cut short by ill health due to neglect of your body.

Since yesterday I solved the diet problem I thought I would tackle personal finance today. (As long as I am on a roll I may as well keep going!)

There is a profound truth that escapes most people in dealing with their finances. I see another book in the making: “The Financial Guru’s Guide to Personal Finance.” (Maybe I can retire on the royalties!)

But to save you the price of the book, I will let you in on the secret here. It is simply this.. (drum roll) In order to have your personal finances in good order you must always be sure that..

Money Spent < Money Earned

I realize that this truth is quite shocking, but if you follow this one simple rule you will avoid many serious problems. And since it is often not easy to increase your income, you are left with the need to spend less than you earn. (Now if someone could just tell the Federal Government about this amazing truth…)

Actually it is a bit more complicated.. as a Christian I give a tithe off the top of what I earn. It is also a good idea to save some money for retirement or emergencies (I use 10% as a good starting point). So then my spending has to be less than 80% of what I earn.

According to recent reports, the average college student has $2700 in credit card debt! (read here) That is $2700 spent on things that they cannot afford. And 10% of them owed more than $7000! So there are a lot of potential customers for my book!