A quote:
Never argue with a fool. They will lower you to their level and then beat you with experience.
If you are going to walk on thin ice you might as well dance
This is the personal website of Matthew Dellinger. I use it speak my mind on the continuing work of God in my life, our culture, the the church, and anything else that comes to mind.
I'm currently trying to move into a more serious realm. I want to use this space primarily to address the second and third topics I mentioned: culture and the church. I'm always looking for something to write about, so if ya'll think of anything, just ask and I'll talk about it.
Enjoy, or at least think about what I post.
(10/25/07)
I just finished reading through the book of Lamentations. It was rather different from what I generally read; I tend to like go with stuff like Psalm 103 - things that express the glory of God. For those of you who have not read it, Lamentations is basically Jeremiah's response to the captivity of the children of Israel by Nebuchadnezzar and the destruction of Solomon's temple. It is quite possibly the most depressing passage of scripture; the first two and a half chapters are spend describing how the Lord has rejected his people, and has utterly destroyed them.
The Lord has become like an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel; He has swallowed up all its palaces, He has destroyed its strongholds and multiplied in the daughters of Judah mourning and moaning.
He then goes on to describe how this is affecting him.
My eyes fail because of tears, my spirit is greatly troubled; my heart is poured out on the earth... Even when I cry out and call for help, He shuts out my prayer. He has bocked my ways with hewn stone; He has made my paths crooked. He is to me like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in secret places... My soul has been rejected from peace; I have forgotten happiness. So I say, "My strength has perished, and so has my hope from the Lord."
If there is a guy in the old testament that understands what it is to suffer, this is him. Yet what is incredible is his response. Two verses later, he states
This I recall to mind, therefore I have hope. The Lord's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for his compassions never fail. Great is your faithfulness. "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I have hope in Him. " The Lord is good to those who wait for Him. To the person who seeks Him.
In the past 6 months, I've heard endless discussions of a Christian's response to suffering, but all of them have been lacking one thing; a Biblical example. I don't understand why, because here we have it in black and white. I am reminded of Grant, who I think is a fairly good example of a practical out-living of this; every time I talk to him, no matter how stressed out he is, or how much his life sucks, he always winds up back on how God is faithful, regardless of circumstances.
I have one more thought on this book; Jeremiah was a man of God. He was persecuted for his faith, and yet endured. He prophesied the true word in opposition to the false prophets of his day. Yet he was cut off from God due not to his sin, but the sin of his people. God in rejecting his children not only rejected the faithless, but the faithful. This honestly scares me living in America. We as a culture are running away from God as fast as our little feet can carry us. I am not saying that when God rejects the United States, the believers here will be cut off from God, but rather that He judges not just individuals, but also cultures. Being a Christian will not spare us from the judgment of God upon American culture.
Oh, on a more amusing note; in 3:17, it says God has "thrown down." I found that amusing.
(10/23/07)
Grant Fonda is sometimes the most frustrating person I know. The reasons for this are twofold; firstly, he is almost always right. Secondly, the things he is right about and I am wrong about are things that go against my, shall we say, tendency to if not provoke, at least not avoid conflict. The following is my revision of something he wrote a while ago, which has been both an encouragement and a frustration to me.
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were placed in King Nezzie's service unqillingly. They didn't like what they had to do, and they didn't even really like Babylon. He made them change the ways that they ate (so they added some modifications to it, but it was still different), the way that they dressed and the way that they lived. It was not necessarily how they were used to, or how they preferred to, but they still submitted to the frustrating (I'm sure) circumstances that the Lord had them in at the time. Oddly enough, this submission and continual living for the glory of God in circumstances turned (long term) into one of the greatest changes that the world has seen. Nebuchadnezzer was an "impossible" situation, one of the most anti-God fearing, culture engrained, stubborn minded, self-glorifying, cliche kings of all time, and yet, the simple submission and Yahweh-likeness of these three men was what God used to turn the King's heart back towards himself. I would conjecture that the situation that you are in in VA with your church is not too different. The difference is that the "king" actually fears God, but quite possibly has forgotten what that is to look like. Through simple submission and quiet leadership, I would imagine that the Lord has you there still to tear down the golden idols of the American Church in the South, not demonstratively, but through the same means of which occured in Daniel so long ago. I am convinced (and granted, I could be wrong), that there will come a day where the people in Blacksburg will come to grips with their need to change something in their hearts, and I daresay that you should press on, because I think that you're those whom the Lord has appointed there for such a time as this.
(10/18/07)
"I am Nature, the Mighty Mother,
I am the law: ye have none other."
- C.S. Lewis, Spirits in Bondage
It never ceases to amaze me how far ahead of his time he was. These, the first two lines in Spirits in Bondage, set forth the scheme Satan will use to tempt men. This is naturalism, and the law thereof is chaos. As Ravi said last night, an ultimate moral law requires a moral law giver, because an ultimate law must possess ultimate value, and ultimate value is only found through person-hood. We as Christians understand that this is because only God himself is ultimately valuable, and that therefore, being made in his image, we bear the image of that value as well. Therefore, when Nature is lofted as the Mother, or source, the law loses its value, because it has no connection to the image of Christ.
(10/11/07)