"You can debate theology all you want, but you better remember that you are preaching to idiots like me and you need to say it so we can understand it."
-a Baptist layman speaking to Southern Seminary students.
Dr. York doesn't have time to blog a lot (for the reason why click here!) But when he does, it's usually worth your time to read it. Dr. York has certainly made headlines among SBTS students in the last year, as he was one of the first to publically defend the IMB baptism policy. Despite what anyone's opinion may be on that matter, Dr. York is certainly a man of God who deserves the respect commanded in 1 Thessalonians 5:12 as he labors over both his church and seminary students. He has posted a very convicting post on the heartbreaking effects of sin. His final two paragraphs really cut to the heart of the Christian ministry. Check it out, it's worth a read:
The Heartbreak of Sin
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Teenage Mutant Christian Turtles?!?
What if Master Splinter had instructed the Turtles in the Bible instead of martial arts and the Renaissance masters?
By Andyc140
Now I think I've seen everything...
Personally, I think Splinter should have started teaching hermeneutics way earlier in the lesson plans. At least he takes a hard stance against a man-centered gospel.
By Andyc140
Now I think I've seen everything...
Personally, I think Splinter should have started teaching hermeneutics way earlier in the lesson plans. At least he takes a hard stance against a man-centered gospel.
Monday, September 18, 2006
"Mother Never Told Me Not to Pee in the Neighbor's Yard"
Most students I know hate being required to do anything, especially things that require the use of their time. Even in Christian schools and seminaries, it is becoming increasingly rarer to find students who enjoy going to required chapel services. Yet, when the chapels are made voluntary, human nature takes over to persuade us that our time would be better spent in pursuits other than the worship of God in the community of our fellow peers and professors. My friend, Shane Walker, was one such student until recently.
Shane is a seminary student who will be graduating this May. He is one of the most careful and thorough thinkers I have ever met. Though possessing a benevolent demeanor, Shane will often hit you over the head with his intellectual hammer, forcing you to think seriously about issues you may not have given much thought to before. But more importantly, Shane can also hit you where it really counts... with thoughtful words that convict the heart. By his request, I have decided to post this moving confession which he felt compelled to create and share with others.
In Defense of Chapel and Good Manners
By Shane Walker
I once found a man relieving himself on my lawn. He did not appear to be mad or drunk. I was so shocked that my first comment was idiotic and unintelligible. He smiled and continued. My wife and daughters might come outside at any moment, another woman might pass. This affront had to stop. So, I yelled a clear, precise command and started advancing toward him. Frightened he ran away.
I bring this up to vividly illustrate manners. They are a group of mostly unwritten rules that help us function together as a group by smoothing communication and increasing civility. Without them there is increasing complexity and confusion in social relationships. My mother never told me not to pee in the neighbor's yard or not to type the words I yelled. These things are imbued in us by our culture, affinity groups, families, and so on. We don't generally talk about them, and all groups, small and large, have them.
The case can be made that God gave us manners as part of his common grace. They exist as law without legislation and order without tyranny. Manners are the actions by which we love each other socially. In Japan they bow, in Russia they kiss, and in America we shake hands, but in every case the manners serve to communicate social acceptance or love.
And with this all said, I now have a confession. I have only attended chapel three times since coming to seminary two years ago. This was rude. It was bad manners. It was a sin (and I don't use the word lightly) of omission.
Let me explain why this is so in a very individual case. I have a coworker who lives overseas. His father-in-law is a brilliant scholar who visited campus and gave a chapel address. In his sermon he attempted to demonstrate how it is that we can love our Savior through using the book of Psalms in worship. Afterwards, he stood at the back of the chapel with Dr. Mohler and shook peoples' hands. If I had attended chapel, I could have stood in line, thanked him briefly for showing me how to worship our mutual Lord, and told him how much I appreciated his son-in-law. He might have been encouraged in the Lord. Here he was away from his everyday life, and his son-in-law's friend had stood in line and said hello and talked about the things that he loved. It would not only have been good manners, it would have been the godly thing to do.
But I didn't go to chapel. No, instead I came out of the gym wearing my exercise clothes, recognized him in the hallway, forgot his name, bungled shifting my gym bag to shake hands, and attempted to introduce myself. It was rude, I shamed myself, my friend, and confused a kind Christian scholar away from home.
If I had been in chapel, I would have been dressed appropriately, his name would have been clearly printed in the bulletin, and he would have been ready to be introduced to new people. But in my selfishness, I rejected all of the structures presented to me for the purpose of allowing one Christian to get to know another in a large group. I decided to not love the visiting professor, my friend, or Southern Seminary, but I did love my smallest, least attractive self.
When this behavior that I exhibited is repeated hundreds of times in the same community, something happens, there is a decline in civility and manners within the community. We don't think about manners until they begin to break down. And I suspect within our seminary we are beginning to experience such a tottering.
Every community is defined by what they love. At Southern chapel serves as a time to adore the person we most love, Jesus Christ, as a community. On Sunday mornings we go our separate ways and worship Christ as congregations, but at chapel we worship Christ as a seminary. Further, Christ taught us in the parable of the good Samaritan that it is proximity that creates a neighbor. And we find that chapel is the only time when we can consider as a full community how it is that we should love each other.
Because one cannot preach from the Word without addressing these issues-love of God and love of neighbor-chapel serves as time to consider how to love Christ, our seminary neighbor, and those who are not members of our community. Each speaker, regardless of his denominational commitments or theological loyalties, opens a Bible that can only be applied to teaching us the manners of heaven.
When a speaker comes and is greeted by a half empty chapel, he is not being loved. When we refuse to meet with each other to worship, we are saying not only something about our love for each other, but about our corporate love for Christ. The issue then is that when I didn't attend chapel for any excuse but necessity, I was not loving you my neighbor or Dr. Mohler or Southern Seminary or other Southern Baptists or a visiting professor with a burden to share from the Lord, but I was loving myself. I wasn't quite up to the obvious rudeness of my opening illustration, but it was close, and it was certainly bad manners.
And how did I discover this? Well, the administration is making me go to chapel as a requirement for a class. You see, when manners break down, law becomes necessary. The unspoken understanding must be written down, enforcement mechanisms must be created, and I was proven more uncouth and immature than I had ever understood.
Shane is a seminary student who will be graduating this May. He is one of the most careful and thorough thinkers I have ever met. Though possessing a benevolent demeanor, Shane will often hit you over the head with his intellectual hammer, forcing you to think seriously about issues you may not have given much thought to before. But more importantly, Shane can also hit you where it really counts... with thoughtful words that convict the heart. By his request, I have decided to post this moving confession which he felt compelled to create and share with others.
In Defense of Chapel and Good Manners
By Shane Walker
I once found a man relieving himself on my lawn. He did not appear to be mad or drunk. I was so shocked that my first comment was idiotic and unintelligible. He smiled and continued. My wife and daughters might come outside at any moment, another woman might pass. This affront had to stop. So, I yelled a clear, precise command and started advancing toward him. Frightened he ran away.
I bring this up to vividly illustrate manners. They are a group of mostly unwritten rules that help us function together as a group by smoothing communication and increasing civility. Without them there is increasing complexity and confusion in social relationships. My mother never told me not to pee in the neighbor's yard or not to type the words I yelled. These things are imbued in us by our culture, affinity groups, families, and so on. We don't generally talk about them, and all groups, small and large, have them.
The case can be made that God gave us manners as part of his common grace. They exist as law without legislation and order without tyranny. Manners are the actions by which we love each other socially. In Japan they bow, in Russia they kiss, and in America we shake hands, but in every case the manners serve to communicate social acceptance or love.
And with this all said, I now have a confession. I have only attended chapel three times since coming to seminary two years ago. This was rude. It was bad manners. It was a sin (and I don't use the word lightly) of omission.
Let me explain why this is so in a very individual case. I have a coworker who lives overseas. His father-in-law is a brilliant scholar who visited campus and gave a chapel address. In his sermon he attempted to demonstrate how it is that we can love our Savior through using the book of Psalms in worship. Afterwards, he stood at the back of the chapel with Dr. Mohler and shook peoples' hands. If I had attended chapel, I could have stood in line, thanked him briefly for showing me how to worship our mutual Lord, and told him how much I appreciated his son-in-law. He might have been encouraged in the Lord. Here he was away from his everyday life, and his son-in-law's friend had stood in line and said hello and talked about the things that he loved. It would not only have been good manners, it would have been the godly thing to do.
But I didn't go to chapel. No, instead I came out of the gym wearing my exercise clothes, recognized him in the hallway, forgot his name, bungled shifting my gym bag to shake hands, and attempted to introduce myself. It was rude, I shamed myself, my friend, and confused a kind Christian scholar away from home.
If I had been in chapel, I would have been dressed appropriately, his name would have been clearly printed in the bulletin, and he would have been ready to be introduced to new people. But in my selfishness, I rejected all of the structures presented to me for the purpose of allowing one Christian to get to know another in a large group. I decided to not love the visiting professor, my friend, or Southern Seminary, but I did love my smallest, least attractive self.
When this behavior that I exhibited is repeated hundreds of times in the same community, something happens, there is a decline in civility and manners within the community. We don't think about manners until they begin to break down. And I suspect within our seminary we are beginning to experience such a tottering.
Every community is defined by what they love. At Southern chapel serves as a time to adore the person we most love, Jesus Christ, as a community. On Sunday mornings we go our separate ways and worship Christ as congregations, but at chapel we worship Christ as a seminary. Further, Christ taught us in the parable of the good Samaritan that it is proximity that creates a neighbor. And we find that chapel is the only time when we can consider as a full community how it is that we should love each other.
Because one cannot preach from the Word without addressing these issues-love of God and love of neighbor-chapel serves as time to consider how to love Christ, our seminary neighbor, and those who are not members of our community. Each speaker, regardless of his denominational commitments or theological loyalties, opens a Bible that can only be applied to teaching us the manners of heaven.
When a speaker comes and is greeted by a half empty chapel, he is not being loved. When we refuse to meet with each other to worship, we are saying not only something about our love for each other, but about our corporate love for Christ. The issue then is that when I didn't attend chapel for any excuse but necessity, I was not loving you my neighbor or Dr. Mohler or Southern Seminary or other Southern Baptists or a visiting professor with a burden to share from the Lord, but I was loving myself. I wasn't quite up to the obvious rudeness of my opening illustration, but it was close, and it was certainly bad manners.
And how did I discover this? Well, the administration is making me go to chapel as a requirement for a class. You see, when manners break down, law becomes necessary. The unspoken understanding must be written down, enforcement mechanisms must be created, and I was proven more uncouth and immature than I had ever understood.
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
You Might Be a Theological Liberal If...
1) If you haven't brought your Bible to teach Sunday School in 15 years...
2) If you don't think a loving God would really send anyone to Hell for doing something wrong...
3) If you think you understand the Old Testament better than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...
4) If you think what Jesus really wanted to hear when He asked the disciples to identify the Son of Man was something like, "You're the demythologized essence of kerygmatic truth!"
5) If you cringe whenever someone prays, "Our Father who art in Heaven..."
6) If you think that Jesus went to the Cross merely to show us a good example of obedience and self-discipline...
7) If you believe Jesus was the first socialist...
8) If you refer to Christians who believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ as "ultra-conservative fundamentalists"...
9) If you think that 19th-20th century German theology was the bastion of orthodoxy...
10) If you fear that confessions of faith may lead to a general doctrinal consensus...
Then you might be a Theological Liberal.
2) If you don't think a loving God would really send anyone to Hell for doing something wrong...
3) If you think you understand the Old Testament better than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...
4) If you think what Jesus really wanted to hear when He asked the disciples to identify the Son of Man was something like, "You're the demythologized essence of kerygmatic truth!"
5) If you cringe whenever someone prays, "Our Father who art in Heaven..."
6) If you think that Jesus went to the Cross merely to show us a good example of obedience and self-discipline...
7) If you believe Jesus was the first socialist...
8) If you refer to Christians who believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ as "ultra-conservative fundamentalists"...
9) If you think that 19th-20th century German theology was the bastion of orthodoxy...
10) If you fear that confessions of faith may lead to a general doctrinal consensus...
Then you might be a Theological Liberal.
Saturday, April 22, 2006
You Might Be an Old-School Christian Fundamentalist If...
1. If you refer to the NIV translation of the Bible as "the Not Inspired Version"...
2. If you refuse to allow people to stamp your hand at amusement parks for fear it might be the Mark of the Beast...
3. If your school cheerleaders wore ankle-skirts hemmed with lead weights...
4. If you believe merely donating money to send Jews back to Israel qualifies as missionary work...
5. If you ever found yourself alone in the house as a child and feared you had missed the Rapture...
6. If you both know who Patch the Pirate is and like him (and I'm actually not ashamed to admit to this one)...
7. If you boycott Disney theme parks and movies but still watch ABC or ESPN...
8. If you consider Christians who don't believe in a 7-year Tribulation to be liberals...
9. If you consider John Walvoord, Hal Lindsey, and C. I. Scofield the top three theologians of the 20th century...
10. If you fear that mixed bathing may lead to dancing...
Then you might be an old-school Christian Fundamentalist.
2. If you refuse to allow people to stamp your hand at amusement parks for fear it might be the Mark of the Beast...
3. If your school cheerleaders wore ankle-skirts hemmed with lead weights...
4. If you believe merely donating money to send Jews back to Israel qualifies as missionary work...
5. If you ever found yourself alone in the house as a child and feared you had missed the Rapture...
6. If you both know who Patch the Pirate is and like him (and I'm actually not ashamed to admit to this one)...
7. If you boycott Disney theme parks and movies but still watch ABC or ESPN...
8. If you consider Christians who don't believe in a 7-year Tribulation to be liberals...
9. If you consider John Walvoord, Hal Lindsey, and C. I. Scofield the top three theologians of the 20th century...
10. If you fear that mixed bathing may lead to dancing...
Then you might be an old-school Christian Fundamentalist.
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