Food and Sports

A few random thoughts on food and sports.

• While visiting friends in Orlando, I learned that the Krispy Kreme near our church closed. There are some that claim that my leaving Orlando was the cause of the closing. However, I don't think I ate that many doughnuts.


• I returned to Colorado Springs and discovered that Panera raised the price on a Cinnamon Crunch bagel from 99 cents to $1.25. For those slow at math, that is a whopping 25% increase. For me, this is significant because every day I don't have a breakfast appointment, I go to Panera at about 7 or 7:30 am for coffee and a Cinnamon Crunch bagel.


• Also, when I left for vacation, we had two sports radio stations. When I returned, I discovered both had gone out of business.


• A couple of years ago on my old blog, I wrote that Roger Federer (tennis) and Tiger Woods (golf) were probably the best athletes of our generation. Both seemed virtually untouchable. Well, it appears that these Supermen have found their Kriptonite. Tiger is out for the season (after winning the US Open with a torn ACL and a broken leg!) and Federer has lost the last to majors to Nadal.


• I played golf a couple of weeks ago for the first time since moving here. I discovered that the high altitude does nothing to improve one's game.

Worship Series

I am beginning a mini-series on worship this Sunday. Because the series is short and there is so much to say, I hope to post several thoughts and links on the topic here.



Using Hymns in a Postmodern World

Few, if any people in my denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) have put as much thought into worship, at least worship music, as Kevin Twit. Here are a number of articles by Kevin and others.



To hear some hymns recasts with modern tunes, go to http://www.igracemusic.com/ and click on any of the five album covers.



By the way, some people don't like it when we "change" the tunes to old hymns. While there is something comforting about the familiar, there are good reasons for this. First of all, if you look through the hymnal, you will notice that most of the tunes were not written at the same time as the text. So, in most cases, there is no "original" tune. Secondly, if you go the back of the hymnal, you will notice that there is a Metrical Index. That index is there so that you will know which tunes can be sung to which texts. There is a long standing tradition of NOT singing hymns hymns to the "traditional" tune. Thirdly, sometimes the tunes we think of as being the "original" just don't fit. I realize that there are some people who love the Scottish Psalter, but it seems that the Scots had a knack for taking glorious psalms and putting them to depressing, unsingable tunes. Fourthly, musical tunes are cultural expressions. Even a cursory glance of music history (and even church music history) will show that the musical style of the church has always been changing. After all, even in the most traditional churches Protestant churches, we sing with the use of hymnals, organs, and pianos, which were not even invented at the time of the early church. The early church didn't even use harmonies. Fifthly, some great hymns with great texts are being lost because they are attached to unsingable tunes or tunes that don't connect with modern and post-modern people. Sixthly, a new tune can make you see familiar words in a new light.

More to come later.

Inviting all Florida Friends

Florida friends, we will be in Orlando this weekend. Our dear friends, the Wheatleys, have secured their clubhouse for a little informal get together. So, we will be at the Cypress Springs Clubhouse from 2-5 PM on Sunday. Hope to see many of you there. Of course, we will be at UPC for worship that morning, which will feel really, really strange, but we are looking forward to it.

Summer Reading

Because of moving and starting a new job, I have done very little reading this past year, other than sermon preparation. However, I plan to get caught up this summer. Here are some of the books I am reading, or plan to read.

The Crescent Through the Eyes of the Cross: Insights from an Arab Christian by Nabeel Jabbour (NavPress). I am about two-thirds of the way through this book. It is very insightful and challenging. In addition, Nabeel is a member of V7PC. He graciously comes by my office about once a month to explain to me the Muslim worldview. The book will challenge your thinking about Muslims. Even more, I hope it will provoke us to view Muslims through love and the cross rather than merely through fear and the news media.

Communion with the Triune God, by John Owen, edited by Kelly Kapic and Justin Taylor (Crossway). I am nearing the halfway point of this book. I must confess that I really struggle to read Owen. Most of the time, I would rather read someone who has read Owen than read him myself. However, Kapic and Taylor have done a wonderful job of making this book more accessible. Kapic's introduction and Taylor's outline help keep you on track. I am reading this one very slowly, but there are many gems in it as Owen helps the reader to contemplate the beauty and majesty of the Trinity.

Also, I plan to read a couple of books recommended to me by friends on the topic of evangelism; Going Public with Your Faith by Peel and Larrimore and The Insiders by Petersen and Shamy.

Others in my book bag for the summer are A Quest for More by Paul Tripp, The Ascent of a Leader, by Thrall, McNicol, and McElrath, and, hopefully some sort of non-fiction book for fun that captures my eye at Barnes and Noble.

Preaching at Village Seven

Last Sunday, I concluded my series on 1 Peter. It had been 17 years since I last studied that book. None of my study from back then carried over. I truly enjoyed studying it again. If I had it to do over again, I would have taken longer to go through it.

Now that we are finished with 1 Peter, many have asked, "What's Next?" During the summer, I will be preaching on a few different topics before I start our next book series in the fall. Here are some of the topics we will cover:

June 15 - Work Hard, Rest Easy - a look at God's gift of the Sabbath in Exodus 16:13-30.

June 22 - Religion and Politics: What's a Christian To Do? (Proverbs 31:1-9). I was going to preach this right before the General Election. However, after talking with some others, that might be too late to be relevant. So, I moved it up to June.

July 13 - August 10 - Encountering God in Worship - This will be a mini-series on worship. In this series, we will look at several different Scriptures, including Psalm 63, John 12, John 4, and Isaiah 6.

During the summer, I spend much of my time studying in preparation for my sermon series for the fall through spring. I plan to do a short series (4-6 weeks) on Ecclesiastes. Despite being nearly 3000 years old, Ecclesiates speaks directly to contemporary people. It is challenging to non-Christians who live as if this world is all there is. It is also challenging to Christians because we have bought into our culture's worldview on so many levels.

After Ecclesiastes, I will begin a series on the book of Genesis.

Some Quick Hits

1. Congratulations to my friend and colleague, Mike Osborne, on being called as Senior Pastor to UPC. I am excited for Mike and the church. Mike and I served together at UPC and he was always a faithful colaborer and is an excellent preacher. Congratulations to UPC. As you already know, you are getting a fine man.
   
2. The other night, we are having dinner and Ashley says, "Dear." I said, "What?" "Dear", she repeated. It turns out she wasn't talking to me. There was a deer in our backyard, followed by 12 of his friends. Actually, most of them were in the yard behind our house, but one hopped the fence into our yard. A little bunny and a robin were there as well. Some of you may think we live out in the country. Actually, our house is pretty close to the center of town, but it is right by the amazing Palmer Park. Two weeks ago, I saw a fox trotting down our street. The same day, I saw a bunch of gazelle running in a field by the airport. Welcome to the wild west.
   
3. To our friends at UPC -- thanks for the gift certificate. I got in 14 days of skiing. My girls are on blues now. We thoroughly enjoyed it all season.
   
4. To our Florida friends -- today, it is about 80 (but no humidity). Tomorrow, it might snow. Ahh! Springtime in the Rockies! Every place I have lived, people have said, "If you don't like the weather, just wait a while and it will change." This is the one place where that is true.
   
5. It's Tax Day and I, along with thousands of other procrastinators, will be going to the Post Office this evening. While I don't get a lot of pleasure out of paying taxes, I am thankful for the freedoms I enjoy and the incredible benefits we all get to enjoy simply because, in the providence of God, we were born in America. We might complain that the government wastes money or that it spends it on things we find objectionable. However, I am pretty sure Jesus and the Apostle Paul could have said the same thing about the Roman Empire. Considering all the people who have died and continue to put themselves in harm's way so that we can enjoy this liberty, taxes are a small price to pay.

Union with Christ

The doctrine of our union with Christ (sometimes called the mystical union--not to be confused with the hypostatic union, which some also call the mystical union) is a powerful doctrine of Scripture that is difficult to teach. Essentially, it means that the Christian is truly united to Christ through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. This union is so real that the Christian actually shares in the body of Christ so that His body becomes our own. Christ also shares in our bodies so that our bodies are actually His own. This is how our sin became His sin and how His death and resurrection became our death and resurrection. This doctrine has rich implications, especially in regard to the sacraments. Even more, it has rich implications on how we live.

A few summers ago, I waded through Walter Marshall's The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification. I say "waded through" even though the book is small, because, like many Puritan classics, it was not easy reading for me. To make matters worse, the edition I read had terrible printing. The typeface was horrible and there were no margins. Just when I finished it, Bruce McRae released a new edition in modern English (with modern typeface). I haven't read the new edition, yet, but plan to this summer.

If I ever write a book (which I doubt I have the discipline to do), I would like to write a book loosely based on The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification, with stories and illustrations to connect with a modern audience.

Marshall's book could be called a celebration of our union with Christ. Here are some quotes from it. Unfortunately, these quotes are in the original English.

Men show themselves strangely forgetful, or hypocritical, in professing original sin in their prayers, catechisms, and confessions of faith; and yet urging on themselves and others the practice of the law, without the consideration of nay strengthening, enlivening means; as if there were no want of ability, but only of activity.

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In order to be able to practice the law, we must have first want to do it, which means we must first be convinced that we are reconciled to God, and be convinced of our future enjoyment, and be convinced of sufficient strength to will and to do all our duties acceptably until we enjoy that future blessed state.

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God has abundantly discovered to us, in His word, that His method in bringing men from sin to holiness of life, is, first to make them know that He loves them, and that their sins are blotted out.

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In order to practice holiness, we must be persuaded of our future enjoyment of the everlasting heavenly happiness.

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Though Christ is in heaven, and we on earth; yet He can join our souls and bodies to His at such a distance without any substantial change of either, by the same infinite Spirit dwelling in Him and us; and so our flesh will become His, when it is quickened by His Spirit;; and His flesh ours, as truly as if we ate His flesh and drank His blood.

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The corrupt natural estate, which is called in scripture the old man, was crucified together with Christ, that the body of sin might be destroyed. And it is destroyed in us, not by any wounds that we ourselves can give it, but by our partaking of that freedom from it, and death to it, that is already wrought out for us by the death of Christ.

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We are naturally so prone to ground our salvation on works, that if we cannot make them procuring conditions and causes of our salvation by Christ, yet, we shall endeavor at least to make them necessary preparatives, to fit us for receiving Christ and His salvation by faith.

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Beggars will make most of their nasty rags, till they are furnished with better clothes; and cripples will not case away their crutches, until they have a better support to lean on.

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Many have fallen into great sin because they do not account the grace of Christ sufficient for their pardon and salvation.

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If Christians knew their own strength better, they would enterprise greater things for the glory of God.

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There are many more. However, let me encourage you to read the book.