Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola partnered to write the Jesus Manifesto: Restoring the supremacy and sovereignty of Jesus Christ. Sweet wants his readers to see Christ not as central to Christianity, but equal to Christianity. The book is written to combat a common Christian problem relayed in a simple story. Christians were touring Leningrad before the fall of the Berlin wall. The tour guide said, “You Christians have a great message, but we Communists will win the world. Christ means something to you. Communism means everything to us.”

I’d rate this book at five stars out of five if Sweet and Viola stuck just to that message. I’ve heard that every age tends to focus on one part of the Trinity. When you focus only on God the father, you end up emphasizing God’s justice and ending up at legalism. If you focus only on Jesus, you tend to end up at the opposite extreme of antinomianism. If you focus on the Spirit alone, you end up…Pentecostal?

Sweet and Viola do well to remind us to re-focus on Christ. We need to hear that call! At the same time, the book would have been more helpful if it had shown us how to do that without the neglect of the rest of the godhead. With that in mind, I give it 4 stars out of 5. It’s a good, quick read that is thought-provoking and should lead you into deeper study and thought about Jesus.

(Oh yeah — I reviewed this through BookSneeze. They gave me a free copy to review — but they don’t get angry if I don’t like their conclusions…)

Luther gave nine “properties and virtues” of a good preacher. What say ye about them?

1. Teach systematically
2. Have a ready wit
3. Be eloquent
4. Have a good voice
5. Have a good memory
6. He should know when to make an end
7. He should be sure of his doctrine
8. He should venture and engage body and blood, wealth and honour, in the word.
9. He should suffer himself to be mocked and jeered of everyone.

Luther’s Table-Talk: ‘Of preachers and preaching’ quoted in Stott’s Between Two Worlds

The subtitle says it all when it comes to this book’s goal: "Unveiling the mystery of a woman’s soul." The book didn’t so much unveil as it did remind. It would be the understatement of the century to say that men and women are different. (Remember Mars and Venus?) Man’s typical understanding of woman is the source of many a comedian’s jokes, but more significantly it’s the root of many of our world’s problems.

John and Stasi remind us men that women think, feel, and process differently. Being cherished isn’t a desire that’s on the top of my radar screen, but the Eldridges remind me that a woman want to be cherished. Remember dress up games and fairy tale endings? Life in the real world hasn’t crushed that innate feminine instinct.

Here’s a great quote that sums up a lot of the authors’ intent: "If we could read the secret histories of our enemies we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostilities."

The book is a great conversation starter. It would be healthy for couples to read this alongside "Wild at Heart" to deepen our understanding of each other. The book is likely guilty of sweeping generalizations at times, but these don’t weaken the spirit of the book. Bottom line: it’s worth the read. Not earth shattering, but if it leads to more open communication between men and women, it could be life changing.

(Disclosure: I received a free reviewer’s copy of the book from BookSneeze.com. I’m allowed to review however I want…I don’t get fired for hating a book!)

O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, so that I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.” Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The message of the resurrection is that this world matters! That the injustices and pains of this present world must now be addressed with the news that healing, justice, and love have won…If Easter means Jesus Christ is only raised in a spiritual sense–then it is only about me, and finding a new dimension in my personal spiritual life. But if Jesus Christ is truly risen from the dead, Christianity becomes good news for the whole world–news which warms our hearts precisely because it isn’t just about warming hearts. Easter means that in a world where injustice, violence, and degradation are endemic, God is not prepared to tolerate such things–and that we will work and plan, with all the energy of God, to implement victory of Jesus over them all. Take away Easter and Karl Marx was probably right to accuse Christianity of ignoring problems of the material world. Take it away and Freud was probably right to say Christianity is wish-fulfillment. Take it away and Nietzsche probably was right to say it was for wimps. — N.T. Wright

The first statement: “We need to realize that everything–it is all about Jesus.”

The second statement: “We need to remember that the church is worth fighting for.”

The “amen” offered to the second statement was easily twice as loud as the first. That caught my attention.

There are several ways I could interpret this:

1. We are living in a time in which people have not defended the church against slander, and it is really, really, really important we start defending her. Or,
2. We like the idea of fighting for something better than we like the idea of personally living for Jesus.

I’ll leave the discussion as an exercise to the readers.

Miller, Sermon Maker p 130

Barbara Brown Taylor raises the same issue:

Sometimes I think we do all the talking because we are afraid God won’t. Or, conversely, that God will. Either way, staying preoccupied with our own words seems a safer bet than opening ourselves up either to God’s silence or God’s speech, both of which have the power to undo us.

So we lose God when he’s quiet, because we’re too loud. We run from him when he gets loud, because we cannot stand the storm of his coming. Either way, we often come to the pulpit without him, having no clear remembrance of our last real conversation.

From Calvin Miller’s “Sermon Maker” page 18.

Not only was he a traitor, he was a fool, for his prize was worthless!

Adapted from The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn.

Adapted from Comeback Churches.

Blessed are the musical, for theirs shall be a never-ending song.

Blessed are those who know the difference between their loving and their lusting, for they shall be pure in heart and understand the reason.

Blessed are those who die for reasons that are real, for they themselves are real.

Blessed are all those who yet can sing when all the theater is empty and the orchestra is gone.

Blessed is the man who stands before the cruelest king and only fears his God.

Blessed is the mighty king who sits beside the weakest man and thinks of all their similarities.

Lost Letters of Pergamum, The: A Story from the New Testament World

Most folks never read books on first century culture and customs–because frankly, they tend to be boring catalogs of information that don’t seem relevant. Longenecker teaches the history, politics, and culture of the first century by using them as the story surrounding the relationship of two men from different worlds.

This book would be well-suited for a Christian book group styled class. There are plenty of scripture references that help you apply the cultural concepts to your understanding of scripture, and as it tells the story of the conversion of Antipas, it has a great deal to say about the evangelistic process. The letters also reveal some great information about the different groups of Jesus’ day (Essenes, Pharisees, Samaritans, etc…) and some of the early heresies within the church.

All in all, this book was a great read. It kept my attention for one sitting…which is a rare, but good sign!

We’re moving on from this class to begin a new one on January 14th. In it we’ll overview the Gospel of John for 20 weeks. I hope that you’ll join us.

Here are our last few weeks of materials. It is my hope and prayer that they will be beneficial to you as you continue your study of God’s word.

1. Week 49: The Early Work of the Church

1. Early Work of the Church PowerPoint Presentation
2. Catch-up Handout Covering Weeks 47-49 (Crucifixion through Acts)

1. Many of you asked some doozies in the past few weeks as we’ve studied the epistles. These are Matthew’s thoughts on answering them fairly in the light of scripture.
2. Hard Questions PDF
3. PowerPoint overview of Romans

1. PowerPoint overview of the Pastoral Epistles

1. Schools of Interpretation in Revelation
2. Overview of the Last Things

Also, if you didn’t get to hear Arnold’s presentation, I hope you’ll go over to the Burns Website. You can view his powerpoint and listen to his lesson there.

This week’s PowerPoint Presentation

Journal of the American Medical Association: On the Physical Death of Jesus

New: This week, I took the PowerPoint and “lecture” portion of class and combined them. Even if you’re on dial-up, you should be able to listen to the class notes and view the slides in sync. Give this a try and let me know! :) Class Presentation on the Death of Jesus.

This week, we attempted to go through every parable of Jesus and extract a simple meaning. Good luck to you!

Enjoy a powerpoint and handout from the teachings of Jesus.

Two handouts this week:

High Points of the Ministry of Jesus PowerPoint

Jesus Ministry Begins Word Document

When Jesus arrives — it’s a big deal!

This week’s files are zipped to include several links for further study as well as the powerpoint introduction to the new testament and a handout offering some possibilities for understanding the genealogies in Matthew and Luke.

Enjoy!

(Aside: Does anyone else get really annoyed that Microsoft Word’s built-in spelling dictionary doesn’t have the books of the Bible? Would that be so hard???)

Week 42 PowerPoint Presentation

Malachi is one of the great questioners of all time–and his retelling of God’s questions for man and man’s questions for God serves as an excellent spiritual check-up list for any of us.

Here’s this week’s PowerPoint.

Apocalypse Now, an essay by N.T. Wright about apocalyptic literature in the Bible.

Week 39 PowerPoint: Visions of Daniel and the end of Job

We considered the problem of pain and suffering. God points out Job to Satan. Were it not for His actions, we could assume that Job’s life would have missed the suffering he experienced, and so on.

We looked at files from other congregations. Here are their materials:

Lessons from the Book of Job

A Sermon from Job

More to come next week…

If you exist, I just wanted to let you know that I’m now caught up. Thanks to RememberTheMilk.com, I’ll now have a weekly reminder to put the PowerPoint files from our Wednesday night study of F. Lagard’s Chronological Bible on the site.

Sorry for the delay. I back-dated the posts to help with organization…

First, an artist’s rendering of Ezekiel’s vision from Ezekiel 1. Pretty good, if you ask me…

Second, this week’s PowerPoint introduction to Ezekiel.

Finally, thanks to the VERY good people at Crossway, the introduction to the new, upcoming ESV Study Bible that you should preorder now, while still discounted. ESV Study Bible Intro to Ezekiel. 

(FYI, it also includes an interview with the scholar who wrote this amazingly difficult commentary. His study method is mind-boggling. He has a sheet that has three columns: the Hebrew text, the Septuagint (greek), and the ESV…and he bases his comments off those texts. Enjoy!)

Then a look at maps of war — The Imperial History of the Middle East.

Last, but certainly not least, our lovely PowerPoint.

Here’s this week’s PowerPoint covering some of Isaiah and Nahum.

I have become what I despise.

I can’t get my head around the divided kingdom’s kings and prophets without a little bit of visual help. We worked through some stories about Elijah and Elisha this past week and looked at a compilation of old testament timelines of the divided kingdom and timelines of old testament prophecy.

For my convenience, (not yours!), I’ve wrapped all the timelines and the presentation into a zip file. Enjoy!

I hope this story retold by John Piper about famous minister Charles Wesley will motivate you to consider that calling. As you read it, do two things: consider the timing–Wesley was a “spring chicken” of Christendom, and bring the story to modern culture. Would you spend the night on death row?

Enjoy Charles Wesley’s Radical, Fruitful Risk.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ’s birth and His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion and His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection and His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of cherubim,
In obedience of angels,
In service of archangels,
In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In the prayers of patriarchs,
In preachings of the apostles,
In faiths of confessors,
In innocence of virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven;
Light of the sun,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of the wind,
Depth of the sea,
Stability of the earth,
Firmness of the rock.

I arise today
Through God’s strength to pilot me;
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s way to lie before me,
God’s shield to protect me,
God’s hosts to save me
From snares of the devil,
From temptations of vices,
From every one who desires me ill,
Afar and anear,
Alone or in a multitude.

I summon today all these powers between me and evil,
Against every cruel merciless power that opposes my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of women and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man’s body and soul.

Christ shield me today
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that reward may come to me in abundance.
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through a confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.

This week we discussed proverbs in depth, and played a little Proverb fill-in-the blank. I hope you enjoyed and learned a bit as we had fun with them. This week’s handout and PowerPoint file about studying Proverbs is in a zip file. Several of you mentioned that you’ve had trouble opening these.

If you’re using Windows XP or Vista, you have a built-in zip file opener. If not, you’ll need to download something like WinZip or 7Zip to do the trick.

To open the zip files, after you’ve got one of those programs or operating systems–simply right click on the link, select “save target as” and once the file is downloaded, click open. This will open a folder that will show you all of the files inside. A zip file is basically a compressed package that holds several files within it…that way, you only have to download one file instead of two or three, and I only have to upload one. See? Win-win! :-)

You then should be able to see the files. This week’s package includes a PDF Handout (requires Acrobat Reader) and a PowerPoint Viewer (either from Microsoft or a third-party). If you have any questions, please send me an email or leave them in the comments.

Here’s the awareness test video and the temple fly-through.

Jesus thinks so. He once warned a man who was upset about his family’s inheritance to “take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” (Luke 12:15). He offered this teaching right before telling a parable about a rich man who hoarded his good and looked forward to a luxurious retirement. Do you remember what Jesus called this man? A fool! (12:20).

Almost every news story I saw this week talked about the economy. Gas is approaching $4 per gallon. Rice and flour are rationed in some stores. Homes are in foreclosure and the stock market has been wavering. Is this news bothering you? For most Americans, the answer is “yes!”

Being light in a dark world means that we should be different. Remember when Jesus said “Seek ye first the kingdom of God”? He meant that our focus should be on kingdom-building instead of keeping a worried eye on the evening news.

If we’re truly different, and if we truly have the comfort and peace that passes understanding, we can learn to “consider the lilies of the field” (Lk 12:27) and learn to be content in whatever situations we find ourselves in (Philippians 4:11).

We’re getting “economic stimulus” checks sometime in the next month. Have you thought about what you’ll do with yours? The government is giving you an opportunity to glorify the name of Jesus. (That doesn’t happen every day!) Will we build bigger barns, lay up treasures on earth, get new toys, and try to buy contentment OR will we build up the kingdom of God? This is a great opportunity to help our missionaries or the needy…or even begin a new ministry!

So, think about how the world and the Savior will see your actions. The choice is ours: economic stimulus or spiritual stimulus? Let’s seek first his kingdom.