Just a crumb - There's something about God

An amazing thing about self-giving love is that because of God, it's indestructible.

Our God is so great that even as he hung on a cross, being destroyed and shamed, in so doing he destroyed the power of that destruction and nullified it.  He poured out his self-giving love with the ultimate result that He himself was made whole.  Our God is so great that His martyrdom is not self-destructive of His Self, nor is His Self-giving able to lessen Him.

As an awesome flow-on, the redeeming power of the Christ-event is so great that the self-giving of those who are in Christ is similarly not destructive to self, but in Him is indestructible.

Feeling the love

Inspired by a fantastic conversation on a long car-trip with a loved brother yesterday, I've decided that I'm on a campaign to encourage a language change.

I reckon that instead of thinking about "self-esteem", maybe us Christians should instead be thinking about "God's-love-esteem".

Christians ought to get our sense of value from God's gracious love for us.  Right?  It's not that we're so worthwhile that God loves us (self-esteem thinking in drag). The truth is that we are bestowed incredible honour and value because of God's love for us.  The other way around.  His love being the giver of worth.

God's love brought him to create you, in His image, for relationship with Him.  A fact that should lead to wonder that he's done so, ala Psalm 8.  (Seriously, go read it.  Now!  ;)  )  On top of that, for those who're reading this who belong to Jesus, God loves you with an everlasting, unbreakable, infinite and personal love that he demonstrated at the cross.

But sometimes, as my dear brother shared, that just doesn't feel like it's enough.  It doesn't "do anything for me".  I'd probably get a bigger boost from a 'like' on my latest selfie.

So I reckon what we really need is more "God's-love-esteem".  That is, how much esteem do you hold for the fact that God loves you?  How highly do you value it?  How much do you allow the fact that God loves you to affect your personal sense of worth?

In other words, are you feeling the love?  Are you letting the objective reality of God's love for you affect your subjective experience?  How's your "God's-love-esteem"?

So, what do you reckon?  Instead of abandoning self-esteem for nothing, can we replace it with "God's-love-esteem"?

Or come up with something that's better, catchier and easier to remember but means the same thing. And then email it to me so I can edit this post.  :D

Bonus Mini-crumb

I wonder if a part of the reason that the video is powerful is in that it actually agrees with me, at one level.  Why did they do it the way they did it?  Why a person, particularly a young, masculine, strong, attractive person, telling you that you're amazing and that you're loved?

I reckon it could be because instinctively the creators understood that human value is bestowed.  That's the power of the video.  It forms a relationship between the speaker and the listener.  In their eyes, you are awesome and therefore, you feel a sense of worth bestowed by that relationship.

That's why it matters who did the speaking.  Would the video have worked if they'd cast this guy?

You're worth it

This video is doing the rounds at the moment.  If you're of the female persuasion, I'm very interested in what you think of it.  Christian or non-Christian, though it seems targeted at Christian lasses.

I'd be more than happy if you watched it and maybe wrote some thoughts in the comments before reading my couple of bread-crumbs.  It'd be great to understand your initial response.

My thoughts?

Well, women are totally awesome creations.  You're made as the final piece of the jig-saw puzzle, co-pinnacle of creation.  You've been given the role as the image-bearers of the triune God to the rest of creation, ruling it as God's stewards.  As psalm 8 would say it, you're made just a little lower than elohim (God or the gods).  So personally, I've got a lot of time for a lot of the things old mate says.  I like how he's trying to combat false self-image with truth.

But as he goes on, he starts messing up the truth part.  He might be trying to be nice, but he's actually messing things up for women everywhere.  He'll mess up your whole sense of value if you go with this.  Seriously.  Because he makes out that your value is something that's independent from God.

And that's something I care about.

The brooding "I wish you could see how amazing you are" bloke in the video gets the cart before the horse.  He says that God looked at women and saw something worth dying for.  It goes the other way around.

God made women to be of amazing value.  It is God's generous gift that you are such.  This is why the same psalm 8 that says you're a smidge short of divinity itself also asks:

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?

Your value isn't something that flows from you and God recognises.  Uh uh.  It's something that flows from God and you get to be thankful for.  It is a humbling self-esteem boost.  A value that flows from relationship rather than an independent declaration of 'inherent' value.

And it's this, of course, that means that the great psalm talking about the glory and splendour of humanity both starts and ends with:

Yahweh, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You just won't praise God from the heart like that unless your glory and splendour is bestowed, rather proved or earned.  (Bonus Mini-crumb)  This is just basic human value. Without even taking into account sin messing us up, our value flows from the grace of God.  Now I'd love to go into how that works for the post-fall humanity and how the gospel is where we find our value (ie, in Christ), but I think it'd be too long and you'd stop reading, so I'll just give an example of it.

If I was as attractive as the dude in the vid (is he, by the way?  I've been wondering) I'd make a similar video.

I'd look moodily into the camera, and try to get you to believe that God loves you.  Not for who you are, but as you are.  That you're a treasure because you're treasured by Him.  I'd try to get that false idea out of your head that God couldn't possibly really love you because you're convinced you're not loveable.

Or maybe I shouldn't.  God probably says it better.  And because response videos copying the style of the original are lame.

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by his favour you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might express the incomparable riches of his favour, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. (Eph 2:5-7)

He has set his love upon you, and that makes you valuable.  In a way nothing else can.  And he's inviting every woman on this planet to experience that love.

At time of writing the video has 191,870 shares on Facebook.

Miley, Robin and why we really reacted

First it was "Tut, tut Miley."  Next came the cry "No, shame on you Robin!".  With pendulums swinging all over the place here, the analysis seems to take amazing delight in its ability to gush forth with moral outrage.

The difficulty that I have with ducking the pendulum swinging from one to the other is that the decisions to make music videos of a similarly sexual nature are made every day and there's not a blink of an eye-lid.  The raunch and skin on display on that stage seemed to me remarkably unremarkable.  (I didn't watch the whole thing, so I may need correction on that)

So why the outcry?

The outcry about the narrative of Miley Cyrus has been pinned as justification for knotted knickers.  Once such a wholesome icon of goodness, Miley's shocked the world by turning slutty.

Except, that she hasn't.  Surprised us, that is.  Cyrus is only following a well-worn path trod by Brittney and others before her.  The shock and horror has nothing to do with Miley's, totally expected, sexualisation.

I suspect that the reason that it has gained so much traction is because it was simply bad.  It undeniably had no positive aesthetic qualities, let alone redeeming ones.  Cyrus' attempts to find a value and identity fell flat in amongst a sea of cheap and nasty sexual stunts.  If she'd been as tasteful as, say, Rihanna who has equally fallen victim to raunch culture, then I suspect we'd have only seen about half the outrage that's come about.

And so, amongst the evils of exploitation of women so rife in our culture, we can add the sin of only really caring about it when they do it badly.

Why Kutzey can't preach #1

I think I do this a bit, and I'm starting to think it's dumb.  What do you think?

While illustrations and jokes are really helpful in all sorts of ways, I've noticed that sometimes I'll make a joke that makes light of a possible and amusing, but wrong, way of reading a text.  The flow ends up being something like this:

Describe next bit of passage (Ie, "God brings the animals before Adam to see whether they might be a suitable helper for him")  

Entertain wrong understanding of passage (Ie, "Does this mean that God really thought an animal could be a suitable helper for Adam?")  

Make 'amusing' comment by extending possibility to the ridiculous (Ie, "You know, Adam, bulls are pretty handy. They can pull a plow. So they don't look so good in a mini-skirt. So what?")  

Plausible denial (Ie, "Of course God didn't think that, what he's really doing is...")

Ok, so this is a particularly dud example of it.  I couldn't come up with something better on the spot, sorry.

But I think what I end up doing by using this kind of construction is drawing attention away from the text.  Instead, if I use positive illustrations and jokes that utilise the surprising elements of what IS there in the text, then I'm drawing attention to how interesting and surprising God's word is.

The alternative is, I think, a bit bland.  But not only bland, I think by laughing at the ridiculous possibilities of getting the text wrong, it can create a bit of an 'insider' atmosphere of "of course we don't think that!" where we laugh at wrong understandings, rather than thinking them through.

This is all a bit unpolished thought, so I'd love to get some wisdom from all you peeps out there.  Any thoughts on this or related preaching bits and bobs?

QTC preaching week - O'Donnell #2

7 quotes of WL in NT.  Most are asking the question: How do we respond to the reality of God's judgement.

Tip #2: Gospel ethics .

The cross should use the cross not to 'let people off the hook' but to drive them on in godliness.

Proverbs 31 -> Advice to a young man on what to look for in a wife.

Chiastic structure, and the middle of the poem is v23 "Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land." (Pro 31:23 ESV)

So, the point is about what kind of wife a man is wise to look for.

What to look for?  Well, there's lots of action words!  A group of young men should be excited at the industriousness of a member of the opposite sex.

Point #1: she should be industrious.
Point #2: she should be fearless, of the present and the future
Point #3:

He got to be the head honcho (v23), because of her work.  He married well.

Charm is often deceptive, and beauty is always fleeting.

Boaz selected his wife by his ears, rather than by his eye.  Oh that we would do the same.

Lady Wisdom has been calling all through proverbs, and by proverbs 31 she has taken on flesh and blood.

Every man has a choice between Lady Folly and Lady Wisdom.  Wisdom is at first not an intellectual concept, but a relational one.  Response to God. (?)

How is a woman to gain the praise of the world?

She is praised because of her sacrifice.  Because of her sacrifice of personal glory.

How ought a man find a wife?  Find one who fears God and serves.
How ought a woman find praise from God and others?  To fear God and serve.

QTC Preaching Week - Plenary #1 - Gary Millar

The Wisdom of God: Preaching, Wisdom and Prayer

"God works through preaching"

A big statement, but to which end of that clause is the weight?

Does God work through preaching?  Or does God work through preaching?

It is GOD who works through preaching.  A deep conviction about this reality will drive us not to work harder on our sermons, but to PRAY.

2 problems: one general and one specific.

1: A general lack of prayer.
2: Specifically, do we pray for preachers if we're listeners?  And do we pray for our preaching if we're preachers?

The rise of and emphasis on small groups has come, Gary suspects, at the cost of prayer meetings and prayer in those small groups.

Often it seems that as teaching quality goes up, emphasis on prayer goes down.

Why?  Gary has a few thoughts.

1. The emphasis on training and reliance upon trained people decreases our reliance upon God.  They're trained, why would I need to pray?
2. Dangers of the digital consumption of preaching?  Takes preaching out of the context of relationship, and holds all preaching up is compared up against the big guns.  It breaks the connection between praying and preaching.

God uses people not because they're gifted but because he is gracious.  If we believe this then we will pray.  And we will pray for preachers.

What do I make the most of?  My training?  My gifting?  My creativity?  My wisdom?

Or do I make the most of the grace of God, and pray?

Preparation can crush devotion.

In Acts 6 it seems that prayer and ministry of the word seems to clearly mean prayer FOR the ministry of the word.  Gary suggests that prayer for the impact of the apostles' preaching is a no brainer.

Double challenge:

1. Resolve to make a habit of praying for your own preaching of the Word.
2. Make sure that our churches pray together for preaching.

In a church Gary was once in, a phrase that was the heartbeat of the church was "the ministry of the Word, nourished by prayer."  It was a church where it was clear that God showed up when His people gather and heard his Word.

God is strong.  We are weak.  Pray.

QTC Preaching Week - Gospels Elective with Luke Tattersall #1

First thing:  Work out the structure (particularly important for gospels because it can be hard to tell!)

To preach on a bit, you have to have some idea of the purpose of the gospel, where the gospel writer is going with this.

Encouraging us to work out our own  idea first before bouncing off other people's structures.

Two levels of structure: the structure of the book, and then the breakup you do for your preaching series.

"The question that I keep coming back to in how to break up passages into preaching portions is: will this break-up help people learn to read this book for themselves?"

QTC preaching week - O'Donnell #1

"Our adult age doesn't bring us so near to God as we are apt to think" - Jonathan Edwards

The wisdom literature puts us in our place, for the Lord alone has heavenly wisdom.  He alone is truly wise.  Knowledge of the Holy One can't be gained from within us.  We can't fathom the one who gathers the waters and winds in his hand.

The key to wisdom: the fear of Yhwh.

Ultimately, God's wisdom is displayed in Christ crucified.  He is no fool who abandons human wisdom to follow a secret but now revealed foolishness, which is the perfection of heavenly wisdom.


Tip #1 for preaching Wisdom Literature (WL): Gospel Awe.

The necessary bridge between hermeneutics and homiletics.
There is a certain ethos that must go with preaching WL.

Holiness brings happiness.
Purity gives power.

The preacher's awe builds ethics as much as the preacher's ethos.

"Amazing condescencion, that God would become a man and have a genealogy."  Charles Spurgeon.  (in a sermon on Matthew 1)

Listening: the appropriate subjectiveness of truth

I think that in my younger years I at times suffered from an inappropriate oversimplification of my understanding of truth.  From my adult interactions with others, I can see that I was never alone in this.

Truth is always something that is contained within a certain frame of reference.  If I'm travelling in a car on the freeway, the car next to me may look like it's standing still.  Is it?  Some would say, "But it's not!  It's driving 5kmh over the limit!".

Yet if my 9 month old son were to magically be able to speak and said "That car's not going anywhere."  I'd agree with him.  Because that statement speaks truthfully of our experience of it.  It is true, within our frame of reference.  It's a narrow frame of reference, but the statement is an entirely valid expression of the experience of someone from within it.

Which is what allows me to listen well.  Well, better.

When I listen to someone, this allows me to listen actively and acknowledge their thoughts, experiences and feelings.  I can honestly nod my head when listening to someone explain how a situation affected them, even when I might have a totally different understanding of that situation.  I can truly hear that person, and allow them to feel heard and understood.

He who answers before listening--that is his folly and his shame. (Pro. 18:3)

All too often I have in the past, and sometimes still do, fail to hear a person well because I'm too busy putting together my 'objective' take on the situation.  We can all too easily invalidate a person's experience by helping them see it from another angle before we've acknowledged what it looked and felt like from their camera angle.

Our subjective experiences are real.  Real to us.  They are a truth, in that sense, however untrue they may be when a larger body of facts and broader perspective is available.  Having someone sit with you in your experience and feeling what you're feeling is a powerful thing. Being understood is massively powerful.

A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.   (Pro. 18:2)

In fact, often it is enough on its own to enable that person to evaluate their perspective and self-correct.  And you've managed to do so without ever acting as if you've got the omniscience to know all truth as God knows it.

When I was younger, I'd baulk at nodding my head to indicate understanding if I disagreed with what the other person was saying.  It was amazing how quickly my body language and posture towards them would make it clear that I was no longer with them, hearing them, understanding them and how quickly the other person would close up.

Understanding the appropriate subjectivity of truth allows me to acknowledge the other person's experience as their experience, and so to hear and understand them well without being scared of lying by nodding or saying 'right' as I listen.  To acknowledge their experience is not to validate their interpretation of it.

Listening is a language of love.  And it's only in love that the truth builds up.

Resurrection account: implications for manchester?

I suspect that there are some implications for the accounts of the resurrection that have not been yet rightly understood. Firstly, let's see what John has to say:

Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus ' head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. (John 20:6-7 ESV)

I propose that there are two exegetical implications for this passage:

1: Making one's bed is entirely unnecessary.

Now of course some will protest that Jesus wasn't going to sleep there again and so this principle isn't transferrable to non-necrotic settings. This, I propose, is negated by Jesus' knowledge that the angels and even some disciples would see the tomb in its unkempt state. If Jesus is happy to have beings, spiritual and corporeal, witness his room in a certain state then I'm happy to leave my room in that state while it's private. (This also provides assurance that if an angel did visit my room through the day that it'd be cool.)

2: You do need to have your pillow in its correct spot.

Now in saying this, I'm not suggesting that one needs to do this oneself. From the passage it's impossible to tell whether Jesus folded the face cloth, or whether his angelic minions did that for him. Hooking up some sort of spiritual housemaid would be heaps cool. But, failing this, you should probably pick your pillow up off the floor.

Does anyone else have any more neglected exegetical principles from the resurrection accounts?