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?"