WALL TO WALL FOOTBALL 2010

Getting anxious thinking about a new campaign of high school football.
My 19th year as a coach and my 7th as a head coach.

Never had more loose ends to start- never felt better at the start.

These players and coaches have worked... and I mean WORKED!

On Friday I weighed in at 198 lbs- accomplishing my goal to break 200 before the season begins.
That is a total weight loss of 48 lbs and I will post later on how the Lord helped me do it.

Today I ran in a 5K.
Tomorrow I will teach Sunday School and meet with our coaches 1 more time..

AND Monday..... it begins again. I am a blessed man!


No clue as how it will go.

I honestly believe though, that this is my shape. It is what my Father wants me to do.

Starting Monday, there will be at least 14 consecutive weeks of planning, practice, evaluations, adjustments, and competition. If it goes really well, it might go 5 more after that.

It is impossible to describe the ride. I have included a little journal I kept one week in a recent season that represents the inner life... what is spinning in my brain.

I get real quiet when I am away from the team during these times... but inside, my brain is in overdrive.

If you think about it, please pray for all football coaches everywhere... the madness is about to begin.

MY INNER LIFE DURING FOOTBALL SEASON
A Journal....

I wanted this AM to record what seems to be the annual recurring haunting of my mind during football season.

I think about football almost every day…year round. It’s hard not to, my life is shaped like a football. I developed an early passion for it, I have a lifetime of memories, both good and bad within my football life.

I have been coaching since 1991 and the inner experience has been almost identical each year. I spend an enormous amount of inner energy rehearsing the game in my mind. I rehearse plays, formations, motions, scenarios, injuries, per game talks, post game talks, play parent conversations, pray, anxious thoughts.

My wife points out every season how quiet I am. Inside, though, it is a screaming madness. I love my family and friends, but during the rigors of a week to week football schedule, they seem to me like I am underwater and they are on the surface calling out to me.

I wish for my brain to turn off sometimes. I find that flipping channels on TV gives me some relief. Eating gives me relief too, but it is not good for my weight or health.

About 2 weeks into the season, I get flickers in my eyelids. It is like the film I watch burns a shadow image on my eyelids. I close my eyes and still see the faint outlines of plays, wide angle, in motion.

My week starts on a Friday night- it is after the game and I am about to watch the film of the event that I have worked for all week. After a win, it is the most satisfying feeling in all the world. When we lose, I am anxious to see all the breakdowns.

I am so keyed up on a Friday night that I will usually not get to sleep before 2 AM. I lay in bed and the rehearsal goes on and on. I see it over and over. I hear it. And I start thinking about adjustments for the next game. What about our depth? Who will center if ______- gets hurt? ______ looked sad after the game. I hate that _____is hurt.

Saturday morning I am up early, I am anxious to read about our game and all the other games. I usually swap film with the next week’s team. College football only fuels my mind. I constantly look at what the innovators are doing. I like that blocking scheme for dart.

There are other things to be done, Grass cutting, kid’s activities, social appointments, girls soccer, occasional youth football game I need to attend… Saturday night, I am in meltdown. I yearn for my bed with an enormous longing. I usually crash hard, unless the game that night is really good.

Sunday morning, I actually think about the Lord… Church today, and I am excited, Worship is a release. I do catch myself thinking football plays during lulls in the service, but I am usually caught up in the reality of my sin and the grandeur of God. I thank Him over and over.

I love teaching Sunday School during football season, it forces me to keep in the Word and prayer. It is an accountability measure. I love the fellowship. When we win, I get a lot of fun conversations. When we lose, I get some encouragement- but I am also surprised how some people run from me. Maybe it is awkward for them?… not sure.

Sunday afternoon, my freest day! A nap is welcomed! I feel human again. My family is not separated by water! I eat and rest. Football is on, but the pro game does not interest my imagination- I am a passive fan. I do love the Titans, because I love Jeff Fisher and Mike Reinfeldt!


Sunday night, let me forget football…but if it is a big game, forget it. The bigger the game, the faster the haunting begins. I just hope for sleep.

Monday morning- swamped with anxiousness. I work in a frenzy- I have to get the game plan started. I have to watch the opponent. I have to draft the practice schedules. Travel? Weather? Injuries? Back-up plans? School week- and yes, I am expected to do very well as a classroom teacher....

Monday afternoon/evening:- team meeting- recap of Friday- Good/bad/ugly- watch film- teach-teach-teach- lift weights-introduced the new opponent- conditioning- kicking game- 7 on 7. Coaches meetings- go over each player- how are we doing? What are challenges? What are tweaks? How do we size up the opponent? Phone calls. A parent is not happy with me and another is thrilled.
I wrap the day up between 7 and 8PM. All the way home, my mind is scheming. I play scenarios over and over. How do they see us? What will they be thinking? What might be their plans? What do we need to rep? Monday night football helps- Bill O’Reily is an excellent distraction. He is provocative and it shuts off my brain. I close my eyes. The flicker is there. I pray. I feel so sorry for my wife, she needs more of me. But I am possessed. Lord, keep it together until the season is over. Help me take advantage of breaks and opportunities. I love my wife and children more than football. It is hard to prove that right now.

Tuesday morning- I got about 7 hours sleep unless it is a big game. If it is a big game, when I wake up- I am up. I hope is is 5:45, but sometimes it is 4:30 or 4 or sadly, sometimes 3:30. I toss and turn, pray, think, and get up.

Last time to really get opponent down- I watch the film again- who are their danger guys? Where are the weaknesses? What are the tendencies? Do they see them? How does the match ups work?

Tuesday Afternoon- BIG DAY/WORK DAY- Meetings and weights- install the plan- teach/teach/teach- Are we focused? Full pads- long, hard practice…tempo tempo- Lord, please keep us healthy-
6:30- practice ends. Usually I feel really good or bad right now. Good practice is a must! It is darker now- we are all tired. I love the laughter in the locker room- great spirit! Coaches laughing- such a great time! Thank you lord!

Tuesday night- I re-engage with the kids- so good to see them! How was the day (and I usually mean 2 days)- I look at my wife- thank you Lord for such a good woman. No words can relate the love I have for my wife of 23 years- see just can’t see it much during the haunting.

Wednesday morning- Deadlines- Scouting report finished- SS finished- playcards have to be finished, printed, laminated, distributed, I spend most of Wednesday on School and Sunday School- grading- recording- planning-

Wednesday afternoon- shorter practice- rehearsal- last reps- sometimes we review Tuesday practice tape- last weightlifting day- usually a fun practice- over at 6PM- church dinner- assistant coaches start painting the game field.

Wednesday night- I start calling the game in my head- 1st and 10- 2nd and long- 2nd and short- good runs- good passes- 1st play- kickoff or receive?- I study the weather map and forecast- big games I start to get nervous- my stomach feels queasy-

Thursday morning- I’m pumped- it’s Thursday! Thursdays are good. I rehearse the game plan. I’m getting a mental rhythm. Time to call next week’s coach and arrange a film swap. I will sometimes take a sneak peek at the next opponent.

Thursday afternoon- quick meeting- walk thru- team devotion- get them out of here ASAP- feel good- Hay’s in the barn.

Thursday evening- I like a good college game or middle school game. Hopefully I will sleep. I work hard to have no caffeine after lunch. Good family time- End of the week is here. If I lay down and fall asleep quickly- YEAH!- If I start playing the game mentally, it may be a long night. Please don’t wake up before 5:00.

Friday morning- I’m juiced! No tie day- YES!- Quick look at weather and our equipment. Were headsets plugged in? Mom’s prayer group list…DONE! Thank you for those prayers! Good to see our team in ties- I don’t feel badly at all to be in a golf shirt- LUNCH WITH BOOSTERS- fun,light- have to hurry back to class-

3:00 Coaches devotion- the most spiritually intense hour of my week. We lay it out to the Lord- a great time of fellowship- I love my coaches!

4:30 Players arrive- food arrives- I don’t want to eat, but if it is good- I do- I usually feel heavy pressure and adrenaline- I pray- I pee a hundred times from 3-7- I sometimes feel sick- The first few games I feel out of breath because I am not used to the adrenaline. Later in the year, I handle it better- pre game- I look at the other team- they look a lot better in person- I watch my team- are we focused? Smooth?

Meet with officials- I give them captains- I give them information and go through my checklist- and study their faces- is this crew going to be good to us? For some strange reason, I never feel nervous after the official’s meeting- I guess I’m fully now in the combat zone.

The locker room before the game is cool. I always pray very earnestly, Lord I can’t do this without you.

We go out and the game is always a blur. It is never predictable. Highs and lows and a roller coaster of emotional shifts in momentum. I have gotten a lot better about thinking well during the game and cutting mental mistakes down.

Nothing is more thrilling than a big win. It is the ultimate coming together of plan, work, brotherhood, and fight! Nothing wounds more than a heartbreaking loss.

After the game, I go around and hug a lot. I love seeing our players and fans happy. I see my wife and girls. They soothe me well in the losses. Thank you for being here!

And the film turns on. More flickers are burned.

When the season is over, my body totally shuts down and I get sick for about three days. A few days after that the flicker is gone and the madness is over…until next season.

QUESTIONS:
Is this serving the Lord or a convenient distraction?
Am I sacrificing my family for my obsession?
Have I misplaced priorities?
Can someone help me?
Am I just a typical idolater?
How can I be better? How can I do it better?
Soli Deo Gloria- To God Alone Be the Glory!

Possibilities, Probabilities, and Presuppositions: Our Test-Tube Mindset

I'm completely off the cuff on this Monday, but have had a number of conversations recently that ultimately focused on our prison of pre-suppositions.

What am I talking about? Ultimately, it relates to our nature as human beings, the indwelling of sin, the condition of our hearts, and how we are subtly trained in how to think and our ability to discern.

We are children of the enlightenment: our schools, consensus opinions, and cultural norms are not shaped in a vacuum- they are ingrained into our very core through powerful, cultural systems.

And that is what 'pre-supposition' is all about. It is the core belief system that we all hold to (even subconsciously) that filters, fits, and even shapes the information we receive according to our world-view.

Now, people react with various levels of hostility when I say that ultimately, all men live by faith. It is the one statement that makes Richard Dawkins lash out in a temper tantrum.

He and many others would say that we must divide reason from faith. The mindset is that reason/science is reasonable and faith is illogical. The concept is sometimes coined "NOMA" and stands for non-overlapping magisteria- and basically says let's compartmentalize faith/transcendence/religion/supernatural into the realm of private/unknowable/nuanced/mystic experiences and keep it totally separate from science and technology.

This thinking has had amazing consequences (intended and unintended):

• All belief has become relative and personal. You can have your belief, but it better stay inside and it cannot claim exclusivity.

• Science/reason has become secular- seeming to be without morals. We will only stand by what we can observe through the scientific method.

• The realm of the supernatural is rather ludicrous to the modern thinker and only represents what has yet to be discovered by science.

• Anyone who believes in the supernatural is relegated to irrelevancy and is suspected of being too lazy to close the 'god in the gaps".

I wanted to stop here and confess with great heartache that the Church has performed so poorly in this area. At a time when we should have been engaging culture with confidence that God's truth would still compete and stand in the marketplace of ideas- we committed two fatal flaws.

Flaw #1: Some in the church decided to hollow out the message of Christianity and replaced it with a Jesus of deeds and morals and denied any supernatural testimony. This slippery slope was driven out of a desire to 'save face' to the skeptics, philosophers, and intellectual elite. So scholars began to chip away at foundation claims of Scripture. Any hard truth was softened by explanations of natural cause and effect. Word began to creep in 'myth'- 'legend'- 'agenda'- and these defenders of the truth capitulated at every challenge.
Flaw#2: Others in the church (maybe seeing an easy out) decided to drop contentious doctrine all together. This thinking was something like: "All this fighting over doctrinal issues is complicating the matter, just give me Jesus". Whether realizing it or not, it was a vote for NOMA. I imagine these people saying something like this: "I don't care what they say. Jesus said it, I believe it. You either are from a monkey or a man. Don't confuse me with science, I have my Bible- you have your science". Sadly, this was a retreat that is not warranted in Scripture.

What should have been our response? What should be our response now?
I guess you know me well enough by now to know that Princeton is close to my heart. The old reformers at Princeton stayed in the dialogue with unflinching anticipation and eager excitement.

The Princeton goal was finding the essential unity of  theology and science.

They believed this followed the tradition of Calvin- “ Science is the elegant structure of the world and serves as a mirror in which we see God”.

    “Science gives us the full accord of facts. It costs the church a severe struggle to give up one interpretation and adopt another, but no evil need to be apprehended. The Bible still stands in the presence of the whole scientific community, unshaken”. Charles Hodge

An example of this is how Hodge and Princeton reacted to Darwin's theory.

Princeton received “Origin” with great interest in 1859- the year it was published.
In 1862, Charles Hodge noted Darwin’s own admissions: “His frank admission of  the difficulties of the theory and in the absurdity of its conclusion”.
Hodge’s main problem with Darwinism was its commitment to random chance and not directed by God.
According to Hodge, the fatal flaw of Darwinism is the denial of design in nature. “If you deny design,you in effect deny God. Darwin says he believes in a creator, but if the creator, billions of eons ago, called a germ in existence and abandoned its development to chance has pretty much consigned himself to non-existence. So what is Darwinism? It is Atheism.”

Hodge rejected Darwin’s views, with respect, in 1862.

Did this mean that these men were anti-science?
Listen to their own quotes:

Hodge: “Science has taught us, the church, a lot about the Scriptures”

Archibald Alexander: “Science and the Bible are allies in establishing truth. God is author of both revelations. The truth has nothing to fear from the truth”.


What Charles Hodge did believe in was what he called the "Two fold evil".
Evil of Science- Formulating theories that ignore Biblical truth
Evil of Church- Persisting in interpretations that conflict with well established objective truth.

Now, I have to stop here because of the quote 'objective truth'.

This goes right back to the top of this long diatribe.

Our pre-suppositions could cloud our acceptance of what is objective truth and what is subjective premise.

An example would be evolution- where there are parts of Darwin's view in jeopardy by those who have further tested and studied the theory. Indeed, so much has changed in science: our ability to see into the cell, our break throughs in genetics, our discovery of wonderful mechanisms in living creatures for adaptation.

Where evolution passes out of 'hard science' into pre-supposition is the extrapolation of the mechanism of evolution as the only explanation for all of life. In other words, we take proven observation of successive, slight changes in living species and deduce that this system explains the emergence of life and proof of a non-directed cause.

I'm sorry if I have lost you..... but there are legitimate competing views and enough valid questions to say: We don't know how life began still- can't we keep all the questions open? We can't prove undirected development- can we keep the question a possibility?

Sadly, our culture has said "NO"- because anything outside the natural realm is not allowed. To even contemplate the supernatural is to open yourself up to ridicule and mockery. "This guy still believes in something as hokey as the virgin birth or resurrection."

But I will close with this last thought. If you take the average highly educated, multiple degreed scientist,  who would never accept God in any shape form or fashion- he actually uses 4 'l-words' that are hard to explain outside the existence of the God of the Bible.

The first is 'language'- communication is such an interesting phenomenon. As we learn other  languages it does not seem to strike anyone of the homologous structure of language. This one is easily dismissed by skeptics, but the personal/intimate nature of communication is so intriguing to me.


The second is 'logic'-it was pointed out to me recently that the acceptance and context of logic is a  personal, not an immaterial relationship. Logic is used, challenged, and supported in the context of personality.


The third is 'love'. What would there be in a realm of un-caused non-personal circumstances to produce beauty and love? Can the non-personal create personality?


The final one is 'law'. Where does our sense of fairness and rightness come from. Skeptics will say that so many cultures have differering norms of right and wrong that this is a poor argument. But regardless of the shifting standards- there is still a sense of 'oughtness'. A law on the heart... again with a strange hint of personality or relationship attached.

Well- I have been going way too long- and will be subject to ridicule of the skeptic as he calls me an illogical fool or neanderthal.

So next time you are watching CSI-Miami where the 'test tube' often disproves the testimony... ask yourself a question: Is that true? Is science always 100% without bias? Is it without flaw? Is it limited in any way? What are its boundaries?

Again- do not be anti-science..... just be willing to have a healthy self-suspicion. All men live by faith, even if it is faith in our reason.

II CORINTHIANS 4:3-4 "And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. 4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God."

Einstein: Infinite Appetite for Distraction

This blog continues my analysis of Walter Isaacson's Biography on Einstein:
My starting point with Einstein is where all men start, magnificent beings, the crown jewel of God's creation (Psalm 8) but born with a deadly problem- sin. Not just doing bad things- it is essentially a rebellion. We are born with a rebellious soul and it is encouraged by our environment that is tainted and stained by it in every corner that we touch.

The easiest reformed theological concept to prove is moral inability or, as Calvin says, human depravity. Not that we are as bad as we could be- but a recognition that the default mode of natural men is a refusal to acknowledge the creator and the worship of created things (Romans 1).

As we all go through life, we get more ingrained to our particular sin paths. It may be an addictive nature or a cynical nature. It may be active rebellion or passive indifference. It may be affliction of shame or cowering in fear. It may be moral oppression or lawless expression. I have it- you have it- Einstein had it.

Even though Issacson lauds Einstein as a moral man (he indeed followed strong convictions and was kind and surprisingly humble)- the fruit of Einstein's journey is littered with violations of the creator's boundaries.

• Inappropriate relationship which parents did not approve
• Child out of wedlock that was put away
• Failed marriage
• Rough divorce
• Illicit affairs- lived with first cousin- later admitted adultery and married her

The fruit of our waywardness is consequential. God's precepts are good because they ultimately shield us from the terrible results of sin.

Now let's talk about how this impacted Einstein the most. His life was in some ways mirrors what we all do- run and hide or medicate the pain of living. We do this in a number of creative and complex ways. It often fuels our pursuits and creates flashes of passion.

Einstein admits this in the following quote:

“One of the strongest motives that leads men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness. Such men make this cosmos and its construction the pivot of their emotional life, in order to find the peace and security which they cannot find in the narrow whirlpool of personal experience.”

A route out of this cycle of sin and shame is to acknowledge and bow before the personal, Triune God of the universe. But Einstein's dread of such a Being- the sheer horror of such an encounter- caused him to start with a pre-supposition of a detached god. One with complexity- but not personality.

So this is our first God-shaped gap. We need to be brought into the presence of a Holy deity who relates to us as a person. A reunion with The Father through The Son.

This is what separates the Christian gospel from all other faiths.

Without this relationship, we are merely amusing ourselves with an infinite appetite for distraction.


Do you see the God-shaped gaps?

My Notes from Anne Rice's "Out of Darkness"

"This book is about faith in God.

For more than twenty centuries, Christianity has given us dazzling works of theology, yet it remains a religion in which the heart is absolutely essential to faith.

The appeal of Jesus Christ was first and foremost to the heart.

So here is the story of one path to God.

The story has a happy ending because I have found the Transcendent God both intellectually and emotionally. And complete belief in Him and devotion to Him, no matter how interwoven with occasional fear and constant personal failure and imperfection, has become the true story of my life.

Before I can describe how I returned to faith, at the age of fifty-seven, I want to describe how I learned about God as a child.

What strikes me now as most important about this experience is that it preceded reading books. Christians are People of the Book, and our religion is often described as a Religion of the Book. And for two thousand years, all that we believe has been handed down in texts.
It’s important to stress here that my earliest experiences involved beauty; my strongest memories are of beautiful things I saw, things which evoked such profound feeling in me that I often felt pain.

In fact I remember my early childhood as full of beauty, and no ugly moment from that time has any reality for me. The beauty is the song of those days.

I vividly remember knowing about God, that He loved us, made us, took care of us, that we belonged to Him; and I remember loving Jesus as God; and praying to Him and to His Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary, when I was very small."

Rice’s Faith Begins to Crack

She saw ‘good people’ with no faith.

She had a desire for modern world.

She had a conversation with priest- “He just said, ‘You are catholic- there is no life outside catholic church’.

Her heart wanted to explore.

She quit the church for 38 years.

Never prayed to God about it.

Stopped talking to God.

Began to see God as voice of authority over infinite compassion.

God could not have made a church so fragile- vulnerable to information- 'churches told you lies.'

Rice writes ‘Interview with the Vampire’- ‘an obvious lament for my lost faith’

Atheism Begins to Crack

She began to study history- the more she studied history- ‘the more my atheism became shaky’- particularly the survival of the Jews-

She goes back to New Orleans and finds the Catholics warm and receiving

Struggle was waging- atheism held firm

Took trips to Europe and Holy Land- The Statue of Jesus at Rio de Janeiro- a spiritual experience-

She began to see His presence and also began to see that the Lord was pursuing her- EWTN-

Atheism was cracking…”I was losing faith in nothingness”

She saw people committed to ‘good’- ‘NO ONE WAS INDIFFERENT to conscious or to acute moral responsibility’.

Creation was speaking to me- the music of a violin sang to me of God-

Jesus weighed on her.. ‘He started a worldwide religion’ Why was America obsessed with Jesus- he was on their lips- Why was His name the most common curse word I heard?

FINALLY she gave in to something deep… I loved God..I love Him in Jesus… I wanted to go back

“In the moment of surrender, I let go of all the theological or social questions which had kept me from Him for countless years. I simply let them go. There was the sense, profound and wordless, that if He knew everything I did not have to know everything, and that, in seeking to know everything, I’d been, all of my life, missing the entire point.”

“And it was His knowing that overwhelmed me….His was the Divine Mind that made snowflakes, candle flames, birds soaring upwards…

He knew the answer to every conceivable question before it was formulated…

And why should I remain apart from Him just because I couldn’t grasp all of this? He could grasp it. Of course!”

Decides to write only for God- Her husband dies of a brain tumor

From 2002- 2005 devoured New Testament scholarship

“It isn’t simply finding skeptical New Testament scholarship so poor, so shallow, so irresponsibly speculative, or so biased. That has indeed been the case.

“ But it was the Incarnation- Jesus becoming flesh- “You became a child for me”

“Not only do I find no evidence for isolated Gospel communities, but I see no collaborative writing in the gospels at all.”

The interplay of simplicity and complexity seems to go beyond human control.

She finds many Christians full of love and division is hurting the church.

“I became convinced that my urban atheist friends were to a great extent out of touch with Christian America”

Last line :

I am broken, flawed, committed: A Christmas Christian searching for that stigmata, for the imprint of those Wounds on my heart and my soul, and my daily life”

Anne Rice: A Christmas Christian - review of her auto-biography.

I just finished CALLED OUT OF DARKNESS: A Spiritual Confession by author Anne Rice.

My first experience with Anne Rice was around 1998 when I finally read "Interview with the Vampire". As a boy, I loved monster stuff (Dracula, werewolf, Frankenstein) and had heard a lot of praise for the Vampire Chronicles.

As I read the book, I was totally absorbed and very impressed. At the same time, it had the most sense feeling presence of evil I have ever experienced in a book. Not that I was repulsed by it, I was actually impressed by it. It was the truth of it that caught my attention- this work of supernatural fiction regarding the tragic life of godless vampires captured the tragedy of it all in dazzling images.

Knowing a little of Louis and Lestat, it was delightful to read of Anne's return to the faith and mesmerizing to read her life story. It is also comforting to know that the proverb is indeed true: 'Train up a child....'

I encourage this book and after reading it, I want to read her latest two about Jesus.

I will post more about Anne's life and conversion at a later time, especially how Scripture captured her mind and shaped her theology.

But I highly recommend this excellent story of life and faith.

Refreshed and Restored in Romans

Ok - here we go.

I have been diving into the Book of Romans for the last 4 weeks. This is in preparation for a class I will be teaching next spring called "Romans and Revelation". We will study Romans the first 9 weeks and Revelation the next 9 weeks.

I just finished a 3 year study of the Book of Revelation and taught it in 28 lessons to the "Armed and Encouraged" Sunday School class at my church.

Next week I will begin recording 25- 25 minute lessons on Revelation for the church. Be in prayer for that.

Over the next few weeks I will be sharing some of the more interesting points from my study on Paul's Epistle to the Romans. I give great credit to many of my heroes who have taught me in the process. I start with the late James Montgomery Boice and his 4 volume commentary on Romans. It may be the most interesting, informative, and illustrated commentary in history! I also enjoyed commentaries by Ladd, Moo, Calvin (of course), and Charles Hodge.

The highlight was Dr. Knox Chamblin's Romans course found free on I-tunes U from Reformed Theological Seminary.

First comment: WHAT A BOOK! Oh my, each lesson in Romans just feeds meat to the weary soul. No wonder it has transformed so many lives. The Book of Romans caused Augustine to repent of his captive life to sin and sparked Martin Luther to stand firm in the birth of the Reformation.

I still want to investigate the controversial commentary by N.T. Wright and look at a few others: I have FF Bruce and the NIV and IVP commentary series.

I am most amazed at God's plan for the apostle Paul- he was born a Hebrew and a Roman citizen. As a young man under Gamaliel and as he progressed as a Pharisee, God was preparing a man to articulate the gospel like no other.

Rome was on Paul's prayers and in his heart. As Emperors changed throughout the course of his life, God was preparing a cross roads at Rome under Nero.

It seems very likely that Paul penned Romans while staying in Corinth. Later, as a prisoner of Rome he wrote some of the other great epistles that support the theme of justification of all men by faith alone.

I grew to see Paul's humanity captured very creatively by Walter Wangerin in his novel, Paul.

There is a lot of debate about whether the Roman church had more Jews or Gentiles. I don't think it matters, because Paul's ministry was bringing both under the grace of Christ.Paul was a pioneer at taking what Christ did at Calvary to pave the way for gospel expansion and the exploding kingdom of God. He finds several latch points of community and unity. His most dynamic ministry was being a catalyst to bring the conveted Jews and Gentiles into a harmony under the gospel of Christ.

His letter was preparing them for what he prayed would be a fruitful ministry with them. I do agree that he was planning to end up in Spain. But he did long to be with the Romans.

Why not take the center of the world to plant the power of God in the gospel?

I have also used this study to get back into greek. I praise God for the language of the New Testament. Oh My, it is so vivid, exact, and rich. You have to notice the verb tenses in Romans, and you must struggle with how the English translations have chosen some of the translation decisions.

But in the long run- it is a simple Book with complex doctrine. When Paul said he was eager to present the gospel to the learned and unlearned, cultured and uncultured, he was proclaiming the best news of all. Salvation is not just for the smart, the rich, the religious, the achiever. Salvation is revealed and accessible to all men through faith in the work of Jesus Christ!

What a Book! What a story! What a gospel! What a savior!

I hope you enjoy my sharing little tidbits with you!

Christian Quarries and Apologetics

this is from my blog: www.jayopsis.blogspot.com

Growing up, one of my favorite things to do was going on long hikes in the woods just behind our neighborhood. I called it mountains, but it is technically at best ‘hills’. These hills had all kinds of well marked paths and each day was a grand adventure. One trail led to abandoned mine shafts, others went to beautiful points of views and solitude. We named the trails based on what they led to: “fire tower’, "Irondale”, “Mines”, and “quarry”. Our most favorite hike, however, was to the ‘quarry’. It seemed like a grand canyon to my 11 year old life. There were actually three quarries: the’ Big one’, the ‘Smaller one”, and ‘the Little quarry’- all within a ¼ mile area.

It was the Big quarry that capture my imagination and excitement. It had high cliffs which completed about 2/3 of a canyon. The trail was cool because it was all heavy pine and shadows that dramatically opened to this amazing view of old limestone walls and evidence of industry. This was a completely dry quarry that has been recorded in my brain as about 440 yards in diameter. It had basically, a flat bottom, and even had an old abandoned car in it.

My mom would have had a heart attack if she ever saw all that we did in that quarry. We climbed the cliffs (without ropes!) with no worry that a fall meant death. On the top of the quarry, it was a good 100 foot drop! I had a favorite ‘fat man squeeze’ that led to a type of cave. I would climb, squeeze, and then sit in this opening for hours. It was quiet and I felt so alive!

The hollow canyon was strange. I knew that there had once been a lot of activity there. Birmingham had iron ore, limestone, and coal in great abundance which allowed it to blossom into ‘the Magic City” and “Pittsburg of the South” almost overnight.

But it was dead now. Except for quiet shrubs and persistent saplings, it was devoid of life. I loved to sit and look at the evidence of activity, but it was nothing more than a relic. The old car was rusting, the quarry was out of business, and except for a few adventurous neighborhood boy-gangs.

What made me think about this? Well, I have been spending a lot of time lately in another beautiful quarry- Christian Epistemology and Philosophy. Hold on- don’t pull me in front of the Presbytery yet- I have great admiration of these pursuits.

I have been overwhelmed by the intellect and work of Justin Martyr, Iraneus, Tertullian, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Calvin, Kant, Pascal, Kierkegaard, Clarke, and Van Til. I have loved hearing their thoughts and analysis and I have great faith that God ordains this process as a development of our better understanding of Him and the beautiful balance of faith and reason.

However, I have become more and more convinced that Christian philosophy is somewhat a dead quarry. I worry that we have squeezed out all of the ore and left only the outline.

I hear the charge- “There you go- another anti-intellectual Christian”- and that is not it at all. I believe that we have to stay in the academic arena and defend the faith with boldness and clarity. But the basic nature of man will forever place the academic credibility of Christian faith in jeopardy. We never sound ‘retreat’- but let’s not pretend that we will become popular in the devil’s domain.

The more I study the ‘evidence of the mind’, the more convinced I become about the ‘reasons of the heart’. Anytime we separate our rationale from the heart, we create another quarry.

What do I mean?

Well, God is a person.

And that personhood requires heart. We think of apologetics as a tower, God presents it as a dialogue… a relationship. The entire Bible is a story of relationship in which we take sides. We are either a son or an enemy.

Personhood also unfolds as story. God has a narrative. His story is the gospel and its victory lap through history and around the globe. If our apologetics arguments ever detach from the gospel… then the ore has no more value.

Ravi Zacharius reminds us that we argue from theory, illustrate from the heart, and apply at the kitchen table. Music and movies pierce the soul and logic bounces off the brain. The Christian apologist is sharing himself. The warmth of his love prepares the ground for the force of his evidence.

I will not stop studying the men before me; they are my faithful fathers. Because they are men, they all have flaws. Some have even communicated ideas that we now consider heretical. But relationships are never clean and all life points to the need of the gospel message of salvation by faith in Christ’s atonement.

But there has to be heart- there has to be love- what benefit will a clanging gong have on this world?

The seal of the savior means a story to His glory- I hope to daily die to my miserable glory story and walk the way of my Lord.

I now borrow a prayer… stolen from Anselm- the famous ‘credo ut intelligam’

"Nor do I seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe that I may understand. For this, too, I believe, that, unless I first believe, I shall not understand."

This ‘understanding’ comes first through the heart. The amazing thing is that it is sick by sin- but God’s spirit makes it function and God’s son makes it clean.