Spring Semester Underway..

Yes, the new semester is off to a roaring start. Here is my current class schedule:

• Apologetics and Outreach
• God and Humanity
• Gospels
• Elementary Homiletics Practicum
• Covenant Theology II
• God's World Mission

God's World Mission and Covenant Theology II are my two theology classes. Those classes kinda blow my mind.

My Holliday Photo Essay

This is Paducha. She is our neighbor's dog. She likes to run around alot.

Sometimes I think her eyes are going to pop out. We kept her over break while our neighbors were out of town. I'm glad they came home.

This is my wife Kathryn, she didn't like the present I gave her. PWNT!! >__<
That is Kathryn's sister, Tootie. She's a meth junkie. :(

Here we are. me, Kathryn, Tootie (aka Mary Emily), and James (Tootie's fiance). Tis a merry Christmas indeed.

This is Kathryn's cousin Abby, she made the mistake of telling me she didn't want her picture taken.

She eventually gave in...

This is Hanna, Abbey's older sister. She is actually sort of sane.

For New Years My family came to visit. That's my dad in the front. He always looks like he has gas in pictures for some reason.

This is my little sis, Jenny. She was only born with 2 dimensions. If she was to turn and face you she would disappear.

My Brother in law, Joe has the same photo-aversion as Abby. That's our Christmas tree in the background, $20 from Home Depot.

Finally, our dog Dakota on his new Christmas bed and his new Christmas Woffie Dog.

Three Couches, One with Christ (Part 2)

Since the experience of that first couch, the Lord has taken me from a place of sin and rebellion, to a place of a deeper understanding of the truth of his Gospel and dependence on him for everything. It was my ignorance of the Union I share with Christ that lead me to sin, but it is that same Union that also led me to a place of grace and blessing. Later that Union helped as my family struggled with sickness and trial. Sinclair Ferguson, in his article in Christian Spirituality: Five Views of Sanctification says that, “we share one bundle of life with Christ in what he has done. All that he has accomplished for us in our human nature is, through union with him, true for us and, in a sense of us.” What this means is that my past, present, and future is tied not to my life but to Christ’s life in me.

Forgiveness of sin is always a hard concept to grasp. What I mean is that I say that I believe God forgives my sins, but I don’t really believe that he totally removes my sins from me. I think that in the back of my mind I still believe that somewhere, deep in the basement of hell there is a filing cabinet (or two or three….or more) that still holds the records of my sins. It is easy to imagine that God forgives sins, but is it somewhat harder to imagine that God forgets sins. My understanding of Romans 6 and similar passages has been fundamentally changed and my reading of it deepened by the certainty that my sin has been destroyed through union with Christ and his crucifixion. Romans 6:7 says that our sin has been “brought to nothing.” Our sin has been destroyed. That is a hard thing for me to grasp.

I tend to think of the process of sanctification as some sort of mighty self-help plan that God has for Christian to make them better, more well balanced people. Evidence of this is that we see growth as a function of addition. What can we add to our lives that will make God love us more? The person at church that is involved in the most is obviously more spiritually mature than the person who is only involved in only a few things. Michael Horton says that, “It is important to realize that Christ does not come to improve the old self, to guide and redirect it to a better life; he comes to kill us, in order to raise us to newness of life.” Colossians 2:11-12 says, “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made by hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism.” What is this circumcision of Christ, this putting off of the body of flesh? Murray says that it is the “transformation which occurs when we are actually united with Christ in the effectual operations of grace. It is the translation from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of God's love that Paul has in mind.”

Let me give you a little more information surrounding couch number one. For about three years prior to that I had become tired of the Church. We were attending a United Methodist church in the suburbs and I just began to basically get bored with Christianity. I kind of felt like I had maxed out as far as my spiritual growth was concerned. I didn’t feel like our current church could take me any farther, any closer to God. Part of what I felt was legitimate. The Church I was in was very works – based and didn’t offer the deep level of Christian teaching I was longing for. The more significant part of what I felt, however, was from my own rebellion against God, and I used the valid issues with our Church as a rationalization for my rebellion. As my last year of college came to a close I met Melissa and we began the physical relationship that would eventually end up with the aforementioned conversation on the couch in Nashville, and ultimately ended with her decision to abort our baby.

The fundamental truth that I have learned through this very painful and tragic episode (even haunting) in my life can be summed up in the words of a Hymn: “My sin, oh the bliss of the glorious thought, my sin not in part but the whole, is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord oh my soul!” Romans 6:14 says, “For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” Because I have been united to Christ in his death my sin has been brought to nothing. Murray says of this passage, “Paul is dealing with the believer's death to sin. `We died to sin' thus is Paul's thesis. He is dealing with death to sin as an actual and practical fact; shall we not say existential fact? He brings within the scope of this statement not merely the guarantee or the promise of death to sin, but its realization in the life-history of the believer.” As a maturing believer, I am no longer a slave to my sin. This means not only the sin that I am tempted to do in the here and now, but the sin which I have done, no matter how egregious, cannot hinder me in my further walk with the Lord. This is a great promise!

As I sat in the chair after having received communion at my new church home and we sang the last stanza to It is Well With My Soul, I realized that the Lord’s forgiveness was mine and that my great sin was indeed crucified with Christ. It was well with my soul, “For the one who has died has been set free from sin.”

John Stott says that, “To be in Christ means much more than receiving a new status; it also means receiving a new life.” This freedom from the bondage of sin which is ours in Christ has given us a new life in growth and blessing in Christ. “If we are Christ',” Stott says, “God both redeems us through his Son and regenerates through his Spirit. He not only makes us his sons and daughters, he puts within us that Spirit of his Son, who begins to transform us in Christ's image.” This transformative power which is ours in the Spirit of Christ does not work to immediately remove from us our propensity to sin, but it gives us weapons for struggling against sin. Michael Horton says that because we have had the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, we have been seated with him in the heavenly places. This is true no matter our seniority in the kingdom if God. It is not some special reward reserved only for the spiritually mighty. It is a spiritual reality for all who are in Union with Christ. Because we are one with Christ, we have been adopted by the Father and are eligible to receive from him “every spiritual blessing” which is in Christ Jesus. In his book, Children of the Living God, Sinclair Ferguson says that the new birth we experience means that we “come to share in the risen life and power of Jesus Christ, and enter into vital fellowship with him.”

Merry Christmas from us!

We're not the types to send out cheesy Christmas cards with our family picture on them but here you go anyway. Merry Christmas!

Three Couches, One With Christ (Part 1)

The first couch was in my friend’s apartment in Nashville in 1998. I had moved there after I finished my undergraduate degree, but now after only a month I sat on the couch with a girl that I had been seeing before I left Memphis. I’m not sure what sort of reaction she expected when she told me the news, but I am sure that she did not expect the first words out of my mouth to be, “abortion is not an option.” It wasn’t the most sensitive and reassuring thing to say and I’m sure it didn’t do anything to instill in her a sense of comfort. She was pregnant and she had driven four hours to tell me in person the news, and I just sat there issuing moral decrees surrounding the results of my own failure. I immediately packed my things, threw them in the back of the truck and drove with her back to Memphis.

The next couch was in a coffee bar near the University of Memphis in 2002. I had just been introduced to a very pretty young lady named Kathryn Wray. Kathryn and I shared a few mutual friends and it just so happened that those mutual friends drug us both out on a Saturday night to hear some guy with a guitar that was apparently playing up on the stage. I wasn’t paying any attention to him. My attention was focused on Kathryn. She was sweet, attractive, easy to talk too, and she demonstrated a level of devotion to the Lord that was instantly noticeable. On our first date we just talked the whole time. By our second date, I was sure that she was the woman I wanted to marry.

The third couch was in a waiting room at the Baptist Memorial Hospital for Women in 2004. This time I was seated on the couch between my wife, Kathryn, and my dad, Steve. We were waiting for the nurse to come out and tell us that my mother was out of surgery and in the recovery room. My mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was in surgery undergoing a radical mastectomy. More than three months of chemotherapy was to follow. Despite the trauma of having this procedure and the horrible thought of facing nearly constant sickness and nausea from the chemo, my mom was in good spirits. She was ready to have the cancer removed from her body.

Exams!!!

Happy Thanksgiving

Big plans tonight!

Not really, but I've still been looking forward to tonight for a long time. Here's the plan: dinner with the Oteys at 6 and then we're all off to go see the Goblet of Fire. Kat and I have become huge Harry Potter nerds. We've both finished all six books and have loved the movies so far. This latest looks to be the best of the lot. It'll be nice to spend some time with BJ and Robin too. We haven't really had the chance since we've moved here.

The Real-Life Economic Repercussions of Successful Adventuring

Click on the above image to view it full size.

The Peaceful Fruit of Righteousness

In Chapter 8 of his book Children of the Living God, Sinclair Ferguson discusses the function of Discipline in the life of the child of God. He says that, “Discipline is intended to produce holiness of life and character – a quality of life that is pleasing to God, because it shares in his own holy nature.” By this I took him to mean that God’s hand of discipline upon those who he has adopted as children is intended to help in our sanctification. His discipline helps us to become more God-like. Likewise our attitude toward God’s discipline will reflect our attitude toward holiness. If we eagerly desire to be holy before God we will welcome His disciplining hand.

This discipline which makes us holy is not always a diving thumping for some specific sin on my part. It is often a struggle or trial that God places in our lives with the purpose of driving us to rely on and draw our strength and joy from Him. If our attitude towards this process of becoming holy is not favorable we will fail to grow in Christian maturity and our lives will lack the “marks of God’s workmanship.”

Ferguson draws from Hebrews 12:10-11 in describing the way by which our live yield this “peaceful fruit of righteousness” as the writer calls it. I think that we should examine verses 12 & 13 of Hebrews 12 as well, “(12) Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, (13) and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.” If verses 10-11 provide us with the indicatives regarding this use of suffering by God, then verses 12 & 13 must, at least partially, provide us with imperatives for how we are to live in light of suffering.

We are not to be merely passive recipients of God’s disciplining. Instead, we are to seek within the painful circumstances of that discipline the lessons for greater holiness and dependency upon God. Interestingly, verse 13 seems to be a warning to us that failure to have a positive attitude towards suffering leading to holiness can actually cause harm to us rather than provide healing growth. My mother is a wonderful, godly woman and a breast cancer survivor. Last year while undergoing treatment I saw her suffer greatly and, at times, despairing, but the one thing she kept reminding herself (and all of us) of is that God works all things for our good. Today she is healthy and cancer free. It is kind of strange to hear her speak of the cancer now as if it was almost an old friend (an old friend we never want to see again). There is a sense of fondness in remembering that time, not necessarily for the cancer its self, but for the days and months during which we were all driven to rely on God. Today my mother bears more prominently the marks of God’s workmanship by his loving discipline.

What time is it? It's gyro o'clock!

The Greek midterm exam is over and it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Anyway, that is over and I'm glad. On to the next thing...my theology paper.

Seriously... >__<

Inner and Outer Peace by Gregory of Nyssa

"We must not allow hostility to rise up in our hearts; it must be killed absolutely and permanently. We should never give way to anger or nurse grudges, because this would threaten our souls. And, above all, we must never act on these feelings, as this will only fan the feelings into an ever greater blaze. We bear the name of Christ, who is peace. For this reason we are called to put an end to all hostility. In every situation where people are divided, Christ can breakdown the wall which separates them, and make peace. Thus when people attack us, we should, through prayer, invite Christ to reconcile us with our attacker. But we can only do this if we ourselves are free from all hostile feelings. So our spirit and our flesh are not in conflict. When we are at peace within ourselves, then Christ can work through us to make peace with others."

Gregory of Nyssa
From A Treatise on Perfection

This is a selection from one of the readings from my Ancient and Medieval Church History class that I found very convicting as an American Conservative Christian in 2005. I'm not exactly a pacifist and I'm not sure quite where to stand in the current conflict in Iraq. Anyway, I'm interested to hear what some of you have to say about this selection as it relates to the current war in Iraq. Is this reading even applicable? Is it convicting to you, particularly if you are an American?

Dr. Robert Smith and the J.R. Wilson Preaching Lectures

Robert Smith is an associate professor of Divinity at Beeson Divinity school and he is preaching right now. Yesterday he preached at chapel and it was one of the best sermons I have ever heard. He spent about 2/3 of the time dealing with the text and his subject in the hermeneutical sense and the last third just tearing it up (homiletically). He uses that Sing-song style where his voice got very lyrical and he followed each sentence with a sort of grunt/laugh, “heh.” I felt kind of bad because I am sure that if he hadn’t been preaching to a chapel full of white-bread Presbyterians there would have been dancing in the isles and “amen’s” all around.

Today is an event at Covenant called the J. R. Wilson preaching lectures. Each year a guest lecturer is brought in to show us how it is done. Classes are canceled for the day and everybody goes into the chapel and listens to lectures on homiletics all day. Dr. Smith is the guest lecturer this year. I admit that I was planning on using the day to play catch up on some other work that I need to get done, but now that I am here and Dr. Smith is teaching I am much more interested in listening to his lecture than in anything else.

Ouch! My frikkin' arm hurts...

OK so I have a slight case of tennis elbow. Although it's not really tennis elbow per se because, well, I don't play tennis. It is lateral epicondylitis brought on by long-term, repetitive thumb movement.... I have , video game elbow.

The only cure for video game elbow is to go in every six months or so and get a nice big cortisone shot. I went in yesterday after my arm got so bad that I could hardly straighten it. The Doc hit my tendon with a huge dose of medicine delivered in what has to be the most painful shot in medical history. To get the medicine wher it needs to go he has to stick the needle right down into the tendon. He hit the mark and I blacked out.

Today my arm feels like a truck back over it, but it takes a day or two for the medicine to do it's thing. I should be back to playing Chaos Theory by Sunday.

Pandering to my constituents...

Dealing with the schedule of a very full semester has been hard on my ambitious Blogging plans. I'll try to post more short, sometimes silly, usually pointless, things more regularly and get in one or two longer more serious and thoughtful pieces in per month.

I realize that not everything needs to be a great work of writing and that many people just want to know how my day was or something.

"Theologizing"

I didn't even know that "theologizing" was an actual word until about 2:30 this afternoon. I had heard others say the word "theologizing" so I was aware that it existed as a combination of letters which formed syllables which lots of people then inserted into conversations when trying to sound smart, but as for it's actual official entry into the English language, albeit as jargon, was still unknown to me. Wouldn't that be like verbifying a noun?

An Equal Insight

I haven’t really taken the time to point out the little section just to the right of the main posting frame which is titled “Cause/Effect.” I guess the reason why I haven’t taken the time is because, well, it’s pretty obvious what that section is set apart for. It’s where I put the obligatory Bible verse. I say obligatory not out of scorn for the Bible or even because it might seem to be an overly obvious element for a blog that is defiantly coming from and evangelical Christian point of view, but I say “obligatory” because of the sincere desire to ever frame my thoughts and expressions in a way that prominently features scripture within its frame work.

1 John 2:11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.

You can never begin to know anything about anybody unless you first seek to care about them in some way. That is why events like the ones of the past week generate a sense of nation unity and even community. It is at these times (usually only at these times) when our hearts extend to those with whom we may have very little in common and find there not just a fellow countryman but perhaps even a brother or sister, because in our compassion for them we are extending not just a hand of help but an equal insight into our lives and burdens.

As we give sacrificially, we take upon ourselves a portion of a burden that was not placed directly on our shoulders. By willfully and compassionately entering into the burdens of another we acknowledge a very personal truth that all share which is this: We are all broken at some level.

New church decision...

I guess finding a new church to call home is never an easy task although for Kathryn and I it wasn't an unpleasant one. Lots of prospective member luncheons help ease the burden a bit.

I've been relishing the almost unprecedented freedom I have in being a prospective member. I mean, nobody wants you do DO anything. Heck, they won't even let you get your own coffee much less drag you into a room of 3rd graders and tell you to "start teaching!" It's nice being new, nobody expects anything from you and everybody is willing to give to you.

Anyway, our new church is Crossroads Presbyterian Fellowship and it is a plant of Covenant Pres. They just bought an existing church building and last Sunday was their first Sunday in the new (new to us) building. It's an exciting for this young church, not just because the Dusenbery’s are joining.

Nothing more than animals...

I guess if you want to get your point across this is a good way to do it.

Take eight attractive men and women, put them on display in a London Zoo, and put up a sign saying "Warning: Humans in Their Natural Environment." Soon you'll get the attention of the press and the public. Here are a sample of quotes from people who have visited the display. See if you can spot the trend...

"Seeing people in a different environment, among other animals ... teaches members of the public that the human is just another primate."

"A lot of people think humans are above other animals. When they see humans as animals, here, it kind of reminds us that we're not that special."

"I've lived in this country for nine years and have never come to a zoo. Humans are animals too!"

"They're not doing anything. It looked lots better on the news."

And my personal favorite:
"You can tell why some people came here, like the big muscly men who clearly like parading around in thongs."

Two things:

1. Sitting in an old bear paddock in your swimsuit is not what I'd consider a "natural environment" since humans have developed something no other animal has...progressive society (i.e. we're smart enough to build zoos and capture other dumber animals to put on display).
2. Why attractive people? Why not pick human specimens that are the zoological equivlivilent of the other animals at the zoo, fat, lethargic sods who get winded bending over to grab the remote off the coffee table.