Month: February 2020

Yesterday in Spiritual Transformation class we talked briefly about being a good disciple of Christ in the workplace. I know it’s something I struggle with; I lose patience easily with co-workers, and I want to change that. I decided that, when I open the door to the shop, I’ll take a minute to pray for my coworkers, and most importantly for my own attitude. This morning, I opened the door. I didn’t pray. I punched in, walked over to my desk, and found that someone had left a random laptop charger there. I share my desk with the desk where we check in customer computers. It’s not very big, and it becomes a catch all for all kinds of random stuff. Not only do I hate working in clutter, but I don’t think it’s a good first impression to our customers. I try to keep it fairly tidy. So what did I do when I saw this charger just left there, not put in it’s proper home? That’s right, I threw it. Literally I had not been in shop a minute when I lost my patience, got angry, and threw something. I need a heart change.

My pastor called me out this morning for not updating in four days. Honestly, I did my reading for my spiritual transformation class, and didn’t really feel moved to post anything about it. Yesterday morning, since my spiritual transformation class reading was all done, I was working on my doctrine reading. I knew that I had come to a spot in the book that started a new section, and I picked up reading there. It was about 3/4 the way through chapter on the importance of Bible reading when I thought to myself “this doesn’t really feel like a book that Dr. Sherman would prescribe for his class. We don’t really talk that much about Bible reading plans in our doctrine class.” It was then that I looked at the front cover of the book, and realized I was reading the wrong thing. Not only is it a book for my spiritual transformation class, but I was reading a chapter that wasn’t even on the reading plan for this week. And, I had developed schedule for reading this week so I could make sure to fit it all in before class on Thursday. Oh well, that schedule is all shot now that I spent the morning in the wrong text!

Part of my Spiritual Transformation class is to write a paper reflecting on a sermon called The Dust of the Rabbi.” In the sermon, Ray Vander Laan notes that what Jesus meant by a disciple and what our current culture thinks of as a disciple are radically different. I am struggling with my level of discipleship based on the level that Ray claims as being what Jesus expects. And then today, For my other class that I’m taking, I read this.

What is actually required of a disciple of Jesus? Based on the sermon examples I’m so not close. I’m not even a good pupil.

A little pondering and reflection this morning. I’m reading my assignments for my doctrine class with Dr. Robert Sherman at New England Bible College, and we’re reading Introduction to Christian Doctrine by Millard Erickson. In the section about soteriology (salvation), he lists five “Current Conceptions of Salvation.” They are liberation theology, existential theology, secular theology, the modern Roman Catholic theology, and evangelical theology. Mr. Erickson gives several paragraphs to each concept, giving basic tenants of each one. I noticed in the first one, in his discussion of liberation theology, that he could describe the position without using the word “Christ” or “Jesus.” I noted that in the book: “There’s no Jesus in this section; what’s He for?” I continued to read about existential and secular theologies. No Jesus there either. Only in the Catholic and and evangelical methods does he describe using the words Christ, Christian, or Jesus. I thought to myself “Why would I concern myself with a system of current Christian theology that can be discussed without the word Jesus or Christ in it? Surely a Christian theory should be steeped in Christ, right? As Christian’s read their Bibles, there’s this section toward the end, the last third or so, and it’s all about Christ! Surely something that takes up that many pages should concern us, right? Right? If your Christian theology can be summed up without using the word Christ in it, I think you may be doing it wrong.