Ooooh, me next.

"However, sprinkled throughout the book, Young’s story undermines a number of traditional Christian doctrines. Many have gotten involved in debates about Young’s theological beliefs, and I have my own strong concerns. But here is my main problem with the book. Anyone who is strongly influenced by the imaginative world of The Shack will be totally unprepared for the far more multi-dimensional and complex God that you actually meet when you read the Bible. In the prophets the reader will find a God who is constantly condemning and vowing judgment on his enemies, while the Persons of the Triune-God of The Shack repeatedly deny that sin is any offense to them. The reader of Psalm 119 is filled with delight at God’s statutes, decrees, and laws, yet the God of The Shack insists that he doesn’t give us any rules or even have any expectations of human beings. All he wants is relationship. The reader of the lives of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and Isaiah will learn that the holiness of God makes his immediate presence dangerous or fatal to us. Someone may counter (as Young seems to do, on p.192) that because of Jesus, God is now only a God of love, making all talk of holiness, wrath, and law obsolete. But when John, one of Jesus’ closest friends, long after the crucifixion sees the risen Christ in person on the isle of Patmos, John ‘fell at his feet as dead.’ (Rev.1:17.) The Shack effectively deconstructs the holiness and transcendence of God. It is simply not there. In its place is unconditional love, period. The God of The Shack has none of the balance and complexity of the Biblical God. Half a God is not God at all."

—Tim Keller & his impressions on “The Shack”

iPad, jokes on you!

This week’s iCal sched… plus one more mid-semester (oh boy!)

"

And what of the Bible verse that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven? Or that Jesus preached his followers to give up all their belongings and follow him?

“Years back at least, you know you had to be poor and to show you were holy,” Osteen said. “You’re supposed to sacrifice everything, and I’m all for sacrifice and I believe in that, but I also believe that God wants us to be leaders. He’s put gifts and talents in every person, that they’re supposed to come out to the full.”

—Ouch! Joel Osteen interview from CNN, link

My reading this semester. Not including the recommended reading.

"As I look back on my childhood I have difficulty remembering very much of substance. Many of the stories I tell about my childhood are re-telling my mother or brother’s memories. When I think about it, most of what I know today was learned as a child and as a young adult. I was taught, by God’s sweet providence, much of the Sermon on the Mount as a small child. It has been written on my mind for many, many years. But just like any other good teaching that I learned as a child it took my heart many more years to catch up to my mind. The implicit rules and explicit commands of the Sermon on the Mount were obeyed and disobeyed by me over the years and not until fairly recently in my story has my heart begun to catch up to these actions. This is so backwards! Because this world and my heart are so fallen in sin, these good deeds are not the overflow from a willing, contrite, and complete heart. My heart is not yet whole and it daily lags behind my mind. And this convicting and powerful Sermon on the Mount serves to bring my stubborn heart back on the road."

—Chris Borah

As I sit crying at the school… man, oh, man.

Make sure to read the whole article.