becoming

Okay, when I read Luke’s gospel, I was also curious about what happened to Jesus and how he escaped at the cliff of Nazareth.

But when I learned Bruce Longenecker was able to write a whole book on just that… now I am in awe.

Oh, it is only 152 pages.

Hearing the Silence
Jesus on the Edge and God in the Gap—Luke 4 in Narrative Perspective

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Update: Nijay K Gupta just wrote a short review of the book.

Listening to Tim Chester again:

God has placed you together with the people in your congregation. You did not chose them; God chose them. And that diversity of personalities, backgrounds, social class, ethnicities is used by God to make you grow in Christ and to display the unifying power of the cross.

But in cyberspace you are god. You chose who will be in community with you. You create your own communities of convenience that mean you are never challenged. Or if you are challenged or relationships become costly you can just scuttle off to new relationships. As a result we never grow. We are permanently immature.

[link: Tim Chester]

昨晚上過林教授「二十世紀華人神學風雲」的第一課，主要梳理十九世紀教士在中國的宣教事業。

當然，一句鐘的課，要說一百年的事，是必有取捨的，但林教授的功力果然厲害，不慌不忙的點出重點，引人入勝。

會後，我追問林教授有關李提摩太(Timothy Richard)的宣教進路，並問及李氏的工作成敗的見解。

今天，當我們積極鼓勵信徒參與政治，甚至要進入政府，影响決策，然後又看見那些在香港的所謂高官和議員的不堪表現，實在有必須重溫這段歷史，細心研究反省早於百多年前的前例。

這麼多年，妳終於回家去。

難過，當然不只是你的家人，更是這些歲月中，時刻為妳而牽掛和代禱的弟兄姊妹。

神始終沒有聽我們的禱告，讓妳康復。妳今天回家去了，我們都選擇相信，還是天上的爸爸認為妳回到祂那裡，比留在這個會朽壞的世界更好。然而，我們還有問不盡的疑惑、還有那不是答案能叫我們釋懷的痛苦。

不過，這一切，讓我們更期待，在那日，我們能夠親自問祂；

在那日，我們能見，

帶在復活身體的妳。

I love Feinberg’s humor!

7 Ways to Guarantee A Miserable Life & 7 Ways to Guarantee A Happier Life

Life throws us a mix of good days and bad days. At times we wake up and feel as though we can conquer the universe and ride a comet as a detour. And you know those days when you want to be in a bad mood? When you don’t want to try to get out of it? Here are a couple hints to tip the scales one way or another.

7 Ways to Guarantee a Miserable Life:

1. Stick your hand underneath every restaurant table, even if it’s not yours. Two points if gum sticks to your fingernails.
2. Cut off as many people as possible on the highway.
3. Forget your sibling’s/spouse’s/mother-in-law’s birthday on purpose. Grab a birthday card to give the next day, but make sure the card is for a high school graduation.
4. Write down each mistake your spouse or significant other makes; the more ridiculous or far-fetched the nuance is, such as preferring oats over cereal, the better.
5. Speed up in between stoplights so you have to slam on your brakes as they turn red.
6. Budget? What budget? Go to skymall.com and buy items you think are useless and outrageous. The more expensive and fantastic the object, the better. Life size King Tut bookcase, I’m looking at you…
7. Say yes to everything for a week. Including all organizations asking for volunteers, providing baked goods for every church event, working overtime for free, and throwing eight-course dinner parties each weekend evening; bring your calendar to ensure you are sufficiently overbooked. Tire yourself out until you are grouchy and irritable to your heart’s content.

7 Ways to Guarantee a Happier Life:

1. Order your meal out of order, just to mix it up.
2. Let in two merging cars on your way to the grocery store.
3. Surprise a loved one with a special surprise for no reason. Pick a flower or write a quick sticky note and hide it in their lunch. Add sparkly stickers for extra points.
4. Instead of looking for the right person to marry, become the right person to marry.
5. Be a sloth for a day. Take an extra long time brushing your teeth, take four minutes to walk down the hallway, drive in the right lane the entire way to work, and eat lunch in over an hour (if you can).
6. Before purchasing an item over seven dollars, wait seven days to see if you still want it.
7. Say no once this week in an effort to maintain a balanced lifestyle.

What things to you do to guarantee a happier life?

[HT: margaretfeinberg.com]

I couldn’t agree more with Bergler’s diagnostic. My hope is that his remedies will live up to that.

Interview with Thomas Bergler on his book The Juvenilization of American Christianity.

[link: EerdWord]

Blanket statements about all evangelicals mix the Democratic Tony Campolos with the far right Jerry Falwells. Given evangelicalism’s diverse history and its undefined future, it is both inaccurate and unhelpful to stereotype all “evangelicals” as the religious right. It was especially this public linking of evangelicals with the political right, by Jerry Falwell and other public figures, that initially consolidated the religious right. Today, stereotyping evangelicalism as a whole only fortifies the influence of the political right on a movement that has a much more varied history. Democrats should therefore applaud President Obama and others working to transcend these traditional political barriers.

Read the whole thing here.