A Universal Letter to Fathers And Sons: Parenting Christian Children.

"Spiritual Warfare" by Ron DiCianni

Fathers, 

if you don’t like the way your son walks, do not say to him, “Walk like a man.” 

Instead, learn to hear his heart.  Learn who he is.  What makes him tick?  What saddens him, and why?  What is it for him to be who he was created to be?

The Father in heaven and our King, Jesus, have shown us the way of raising successful men—men who die having really lived.  Men who die having loved honorably, spoken truthfully; men who die having cared for the wounded and the needy and the heartbroken and the sick and the dying and the orphaned; men who die having lived as Jesus lived.  Men who don’t stop living even when they die.  

We’re raising up immortals.  Heroes. 

Sons of God.

Do not say to him, “Walk like a man.”  Tell him that he is a man.  Tell him what the goodness of God looks like and find it in him.  Pray for him. 

Let him catch you with your hands raised on the crest of a mountain, enjoying the presence of the Living God. 

Teach him like Jesus teaches his own—graciously, wisely, thoughtfully and spiritually.  

Love him like God loves his own, in order that one day God might love the world through him. 

When you fail him, ask him for his forgiveness and tell him that you’re learning too.

Tell him what makes you tick.  Tell him about your dad.  What was it like for you to be a son?  What is it like now, being a son of The Father?

Tell him that you love him and that you trust him.  Let him know you. 

And when discipline comes, he’ll trust you through it.

While doing these things, you’ll notice his gate improving.  Confidence will fall into his steps.  You’ll begin to enjoy the way that he walks.  He’ll start walking like his King.  He’ll walk like a man.

This is how my Father in Heaven loves me.

"For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, 'Pappa! Father!'"  Romans 8:15

Quote of the Month about Jesus

Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in your beautiful little house where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you. Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken.

Rich Mullins

edit: click here to read this article for an interesting discussion about this principle and a critique of the "New Radicalism."

What is the Gospel?

N.T. Wright has some interesting things to say here.  The interviewer asks some great questions.


INTERVIEW WITH NT WRIGHT from Evangelical Alliance on Vimeo.
Krish Kandiah interviews NT Wright, exploring the question, "What is the gospel?"

This interview was filmed at a national consultation, entitled, 'A Faithful Gospel: How should we understand what the gospel is?'. It is the first in a series of five events taking place as part of the Evangelical Alliance's 'Confidence in the Gospel' initiative. For more information go to eauk.org/confidence

Best Christian Books of All Time Reviews: Knowing God, Pt. II

A Recent Portrait of J.I. Packer

Over at InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Blog I've put up Part II of my review series of J.I. Packer's Knowing God.  Click here to check it out.  Also, the comment thread develops one of the main points of the review.

"Jesus was God made man, born to die, always in full submission to the First Person of the Trinity and he became poor that we might become rich.  The incarnation–the Son of God emptying himself and becoming poor–meant:

a laying aside of glory…; a voluntary restraint of power; an acceptance of hardship; isolation, ill-treatment, malice and misunderstanding; finally, a death that involved such agony–spiritual even more than physical–that his mind nearly broke under the prospect of it…. It meant love to the uttermost for unlovely human beings, that they through his poverty might become rich. (63)"

Best Christian Books of All Time Reviews: Knowing God, Pt. I

Today I released the first part of a review of Knowing God by J.I. Packer.  It can be found on InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Blog by clicking here.

Here's an excerpt from my review:

Knowing God is the set of labels on a rough topographical map of the rugged country that is the study of God and the Christian life. But the book directs its readers toward more than a refined understanding of the Divine. Although Packer is certainly interested in introducing theology as a contemplative science, he is also, and more so, interested in pointing out the reason for that contemplation. The danger of theology for its own sake is that “it is bound to go bad on us. It will make us proud and conceited. The very greatness of the subject matter will intoxicate us, and we shall come to think of ourselves as a cut above other Christians because of our interest in it and grasp of it . . .” (21).  I’m sure that if you haven’t been on the dealing end of this pride, you’ve been the one who’s felt weight bearing down on you from a conceited theologian. So what can we do? The rule, says Packer, for turning our knowledge about God into knowledge of God, “... is simple but demanding. It is that we turn each truth that we learn about God into matter for meditation before God, leading to prayer and praise to God.”

Click here to see the full review.

The Magic Carpet Ride: Discipleship

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In an age that increasingly values relativistic individualism at the cost of any substantial ethic, the Church has, by buying into the trend, lost much of its firm footing.  Nobody really knows how to confront the “current issues,” and those who’ve stood upon orthodox Christianity are left like Alladin, standing on the last remaining bit of rock protruding from a boiling bed of molten lava.  And we’re tempted to do nothing.  We’re tempted to huddle together with shouts of fear and accusation, praying for the magic carpet to sweep us up and out of the mouth of this monstrous cave.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, stranded in a Nazi prison after attempting to assassinate Hitler, asked this question: “have there ever been people in history who in their time, like us, had so little ground under their feet…?”  The perceived ground under the Church has done nothing but shrink since Bonhoeffer made that statement more than fifty years ago.  Spiritual formation was Bonhoeffer’s answer to the shrinking ground, and it must also be ours.

When Jesus addressed his disciples in the Gospel According to John he didn’t say, “oh yeah, everybody will love you guys.  You’ll be safe and sound until I decide to whisk you away into a land of clouds and trumpets and white cloaks.”  No.  He told them that the world would hate them.  He told them that they would face incredible hardship, even be dragged to court for standing firm on his name.  But Jesus looked into the eyes of his confused disciples and told them to take heart, because he had overcome the world.  Even when it looked as though the lava was about to bubble over the last stone pillar, it was not.  The often unperceived reality is that Jesus is still King over the wind and the waves.  Abraham, the Apostle Paul, Augustine of Hippo, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the pastor preaching substantial truth in today’s world of ethical flux all have one thing in common:  Trust.  Through radical trust the disciples and apostles were—and are—spiritually formed by the one with the name on his thigh, “King of kings and Lord of lords.”

Spiritual formation is the strongest commitment I have, because it is my commitment to Christ and his power in my life that make me fully human.  My relationship with Jesus, through discipleship and worship, instruction and evangelism, learning and community, is the only firm ground upon which I am able to stand.  And part of this commitment involves my transmitting it to others.  As Paul exhorted Timothy so very long ago, “You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also,” so also have I been commanded.  I am being strengthened by trusting the unmerited favor that is mine through Christ Jesus, and I am called to entrust robust theology and the knowledge of His grace to others.  What a beautiful life.  There is no magic carpet, but there is a God who is right there with us in the mess.

Revisiting FAME

A couple of days ago I wrote something for InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Blog.  It was a rewrite of the post below--"FAME."  Click here.

Odysseus and the Sirens, eponymous vase of the Siren Painter, ca. 480-470 BC, (British Museum).