LayGuy

I came across a great video by Christian artists Caleb & Sol depicting the Gospel in an awesome way.  Focussing on the story of Barabbas – the murdering insurrectionist,  the video does a great job in showing how we are set free in Christ due to grace and grace alone.

Barabbas, even though he deserved to die was set free as Jesus took his place on the cross.  What a wonderful picture of grace offered to us in Jesus.  Even though we are fallen and broken people and deserve to die, through Jesus, we also can be set free.

Hope you enjoy…

To say that I’ve been flat out with work lately would be to understate the situation.  Fourteen hour days have become the norm for me lately.

As part of my job, today I had to drive 4 hours to a regional hospital for a 1 hour meeting and then drive back.

But the drive gave me the opportunity to listen to a tonne of Ravi Zacharia’s preaching on my iPod.  I must have gone through about 8 of his sermons and have developed a great admiration of how this man thinks.

He became a Christian at the age of seventeen after a failed suicide attempt and has developed into one Christianity’s brightest sparks – especially in the area of philosophy and apologetics.

He routinely speaks on the coherency of the Christian world-view,claiming that Christianity is capable of withstanding the toughest philosophical attacks.  And this is what I admire about this man – he systematically cuts down every argument stacked up against Christianity.

Someone may ask a question and he simply launches into a response.  By the time he finishes, you just sit back and think, “Wow!  The thought process this guy has is amazing!”

Have a look at the following video as a typical example of what I’m talking about…

And this is just a mild response.  A few posts ago, I talked about the debate ABC Nightline recently had regarding the existence of Satan and a friend pointed out the Ravi should have been present to take on Deepak Chopra.  Now I make no excuse for despising the world view Chopra has – he glorifies “self” above anything and everything.

Personally I thought Mark Driscoll handled him quite well.  But he didn’t nail Chopra on some of his claims.  Chopra has now released a new book called, “The 3rd Jesus” – a complete mish mash of Hindu/Buddhist and Christian teaching to make Jesus more acceptable in this “self” elevated world.

And Ravi has responded to this book – completely exposing the fallacies of Chopra’s claims as well as exposing the limitations of Chopra’s own understanding of the faith’s he embraces.  I encourage you to listen to Ravi’s critique below.

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If you want to dig deeper into your faith and if you want proof the the faith we embrace can withstand secular assaults upon it, then I strongly encourage you to check out more of Ravi’s materials.

Main Website

Just Thinking Podcast

Let My People Think Podcast

Thanks to Adrian Warnock’s blog, today I got the chance to taste the awesome resource known as “The City” – the Mars Hill Church online community building tool.

Turns out the good people at Mars Hill have made available a fully functional version of the The City at The Gospel Coalition.

Adrian Warnock describes the Gospel Coalition as;

“..a growing fellowship of Christian churches, organizations and individuals who are committed to a certain kind of ministry—that which is biblically-faithful and gospel-centered.”

Sounds good to me.  These guys have a tonne of material centred on exulting a biblical view on the Gospel free from some of the modern assaults on its interpretation and application.  If you haven’t checked it out yet, click here for more.

The City was developed by Mars Hill and actually purchased by Zondervan and will be made available for churches in the near future.  Here’s your chance to try it out and also get plugged into one of the best ministries around. Click on one of the options below to join.  No matter where you join, you will have access to all the tools.

For more Gospel Coalition resources, check out any of the following links:

Twitter |  iTunes |  Facebook |  YouTube

Sculptor Neil Mitchell, needs publicity for his pathetic “artistic career.”  You see, this guy and his art suck.  Who wants to be a sculptor anyway?  I mean, it’s not like they contribute to society in any meaningful way.

So in an effort to feel important and for people to look his way, he comes up with a “brilliant idea” – why not exhibit a naked woman on a cross just days before Easter?

Mitchell defends his supposed $40,00 piece of crap “art” by saying..

“It is the duty of an artist to question society’s beliefs in religion and to test people about those beliefs, which this sculpture will do,” he said.”

That’s what I hate about artists – too lazy to go to work like the rest of us, these people place a huge duty on themselves to question anything.  And Christianity is always fair game for these idiots cause they know they strike a raw nerve and get heaps of response and reaction because they slander things which are sacred to millions upon millions of people.

Mitchell, you’re an idiot.  Get a life, get a real job.  Get some talent cause seriously even your “art” sucks.  But most of all, don’t think that you pathetic antics are unknown.

You’re not the first to slander that which is sacred and you wont be the last.  This is your pathetic way to get attention – your five minutes of fame in this fleeting life.  And you chose to mock Jesus to do so.  I seriously pity you.

In closing, if I could be presumptuous enough to quote God’s response to this…

“It’s my duty as your Creator to judge how you respond to what I did for you through my Son.  His crucifixion and your response to it will determine your eternal reality.”

Thanks for that God.  Now if I may, as the LayGuy, continue..

Neil Mitchell.  You’re an idiot.

For more on this, go here.  And check out the glib response from the St Michael’s Uniting Church chief Minister Dr Francis McNab:

“[I do not].. find the work offensive, “but I wouldn’t go to see it.”

C’mon McNab – don’t be so in a hurry to please man.  Seriously.

I’m currently reading my first Ted Dekker novel.  After years of seeing his stuff at the Christian bookstore and wondering how good “Christian fiction” is,  I decided to get over my Tim Lahaye “Left Behind” mentality and dig into this book – albeit after borrowing it from a local library.

What I meant by the Left Behind comment is that Christians sometimes come across as real losers trying to follow a popular trend. When Lahaye came out with the Left Behind series, you were almost outcast if you didn’t read the books and actually like them.

I read a few but soon got over the “let’s stretch out this shocking theology over X amount of books so we can rake in the money” approach – similar to how shows like “Prison Break” and “Lost.”

And to think that end time understanding of millions of people is influenced by such trash makes me wonder who the bigger culprit is:  Dan Brown or Tim Lahaye?  Scary thought.

So that was my mindset as I picked up Adam at my local library.  Surprised to see a Christian author in the library, I read the blurb and decided to have another crack at Christian fiction.  I’m about a quarter through it and love it!

Dekker is an author I resonate with.  He shy’s away from typical cliché one would expect from a Christian fiction writer and delivers in a way where you can admire the research an author has undertaken in order to generate his work.  It’s real, it’s deep, it flows and it captures you.

Ultimately, Adam is a story about demon possession played out in a scientific “CSI” type environment.   To pull this off, Dekker had to do his research and any “hokey pokey christian cliche” would sink this story.  I’m glad to report that so far, this story aint sinking and is actually getting more intriguing all the time.

Have a listen to Dekker himself describe some of the thinking behind the book and then go do yourself a favour and grab a copy from somewhere.