Well, the Holidays are nearly over as well as another year. For that matter it is actually the dawning of a new decade. As I look back on the year, I realize that the past year has been one of momentous change for me and for the most part these have been changes for the better. Although the latter months of 2009 have been peppered with some unexpected trials and tribulations, I look forward to 2010 with great hope.

I really believe that God is at work not only in my life, but also in the lives of my entire family. Although His work has not come to a complete fruition at the current time, I can look at the stream of my life and it appears to be going in the right direction for the first time ever. I have faith that God knows better than me at what He is doing and I am beginning to also have faith in the work of His Spirit within me to allow Him to accomplish whatever it is that He has planned for me and my family.

This Christmas was honestly the best that I can ever remember. Money was tight and the relations between my daughter and the rest of our family are still strained, but we were able to celebrate the holiday with Christ in focus this year, and things went swimmingly well. Although I only had a couple of days off, and was exceedingly tired most of the holiday, I enjoyed Christmas Eve as well as Christmas Day in a more memorable fashion than in previous years and I think that the feeling was pretty much mutually felt throughout my family.

My wife bought me the next volume of N.T. Wrights series on ‘Christian Origins and the Question of God’ titled “The Resurrection of the Son of God” for Christmas and I have already dove into it. While Jesus and The Victory of God’ focused on the life of Christ, this second volume concentrates almost exclusively on a historical delving into Easter. It is a little longer than the last book at a little over 800 pages, and I have just got through the first fifty pages or so, but I am already pretty engrossed in it.

We’ve also started attending a different church for the time being. Nothing against the Methodist church that we’ve been members of for the last year or so, it’s just that there were some issues there that were making my wife (and me to a lessor degree) a little uncomfortable there. I’ve actually felt for probably the last nine or ten months that First Methodist was only our temporary church home and that eventually God was going to lead us to a smaller church (for various reasons that I may blog about in a week or so). I didn’t want to lead my family elsewhere; however, until it became more clear to me that it was actually God’s time for us to go.

This new church is also a Methodist church, but a much, much smaller one, probably only one-tenth the size of First Methodist. It is a newly planted church, with contemporary-only services, and with an ‘emergent’ feel to it. With that said, I’ve done a little research on the church and the pastor and they are definitely of the Methodist tradition, which is important to me. One of the things that impressed me the most is that they offer communion weekly, instead of monthly. Also, I must say that the Christmas Eve service was undoubtedly the best I’ve ever attended, and my wife also said as much to me when we left.

I suppose that this will be the last post for 2009. I didn’t blog much in December for the various reasons that I mentioned in my last post. I doubt that I will post again until next week with the New Years weekend coming up. As I also mentioned in my last post, I have a number of things that I want to address in the next month or so. I have pretty much given up on getting back to the outline that I posted in October at least for now. Too many other things are of more importance to me that I feel more of a need to write about.

I look forward to entering into the next decade with 2009 as a springboard to propel me into a closer knowledge and understanding of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I also hope to strengthen my walk with God and strengthen the relationships with those who He has put into my life, both family and friends. There are still some issues to be resolve in 2010, but I am putting my full hope and faith in God to help me in working these issues out. It seems that 2010 will be an interesting year, but then again, aren’t all of them?

I began reading “Jesus and Victory of God” which is part two of N.T. Wrights planned six volume series on ‘Christian Origins and the Question of God’ with a desire to know Jesus better as He related within his first century Jewish setting. I must say that I got much, much more than I bargained for in this book. With the exception of the Bible itself, this book by far is the finest piece of Christian literature that I have ever read.

In the first portion of the book, Wright explores nearly all of the significant scholarly research and writings about the ‘historical Jesus’ that have been written since the Enlightenment period; good, bad and ugly. He points out the strengths and weaknesses of many of the different scholarly attempts to understand Jesus and what was written about Him by the Gospel writers as well as other first and second century writers, Christian, Gnostic, and Jewish. He leaves no stone unturned as he examines all of the various scholarly opinions about Jesus from the Synoptics (and other ancient texts) during the last century or two.

He ends this first section with a devastating critique of the ‘Jesus Seminar’ and gives solid reasons for the authenticity of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life, words and actions. Although he has a deep respect for some of the scholars that make up the ‘Jesus Seminar’, especially Dominic Crossan, he points out where their methodology and exegesis is lacking and gives very valid reasons for this. He doesn’t arbitrarily dismiss any of his contemporaries writings out of hand, but gives a very detailed and thoughtful consideration to what they have said and written about Jesus and convincingly rebuts where he sees that they may have gone down a blind alley.

In the second section of this book, Wright begins to explore first century Judaism and exactly what the prevailing thoughts and hopes of Israel were about the coming Messiah. He explores the world of first century Judaism under Roman rule in such a detail that at times I felt I was actually in first century Judea. He examines many of the different Gospel accounts and explains in convincing detail how what was written about Jesus is authentic and his how the records of His words and actions all line up with what was going on in the Judea of the first century. He examines the Jewish eschatological and apocalyptic expectations from Daniel and Isaiah as well as other texts and how Jesus saw Himself as fulfilling those expectations, albeit in a way that the ‘experts’ of the time had never quite expected.

In the third section he examines the aims and beliefs of Jesus. What exactly did Jesus mean by many of his sayings and parables from a first century Jewish context and worldview? Who did Jesus believe Himself to be and what exactly was he trying to accomplish with His teachings and most especially with His temple actions and the Last Supper. Did He intend to get crucified, or were there other options available to Him? Did Jesus actually view Himself as the third person in the Trinity?

I personally don’t feel qualified to give a dignified review of this monumental work about Jesus, but I would highly recommend it to anyone who would like to understand Jesus the man better. After all Jesus was fully man as well as fully God. At times I felt that some of this book was a little over my head, and I repeatedly had to reference some of the other writings that Wright referred to. I also spent a fair amount of time in Wikipedia reading about some of the other significant figures of Jesus’ time period such as Judas Maccabeus, Judas of Galilee, Simon Bar Kokhba and others that Wright references in this book.

I will say that some people (fundamentalists) may have some problems with Wright’s eschatology. I came away with the firm feeling that Wright is most probably an amillenial partial-preterist. Some of what he writes about Jesus’ eschatological views make a huge amount of sense to me personally though, and I am going to have to re-examine my own eschatology after reading this book. Wright’s treatment of the Olivet Discourse in particular made more sense to me than any others that I have read.

Much like Obi-Wan told Luke Skywalker in ‘Star Wars’, I feel like I have taken a large step into a much larger theological universe after reading this book. Jesus is much more real to me than ever before and what reading I have done in the Gospels during and since my read of Wright’s book has much more relevance to me than ever before. Jesus in 3-D is a good way to describe my reading of this book.

I read this book during a somewhat tumultuous time in my personal life, and I hope to eventually re-read this book again sometime next year after my life smoothes out somewhat and I can perhaps study some of Wright’s concepts about Jesus a little more in depth. All the same, I am glad that I took the time to read this and look forward to (eventually) reading more of Wright’s works.

As Christmas approaches I am trying with all of my strength to relax and simply contemplate and celebrate the birth of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ roughly two thousand years ago.

October was a difficult month, November was a nightmare and December has been a roller coaster of ups and downs. The month of September however was probably the brightest month that I’ve had since turning my life over to Christ and I was standing on a mountain at the end of the month before I was plunged into the Valley of the Shadow of death.

I like to think that God brought me up to the top of the mountain at the end of September because He knew that I was going to need that mountaintop experience to be able to withstand the coming trials that He knew were coming for me and my family.

These trials and troubles are by no means completely resolved, but I am trusting that God knows what He is doing. I think that by the end of March or April that most of what is going on in my personal life will have reached some sort of resolution and I am hoping that I will be able to look back and see where God was gently guiding me and my family through the obstacle course that my life has become over the last couple of months.

Although dealing with these difficulties as well as preparing for the Holidays has affected my writing somewhat, the primary reason for my lack of blogging has been that been that I have been spending virtually all of my limited spare time reading N.T. Wrights ‘Jesus and the Victory of God’. I actually finished it last night and I must say that it was one of the most interesting and enlightening books that I have ever read. I hope to give a full review of it next week and perhaps touch on some of the concepts about Jesus and the Christian faith that I had never before fully explored.

I hope to have time to get in at least two or three blog entries over the next couple of weeks, but it will probably be after the first of the year before I will have the available time to get back to being able to write as often as I was prior to December.

There’s not been much opportunity for blogging lately. The myriad of dramas that I have been attempting (with Christ’s help) to resolve in my personal, family and spiritual life have pretty much excluded any attempt to write about anything of real meaning or import lately. Additionally, my home computer decided late last week to give up the ghost and it took all of my spare time over the course of two days to get it running again with the much-appreciated help of my fifteen year old, who actually knows more about PC’s than I do. There was a blessing in that me and my fifteen year old were able to spend much more father-son time together than we have in quite some time and it was somewhat of a bonding experience.

As I have made note of in recent blogs, there are a lot of things going on in my life that have distracted me somewhat from blogging. These dramas have been from within my family (a troubled 17-year old daughter that we had to make temporarily leave home a couple of months ago and has since stirred up additional troubles), financial, legal (a lawsuit involving a neighbor who was injured on our property a few months ago), health problems with my wife, and even some perceived problems from within our church. Some of these various dramas have in the last week drawn to a resolution (favorably, I might add), but others are still unfolding and it may well be several months before things in my life settle back down to normal, (whatever normal is).

Through all of this however, I can see the finger of God working in my life. Although I am not theologically deterministic (molinistic would probably best describe my current state of mind), I do believe that God is working within all of these situations in my life. I do believe that ‘God works all things together for good for those who love Him and all called according to His purpose’ (Romans 8:28) and that everything that is going on right now is according to His plan. The hardest thing for me to do is try and stay out of His way and trust the results to Him.

In my post ‘Only Luke is With Me…’ of a couple of weeks ago, I quoted 2 Timothy 1:7 “God has not given us a spirit of fearfulness, but one of power, love, and sound judgement.’ I am finding lately that to be my current ‘life scripture’. The course that God is plotting for me is into unfamiliar waters, but I trust Him to keep me off of the reefs. I know that if the current ‘difficulties’ that I am encountering were occurring just a few years ago, I’d probably be dealing with everything in a decidedly non-Christian and probably unsatisfactory manner.

Although fear still occasionally creeps in as I attempt to do what I feel is my portion of the responsibility in resolving some of these problems that have erupted in my life, I remind myself again and again of that scripture; ‘God has not given us a spirit of fearfulness.’ I ask God for forgiveness for my lack of faith, and pray the prayer that the father of the boy who was demon possessed prayed after Jesus told him that “Everything is possible to the one who believes” (Mark 9:23). The boy’s father cries out “I do believe! Help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)

There are some silver linings that I believe that I am catching glimpses of as the storm clouds roll in and out of my life, and I believe that when the storms that are buffeting my family and me have subsided, it will be very easy to look back at what we are presently going through as an example of Christ lovingly guiding us to the point where we can better serve Him. At the same time, the relationship between my wife and me is being strengthened, and I believe that our faith will be strengthened by all of this as well.

As I mentioned in my last post, there are quite a number of things that I am wanting to blog about concerning some of what I believe has been revealed to me through these last few weeks. If I can, perhaps I’ll be able to get to at least one or two of them this week. If not, hopefully next week for sure. What I’d really like to write about is the silver linings, and not so much the storm clouds.

Spending the Thanksgiving weekend with my (still) Armstrong believing mother and atheist brother combined with the books that I’ve been reading over the last couple of weeks has really brought close to home for me what a small, small theological world that many people choose to live in.

It was nice visiting with my mother and this was the first time that we’ve been able to enjoy an extended visit for several years. It was also our first extended visit since I turned over my life to Christ and also set out on my quest to find out who Christ really was and still is. As I tried to talk with her about my relationship with Christ and all that I have learned since escaping Armstrongism (and Fundamentalism as well), I marveled at how small her view of God and her knowledge of the Bible actually was. I tried gently to show her how maybe, just maybe she might be wrong about her ideas of God and the Christian faith, but quickly realized that she enjoyed her small view and was not going to easily going to be swayed from her Armstrong beliefs.

I also spent a good deal of time discussing my faith with my atheist brother. While he is happy for me that I have found ‘something to believe in’ and has noticed a remarkable change in my life as the result of it, he attributes it to some sort of psychological something-or-another. He spent ten years in college studying psychology and has a masters degree in it (although he readily admits that he primarily chose Psychology as a means to figure himself out) and believes that any life changing spiritual experience can be explained from a purely psychological viewpoint. I realized that he too, suffers from the very small view of the ‘God’ that he learned from growing up in Armstrongism, witnessed in Fundamentalism and read about on all of the atheist websites.

During the course of the last couple of weeks I’ve also been reading some quite heady works from N.T. Wright. I’ve just finished the first 150 or so pages of his ‘Jesus and the Victory of God.’ The bulk of what I’ve read so far is his discussion of the many differing theological and historical viewpoints held about Jesus, primarily concentrating on the scholarly debates of the last century. He spends a lot of pages discussing the ‘Jesus Seminar’ viewpoints of Dominic Crossan and Burton L. Mack and gives his critiques of these and other’s writings about Jesus.

Although I have progressed very far from my Armstrong beginnings and Fundamentalist middle, books like this one from Wright remind me how much more that there is out there in the theological world and that I in fact still know very, very little my own self about the Bible and theology.

It seems to me that the small Fundamentalist views of God and of the Christian faith is why so many are turned away from it. Many people think that Christianity is all about being judgmental, hypocritical and waiting for the end of the world. And from looking at many Christians today, these people would be right.

I am discovering more and more that God is a much larger, more powerful, and infinitely more loving God than what I had ever before imagined.

The small view of God is what keeps people locked in to their legalistic and small worlds, and is what keeps many others from wanting to go through that door of faith.

I’m enjoying my readings of the last couple of weeks, and my readings along with what has been going on at home has slowed me down a little on blogging, and I have a lot that I’m wanting to write about, but haven’t had the time. I’ll probably slow down on my reading a little after I finish my current read so that I can catch up on my writing, but that’ll likely be next week or the week after. I hope that I can get at least one blog entry in between now and the end of the week. We’ll see.