Wesley's Milestones

That boy made me laugh this afternoon! He did a few baby paces of bear-crawling to get close enough to pull on the dog's ear. When I pulled him away to encourage him to crawl back to the dog, Wesley instead scooted backwards toward the couch. Once there, he considered pulling up on the couch, but chose instead to scoot backward between the legs of the coffee table. He made it the full length of the coffee table, scooting backward, until a leg went outside. When I took this picture, he was not amused at all.

To all that, Wesley recently added the ability to pull himself up from his back to standing by grabbing my hands. Today he did the same from his belly. I also saw him get from his belly to sitting in his crib by himself. Tonight Laura and I will be lowering the mattress in his crib!

Missional Church

My 200-year-old church has not made a sizable impact on our community in a long time, maybe never. So, I'm usually interested in biblically sound strategies for growth, for revitalization or whatever else.

I like Mark Dever's work on restoring a pure church. Ed Stetzer's work on restoring a missionary mindset to churches is challenging and practical for my situation.

To the mix I add Eddie Hancock, a missions director for the baptist convention in Nevada. Because the shuttle bus was full after the last session of the SBC, Eddie had to sit by me on the way back to our hotel. We talked about the Lord and our service in the kingdom, and I was intrigued by the task of reaching Nevada with the gospel.

Eddie said his experience has been that many Southern Baptists from the South have trouble adjusting to and connecting with people in Nevada's culture. So, instead of relying too heavily on outside leadership for churches and church planting, Eddie and others are trying to train leaders among Nevada natives.

"How many men in your church have a steady diet of the Bible besides what they get from your sermons?" Eddie asked me. My guess would be pretty small - maybe single digits. So, how can we train leaders of churches with that sort of minimal personal effort among men? Eddie suggested what is called Life Transformation groups (suggesting the "edgy" author Neil Cole).

LTGs have three parts and no more than three members who meet for 1 hour weekly to: (1) discuss high-volume Bible reading each member has completed for the week [each reads the same chapters as the others]; (2) pose accountability questions to one another [using any number of prying lists out there about spiritual health and discipleship]; (3) pray for specific lost people.

Disciples edify one another by discussing the Word and life. They also pray and focus together on reaching others with the gospel. It becomes normal to talk about Jesus and to build relationships based on trusting one another. When a fourth person comes along, the one TLG becomes two with two members each. It seems excellent to me!

The "Pastoral Epistles" misnamed?

1 & 2 Timothy, together with Titus have been called this for a couple of centuries. Many critical scholars think these letters were written by someone (not Paul) as a way to formalize church authority structure around the turn of the century. Even scholars who believe Paul wrote these letters tend to look at them as "manuals for church order."

Not Gordon Fee! "It is a mistaken notion to view Timothy or Titus as model pastors for a local church. The letters simply have no such intent."

May

We had a fun May. Most days' highs were in the low to mid-70's, and we're really missing that now! It's finally creeping up into the upper 80's and even the 90's this week. I know most of you have been experiencing temperatures like this for a couple of months now, so I'm not complaining.

Our month was full of fun visits. Lela came to stay a few nights before going to China for two weeks. We always enjoy some Lela time. :) Somehow, we didn't really take pictures with our camera for that visit. The plan usually is to glean some good pics from Lela, but we have yet to get around to that. Here's a cute one just for kicks:
Then my best friend from high school, Marilyn, flew up for a visit to meet Wesley during her vacation. Wesley was a fan, and I think it's safe to say Marilyn felt the same way. I'm not sure those chubby little cheeks have ever been kissed so many times in such a small stretch! Marilyn was kind enough to take a few family shots. Wesley was only interested in the ground/flowers, so, in order to get his eyes open she went for the worm's-eye view.We also got to take a four day trip to Texas near the end of May. We flew for the second time with Wesley, and he did quite well. I've been a little nervous about the whole experience both times we have flown, but Wesley has been an amazing little guy on the plane. Wesley got to see both great-grandmothers again. Again, I think there was a mutual admiration. Mimi came up from Austin to Abilene for a visit which we very much appreciate. It's just too hard to try to make all the stops for a quality Texas trip and still enjoy the time there. Thanks, Mimi! And thanks to Lela for accompanying her on the way down. We did drive to Levelland to visit Grandma. She is in an assisted living facility now, and Wesley put on quite a show for all of the residents there. We stayed with my Aunt Carol and Uncle Stan and got to experience the game Mexican Train...very fun! We went ahead and bought our own set of dominoes and played the next night with mine and John Mark's parents and Lela.
I thought this was a cute picture of Wesley with my Aunt Marla.

We also enjoyed a visit from John Mark's parents who drove from Wichita Falls, and we stayed with my parents for most of the trip. We had a wonderful time with them, but somehow didn't get many good pictures with the grandparents! We'll work on that when they hopefully come up to see us this summer. Thanks to you guys for coming to see us/putting us up at your house!

Finished Galatians!

This might not interest many of you, but it's free. I began preaching through Galatians at the beginning of the year and finished yesterday. I generally followed the conventional interpretation of the letter, with a few interesting (to me at least) deviations. Here are some of my interpretations that I did not hold before I began:

1. Galatians 1 is Paul's defense of his unique gospel presentation for the Gentiles. When he says he received it by revelation, not from man, he is not contradicting his words in 1 Corinthians 15:3, when he said he received the gospel as tradition passed down to him. He had certainly heard the facts about Jesus while he was persecuting Christians; that's why he could immediately start preaching that Jesus was the Son of God after he was baptized in Damascus (Acts 9).

2. Galatians 2:1 is not meant to be the continuation of Paul's personal narrative. I think it is Paul's account of the "Jerusalem Council" that Luke described in Acts 15 (scholars debate this point). Paul jumps to that occasion because it was the first major time when Paul's understanding of what the gospel implied for Gentiles (which was his distinct personal calling from Christ, his unique contribution among the apostles) was in jeopardy of being contradicted by Jewish Christians with the support of the other apostles. Paul says, in essence, I made the convincing case that faith in Jesus was the exclusive way to be right with God, and that meant that Gentiles did not need to become like the Jews in order to be God's people. Since the Jerusalem Council affirmed that Paul accurately represented what the gospel implied for Gentiles, he was absolutely right to call Peter out when the leader of the original Twelve was undermining gospel implications by his behavior. Paul didn't write about who won the showdown because Peter obviously had not thought through all the implications of the gospel for the Gentiles.

3. I was surprised how many brilliant scholars hold that believers are justified by "the faith/faithfulness of Christ." (See Gal. 2:16-21) I don't buy it at all, but I'll save you the reasons. The traditional view seems right: we are justified by "faith in Christ."

4. That Gentiles and Jews alike are sons of Abraham and heirs of the promise by faith is what renders circumcision ineffective. Thus, when Paul talks about "the Israel of God" in 6:16, he is talking about the same group of people "who walk according to this rule." It would make no sense to argue for the whole letter that Gentiles and Jews are "one in Christ," only to draw a distinction between "God's Israel" and those others, the Gentile Christians. The Israel of God (in this context) = the Church.

5. Galatians 4:21-31 is tough, but I think it is a vivid illustration of living by the flesh.

6. Paul says walking by the Spirit is the superior replacement to living under the Law; if believers are free from the Law, how are they supposed to live? "Walking by the Spirit" is radically others-focused, developing Christ's character in us and creating a community that fulfills the second Great Commandment. When Paul says "Walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh," he's not describing the internal struggle we face to do the right thing. He's saying that the Spirit is the most effective strategy to keep us from everyone doing what is right in his own eyes. Walking by the Spirit is not first about moment-by-moment communication from God (other texts must be used to make that case) - it's first about using your freedom to love and serve our fellow believers and others as opportunity arises.

Too wordy already, so I'll say this: Galatians presents the Christian basics and challenges us deeply to make our boast "in the cross of Christ" and to use our freedom to serve others.

Finished the mini-Marathon

Saturday, April 26th, I ran the Kentucky Derby mini-Marathon. Thankfully, I was not injured during or after the race; I have heard about a few people who were hurt during the race. To my knowledge, PETA has not threatened organizers about how the injured from this race were handled.

I did not purchase the photos that were taken during the race of me, but I'll link them. I showed this one to my 8th grader friend, Brian, who said it looked like I was walking. The other shot isn't great either. And truly, the race T-shirt and the medal are both things I would hesitate to wear in public. So, you must trust me that I did run the entire race. My official time was 1:43:24, putting me comfortably behind 735 other runners, many of whom were much older, one of whom was a 13-year-old boy, and a few hundred of whom were women. That might be enough for me to retire from racing.

What caught the attention of this first-time racer? Four Elvis impersonators, one Spiderman, one princess, my first time in Churchill Downs, the gigantic litter volume created by racers, all the free stuff at the Finish line, the energizing effect of crowds cheering along the road, and the value of keeping pace with a seasoned runner for the last five miles.

Gone Swimmin'

Today we took Wesley for his first dip in a pool. He loved it! We went up to the seminary and swam for about 45 minutes. Wesley was a big fan of chewing on his bath toy while kicking his little legs all around behind him. He checked everyone out and let out quite a few giggles. When his face went in the water, he was pretty shocked, but handled it well. We had a really fun time. Wesley promptly conked out after getting all dried off and changed and getting strapped into his car seat.