The Biblical Man: The Heart

// February 25th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized

“The heart is the seat and center of our identity, the essence of our total inner selves that expresses itself outwardly in word and deed.”

The word “heart” appears over 900 times in its derivatives and forms in your Bible. The sheer volume of biblical references tells us that the heart is an extremely important theme. If we’re going to talk about building lives, families, businesses and ministries that glorify God, we need to make an honest assessment of the situation we find ourselves in at present. If you take stock of your own life, and you look at the world that God intends for his children to dwell in, you realize how messed up we are, how far wrong the world has gone. The Bible says that the reason things are this way is because we are intrinsically flawed in our nature. We’re broken, there’s something wrong with us. In their song “The Economy of Mercy,” the band Switchfoot says “we are bruised and broken masterpieces, but we did not paint ourselves.” Someday, we’ll no longer be broken.

Even non-Christians will admit the flawed nature of humanity. The entire mental-health industry is attempting to find solutions to the problems we’re plagued with. Our country spends $80 billion a year on mental health. There are hundreds of schools of psychological thought trying to address the same problems. Yet every psychological system blames someone other than the individual. We live in a culture obsessed with blame-shifting and victimhood. We need to take an honest look, to deconstruct our world.  As we do so, God will lay bare the deficiencies of our hearts,  but he will also shine a light on the provision that has been made  for us, the way to a new heart and a transformed life: Jesus Christ.

As we strive to understand what it means to be “a man after God’s own heart,” we must first re-orient our minds. We need to see the world through a biblical lens, because you cannot import the principles of Proverbs into a secular mindset, it won’t work. For instance, the “Nature vs. Nuture” issue. Some will say environmental conditioning is the sole cause of what makes us bad (i.e. BF Skinner). Though there is some truth in the “nurture” argument, Scripture says the main problem is internal environment, not external environment. Freud will say you’re a highly evolved animal, you have primal urges and you cannot help yourself. If you look at Carl Rogers and the Rogerian school of thought, they tell you it’s a lack of self-awareness, you don’t realize the height of your potential, you’re a really good person, you need self-worth, self-dignity, you need to self-actualize, you need to go within yourself to get the answers. They will tell you that already know the answers, you just need to “remember.” So we get into hypnosis, regressive memory therapy, self-meditation, self-esteem, positive psychology techniques, etc. If your life is not going well, you must not be connected to your inner self well enough. Proverbs, however, says that the root problem is the Heart. The condition of our world and our culture reflects the condition of the human heart. We cannot blame anyone but ourselves.

In order to understand Proverbs, you need to think with a sanctified imagination, because it speaks in metaphors and poetic images and analogies. The heart is a poetic image. Not just a literal organ, the heart is the center, the essence, the nature, the soul, what all things emanate from. Secular philosophy says we are mind and body (meat and ideas, nothing more), Christian and other spiritual philosophies say that we are mind, body, and spirit. True, but Proverbs says that all those things come out of the heart.

To continue in this study, please follow on to the linked materials, sermons and clips below:

The Heart. Powerpoint

“Heart” Verses from the Wisdom Literature & the Gospels

The Heart. Proverbs. Sermon Audio. Mark Driscoll. 2001.

The Wellspring of Wisdom. Proverbs: True Wisdom for Life. Sermon Audio. Tim Keller. 2004.

Gospel-Centered Ministry: Point 2 – The Gospel is Doxological. Sermon Video. The Gospel Coalition Conference. Tim Keller. 2007. Starting at 23:35, ending at 25:18. [broken link]

Faith and Works. Religion Saves…and Nine Other Misconceptions. Sermon Video. Mark Driscoll. 2008.

Video Clips:

Destroying Behavior Modification:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHj6Jm7Y5Ek]

Circumcising a Callused Heart:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxdejjNPL6c&feature=related]

Vices Redeemed: Tattoos

// February 13th, 2008 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

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Vices Redeemed: Video Games

// February 13th, 2008 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

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Vices Redeemed: Cards

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Vices Redeemed: Alcohol

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The Reason for God

// February 13th, 2008 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Exclusivity: How can there be just one true religion?	1 John 4:1-10	Download
Suffering: If God is good, why is there so much evil in the world?	1 Peter 1:3-12	Download
Absolutism: Don’t we all have to find truth for ourselves?	Galatians 2:4-16	Download
Injustice: Hasn’t Christianity been an instrument for oppression?	James 2:1-17	Download
Hell: Isn’t the God of Christianity an angry Judge?	Luke 16:19-31	Download
Doubt: What should I do with my doubts? (AM)	John 20:1-18	Download
Literalism: Isn’t the Bible historically unreliable and regressive? (AM)	Luke 1:1-4; 24:13-32	Download
The Prodigal Sons	Luke 15:1-2, 11-32	Download
Christ, Our Life	Colossians 3:1-14	Download
The Gospel	Isaiah 53:4-11; 54:1-5,11-14	Download
Justice	Isaiah 58:1-14	Download
The Gospel and Your Self	Isaiah 6:1-13	Download

Vices Redeemed: Tobacco

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Valentine's Day

// February 12th, 2008 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

Valentine’s Day

Saint Valentine of Terni and his disciples, from a 14th century manuscript

Valentine’s Day is often loved by women and loathed by men who feel compelled to drop their hard-earned cash on flowers, jewelry, candy, and sappy cards. Perhaps comic Jay Leno expressed the male Valentine’s Day dilemma best in one of his monologues, saying, “Today is Valentine’s Day, or, as men like to call it, Extortion Day.” Conversely, the hopelessly romantic at heart enjoy the opportunity that Valentine’s Day affords for thoughtful romance and unbridled passion.

Whether you love or hate Valentine’s Day, the fact is that it has evolved into an enormous holiday. The question remains, however, who is Valentine and how did he come to be associated with everything from the color red to some secret known only by a woman named Victoria?

While the details of his life are sketchy at best, Valentine was allegedly a Christian who was canonized by the Catholic Church as a saint. His name was common and is derived from the Latin word valens, meaning strong and powerful.

One legend claims that Emperor Claudius II (or Claudius the Goth) outlawed marriage because he decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families and he wanted to bolster the strength of his military. But a priest named Valentine secretly performed marriages, thereby defending romance and love.

Another legend claims that just prior to being beheaded, Valentine prayed over the daughter of his jailer which led to the curing of her blindness and the conversion of her entire family, including her father, though he still put Valentine to death toward the end of the third century. Further contributing to all of the confusion is the fact that there may have been as many as three Christians named Valentine who were all martyred, making it seemingly impossible to know which stories are true and to which men they apply.

Although the celebration of the life of Saint Valentine was not initially met with much fanfare, he eventually grew in popularity for a very practical reason. Around AD 498, Pope Gelasius chose February 14 as the day for commemorating Valentine’s life because that was the day he reportedly died as a Christian martyr around AD 270. That day proved to be serendipitous as the medieval legend emerged that birds selected their mates on February 14, thereby associating the day with romance and love. Also, Saint Valentine’s Day fell the day before the Hefner-esque Roman fertility feast of Lupercalia on February 15. Lupercalia was a drunken, naked crazy-fest not unlike modern-day Mardi Gras celebrations and NBA locker rooms. Lupercalia was dedicated to the god of partying, Faunus, marked by the usual frat-boy nonsense of naked white guys running through the streets while crowds drank heavily, danced, and young singles enjoyed “hooking up.”

Once Saint Valentine became connected with the debauchery of Lupercalia, his Christian influence on the holiday quickly waned as the two holidays essentially merged and the spirit of Lupercalia remained but was renamed Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day quickly grew in popularity. Its association with the color red may have been taken from the fact that the color red was chosen to commemorate the death of Valentine who died the bloody death of a martyr. Also, the association with the chubby, winged pseudo-angel Cupid, who is the mythical son of the Roman goddess of love, Venus, is a Lupercalia leftover from pagan mythology.

Perhaps the most common present-day tradition associated with Valentine’s Day is the giving of valentine cards. No one is certain how this tradition began. One legend reports that Valentine actually sent the first valentine. The story goes that while in prison awaiting his execution he wrote a love letter to a woman and signed it, “From your Valentine.” Apparently the expression stuck and remains perennially popular.

By the Middle Ages, Valentine’s Day was widely celebrated. The first Valentine’s Day card was reportedly a poem sent by Charles, the duke of Orleans, to his wife in 1415 while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt. That card remains on display at the British Museum in London to this day. By 1450, to be someone’s valentine was synonymous with being their sweetheart. By 1533, a valentine was synonymous with a piece of paper folded as a romantic card. By 1610, valentine gifts were also commonly given to sweethearts. By the mid-1700s, Valentine’s Day grew in popularity throughout Great Britain and around that time Americans also began exchanging handmade valentine cards. And, by the 1840s, the commercial greeting card companies began mass-producing valentines marked by such girlie adornments as lace and ribbon. Today, an estimated one billion valentine cards are sent each year, making Valentine’s Day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year, following Christmas.

Sadly, the holiday in his name completely ignores our brother Valentine. As a pastor, he likely would have been quite offended at much of what is done in the name of love, to commemorate the day his head was chopped off because of his love for Jesus Christ. Awesome…

The Biblical Man: A Biblical Worldview

// February 7th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized

“Do Christians Have a Worldview?” Graham Cole

A Biblical Worldview Powerpoint

“The Gospel: Intellectually Credible and Existentially Satisfying”. Sermon. Tim Keller.  Redeemer Presbyterian.

Our Frame of Reference: The Story of God (.jpg)

More Info on Worldview (.doc)

Christian Theological Framework (.jpg)