1. Christianity: Personal Religion or Public Reality?
How can you be a professional philosopher and active Christian?
God hides his Kingdom so people who don't want Him aren't overwhelmed.
'God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble.
Therefore, we will not fear.' -- Ps 46
When do you know something? Knowledge is one of the most common things in life.
You know something when you can represent as it is on an appropriate basis of thought and experience.
Faith has a tie to the will that knowledge does not have. You believe something when you are ready to act as if it were true under appropriate circumstances.
Abraham and David ventured out in faith based on the knowledge they already had of God
[not uninformed leaps of faith into the void]
Eleazar (getting wife for Isaac) came to know about God b/c he acted in faith based on Abraham's knowledge
the heart of the with-God life is acting with God. David knew what it was to act with God. he had done it before. David knew that he did not kill the bear and the lion be himself, but that God acted with him. so he knew he could trust God to act with him in the future (though not, of course, in anything he might dream up, but in the same kinds of things that God might do with his people)
We know God in acting, not in contemplation
We need to act in faith on the basis of our knowledge. Then our knowledge will grow and our character will grow and the world around us will be changed. And when we come to people who don't know God we can tell them with knowledge how to live in faith.
Commitment: act of will that doesn't even rest on belief. simply an act of will. and not much can be accomplished by it.
can be path to faith and knowledge. can be path to disaster, futility
sometimes we have to commit when we don't know what to do and have no belief, especially if time is running out
profession: say you're committed and you aren't really
[this one, especially, is Dallas' own definition and not universal usage
also somewhat true of his def. of commitment]
current misunderstandings about knowledge leave some people feeling like profession is all they can do, and at least God will like it
Faith should be based on knowledge as far as possible (v. commitment and profession).
as preachers and teachers, our task is not to get people to do things. it is to communicate knowledge.
if we just get people to profess things, we'll have to spend the rest of our life jumpstarting them every week trying to get them to do things they don't want to do. many people think a minister is supposed to get people to do things they don't want to do
this has changed radically in the last 300 years
The Scripture brings knowledge of God
People don't have to accept what you know.
Would you like for God to exist? Otherwise you can't make any progress. They have to want to know.
In order to negotiate authority issues, the world has pushed knowledge out of the realm of religion. then they can claim public reality.
Knowledge has an effect nothing else does. It give you authority to act, to direct action, to formulate and supervise policy and to teach.
The main defense in the would against Christian knowledge is learned contempt.
'There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. That principle is contempt prior to investigation.' -- Herbert Spencer
The Bible, Jesus and Paul assume that knowledge of the existence of God is possible.
[Modern people say you can't prove God's existence 'scientifically', so God can't be proven to exist. But that is not the only path to proof and knowledge.]
People constantly suppress truths they don't like because the truths condemn them.
Most people in history and know believe in a god or gods b/c of the dependent nature of physical reality
Rom 1: everyone is without excuse
knowledge of God is available to everyone
'I'm an agnostic' is a partial cop out. Yes, it goes with a scientism worldview, but then you should move beyond that and find out. No one remains agnostic about anything that matters.
2.
who do I say that He is?
smartest man who ever lived?
more than just a sacrificial lamb
we are apprentices of Jesus, learning how to live in the K
but we have to pull like crazy to keep that from falling into [Pharisaism]
You have to think hard about what you read in the Scripture to keep it dealing with life and not something religious
it deals with religion, too, and religion needs a lot of help from it
religion becomes a big problem and it was a big problem for Jesus and Paul
it becomes a problem b/c humans try to take control
Jesus builds His church and you want to make sure that you are working with Him on His plan and that can keep religion from becoming deadly.
you can't get rid of religion b/c that's the human form of response to God
a lot of people think the only issue is how to deal with religion and that's what a lot of the popular writers focus on and their main objection to God is religion
it's unfortunate. we can understand why.
we need to keep in mind the reality of Christ's church and his people is not a human organization
it can and should intersect with that
and the only hope of the human organization is that it should intersect with the KoG
in history, people have tried to identify the KoG with the church
the KoG is in real trouble if that's true
[not sure about D's definitions here. why shouldn't the church also get special status, like the KoG?]
Jesus said the gates of hell would not prevail against it. maybe better to distinguish the church we see with its flaws and God's pure church
KoG is at hand, right where we are. we can begin to interact with it immediately
Jesus was plowing around the organizations that, in the name of God, were conspiring to shut people out of the KoG
long list of who was in and out. Jesus upends it with the Beatitudes, etc.
misreading of 'woe to you who laugh' has left a morbid imprint on Xianity - that if you're miserable, everything else being equal, you're closer to God
one of the strategies of Satan to defeat Jesus is to make him look like an idiot. and the way that normally works is to take one of His saying and make a legalism out of it and then associate righteousness with it. then all is lost b/c Jesus is after holistic transformation
people who have believed still need to know
John 8:31-32
31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
this is a description of how people can come to have the knowledge to come to the place where they never think they have to do things that are wrong again
freedom promised is freedom from the bondage of sin
you never think you have to do something wrong in order to survive
temptation of Eve: if you don't do this, you're going to miss out
how to do good? do the 10 Commandments. God will have to show up. to keep and help you.
verse worth more than any college education: Joshua 1.8
knowledge of the KoG comes mainly from putting God's words into practice
children love to be a part of what their parents are doing. helps them expand their kingdoms
[and that is what we do: join in with what God is doing to expand our agency]
the abundance of God's love comes to us and we are able to act with Him beside us. that's what stabilizes our whole life
Ps 16.9 -- I have set the Lord always before me. He is at my right hand. Therefore, I shall not be moved.
That's the secret of steady life in the knowledge of God: claiming the presence of God to act with you in all that you do far beyond what you can think up on your own. for the most part you don't see it very well ahead of you. that's the domain of faith. you see it in retrospect. the rearview mirror is the primary place you see grace.
--walking with Him, therefore, requires trust based on knowledge of grace in the past
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding.
you might even think you can figure out grace to the point where you can trust your understanding of it. you can't. you're dealing with a person.
thinking you can use spirituality to get what you want is a form of idolatry
3.
the Kingdom must show up in what we do in our work
the dignifying of work in the KoG is one of the things that is most central to understanding what Jesus is about in this world and what God was about in making such a world and not letting it be exploded. (we live in a cosmic shooting gallery.)
this planet and you are very big in God's purposes. what you spend your time doing, there is no such thing as a secular world. we have universities that style themselves as secular, but that's a large mistake, since the universe is not.
living out our place in the KoG means living in a world that is not secular
it's very important that we see ourselves and our work in the KoG
we will hope for different things, attempt different things. we should attempt some impossible things. we should be thinking only God can accomplish what we are trying to do. this is God's place. I live there with Him, but He's the one in charge. He's the one we count on and thereby come to know His presence more and more
[Jesus, how I trust Him, how I've proved Him o'er and o'er]
Ebenezer: hitherto hath the Lord led us
human vision is upside down. 'the first shall be last and the last shall be first' is fundamental to the Gospel and the inversion that comes with it.
the place of discipleship is fundamentally our work b/c 1. it fits in with our calling in Creation and 2. that's where we spend most of our time. To think God is not there is to remove ourselves from the area of discipleship for the time that we are at work.
Ps 8: what has God put under your dominion?
every work is a process of creating value. what is the value you're creating and how does it fit into God's purposes for His Kingdom? don't be grandiose. take simplest, most humble things we do that might create value and make sure that is where we center our discipleship.
Spiritual Formation as a Field of Knowledge
spiritual formation in X is the process that happens to you in the status of d'ship
You become a disciple of Jesus by deciding the most important thing in this world is to learn to live in the KoG as Jesus would live your life if He were you.
being with Him, learning to be like Him.
[how would Jesus do my job?]
spiritual formation is not in the business of behavior modification. behavior modification is a side effect.
some behaviors are so bad, we have to modify in the short term, but not stay in that mode.
think of the heart as the will, capacity to originate things
the primary function of the human heart is to depend upon God
the will moves out into the mind, body, social relations, etc.
information to change the will has to come from/through the mind
your feelings are part of your mind
your feelings move you toward something, your mind provides alternatives
our mind learns the truth
but our will has previously trained our body to go in a different direction habitually
all spiritual disciplines are designed to bring the elements of our personality into harmony with a will that is surrendered to God.
you take Scripture in under the ministry of the Spirit
[a big part of spiritual transformation for me will be getting free of my feelings, not being a slave to them and transforming them over time.]
we have to learn how bad actions develop and stop them before they take over
we need to get spiritual formation into the area of knowledge so that if you want to learn to do the things Jesus said to do, you can do it.
teaching people the character of X is not a secret thing. it's been done over and over throughout the ages.
Q&A2
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