Blog Site for spiritual explorers

I am laying out my ideas for using blogs as part of the strategy to communicate the gospel to university students here in London.

I will use one blog ( www.JesusWisdom.wordpress.com ) as an introduction to the Gospel and the Kingdom of God for people exploring ideas. Here are some thoughts on this site I have begun to sketch out. Ideas from others would be welcome.

This is my place to present the claims of Jesus

The address should be

1. Clear enough for someone to remember

2. Clearly related to Faith questions

3. Not so religious that it appears to be for insiders (they should be welcome)

The Home Page should be :
1. Mildly attractive but not chaotic. I find some university sites and literature so colorful and crazy that it is hard to decipher. It may be that I am just out of touch, but it may also be that the drive to appear relevant is a bad habit of repeating the mistakes that rise from the assumptions you are challenging; namely that there is no ultimate coherence.

The principle I am pursuing is that this is a bridge site, so it should be reasonably comfortable but not redundant
*Not too religious (giving off the signs of "insiders only")

*Not just a repeat of what is already available (just another swirl of incoherent passionate randomness)

It should be honestly open about presenting Jesus right from the start (what you get 'em on is what you keep 'em on)

Q:But what about Paul's address to the Areopagus?
A:This is the content that comes after Paul's speech which ends with :

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead." Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, "We will hear you again about this." So Paul went out from their midst. (Acts 17:30-33)

The conversation that ends with "if you want to know more go to www…" is what corresponds to the Areopagus speech and is not part of the site. In other words, I may speak broadly and then move to Jesus prior to giving out the site address. If anyone goes to the site they already know that it is from a perspective loyal to Jesus.

Any ideas about the address and/or look of the Home page of the intro site? BTW, the current look is just a standard WordPress template and will eventually be adjusted when I have a clear reason/idea for doing so. Right now the www.jesuswisdom.wordpress.com is not being promoted, it is a functioning draft.

Public drafting of my impending work

Hi friends. Here is a public drafting of what I will be working on. The following is raw. That means that these are ideas seeking to form up. They will be sharpened against Scripture and wisdom from reflection. I will reread these ideas and adjust them, others will challenge what I am saying (hopefully graciously) and I will then make some progress toward a responsible version which will be published on a more publicly advocated blog (www.JesusWisdom.wordpress.com ) which is designed as a platform for sharing these ideas once they are ready.

Part of the reasons for this is related to ADD type problems I have had and partly kept hidden. Do I have ADD? Don't know what that means really. I just know that I have symptoms, like most people, of struggling with staying focused on one think and making incremental progress. Whether it is part of a condition with a medical name, or maybe one with a moral name (undisciplined, lazy, unfocused…) the fact is that I am not content with my forward progress on carrying things to publicly useful conclusions. So, I am going to press on, partly because I am convinced that Christ has called all of us to learn the wisdom of carrying things to completion. With that, I will start my next effort at articulating a Telos shaped understanding of the Kingdom of God.

The essential argument of Telos is as follows:

1. Story. The story of the Bible is about a good situation that goes bad, has a promise made, a promise fulfilled but while problems persist. The end result is a situation that is better than at first, as if the fall and suffering through the Alpha and Omega was actually intended and useful. Telos teaching makes some sense out of why God allows suffering: it is necessary for regents who can handle the responsibility to live wisely over creation, having known good and evil and rejected evil personally and permanently through confirmed relationship to God as King and redeemer. Naïve good to wise good.
   
2. The purpose of life is about wise discernment being developed not about solutions being delivered. What humanity is called to do is to be overwhelmed by the weight of the entanglements of sin and detachment from the Creator such that humanity willingly and intentionally, as well as humbly, attaches to God in loyalty and dependence. The result is an active corresponding relationship, not a merely passive one. We experience this dynamic in basic developments including raising children through phases: Dependence >Independence> Interdependence.
   
3. The reading of the Bible becomes particularly intentional in pursuing what to do more than to map out everything that is. A doctrine of ignorance and distortion is developed alongside a doctrine of knowledge and clarity such that people in Christ can be honest to experience of mental, emotional and physical dissatisfactions while honestly reaching for and extending hope for themselves and others.
   

This is what comes off the top of my head today. I will seek to edit and re-edit such that I end up with a proposition of how the New Testament usage of the Greek word Telos (and related words) can guide us into a faithful and fruitful spirituality that is doctrinally faithful and immediately compelling to ourselves and the world when it listens.

My goal is to have a Telos oriented presentation of the gospel on JesusWisdom.wordpress.com by Christmas so I can use it as a public proclamation to my LuniS friends and others. From there I want to shape it into an article for academic publication and from there to a book focused on the Sermon on the Mount spirituality and the invitation of New Testament Telos Hope.

Let's see where this goes! J

Clarity; Crystal Clear Clarity

One of the phrases that at one time invigorated, later came to concern me: "As the Bible clearly says...".

I guess I noticed too many times that it was followed with something that was only clear if not burdened by an awareness of other texts and the range of meanings.

I listened to a talk by Dallas Willard at Stanford recently. He raised the question of knowledge. Willard said something to the effect, after having argued persuasively that Jesus was intelligent, that you might wonder why he didn't just tell James and Peter the relativity equations. The audience laughed with surprise, but Willard was half serious. IF the purpose of scripture is to clearly say this or that, why isn't more precision to be found and on more subjects? His answer to his own question was that the disciples wouldn't have known what to do with relativity equations and that it misses the point of revelation in scripture.

Of course the wearisome response from many is a long lecture on how they have reconciled every enigma through their diligent study of some great teacher's explanation of scripture. Problem is, of course, the various aggressive students seeking to reassure me that everything IS clear are not clear with each other. Though I used to take a Tae Kwan Do approach (direct attack) I now favor Aikido style (let them buckle under the awkwardness of their lunging). I don't need to argue with anyone about it, I am quite sure there are troubling riddles that may not be answered in any commentary.

So, what to do with enigmas, puzzles, riddles and such. They may not all be designed to be solved like cryptograms. Rather, maybe they are more like parenting techniques.

Dad: You two better stop that.
those two: or what???
Dad: trust me, you don't want to find out, now do you?
those two: no sir

My friend Stephen mentions something like that in his comment in the entry below "...motivation often uses quite striking hyperbole". The use of hyberbole in the place of being cryptic being another form.

Dad: You two better stop that.

those two: or what???

Dad: I'll ____ (fill in the blank with an appropriately innappropriate Texas style threat with references to strange wild animals and very scary arrangements). You don't wanna force me to do that, now, do ya?

those two: no sir.

Does the use of hyberbole communicate truth? I would say yes. The dad who goes on about skinnin' you like a couple of squirrels or some more creative such thing really means business. There will be 'heck' to pay! It is real (metaphorically), and it is not just being cute. We should listen, and we should be afraid, but not insanely; rather, wisely.

God speaks to us in ways that I have come to admit are not as clear as I would like. But you know what happens as soon as I say that? I also have to admit that God is a lot MORE clear than I actually would like. I am not a particularly clever writer (maybe some day), but I do believe that what I am saying is true. The need to acknowledge the weightiness of moral exhortations in scripture is more often than not painfully clear. What I would rather do is argue the cosmological, ontological, hermeneutical, something-or-other-ical, aspects. By defending the semantic aspects I have had a sense of faithfulness. The only concern is that my faithfulness is like the Levitically clean priest on a certain road whose opportunity to hear the clear meaning of Levitcus was left to the Samaritan coming down the path behind me.

Leviticus 19:18
... but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.

Personal blogging

I am back. I have missed broadcasting message with the hope that it is going to form into a conversation or something close. I was away partly because I have been in an odd type of space travel. Leaving Thailand, bouncing around more than a dozen places in the US (MI1, MI2, TX3, TX4, TX5, FL6, VA7, NC8, NC9, TX 10, TX11, TX12) in fewer than a dozen weeks, leaving Hannah, doing lots of non-reflective work (admin) as well as the fun of friends and family… anyway, it has been disorienting. Now we are in London and 3 weeks into it feels like real permanence (relatively speaking).

Also, I have been preparing to make a shift. I am scheming a site that is more intentionally directed at university students and people looking into the Way of Jesus. www.1telos.wordpress.com will be that site. There is a good bit of work to be sorted out (purpose, audience, design, etc.). In the mean time I just want to talk out loud. As far as I know this blog only registers with a handful of friends anyway. So, telosxelot.blogspot.com will be shifting to my more personal insights (typical vanity blog). 1telos.wordpress.com will be where I seek to write more carefully and will try to build connections to others. Eventually this blog may be replaced entirely, but for now I just want to think publicly.

Cheers!