God Came Down (Sola Sisters)

We had an inspiring message today, on Simeon's reception of the newborn Jesus at the temple by our high school Sunday School teacher (pastor was out of town).

Then I was treated to Sola Sisters' excellent post God Came Down.

I don't know why I hadn't thought of things quite the way her opening paragraph explains it:

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2010

God Came Down

Have you ever stopped to ponder why it is that, when the world attempts to portray what it would look like for the supernatural world to intersect with the natural world, the things they come up with are most often frightening and perverted in some way? Many examples of this come to mind: werewolves, vampires, Frankenstein, zombies, aliens, mummies, and so on. The human mind seems predisposed to think of the supernatural in a way that is scary, frightening, and most often a horrific perversion of what is normal and natural. From a Christian perspective, though, doesn't it make sense that the natural, unregenerated mind - in its sin-darkened state - can only conjure up a darker, more frightening version of what it "knows" (humans and human-ess) when attempting to make sense of the world? After all, the Bible tells us that man is darkened in his understanding, his wisdom is foolishness.

The truth is that, without benefit of the special revelation of God's Word, the Bible, the human view of that which is supernatural seems to default to the freakish and the frightening.

But what does it really look like for God to enter into time and space, and intersect with the natural world by taking on flesh and dwelling among us?

read more at Sola Sisters.

Apprising goes after Dan Kimball's orthodoxy

Boy that Kimball is a slippery fish isn't he!

(except in private, apparently)

By writing this piece, one would think there must be some disagreements between Ken and Chris by this time over this particular issue, n'est-ce pas?

One of those involved with the EC, right from very early on, would be Dan Kimball, author of the book The Emerging Church. You may recall that I wrote a piece concerning Kimball last February called Curious Associations Ed Stetzer, Dan Kimball, And Tim Keller MissionSHIFT where I pointed you to this rather odd association of alleged Reformed men with Kimball. I also told you that I have spoken to him numerous times over a period of five years via email and by phone.

However, I ceased doing so because each time Kimball had asked me to keep any of the details off the record, which really doesn’t help at all; for you see, when one is a teacher in the public arena like Dan Kimball, via church conferences and books etc., then their beliefs and teachings are there for all to see. The problem which then arises is when one later says privately that they might believe other than their public record would indicate, then they themselves are introducing confusion. Recently Dan Kimball gave an interview, as you can see in Dan Kimball On The Record; some of which he chose to use to take some swipes at those of us in this line of ministry that he referred to as “watchdog discernment ministry.”

read more at:

DAN KIMBALL OF THE EMERGING CHURCH AND LECTIO DIVINA

and

CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY/MYSTICISM SLITHERS EVEN CLOSER

and Mike Ratliff has also weighed in on Dan Kimball's call to 'discern the discerners.'
CHRISTIAN MATURITY AND HOW IT RELATES TO DISCERNMENT