In his blog today, Kevin DeYoung differentiated between story-telling and preaching and it got me thinking. Personally, I love to tell stories. Like many others, I find that I am easily swept up in a strong/compelling narrative whether it's a book, movie, song, or the experience of a friend. Moreover, because of people like Lyle Cruse in my life always telling interesting stories during my high school years, I've been told numerous times that I am a good story-teller. I used to wear this like a badge on my sleeve, glad that I could peak the interest of others, especially the teenagers with whom I work daily.
However, lately, I've been convicted in my use of story-telling. At the end of the day do I want students to hear my stories and laugh, cry, think or is my desire for them to hear the words of God himself through me when I speak? In my effort to let God speak for himself through the Bible, lately in my talks I've been focusing more on the exegesis of a passage over story-telling with some biblical application thrown in. Admittedly, it's a balance I am still trying to find as I know that stories help my audience relate to me and can help the meaning of a passage be more clear and applicable to their own lives. However, too many times I've caught myself using my personal stories in order to elicit some sort of visceral reaction from my audience rather than to help impart truth.
This came to light through two things. First, this quote by Jonathan Edwards gripped me:
"I should think myself in the way of my duty to raise the affections of my hearers as high as possibly I can, provided that they are affected with nothing but truth."
Again, my goal should be to allow the truth to speak, not just create an emotional reaction through my stories. Second, was through the words of a TreeHouse teenager. After going through the first chapter of James, trying to let the Word of God speak for itself, I was discouraged, realizing that I had lost most of my audience by the end of my talk (again, I'm still trying to figure out my own balance to this more exegetical approach to communicating along with some story-telling). However, after the talk I asked one of my guys what he thought. He said (i'm paraphrasing)
"I liked it. I wish it was longer, it seemed too short. I always get bored when you tell stories. Like, I know that you're trying to relate to me, but we relate all the time. Sometimes I just want you to get up there and help me understand what I need to know and what I need to do as a Christian."
I think God used this student to speak to me more that night than vice-versa. It was much needed. My prayer is always that God would just speak to even one student whenever I give a talk. It was amazing to see my personal convictions lining up so blatantly with what God was communicating to this student. Praise God that his words never fail.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
Review of "God of the Possible" by Gregory Boyd
This is the first book I've read by Gregory Boyd and the third one in my personal study of Open Theology (or Openness Theology). Boyd is a local pastor up here in Minnesota, and is the counterpart to Reformed, Classical Theist John Piper. This book goes less into detail of the open view and instead is more pastoral in nature as it is more of a "layman's guide" to OT.
What I liked:
Gregory Boyd, being a pastor, is able to make the current debate on the openness of God accessible to most any audience. While he still uses some theological jargon, he does explain all of his terminology well. I don't believe his main goal is to convince his audience, but rather to spur them on towards change. Although I don't agree with his conclusions, I love that he realizes the implications of his stance, is willing to embrace them, and show how such a fundamental change in our view of Theology Proper changes everything. I just don't think the root of those changes is true to the biblical portrayal of God.
What I Didn't Like:
I know that he is intentional about building on mainly the relational and practical aspects of Open Theology, but if this was the first book I'd read on OT, I would be a little confused. His attention to practical implications means that he deals less with biblical languages, nuances, and history. This makes his work inspiring at first, but upon further thinking and questioning, it seems to deflate once more of the arguments occurring at the root level of the issue are developed. Furthermore, since many of his arguments are underdeveloped, I think that this volume fails to be an entrance-level, layman's guide to the Open View of God.
A few examples of quotes I found disturbing/did not agree with/sounded good at first:
- "Practically, a God of eternally static certainties is incapable of interacting with humans in a relevant way. The God of the possible, by contrast, is a God who can work with us to truly change what might have been into what should be."
- major implications behind this, especially as relates to God's plan of salvation for us.
- Of Peter's denial being prophesied by Jesus, Boyd says, "...it seems evident that we do not need to believe that the future is exhaustively settled in God's mind to make sense of Jesus' prediction of Peter's denial. We need only believe that God possesses a perfect knowledge of the past and present and that he revealed some of it to Jesus."
- in this paragraph Boyd claims that Jesus simply knew the character of Peter because of his divine knowledge of the past and present, and therefore could guess properly that in this situation, Peter would deny him. However, he never even mentions that Jesus prophesied specifics about the situation, like a rooster crowing and the number of denials Peter would utter.
- About Moses' response to God's commission for him to represent Israel to Pharaoh in Exodus 4, Boyd says, "The Lord initially tells Moses that the elders will listen to his voice.... Moses apparently doesn't hold to the classical view of divine foreknowledge, however, for he immediately asks, 'suppose they do not believe me or listen to me?' (Ex. 4:1)."
This argument is misleading for several reasons:
1) There is a major difference between doubting and deep belief. Many people (myself included) sometimes doubt God when our own humanity fails to trust a holy capable God. Just because Moses has a moment of doubt does not mean that he actually believes God does not know the future conclusively.
2) Even if Moses did believe this to be true, God's character/nature is not contained within our individual beliefs.
3) God giving Moses several things to do so that the people "may believe" does not mean that God in his sovereignty actually wonders if and when the people will listen to Moses' message. To assume that God could have no other reasoning/purposes and in fact doesn't know what's gonna happen is quite presumptuous.
Favorite Quotation:
- "Striving to have a plausible theology is necessary because, for many of us, the mind must be thoroughly convinced if the heart is to be thoroughly transformed."
Recommendation:
- People who want to hear a real pastoral-like application to the implications of the Open View should read this book; however, if you're simply wanting to understand the basics of this theological view, there are better books out there.
What I liked:
Gregory Boyd, being a pastor, is able to make the current debate on the openness of God accessible to most any audience. While he still uses some theological jargon, he does explain all of his terminology well. I don't believe his main goal is to convince his audience, but rather to spur them on towards change. Although I don't agree with his conclusions, I love that he realizes the implications of his stance, is willing to embrace them, and show how such a fundamental change in our view of Theology Proper changes everything. I just don't think the root of those changes is true to the biblical portrayal of God.
What I Didn't Like:
I know that he is intentional about building on mainly the relational and practical aspects of Open Theology, but if this was the first book I'd read on OT, I would be a little confused. His attention to practical implications means that he deals less with biblical languages, nuances, and history. This makes his work inspiring at first, but upon further thinking and questioning, it seems to deflate once more of the arguments occurring at the root level of the issue are developed. Furthermore, since many of his arguments are underdeveloped, I think that this volume fails to be an entrance-level, layman's guide to the Open View of God.
A few examples of quotes I found disturbing/did not agree with/sounded good at first:
- "Practically, a God of eternally static certainties is incapable of interacting with humans in a relevant way. The God of the possible, by contrast, is a God who can work with us to truly change what might have been into what should be."
- major implications behind this, especially as relates to God's plan of salvation for us.
- Of Peter's denial being prophesied by Jesus, Boyd says, "...it seems evident that we do not need to believe that the future is exhaustively settled in God's mind to make sense of Jesus' prediction of Peter's denial. We need only believe that God possesses a perfect knowledge of the past and present and that he revealed some of it to Jesus."
- in this paragraph Boyd claims that Jesus simply knew the character of Peter because of his divine knowledge of the past and present, and therefore could guess properly that in this situation, Peter would deny him. However, he never even mentions that Jesus prophesied specifics about the situation, like a rooster crowing and the number of denials Peter would utter.
- About Moses' response to God's commission for him to represent Israel to Pharaoh in Exodus 4, Boyd says, "The Lord initially tells Moses that the elders will listen to his voice.... Moses apparently doesn't hold to the classical view of divine foreknowledge, however, for he immediately asks, 'suppose they do not believe me or listen to me?' (Ex. 4:1)."
This argument is misleading for several reasons:
1) There is a major difference between doubting and deep belief. Many people (myself included) sometimes doubt God when our own humanity fails to trust a holy capable God. Just because Moses has a moment of doubt does not mean that he actually believes God does not know the future conclusively.
2) Even if Moses did believe this to be true, God's character/nature is not contained within our individual beliefs.
3) God giving Moses several things to do so that the people "may believe" does not mean that God in his sovereignty actually wonders if and when the people will listen to Moses' message. To assume that God could have no other reasoning/purposes and in fact doesn't know what's gonna happen is quite presumptuous.
Favorite Quotation:
- "Striving to have a plausible theology is necessary because, for many of us, the mind must be thoroughly convinced if the heart is to be thoroughly transformed."
Recommendation:
- People who want to hear a real pastoral-like application to the implications of the Open View should read this book; however, if you're simply wanting to understand the basics of this theological view, there are better books out there.
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