Lately I've been watching a certain commercial that never ceases to crack me up. Perhaps you've seen it, if not I'll show it to you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhlWddAXSRA
In this commercial we see a former drill sergeant, played by R. Lee Ermey (of Full Metal Jacket fame, he also had two TV shows on History Channel), counseling another guy with some.... "issues". What the Sarge gives the man is a rather cleaned up kick in the hindquarters to get him to "man up".
However, I believe that a scenario like that portrayed in the commercial is but a small sample of what is running rampant in our culture at large. One cannot turn on the TV and see shows like "Two and a Half Men", "The Simpsons", "Family Guy" and numerous other TV shows that portray men as weak, dumb, and subservient. These "men" would sooner plop themselves in front of a TV, pop open a cold one, and just tune themselves out of the world. Though if that portrayal doesn't come up, then we have the "men" that go out and just live from day-to-day caring about their next hook-up.
What happened to the men? Where are the men who lived by codes of conduct that would honor their lady and lay down their lives for king and country? Where are the southern gentlemen who would hold their doors open for ladies because it was the right thing to do, instead of hoping to add brownie points for a possible "score"? Perhaps, most importantly of all, where are the men of God and why are they not making a stand for Him anymore?
Has manhood lost its definition? Can it be regained? I hope to answer some of these questions and give my opinion on them over the next several blog posts. I'd love some feedback and thoughts in regard to this as well.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Friday, November 12, 2010
Give Thanks....
As I have grown older, I've been having a rant at about this time of the year, "Why on Earth are they breaking out the Christmas decorations NOW?" or "Why are they playing Christmas music already?" I've seen some people breaking out the decorations and Halloween is not over yet. However, lost in the "Season to be Jolly" there seems to be a forgotten holiday, Thanksgiving.
Growing up, I've loved Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was the time of year that we went to visit with my mother's family in Nashville and hang out with my cousins, aunts, uncles and my grandparents. Then through the weekend some extended family would come down and the party would really get going. Of course, other tenants of Thanksgiving like the food, and the football games also help to make the weekend fun as well.
However, even without those reasons there are many reasons that I enjoy Thanksgiving. It's the time where we intentionally set aside and reflect on the blessings that we have been given. Our health, our family, as Christians we have our salvation and so many other things. God tells us multiple times in the Bible that we should give thanks to Him:
Growing up, I've loved Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was the time of year that we went to visit with my mother's family in Nashville and hang out with my cousins, aunts, uncles and my grandparents. Then through the weekend some extended family would come down and the party would really get going. Of course, other tenants of Thanksgiving like the food, and the football games also help to make the weekend fun as well.
However, even without those reasons there are many reasons that I enjoy Thanksgiving. It's the time where we intentionally set aside and reflect on the blessings that we have been given. Our health, our family, as Christians we have our salvation and so many other things. God tells us multiple times in the Bible that we should give thanks to Him:
- 1 Chronicles 16:34 - Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; His love endures forever.
- Psalm 95:2 - Let us come before Him in thanksgiving and extol Him with music and song.
- Colossians 2:6-7 - So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.
- Colossians 3:17 - And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
- 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 - Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.
Now, having been in retail, I understand that the stores hit the black during the Christmas shopping season (starting right after Thanksgiving). However, if you are reading this I encourage you to take time this Thanksgiving, or regularly in your own life, and thank God for the things that he has done, or is doing with you.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Qur'an Burning
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. - Ephesians 6:12 ESV
It has recently been asked of me what do I think about the whole Qur'an burning event and even though I'm pretty late to the party, I think I want to write down my take of it now that the media circus has died down.
To summarize the situation, Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida wanted to burn copies of the Qur'an on "International Burn a Qur'an Day." The reason? Among others, they stated "...to warn about the teaching and ideology of Islam, which we do hate as it is hateful." The full list can be found here. Now Pastor Jones did suspend burning the book after people like President Obama, Gen. Petreaus and many others called for him to stop, but he left the possibility for it to return on the table.
Now the question should be: What can we learn from everything that has happened? To which I would answer, several things.
1. We need to remember who we struggle against. I opened this post with Eph. 6:12 where, after detailing how a Christian should arm themselves for spiritual warfare, Paul details what our objective is and who we will be fighting against. We should not use physical acts when dealing with our 'enemy'. Far from it! Elsewhere in Scripture we see what we should do in these situations. Paul in Romans 12:17-21 and Jesus in Matthew 5:43-48 are just a couple examples on how we should be loving our enemies instead of physically confronting them.
2. The Dangers of Bad Hermeneutics. Within the previously posted article, the church used Acts 19:17-20 as a Scriptural reason that burning the Qur'an. However, there's a few key differences in what the believers in Ephesus were doing and what Terry Jones wanted to do. The believers were burning the scrolls of sorcery out of their own free will, similar to someone in modern times torching bad CDs, magazines, DVDs, etc. It was a statement that they had renounced their old practices and that the money lost in those scrolls was nothing compared to what they have gained through Christ. Terry Jones is not a repentant Muslim, so this Scripture doesn't apply to him. So the Qu'ran burning would simply be a provocatory gesture.
3. Where is the Gospel? In the Dove World Outreach's site, they stated that "We do not hate any people, however. We love, as God loves, all the people in the world and we want them to come to a knowledge of the truth." That's great, however if this was a true Bible-believing church then the greatest thing that we could give the Muslim people would be the gospel. We should take this cue from Spurgeon:
"If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for."
It has recently been asked of me what do I think about the whole Qur'an burning event and even though I'm pretty late to the party, I think I want to write down my take of it now that the media circus has died down.
To summarize the situation, Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida wanted to burn copies of the Qur'an on "International Burn a Qur'an Day." The reason? Among others, they stated "...to warn about the teaching and ideology of Islam, which we do hate as it is hateful." The full list can be found here. Now Pastor Jones did suspend burning the book after people like President Obama, Gen. Petreaus and many others called for him to stop, but he left the possibility for it to return on the table.
Now the question should be: What can we learn from everything that has happened? To which I would answer, several things.
1. We need to remember who we struggle against. I opened this post with Eph. 6:12 where, after detailing how a Christian should arm themselves for spiritual warfare, Paul details what our objective is and who we will be fighting against. We should not use physical acts when dealing with our 'enemy'. Far from it! Elsewhere in Scripture we see what we should do in these situations. Paul in Romans 12:17-21 and Jesus in Matthew 5:43-48 are just a couple examples on how we should be loving our enemies instead of physically confronting them.
2. The Dangers of Bad Hermeneutics. Within the previously posted article, the church used Acts 19:17-20 as a Scriptural reason that burning the Qur'an. However, there's a few key differences in what the believers in Ephesus were doing and what Terry Jones wanted to do. The believers were burning the scrolls of sorcery out of their own free will, similar to someone in modern times torching bad CDs, magazines, DVDs, etc. It was a statement that they had renounced their old practices and that the money lost in those scrolls was nothing compared to what they have gained through Christ. Terry Jones is not a repentant Muslim, so this Scripture doesn't apply to him. So the Qu'ran burning would simply be a provocatory gesture.
3. Where is the Gospel? In the Dove World Outreach's site, they stated that "We do not hate any people, however. We love, as God loves, all the people in the world and we want them to come to a knowledge of the truth." That's great, however if this was a true Bible-believing church then the greatest thing that we could give the Muslim people would be the gospel. We should take this cue from Spurgeon:
"If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our dead bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms wrapped about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go unwarned and unprayed for."
That would be real love in action.
Final Thoughts: I would not go out on my own accord and burn a Qu'ran as I do not believe there is any Scriptural backing from it. I believe that the whole escapade was one man's attempt to draw attention to himself without regard to the damage it would cause the true church. The best thing that we can do would be pray for Terry Jones and his heart, as well as pray that the hearts of the people we are trying to reach will not be hardened by this story.
Thoughts on Communication (Taken from my Facebook Notes)
It seems that one of the side-effects from being single and living on your own is that you have a great deal of time to think about things. One thing that I've been thinking about lately is how we communicate with people. It seems to me that somewhere along the road, personal forms of communication have fallen by the wayside.
When I was younger, we did have phones in the house but if you wanted to go chat with your friends the best thing to do would be to go
outside and play with or talk with them. Or, in other words, have face-to-face time with them. Yet, as time marches on and new technologies come out we had cell phones availible to the masses. Nowadays I'm not even surprised to see little ten year olds packing cellphones. Still, even while that convenience made it so one could be mobile and doing things while maintaining their 'social network' you still were required to talk and have a conversation with people
Then the next technological 'advance' came forward and someone thought it would be a great idea to enable phones to send little snippets of data containing up to 140 characters between each other. Suddenly to 'talk' to all the people in your social network all you had to do was type in a little sentence with its own language and hit send. You could have more 'conversations' going on at once, however getting a more complex or deeper conversation either involved sending a huge number of texts back and forth, or actually stopping and calling the person. It seems to me that with the advent of texting, many people feel that quantity of conversations is better than the quality.
It was also around this time that social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook started to be catching on in pop culture. Soon many folks started to create their own personalized space for them to customize however they wanted. Then, in near SMS style, they'd post little thoughts of what they might be feeling or what they were up to, etc. While I won't go on about the pseudo or full-blown narcissism some people have because of that, I do want to make mention of how these little posts have created a shortcut in the socializing process. Now, instead of having a conversation (either in person, or on the phone), or even sending a text to someone, all you have to do now is login and get instant notification of what everyone's up to or feeling. No interaction or work necessary! Another feature of these social networking sites is that you can have hundreds of friends on any of these sites, some people who you barely know will send friend requests to you. However, once you have these people added, what then? Does a conversation ensue? Or do you just remain as people you hardly know but will see a status update from every now and again?
Finally, after a few years of Myspace and Facebook, Twitter came on to the scene as the latest social networking site. However instead of having a site and other things that show off personal likes, or whatever, you now have a site where you publically broadcast SMS-sized messages to the world. (or whoever just feels like following you.) Now even the information you want to share about yourself (which can be up to a good-sized paragraph on Facebook) is condensed to a bite-sized nugget.
So, why do I write all of this? While I may yearn for a much simpler life and the way things used to be, technology won't go away. Even I make use of it by writing this little note on Facebook right now. It just feels that as our dependence on this technology increases, our social skills seem to wane. Or, that the friends that we feel like that we have or only friends on the surface and I'm as guilty of that as anyone else. While I wish I could claim that I have all the answers, that'd be a total lie. However, if you're reading this then I challenge you, as I'm challenging myself to have deeper relationships with the people that you know. Have good conversations. God has created us as personal beings, go out there and do what he created you to do.
When I was younger, we did have phones in the house but if you wanted to go chat with your friends the best thing to do would be to go
outside and play with or talk with them. Or, in other words, have face-to-face time with them. Yet, as time marches on and new technologies come out we had cell phones availible to the masses. Nowadays I'm not even surprised to see little ten year olds packing cellphones. Still, even while that convenience made it so one could be mobile and doing things while maintaining their 'social network' you still were required to talk and have a conversation with people
Then the next technological 'advance' came forward and someone thought it would be a great idea to enable phones to send little snippets of data containing up to 140 characters between each other. Suddenly to 'talk' to all the people in your social network all you had to do was type in a little sentence with its own language and hit send. You could have more 'conversations' going on at once, however getting a more complex or deeper conversation either involved sending a huge number of texts back and forth, or actually stopping and calling the person. It seems to me that with the advent of texting, many people feel that quantity of conversations is better than the quality.
It was also around this time that social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook started to be catching on in pop culture. Soon many folks started to create their own personalized space for them to customize however they wanted. Then, in near SMS style, they'd post little thoughts of what they might be feeling or what they were up to, etc. While I won't go on about the pseudo or full-blown narcissism some people have because of that, I do want to make mention of how these little posts have created a shortcut in the socializing process. Now, instead of having a conversation (either in person, or on the phone), or even sending a text to someone, all you have to do now is login and get instant notification of what everyone's up to or feeling. No interaction or work necessary! Another feature of these social networking sites is that you can have hundreds of friends on any of these sites, some people who you barely know will send friend requests to you. However, once you have these people added, what then? Does a conversation ensue? Or do you just remain as people you hardly know but will see a status update from every now and again?
Finally, after a few years of Myspace and Facebook, Twitter came on to the scene as the latest social networking site. However instead of having a site and other things that show off personal likes, or whatever, you now have a site where you publically broadcast SMS-sized messages to the world. (or whoever just feels like following you.) Now even the information you want to share about yourself (which can be up to a good-sized paragraph on Facebook) is condensed to a bite-sized nugget.
So, why do I write all of this? While I may yearn for a much simpler life and the way things used to be, technology won't go away. Even I make use of it by writing this little note on Facebook right now. It just feels that as our dependence on this technology increases, our social skills seem to wane. Or, that the friends that we feel like that we have or only friends on the surface and I'm as guilty of that as anyone else. While I wish I could claim that I have all the answers, that'd be a total lie. However, if you're reading this then I challenge you, as I'm challenging myself to have deeper relationships with the people that you know. Have good conversations. God has created us as personal beings, go out there and do what he created you to do.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Ack!
My poor blog, how I've neglected you so. Well, I'll try to start updating regularly once I'm finished with my move and finals.
-John
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