Digest #2
WEEK 2
A compilation of things that stood out to me and thoughts that I had.
DAY 1
1. TIM MACKIE - COMPELLED: SPEAKING & LIVING THE GOSPEL
Tim Mackie is one of my favourite people to listen to when it comes to understanding the Bible. He is thoughtful, and quirky and interesting to listen to, but also incredibly well educated. He’s a master at taking big ideas and making them understandable.
In this video, he did the best job of explaining what the good news the Bible claims to share is, as well as hell. In doing so he also inadvertently answers the question, “How could a good God send people to hell?” Please take an hour and watch this. In undermining the common representation of the good news, at least in western cultures, he reopens the hope the good news truly brings. The Kingdom of Heaven has come.
2. THIS THREAD BY MUSICIAN ANDY SQUYERS.
In it he talks about how worship/church songs need to incorporate deep theology so that in the moments when life hits us, we have something to hold onto. He compares the book of Psalms to how we should be writing our corporate music.
Day 4
1. EXCESS & INDIVIDUALISM - BRIDGETOWN CHURCH
Individualism causes “our desires and needs and stories to exist in a vacuum independant of our families and communities and the generations before us . . . In the story of the Bible, there is no paradigm for individualism … They understand their identity as woven into the group or the tribe or the people.”
2. THIS INTERVIEW WITH PRESTON SPRINKLE ON THE USE OF THE WORD “HOMOSEXUAL” IN MODERN TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE
Not everyone is super interested in the ongoing conversation of Biblical ethics and sexuality, but for anyone who is, I often recommend Preston Sprinkle’s book - People To Be Loved. In it I think Preston tries to give a fair representation of the arguments for traditional sexual ethic, as well as for the more modern, affirming sexual ethic.
In this interview, Preston discusses one of the topics/arguments that he covers in his book - is “homosexual” an accurate translation in 1 Corinthians 6:9, and 1 Timothy.
3. JOHN LENNOX SPEAKING ABOUT AI
In this tweet, John Lennox is talking about advances in AI. But what really stood out to me was this one sentence in the middle where he is talking about the tension of privacy and security - “We need to resolve this tension by applying to the issue our value system.” And I just think that’s a wise word for all of us, but especially for Christians. Every time you come to a point where a tension needs to be resolved, lets go back to our value system, founded in the worldview presented by the Bible, to resolve where that tension should land.
Day 5
1. THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON GOD - THE HOLY POST PODCAST
“The strongest motive in the human brain is attachment - it’s who we love that forms our identity in the brain, it shapes our ideas much faster. We’re much more changed by who we love than what we believe.”
“Who we love becomes the examples that we incorporate as who I am, and how I’m supposed to operate, and where I like to go, and how I typically think, and those reactions that we typically call character - the way we react before we can think of what we would like to consciously do. . . . In adults, our attachment to our group is what’s going to form our responses to life, before we have the chance to consciously think about what we want to do.”
“Heresy always involves bad ideas, but could it also involve defective loves?”
“Attachment is the way your brain finds out, what gives me life? We attach to what feeds us.”
“After food, the next thing that forms attachment is joy.” You will attach to those who are super glad to see you, and whom you’re super glad to see.”
What have you read, listened to, watched, etc. this week that made you think?