Well you are probably wondering why I would start another blog since I really don’t update this one!  There is good reason… so you should probably add adamandsally.wordpress.com to your feed readers and check it out occasionally!  I’m not guaranteeing I’ll post there any more frequently then I post here, but at least someone else will be posting there too!

I’m still trying to figure out what I’m going to do with this blog, but as of right now I still plan on keeping it going…

This past week I’ve read some interesting articles on Facebook:

Al Mohler – Facebook Turns Five: Thoughts on Social Networking

Social networking is like any new technology. It must be evaluated on the basis of its moral impact as well as its technological utility. Social networking sites offer unprecedented opportunities for communication and contact — and that is both the promise and the peril of the technology.

Here are a few suggestions for safeguarding the social networking experience:

1. Never allow social networking to replace or rival personal contact and communication. God made us to be social creatures that crave community. We cannot permit ourselves to substitute social networking for the harder work of building and maintaining personal relationships that are face to face.

Carl Trueman – No Text Please, I’m British!

How should the church respond? Well, the virtual world is new but it is here to stay; and it will no doubt continue to shape human behavior and self-understanding. We cannot ignore it but neither should we simply allow it to dictate to us who we are and how we think. Thus, we must teach people by precept and example that real life is lived primarily in real time in real places by real bodies. Pale and pimply bloggers who spend most of their spare time onanistically opining about themselves and their issues and in befriending pals made up of pixels are not living life to the full; nor are those whose lives revolve around videogames; rather they are human amoebas, subsisting in a bizarre non-world which involves no risk to themselves, no giving of themselves to others, no true vulnerability, no commitment, no self-sacrifice, no real meaning or value. To borrow a phrase from Thoreau, the tragedy of such is that, when they come to die, they may well discover that they have never actually lived.
For myself, I rejoice that I grew up before the web and the videogame supplanted the real world of real friendships, real discussions, real lives. I did not spend my youth growing obese and developing Vitamin D deficiency in front of an illuminated screen, living my life through the medium of pixels. However she does it, the church should show this generation of text and web addicts where real friendship and community lie, not with some bunch of self-created avatars on Facebook but with the person next to them in the pew on Sunday, with the person next door, with the person they can see, hear, touch and, of course, to whom they can talk, and who is created not in webworld but by the mighty Creator.

Steve Tuttle (Newsweek) – You Can’t Friend Me, I Quit!

When I think about all the hours I wasted this past year on Facebook, and imagine the good I could have done instead, it depresses me. Instead of scouring my friends’ friends’ photos for other possible friends, I could have been raising money for Darfur relief, helping out at the local animal shelter or delivering food to the homeless. It depresses me even more to know that I would never have done any of those things, even with all those extra hours.

Think you’re called to being a monk or nun, then you should give this place a try!

Why spend the weekend as a monk?

Inside a monk’s ‘cell’

Recently I was looking at my blog stats and a thought occurred to me that I should re-post the top five post in regards to hits.  Interesting enough the number one post really doesn’t have much to do with the cross.  I guess fun trumps content… at least on this blog.

From Nov. 15th, 2007:

Today my blog has been “labeled” as serious in a comment section. I’m not going to mention the name of this individual, but I’ll direct you to their blog. As a result I’ve been tagged by Ashley to participate in this thing called “meme,” where I need to write 5 interesting things about myself. So with no further ado, let’s have some fun on this blog.

1. I enjoy reading Jane Austen novels. To date, I’ve read “Pride and Prejudice,” “Sense and Sensibility,” “Emma,” and “Persuasions,” with “Pride and Prejudice” being the tops ,IMHO. Her works are well written and witty, but they do take some work to read.

“It has been said of Jane Austen’s novels that they should be read first for the fourth time, meaning that only fourth time around will their special excellences of balanced structure, gentle satire and subtle humour come into focus in the reader’s mind.”

- J.I. Packer, in his introduction to The Mortification of Sin, by John Owen

2. I wore glasses till age 12. Back in the day, maybe when I was 3 or 4, I had surgery on my eye. After that I had to wear a patch on one of my eye’s for a period of time, so I guess you could say I was a pirate, Arrrr. After the patch the ophthalmologists thought it was a good idea for me to wear glasses to see if they would correct the problems. My left eye, was 20/20 and the other eye was, well, not nearly as good. Basically, my right eye was near-sighted and my left eye was far-sighted, so I would use my left eye to see things at a distant and my right for things up close. This eye problem also means I have no binocular depth perception, so I’ll never be able to fly planes or drive commercial vehicles. In ordinary life it effects my driving ability, especially in close spaces; sports involving fast moving balls, like baseball, ping-pong, and racquetball are the most effected. After trying to correct the problems, the doctor finally said that glasses wouldn’t help, so I don’t have to wear them. Did that make any sense?

3. My favorite Disney song is Aladdin’s, “A Whole New World.” When I spent the summer of 2005 in Japan, my friend Brian and I would randomly break out into this song. We also would do it every time we went to do karaoke.  It was also performed at a talent show during the summer of 2003.

4. I enjoy the mountains and beach. If I could chose one it would be the beach. Maybe this comes from my love of swimming, which I did competitively from ages 6-18. Each summer my family (dad, mom, sister, brother-in-law, aunt, uncle, and 2 cousins) spends a week at the Outer Banks in North Carolina. We rent a beach-front house with a pool and hot tube, and it’s easy for me to spend at least 6-8 hours playing in the water and relaxing on the sand. Here is a picture taken from the balcony of our house this past summer.

5. My personality has been ‘labeled’ as an ISTP (Introverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving), by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. The most “reliable” resource, Wikipedia, describes an ISTP this way,

According to Myers-Briggs, ISTPs excel at analyzing situations to reach the heart of a problem so that they can swiftly implement a functional repair, making them ideally suited to the field of engineering. Naturally quiet people, they are interested in understanding how systems operate, focusing on efficient operation and structure. They are open to new information and approaches. But contrary to their seemingly detached natures, ISTPs are often capable of humorously insightful observations about the world around them, and can be closet “daredevils” who gravitate toward fast-moving and/or risky hobbies (such as bungee jumping, hang gliding, motorcycling, parachuting, SCUBA diving, etc.), recreational sports (such as downhill skiing, ice hockey, racing, etc.), and careers (such as aviation, firefighting, etc.).

“We habitually and instinctively look to other things besides God and his grace as our justification, hope, significance, and security.  We believe the gospel at one level, but at a deeper level we do not.  Human approval, professional success, power and influence, family and clan identity–all of these things serve as our heart’s “functional trust” rather than what Christ has done, and as a result we continue to be driven to a great degree by fear, anger, and a lack of self-control.  You cannot change such things through mere will power, through learning Biblical principles and trying to carry them out.  We can only change permanently as we take the gospel more deeply into our understanding and into our hearts.  We must feed on the gospel, as it were, digesting it and making it part of ourselves.  That is how we grow.”

- Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God (New York, NY: Dutton, 2008), 115.

Don’t let the title fool you, the word “prodigal” has a wide semantice range of meaning, but in Christian lingo it usually has a negative connotation.  Read the book to find out what Keller means by Prodigal God!

After about a month, I finally finished Unpacking Forgiveness by Chris Brauns. This was one of those books I got through the majority of it rather quickly then the last few chapters took a few weeks to finish. Unfortunately, sometimes I get bored with a book and never finish it, but that wasn’t the case for this one.

Overall, I really enjoyed the book. It was the first I’ve read over forgiveness and it did a great job of “unpacking” this difficult and debated subject. A couple things that stood out about the book were it constantly referred to the best book for forgiveness, the Bible (just look at it’s Scriptural index), and it started off connecting forgiveness to the gospel. I like it when books start by building their foundation on the gospel. I always need to be reminded about the simple truths of the gospel, regardless of how much I “think” I understand it.

The book does a great job of giving an overview of the theology behind forgiveness and then how it is practically lived out. In case you’re wondering he takes the “conditional forgiveness” stance! This book is very readable and the chapters are manageable in length. The book is very thought provoking, especially if you haven’t thought too much about the details of forgiveness. Forgiveness is one of those words that is through thrown out without thoroughly thinking through it’s meaning and intent, so if you’re looking to learn more about forgiveness, I’d highly recommend this book!

Content: The book is loaded with a lot of good information. From a study of all the references on forgiveness in the Bible to a great bibliography, there is plenty of information for further study.

How the book breaks down:

Pages 235

Introduction: The forgiveness Quiz
1. How to Begin Unpacking
2. Motivation to Unpack
3. Defining Forgiveness: The Divine Pattern
4. Defining Forgiveness for Christians
5. More Than a Feeling
6. The Way Up Is Down
7. Unpack with Great Urgency
8. Should I Just Get Over It?
9. How Should I Go about It?
10. What If I Won’t Forgive?
11. How Should I Respond to the Unrepentant? Two Principles
12. How Should I Respond to the Unrepentant? A Third Principle
13. How Can I Conquer Bitterness?
14. How Can I Stop Thinking about It?
15. What If Christians Cannot Agree?
16. Finial Thoughts
Appendix 1: More Forgiveness Questions
Appendix 2: What Other Authors Say about Conditional Forgiveness?
Appendix 3: Biblical Words for Forgiveness
Select Bibliography
Scripture Index
General Index

When I got home to Fort Wayne I was greeted with a beautiful surprise!  The ice that Lafayette got on Friday quickly  melted due to the warm temperatures, but the temperatures in Ft. Wayne never made it above freezing, so it left a beautiful yet destructive scene.

And things may get worse as well, we’re under another winter storm watch calling for more freezing rain tomorrow!

Follow this link for a few more pictures

Today, the greatest challenge facing American evangelicals is not persecution from the world, but seduction by the world.

-C.J. Mahaney, Worldliness (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2008), 22.

AMEN!

Like I said last night there isn’t much on immigration from a Christian perspective, but here are some resources that I found.

Christians at the Border

The book Christians at the Border: Immigration, the Church, and the Bible by M. Daniel Carroll was the only decent book on the realtionship between the church and immigration.  I only skimmed it, but what I read was OK at best.  The author took a very sympathic view on illegal immigration and I thought a lot of his support was a little shaky.  Especially his handling of Romans 13, which I don’t think he did the text justice.  Anyways, I would encourage you to read it if your are looking for a Chrstian perspective on immigration and the church, though I wouldn’t call it a must read.

Al Mohler

A couple years ago Al Mohler (president of Southern Seminary) had a couple radio shows addressing the issue.  Al Mohler is a great biblical thinker and anything he says is worth hearing.

How Should Christians Respond To The Immigration Debate? – Monday, April 10, 2006

Sorting Out the Immigration Debate – Monday, May 01, 2006

John Piper

Here is what John Piper has said on illegal immigration.

What should we do about illegal immigration?

I don’t know the answer, but I’ll tell you how I lean.

I would like to see us as a country find a way to provide for illegal immigrants to stay but still have them pay a reasonable penalty.

Such a solution would give honor to the law and show mercy to the immigrants, whose situations are so varied and so many. It’s not an easy, black-and-white, “they disobeyed, so get ‘em out of here” issue. There’s a lot of exploitation. We’ve benefited a lot from these people, etc.

As I’ve looked at both sides it seems that we could probably come up with a way to acknowledge that it is against the law (and we’re not going to say that breaking the law doesn’t matter), and yet we’re not going to say that it’s a simple and easy solution to try and ship 20 million of them back to Mexico. It’s not going to work that way.

Just like illegal parking is against the law and we are charged a reasonable fee when we’re caught, so too we should charge a reasonable penalty for illegal immigrants but one that doesn’t require them to return to their home country.

I don’t know if that will work, but that is the direction my heart leans toward.

I think my heart leans the same direction as Dr. Piper’s.

So here is my talk from last night. There’s nothing really profound, so don’t be expected to be blown away. It essentially is about foundational principals to help guide our thinking on immigration.

Also, I probably haven’t proofed this like I should, so please give me grace on my grammar I’m still learning the English language!

———————————————-

Introduction

The importance of certain political issues comes a goes depending on the time. As you see now, the primary issue is the economy and rightfully so, because it currently has the greatest impact on our country. Though the down turn in the economy is definitely helping out with the immigration issue.

Immigration was a hot issue a couple of years ago and a new immigration bill almost got through, until talks broke down amongst the parties. Here we are now in a different political climate, but the issue with immigration still remains.

The sensitivity of the issue is also geographically based. Those in the south like Texas, California, Arizona and Florida deal with it far more regularly than those living in Minnesota, unless they’re worried about an influx of illegal Canadian immigrants. So most of us in the Lafayette area don’t deal as frequently with immigrants, but nonetheless if we aren’t directly connected to the issue we are most certainly indirectly connected to it.

Americans Response

There are a couple of points that everyone can agree on. One, there are no easy answers and, two; the current immigration system is broken. It is a very complex issue, with many of the laws set up in a different political environment, such as the cold war era. Most Americans aren’t very sympathetic to illegal immigrants or the more politically correct term “undocumented citizens.” The idea that taxpayers’ dollars are going toward supporting many undocumented citizens doesn’t sit well with the American people. Also, the idea that Americans need to take care of their own people, before we worry about the rest of the worlds is another common thought.

Christians Response

How about the Christians, how have they responded? Well, some have unabashedly protected them, which have caused some major headlines in the past. Others want nothing to do with them, because they are lawbreakers. Some over-emphasizes the biblical principal of compassion while others over-emphasize the biblical principal of submission to authorities, submission to the government. Before I really started thinking biblically about the issue I would have probably leaned more towards the submission to government. Now, in the complexity of the arguments I can sympathize with both.

Bible’s Response

So what does the bible say about immigration. We’ll that’s a good question, because there isn’t a lot that directly teaches about immigration for today. Though there isn’t a lot of direct teaching, there are principles that should shape our thinking. It’s interesting as I was doing some research for this topic, there hasn’t been much written about this in the theological realm. All of my typical research pools turned up empty on the issue of immigration.

During the remainder of our time, we won’t be proposing any radical legislation that will solve the problem, but we’ll look at some guiding principles to help our thinking in our response to immigration.

Old Testament

First let’s look at the Old Testament. The Old Testament has a lot more to say about immigration than the new, but that was written during a different geo-political system. We have to be careful when taking things from the Old Testament. Though we may not be able to take it word for word and apply it to our political system, we can definitely take principles from it. So lets look at some Old Testament passages and see how they start to shape our thinking.

Genesis 1:26-27

26 Then God said, “Let us make man [8] in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

Here we see God creating man, and not only creating man, but creating man in his image. This is important to realize that all people are connected to God because we bear his image. We need to think of immigrants, regardless if they’re here legally or illegally, as people created by God and in his image. It is easy to lose sight of this connection, so understanding this simple truth should help shape what we think about them and how we treat them.

Exodus 22:21-27

Yes, I know you’re thinking we looked over this passage last week, but I think it’s good to review since it’s also very applicable for immigration as well, so lets briefly look at it.

21 “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. 22 You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. 23 If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry, 24 and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless.

25 “If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him. 26 If ever you take your neighbor’s cloak in pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down, 27 for that is his only covering, and it is his cloak for his body; in what else shall he sleep? And if he cries to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.

Here we see the Lord has great compassion for the sojourner because he compares them to how Israel was a sojourner in Egypt. This is a far different context than what we have now, with the established nation states. One of the main principles we can learn from the text is that God cares about the needy and many of these are immigrants.

As we have briefly gone through a couple passages in the Old Testament a couple (not exhaustive) principles we need to go into our thinking are all immigrants are image bearers of God and God has compassion on those in need.

New Testament

The New Testament is even less direct when it comes to addressing immigrants. A lot of the references, specifically in the Epistles, to aliens and sojourners are in the context of citizens of God living in a different land (1 Peter 2:11) or what people were before being saved by God (Ephesians 2:19). Jesus mentions strangers in Matthew 25, so there are elements in the NT of people who are not naturally from where they end up.

Now, let us look at a couple of passages from the NT that will help give a foundation for a biblical view on immigration.

Luke 10:25-37

25 And behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 27 And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” 28 And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii [3] and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

Regardless of your view on immigration these people are our neighbors. Yes, they are here illegally, but compassion and mercy need to be shown and shown in a way that is right in the law of man and ultimately the law of God. From the story we just read we learned that the neighbor is the one who showed mercy.

Now, I saved the final text for last, because it is the one I would always go to first for immigration. It is easy to jump here because we think it’s the catch all to the immigration problem. But the issue of immigration is more encompassing than Romans 13. There are other elements that need to be addressed alongside this passage, as I’ve done so earlier. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to minimize the Romans 13 in anyway, but there is the rest of the Bible. Let’s look at Romans 13.

Romans 13:1-7

13:1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

It is clear from the text the authorities we have in our life have been instituted by God. He has placed the governing authorities in our life for our good and his glory. This text is clear and doesn’t need much explaining. We can’t think through immigration with out bringing in the element of authority.

Christian Response

In light of what we’ve mentioned so far, how should we respond? Our response needs to be based first in foremost, biblically. And some of the themes that have been shared appear conflicting and I’m not going to deny that, but compassion/mercy and submission to authorities are both biblical foundations.

Finally as Christians we can’t lose sight of the gospel. Once again the greatest news these immigrants need to hear is not the law of man but the gospel. Don’t let the immigration issue hold you up in ministering the gospel and meeting a need. Let the word of God work on their heart in more ways than one! God has placed these people in our lives, in our midst, for a reason, and we can’t forget that their greatest need is the gospel.

Conclusion

In conclusion, as I said before I don’t think there is an easy solution to immigration. Though after looking at it through the lens of Scripture there should be a way to show compassion while at the same time not minimizing the law and consequences for breaking it.