Hey Ladies...Test Time

On pg 23 in Michelle's book (last post) she suggests a simple self test and makes some comments on the options. Here it is:

How About You?

How have you been affected by the lie that your body must fit a certain standard in order to be accepted? Check all the following statements that apply to you:

• I am critical of my body
• When I look int he mirror, I first notice the parts of my body that I think are inadequate.
• When I see images of "beautiful women" in the media, I compare myself to them.
• As I get dressed and ready in the morning, I consider what other will think of my appearance.
• I weigh myself frequently and am emotionally affected by the results.
• The thought of being seen without makeup or hair done is scary to me.
• When others compliment my appearance, I have a hard time believing it's true.
• When I eat in front of other people, I wonder what they are thinking about me.
• I tend to wear clothes that are baggy to hide my figure or tight clothes to show off my body in hopes of receiving attention.
• If money were not object, I would have plastic surgery in a heartbeat.
• I have often thought that becoming more beautiful would be the solution to some of life's challenges - my desires for romantic relationships, career success, popularity among friends or self-esteem.
• In the past month I have spent a significant amount of money on beauty supplies.
• I'm really bugged if the car is pulled too far forward in the garage.

Just kidding about that last one! I threw that one in there just to see if you were really taking this seriously. Come on out this weekend to Gathering. If you just can't wait to get a hold of Michelle's book, come by the church and I can get you a pretty good deal on your copy of it. We'll be selling them for $10 this weekend.

Body Image - Not for Women Only!

Just want to put in a word for our upcoming series in Gathering entitled Skin Deep. Our guest presenter this upcoming Sunday is Michelle Graham. She's the author of above title on body image. Michelle comes to us from InterVarsity Christian Fellowship - the ministry Mark Ashton and I worked for before coming here to CCC.

Check out Michelle's bio and come on out to Gathering this weekend. Michelle will bring copies of her book. Here's a quick look at the table of contents.

Oh, one last thing. NO, body image isn't just for women! Men, you are tied into this topic integrally. Michelle gets to talk to you week one, but guys, you're mine week two. Jerry Bussleman and I are going to look at the topic from the perspective of men. And NO, that week is not just for men, ladies!


Contents
1. The Lie We Buy: Beauty and Culture
2. Was Eve a 36C? Beauty and the Fall
3. When Beauty Becomes a Beast: Beauty and Consequences
4. Who's the Fairest of Them All? Beauty and Ethnicity
5. Who Are We Trying to Please? Beauty and Sin
6. Can I Still Keep My Favorite Lipstick? Beauty and Balance
7. Is There More Than Meets the Eye? Beauty and Character
8. Where Can I Get a Supernatural Makeover? Beauty and Freedom
Appendix: A Note About Eating Disorders

What Will Heaven Be Like?

I'm so excited I could just about explode! The more I think about heaven, the more my spiritual vision burns with hope, joy and anticipation! Do you feel that way?

You've probably heard the familiar slam on the adage: "Don't be so heavenly-minded you're no earthly good." Absolutely nothing could be further from the truth! Most people I know scurrying around trying to be busy and important, could use a heavenly two-by-four to the forehead. We all need to slow them down and infuse our striving madness with a good dose of heavenly reality. I don't know how anyone could make sense of earth WITHOUT the possibility of heaven on the horizon of our impossible schedules.

Come on out to Gathering this week as we launch head-long into a fascinating look at heaven. Here's a flavor for some of the questions we're going to start with this week:

1 - What's on the timeline between here-and-now...and then-and-there. What's gonna happen between the world as we know it now and the New Heavens and New Earth? Take a look at Rev 21 if you can before you come to Gathering.

2 - Rev 21 is a look at the eternal state, but what about now? What is the present experience of believers in heaven. Is the place we call heaven happening here and now? Who is in heaven right now as I'm reading this blog post? What is the intermediate state of a redeemed person who dies before the second coming of Jesus?

3 - Last and most important: What will my body be like in heaven? What will I do? Will I be bored? Will heaven be an ethereal or solid? What's the food going to be like? What was Jesus' resurrection body like and does that give us any clue about what we'll eat in heaven (better look up a little scripture on that one - see John 21 and Luke 24

Stay tuned to the blog as I get more stuff out about our topics. Come out this Sunday and bring your best questions! I'm the chump we all get to stump and I'm psyched about the topic!

Lucifer Questions

We have been having a very stimulating time taking on The Prince of Darkness Grim (as Luther calls him). Satan has been generating all kinds of interest in crowds and crowds of people. Each week our attendance at Gathering has hovered around 120 people as we've talked about Satan, demons, temptation and spiritual warfare.

Each week we wind up with more questions than we have time to answer from the stage, so I thought it would be a good idea to log those questions and bring them here to the Spiritual Discovery Blog. What follows is the whole list of our texted-in questions. In the posts that follow, I'll go to work on some of the ones we didn't have time for at Gathering.

If you haven't been out to Gathering yet, today's your last shot for the Lucifer series till we restart with a major change of pace topic: Questions For Heaven. If you want to catch the presentations we've done hope over to the Gathering Media Page and give them a listen!

Here's some of our Questions:

I have heard that there is a different demon for each sin. For example a demon of lies. What are your thoughts? Are there verses that support that?

Do demons try to intimidate Christians more than non-Christians?

One of my friends is having a psychic party with a palm reader. I want to be there to care for her, but I don’t want to mess with the spirit world. What should I do?

Can someone who orients with Satan (Satanists) cause demons to attack or possess another?

I don’t believe that Satan or demons are omniscient. When Christians are struggling we are called to confess our faults to one another so that we can be healed. Does our out loud confession give Satan fodder to use against us?

Can someone be led by the Lord to recognize demonic activity?

The Catholic Church still performs exorcisms today. Why doesn’t the Christian church?

Several years ago I went from a period of fire in my bones to suicide, depression, anorexia, etc. Everything I knew was against God’s will for me. Do you think God still tests people like he did Job or was it just lies I believed?

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. In the original context does this refer to the sacrament of baptism or just a cleansing of the soul?

On-line Answers...

Hey Tim,
We don't have time to go to a bookstore or order books from Amazon. Not everyone is as big of a book freak as you are, where's a good place to go for on-line answers to this hot topic?

One great web-site I can recommend is the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry. Check it out. The link here will take you to questions in particular about Satan and demons. Let me know if you find other sites that are well organized, easy to use with answers that are well researched.

If you find something you think is really lame...bring it to Gathering as a show and tell piece and we'll talk about it.

Back to my Panera Hazelnut coffee and my low-fat cranberry-orange muffin!

Lucifer is Coming to Gathering!

Your heard right! Well, he won't be speaking, but we will be speaking about him. I'll be kicking things off this week as we look at Satan, where he came from, how he fell from his original created glory, and what his settled agenda on earth is.

This starts our first series of the new year for Gathering. If you haven't taken a look at our apologetics venue at CCC, stroll over to the Gathering web page and listen in on a couple of sessions.

Better yet, come on out this weekend and chime in with your questions. Rumor has it we'll be offering a very cool deal on a very hot drink to help warm up to the topic! We'd love to have you there.

Predicting Jesus

Wanted to put a word for Gathering this weekend. This three-week series will be an exploration in the world of Old Testament Prophets. John Holmes will take us inside the mind of God's special spokesmen from antiquity whose message spoke boldly to their own world as well as the future. Here are some of the questions John will be addressing:

Why are there prophets in the Bible, and how did God speak to Israel through them?
Where did they come from (they weren't priests, they weren't kings)?
Where women prophets legitimate in the life of God's people?
How did God speak to the prophet?
What happened to the prophet if what they said did not come true?
Where they listened to?
Why did so many of them meet an unfortunate end?

Come on out and bring your questions as well! Keep in mind what the schedule will be for this series. We're on this weekend - John Holmes. We're off next weekend (Thanksgiving Weekend). And then we'll be back on for two more weeks!

Can Prophecies be Fulfilled Multiple Times?

Here's an interesting question a reader raised. Anyone else have an idea out there?

First Name: Tom
City: Waterloo
State: NE
Question(s): Concerning the Gathering topic on 10/04/09 The sign of "The Day of the Lord" is described in Isaiah 13:9,10. Is this also the same exact event that is mentioned in Rev. 6:12,13 and Matt. 24:29,30 and Mark 13: 24,25?
Thanks, Tom


Tom,
Thanks for submitting a question! This is one of the most fascinating things about eschatology and biblical prophecy. A single prophetic statement may actually have multiple layers of fulfillment. Let me explain. The Isaiah passage is communicating on three levels! It speaks to Isaiah’s immediate historical and literary audience. People in Isaiah’s time would have been challenged by the message – Israel and Judah were on the edge of entering the exile – an experience of God’s judgment on their generation. The fall of Samaria (Israel’s capital city) and the fall of Jerusalem (Judah’s capital city) at the hands of Assyrians and Babylonians would have been the immediate fulfillment “the dreadful day of the LORD” in their generation.

However, as you’ve hinted, it could be that the same prophecy re-echoed through salvation history and became relevant to the early church. The first century church reading John's apocalypse was about to experience the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple (again). Further down the time-line, though, there will be another awful Day of the LORD when Jesus returns.

The third level meaning is for believers today! Isaiah's prophecy legitimately points us forward in God's salvation timeline to a similar event or time in the future relative to us. Some might refer to this as the tribulation. Some would interpret this as the modern church and it's persecution.

So these prophecies don’t necessarily refer to the exact same event ... but they do refer to the same kind of event. An event with eschatological significance for those who await it and those who actually witness and experience it. That could be happening today. That could also happen in the future. Prophecy finds fulfillment on multiple levels!

Great question!

Tim Perry
Pastor of Spiritual Discovery / 402.938.1505 / cccomaha.org
Christ Community Church / 404 S. 108 Ave / Omaha, NE 68154

Apocalypse Starts Tomorrow!

Words Can't Describe It

One of the challenges we'll have over the next four weeks at Gathering is a shared vocabulary for what we'll be talking about. The apocalypse. Eschatology. Millennium. Rapture. On and on it will go! Let me recommend a couple of resources as we get started, then let's plunge in head-first!

InterVarsity Press publishes a very helpful set of very tiny dictionaries called The Pocket Dictionary of.... The reason I really like these tools is how brief the entries are and how quickly you can find stuff in them. Here's a quick link to this series:

IV Press Theological Dictionaries

Let's take a look at just two entries that will help us get started. If you would do me a huge favor and swat me your questions about end-times words and ideas. We can start getting some definitions out to you. In fact this week, we're planning on the first installment of a running glossary of terms you'll find helpful as we study end times and the apocalypse.

Eschatology

A Greek-derived term that means the study of (or belief about) the last times (Gk eschatos, "last [things]"). In the OT we find eschatological thought especially in the Prophets, with their use of the phrases "day of the Lord" or "in that day." For Israel’s prophets, that day would be a time of judgment by God for the disobedience of Israel (Amos 5:18-20). However, the prophets also saw a time of restoration from the judgment when a remnant would return to the land of Israel in faithful obedience to God (Hos 14:1–7). NT eschatology picks up on these images and, by combining them with apocalyptic thought, extends them to speak of the time when God will bring about the end of the old age and the beginning of the new, when even death itself will have no power and God will dwell in the midst of creation (Rev 21:1–5).

Patzia, Arthur G. ; Petrotta, Anthony J.: Pocket Dictionary of Biblical Studies. Downers Grove, Ill. : InterVarsity Press, 2002, S. 43


Apocalypse

Literally, an "unveiling" or "revelation." The term is employed in the opening words in the last book of the Bible, "The revelation [apokalypsis] of Jesus Christ" (Rev 1:1). It is also used by interpreters to describe certain "revelatory" parts of the book of Daniel, such passages as Isaiah 24–27 and Mark 13, and some noncanonical books.

Patzia, Arthur G. ; Petrotta, Anthony J.: Pocket Dictionary of Biblical Studies. Downers Grove, Ill. : InterVarsity Press, 2002, S. 13

Hit reply and send me your questions or swat me an e-mail. See you Sunday! Don't forget...bring your crossword puzzle (see previous post)!

Apocalypse Crossword Is Here

Check out this sweet little eschatalogical crossword puzzle for all you end-times buffs. Fabulous prizes for the first two people to hand me a completed, fully accurate puzzle. Download the puzzle by clicking here. Print it, fill it in and bring it to me at Gathering this next week (Oct 4th, 12:30pm at the Student Center on the Old Mill Campus). I'll check it and give you your prize on the spot!

God's Pain-relief Strategy

It would be one thing if God simply walked away from humanity when we spoiled his creation. Paul's letter to the Romans shows us that in fact God had to give us over the consequences of our rebellion - but that he has done so only to a degree. Giving us over fully to the consequences of disobedience would be exaclty what we deserve. Hell is the cosmic trash-heap earth and all it's broken reality could have wound up in. But he's stopped short of that. He's got something else in mind. But where does he start. This place is enough of a mess as is!

His strategy, in a word, is called Incarnation. Incarnation in a word means God showed his face at the scene of the cosmic disaster we refer to as The Fall (mankind's plunge into self-willed rebellion). His ultimate solution? Go to ground zero and risk everything to clean it up. We'd all struggle with a God who simply sat in heaven and let our sin scarred planet rot under its own self-destructive impulses. Instead, God came here in the form of a vulnerable human being. In word, that's the incarnation. And its a strategy he expects his followers to employ as well!

This week at Gathering we'll turn the corner on our conversation about suffering and evil to look at how Jesus is God's answer to the problem. John Parsons, director of the Omaha Street School will be our guest presenter. John's a guy who understands God's incarnational pain-relief strategy. Come give him listen, grab a lunch and join the conversation.