Looking Back on 3.5 Years of Blogging

Okay, so the title is a little misleading.  I’ve actually been blogging for about 5 years, but only consistently for 3.5.  Five years ago, as I was serving as a youth pastor in a Portland suburb, I took the lead from my senior pastor and set-up my own blog on Google’s Blogger (blasphemy, I know, on WordPress).  At the time I had no idea what blogging was, how to use it, what to talk about…I was completely clueless.  Originally I had a habit of talking bad about people in the church and airing all my dirty laundry.  It was one of several things that ultimately resulted in my resignation from that church.

But then, after a short break, I tried again.  I was still on Blogger at that time and I called the thing “Menial Ramblings of a Sanctified Sinner.”  I still didn’t have much of an idea what to do with a blog, but I started it on a much more tame note.  My first post was actually a humorous story from Lark News about the 2006 “Pastor’s Draft.”  I started off slow, but eventually, writing became easier and more frequent.   After a while I switched websites and moved “Menial Ramblings” to WordPress, and with it came a new name: “Under Construction”.  The last transformation took place this past June when I changed the name to “The Follower.”  Over the years I have posted random thoughts, devotional material, sermons, papers, articles, rants…just about whatever has come to mind.  The two years I’ve spent on WordPress has brought over 16,000 visitors to my blog – not by any means a number that places me anywhere near the top of the popular blogs list, but encouraging to me nonetheless (I would love to be a heavy traffic blog with 16,000 per month).

Something I’d like to do – and something the few readers I have may be interested in – is start putting together a list every 6 months of the top viewed post and my personal favorites.  But for this edition, what you’ll find below is just a list of my personal top-15 list of all time (it’s just too much work for me to figure out how to get stats of the most read).  Then in June, 2010, be looking for an updated list of posts from the previous 6 months.  Hope you find this enjoyable.  Happy reading!

My Top-15 Posts

1. Intellectualism vs. Practicality
2. Unity for the Sake of the Gospel
3. A Good Quote
4. The Profit-Making Gospel
5. Out of the Overflow of the Heart
6. Reflections on Exodus 33:12-23
7. Christianity and Homosexuality (related to this is A Painful Lesson)
8. Laniece & Other God Moments
9. Musing on Biblical Love
10. Wealth = Blessing
11. Discipleship
12. The Purpose of Worship
13. Love God
14. Love Others
15. Follower of Jesus

Filed under: Apologetics, Bible Study, Christian Living, Christianity, Church, Church Planting, Culture, Discipleship, Evangelism, Faith, Leadership, Ministry, Original Languages, Philosophy, Prayer, Preaching, Random, Sermon, Theology, Worship

Preliminary Thoughts on Matthew 4:1-11

I’ve spent the past few days picking through Matthew’s account of the temptation of Jesus.  I’ll be preaching on this text in January in Seattle at a church who’s pastor will be retiring the week just before I preach.  That presents a number of unique challenges as most congregations feel “shell-shocked” after losing a pastor, AND this text is an extremely familiar passage that most people have heard several sermons on.  In preaching Matthew, I’ve been intentional about not trying to reconcile Matthew’s gospel with similar stories in the other gospels.  My reasoning is that I believe Matthew to be bringing a unique message that the church will do well to consider in it’s own right.  Therefore, I striving to keep my research and study confined to Matthew without allowing the other accounts of Jesus temptation to influence the way I read Matthew’s.

I’ve mentioned this before, but worth repeating is Matthew’s three-fold purpose in writing his gospel: 1) prove Jesus’ messiahship to a Jewish audience, 2) motivate his readers to a life of discipleship, and 3) show that missions is the primary action of the life of a disciple.  With that framework, I’m striving to understand how Matthew 4:1-11 fits into the gospel.  This is proving to be far more difficult than originally anticipated.

In any case, here are a few of my initial observations regarding this passage (with more to come in a later post):

1. Chapter 3 ends with Jesus’ baptism and the Father’s voice coming out of heaven saying, “This is my son, whom I love…”  Chapter 4 then begins with the Greek word Τότε (tote; then, at that time).  There’s a sense of immediacy here.  In the original manuscripts, the narrative is clearly continuing on from the previous story (baptism) without the break that our English editions show.  Chapter and verse divisions are arbitrary and do not exist in the originals – they were added later for organization and clarification purposes.  These two sections (Jesus’ baptism and temptation) are further linked together by the repetition of the “Son of God” theme.  Jesus is declared the Son of God in 3:17 and then “the devil” arrives saying, “If you are the Son of God…” (4:3).  The theory I’m toying with is that Matthew has included Jesus’ temptation as proof of his messiahship and/or divinity.
2. Jesus is tempted three times.  Each time he refutes the devil’s challenge by quoting Scripture.  Interestingly, the verses he chooses to quote all come from Deuteronomy 6-8.  Since Matthew’s original readers were Jewish, these references to Deuteronomy would have stuck out like a pink elephant.  Moses was the original orator of these words, which in a way forces us to ask what Moses has to do with this scene.  This isn’t the first time Matthew has compared Jesus to Moses; he did so rather blatantly in 2:13-23.  This comparison/equation is a strong argument in favor of Jesus really being the messiah, which falls in line with the three-fold purpose.

In the meantime, I’m gunna keep thinking about this.  I’ve got to figure out where I’m going with this text by Dec. 30.  What do you see happening here?  Any insight?  Am I crazy?  Have you heard anything along these lines before?

Filed under: Bible Study, Discipleship, Ministry, Original Languages, Preaching, Sermon, Theology

Jesus is IT (Matthew 2:13-23)

Matthew has just recounted the story of the magi coming from the east and worshipping Jesus as king.  What’s remarkable about that particular story is that Matthew is the only one of the four gospel to tell the story of the magi.

I begin there for the simple reason that this morning’s text is largely dependent upon some of the details from that scene with the magi.  By way of introduction, take a look for a second at verse 2:2 – the magi have just arrived in Jerusalem and they go straight to King Herod to ask…

READ VERSE 2:2

For a king like Herod, that was the last question you wanted to ask.  Herod was known for responding to even the most minor of threats with the full force of his cruelty.  And so such questions and the suggestion that there may another king running around was bound to result in some rash response from Herod.  Then in verse 12 we read about how the magi were spared from that wrath via a dream, and shortly after that, Joseph – through a dream – is warned to take Jesus and his mother to Egypt.

Typically, when we look at this text we tend to go in one of two directions with it.  On one hand, we frequently focus on the escape to Egypt as a picture of God’s providence and preservation of toddler Jesus.  Or sometimes we focus on the “slaughter of the innocents” and try to reconcile how it is we can believe such a thing happened when there is not one strand of evidence outside of Scripture that Herod ever committed such a cruel act.

Filed under: Bible Study, Christian Living, Christianity, Church, Discipleship, Faith, Ministry, Sermon, Theology

The Visit of the Magi (Sermon on Matthew 2:1-13)

It’s a joy to be back in Portland and able to worship here at Parklane again.  I graduated from Calvin Seminary in May, and Mishaela and I have been back in the area for about 3 months now.  Just so everyone’s up to date on what we’re doing here, we decided about a year and a half ago that would start walking through the door to church planting.  What’s more, we also began to feel a real burden to see more CRC congregations in Oregon and to minister to Portland.  And so, we moved back to Portland and we’ve been working to establish ourselves in the Sellwood neighborhood, with the hopes of starting a new faith gathering in that part of town.  I suppose it’s also worth pointing out that Mishaela and I are expecting our first child in February, which we are very excited about.

As a church planter I’ve been gravitating toward the gospel of Matthew – and for good reason.  A question I’m sure many of us have wondered about is “Why are there four gospels?” After all, if the goal is to present a biography of sorts of Jesus life, won’t one do the trick?

The reality that is often overlooked is that each gospel comes with its own particular slant on what happened.  Each gospel writer, when he set out to record the events of Jesus’ life and his teachings, did so with the intention of achieving something more than just recording the events of Jesus’ life.  It’s that particular slant that has resulted in the gospels occasionally telling a slightly different version of an event or even omitting or including stories that the other gospels haven’t.

Filed under: Bible Study, Christian Living, Christianity, Church, Discipleship, Faith, Ministry, Original Languages, Sermon, Theology

Women, Gentiles, & Jesus, Oh My! (Sermon on Matthew 1:1-17)

I used to make a regular habit of posting sermons I preach.  For whatever reason I’ve been getting lazy with this.  I’ve obviously been reading through – and studying – Matthew’s gospel and blogging about what I’ve been learning, but many of those posts seems to have a more academic bent to them and I’m probably not making the discipleship connection like I want to.  Fortunately, I’m doing a much better job with that when I turn around and preach those texts.  So I’m going to commit to being more diligent about throwing up my sermon manuscripts when I preach as a counterpart to the more academic posts.

This is the first sermon I preached in conjunction with studying Matthew.  Enjoy!

READ MATTHEW 1:1-17

My guess is that very few of us have ever heard a sermon on a genealogy.  Although I’m still on the younger side, I know I never have.  In fact, there almost seems to be a part of us that shies away from genealogies as much as possible.  I mean, when was the last time you actually read the book of Numbers for example.  And if you’re like me, you tend to skip the genealogies of Genesis – and Matthew – to get to the things that are more interesting and exciting.  For whatever reason, over the years we’ve come to see these parts of Scripture as mostly pointless filler that seems to have virtually no value for us today.  They may have been important to the people 2,000 or 4,000 years ago, but to us it’s just a big waste of time.

My prayer is that this morning I can change your opinion a little – at least of Matthew’s genealogy.

In the way of introduction there are a few things to keep in mind as we look at this text.  First off, we absolutely cannot underestimate the fact that each of the four gospels – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – are written from a particular perspective.  This might make some of you uneasy to think about.  When each author sat down to write his gospel, he did so with the intention of making a point.  In other words, the gospels are not simply relaying the cold, hard facts of Jesus’ life and teachings.  That’s why the gospels sometimes put the same story in different places or present slightly different versions of an event.  There was something in the life of the author or early church that necessitated the author to write what he did.  We then discover clues to what that thing was and it helps us understand what we’re reading better.

Filed under: Bible Study, Christian Living, Christianity, Church, Evangelism, Faith, Ministry, Sermon