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June Camping Trip
We’ll be taking our annual trip to Ricketts Glenn this year on the weekend of June 15-17. We’re also inviting the young adults groups from The Calvary Chapels in Quakertown and Germantown.
Click here to download the registration flyer.
Here’s some info:
Ricketts Glen harbors Glens Natural Area, a National Natural Landmark. Take the Falls Trail and explore the Glens, which boasts a series of wild, free-flowing waterfalls, each cascading through rock-strewn clefts in this ancient hillside. The 94-foot Ganoga Falls is the highest of 22 named waterfalls. Old growth timber and diverse wildlife add to the scenic area. Ricketts Glen State Park is one of the most scenic areas in Pennsylvania. This large park is comprised of 13,050 acres in Luzerne, Sullivan and Columbia counties. For more information about the park visit the website.
General Schedule:
Friday, June 15: There will be a group leaving Calvary Philly in the morning (around noon) and another group leaving in the afternoon (around 5:00 p.m.) Non Calvary Philly Groups work out travel amongst yourselves…
Sunday, June 17: We will be returning before 5:00 PM
Transportation: We will have limited availability for transportation to and from the campground. Plan on carpooling.
Park Location: Ricketts Glen State Park; 695 State Route 487, Benton, PA 18656
(570) 477-5675
What To Bring:
Bible
Snacks, Water Bottle (meals included in price)
Camera
Camping Gear/Tents/Sleeping Bags
Rain Gear
Towels, Toiletries
Fishing Gear (license required)
Football/Sports Equipment/Hiking Gear
Two Excellent Messages
I just finished listening to two messages by Francis Schaeffer which I wanted to share with all of you. They are well worth your time. The first, “The Lord’s Work in the Lord’s Way” is a convicting, encouraging reminder of our need for the power of the Holy Spirit to do any of “God’s Work.” It is very close to our heart-beat as a church for our Sunday night prayer meetings, and also to how I think the Lord is leading us as a Monday Night group. Download it and then come talk to me about what you think about it all and what the Lord speaks to you through it. The second lecture, “Intellectual Proof and Faith” is long, but so worth the time. In it Schaeffer covers a variety of topics, like the the relationship between our intellect, reason, and faith; the way our thinking interacts with our believing God; how these things relate to real times of trial in our lives; and how our daily living proves out what we actually believe. So good. Click on the titles below to go to the L’Abri Ideas Library download page for each one.
- The Lord’s Work in the Lord’s Way (68 min.)
- Intellectual Proof and Faith(93 Min.)
And here’s a taste of the first message:
“…The real problem is this: the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, individually or corporately, tending to do the Lord’s work in the power of the flesh rather than the Spirit. The central problem is always in the midst of the people of God, not in the circumstances surrounding them…If we do not want to waste our lives, then we must understand the importance of having a humble, quiet heart and the power of the Holy Spirit….Is it not amazing, though we know the power of the Holy Spirit can be ours, we still ape the world’s wisdom, trust its form of publicity, its noise, and imitate its ways in manipulating men! If we try to influence the world by using its methods, we are doing the Lord’s work in the flesh… The key question is this: as we work for God in this fallen world, what are we trusting in? To trust in particular methods is to copy the world and to remove ourselves from the tremendous promise that we have something different — the power of the Holy Spirit rather than the power of human technique.”
(PS: While you’re at the L’Abri website, I encourage you to browse the audio titles they have available. There’s truckloads of very helpful stuff, especially for those of you in intellectually challenging environments.)
Christ is Lord of Our Speech: Notes from Last Night
Last night we continued our study of the Lordship of Christ in all of life with a discussion of our speech. Here’s the notes:
Part 1: What is Speech?
- Gen 1:1-3 Speech was the beginning of our universe. It predates matter. It created all! The universe is the result of communication!
- Gen 1:26-28 Our purpose is known through God’s speech
- Gen 2:15-17 God’s will for us in known through God’s speech.
- Gen 11:1-9 The fall leads to miscommunication.
- John 1:1,14,17,18 “The Word of God” incarnated to declare God to us. His ministry is teaching.
Part 2: What about Our Speech?
Mt 28:20, Luke 24:44-49 Our Lord commands us to:
- speak the truths about Jesus
- speak His commands
*** My mouth is for His use: to communicate information which if responded to leads to knowledge of God—Eternal life (John 17).
Part 3: Getting Practical
- Luke 6:45-46 The heart is the key to controlling the mouth. The Gospel offers a new heart!
- Colossians 4:6 Towards unbelievers: w/grace, seasoned with Salt. A heart under Christ’s lordship, changed by the Gospel, will speak a certain way. A case study of this: How do I respond to a “dirty” joke at work…
- Always have grace filled salty speech, then you’ll know what to say in each situation.
- A changed heart won’t laugh won’t laugh.
- You’ll answer with grace: not harshly or judgmentally.
- But you’re answer will have the flavor of Christ: you’ll engage the person, as a person, with truth. You’ll know how to cut through the joking and laughing to the core issues that adrress people where they’re at with what’s really going on. It’s not a popular thing to do today, but it is how Jesus spoke with people.
- James 3:1-12 How we talk to people shows how we feel about God.
- Eph 4:25, 29 Lying is a contradiction of the Lordship and the Gospel. Corrupting talk is too…
How can there be only one true religion?
There are long books answering questions like these, and but this short quote from Vern Poythress gets to the heart of the matter:
Are All Religions True?
Let us consider one common difficulty that modern people have with the Bible: how can there be only one true religion?
People ask this question partly because they are aware of multiple religions—Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism, to name a few. How do we respond to this multiplicity? One person, whom we may call Sue, concludes that all religions are equally right. She says that they all have a common core having to do with a loving God and being kind to your neighbor. But in selecting a common core Sue shows her own personal religious preferences. Sue speaks of a loving God. But Buddhism does not believe in a personal God. So Sue has excluded Buddhism rather than being all-inclusive. She has also excluded polytheism, which believes in many gods rather than one. Sue speaks of being kind to your neighbor. But some religions have practiced child sacrifice (Deut. 18:9–10).
When Sue talks about a common core, she has also put into the background the irreconcilable differences between major religions. The Bible teaches that Jesus is the Son of God. The Qur’an says that he is not the son of God, but only a prophet. The New Testament part of the Bible teaches that Jesus is the Messiah promised in the Old Testament. Modern Judaism denies that he is. Sue implicitly disagrees with all of these convictions when she implies that they really do not matter. Christianity, Islam, and Orthodox Judaism all exclude one another by having beliefs that are denied by the other two. Sue in practice excludes all three by saying that the exclusive beliefs are not the “core.” Tim Keller observes, “We are all exclusive in our beliefs about religion, but in different ways.”
Are All Religions False?
Let us consider another example. Donald looks over the field of religions and concludes that they are all wrong. He thinks that they all make arrogant, overreaching claims to know the truth. The differences between the claims show that no one really knows. Donald’s position is just as exclusive as Sue’s, and just as exclusive as the claims of any one traditional religion. How so? He claims to know better than any religious practitioner the true status of religious claims. But you have to know a lot about God—whether he exists, whether he reveals himself, what kind of God he is—to make a claim that excludes all religions before seriously investigating any of them in detail. Donald thinks that religious claims are arrogant. The irony is that he is acting arrogantly in claiming to be superior to all religions.
[This book just came out. Vern Poythress, Inerrancy and Worldview, Crossway, 2012 (p. 19-20)]
“Praise sits silent on our toungues.”
A hymn by Isaac Watts:
Eternal Power, whose high abode
Becomes the grandeur of a God,
Infinite lengths beyond the bounds
Where stars resolve their little rounds!
There while the first archangel sings,
He hides his face behind his wings,
And ranks of shining thrones around
Fall worshiping, and spread the ground.
Lord, what shall earth and ashes do?
We would adore our Maker, too;
From sin and dust to Thee we cry,
The Great, the Holy, and the High.
Earth from afar has heard Thy fame,
And worms have learned to lisp Thy Name;
But, O! the glories of Thy mind
Leave all our soaring thoughts behind.
God is in Heaven, and men below;
Be short our tunes, our words be few;
A solemn reverence checks our songs,
And praise sits silent on our tongues.
Missions Conference
This weekend we’ll be hosting our annual missions conference here at the church building. Lots of us in the young adults group are at a place where we are wondering what God’s will is for our lives, or what the future holds. I don’t know what connotations rise up in your mind when you hear the word “missions,” but may I commend this day to you, whether you think you’re a “missions” person or not? One very good friend of mine had his life radically altered at one of these days a few years ago. So you may come and find exactly the kind of “big picture” direction you’re looking for. Or maybe it will simply be a horizon-expanding experience, to see how global the work of God is, and how it extends beyond our smallish worlds. Or maybe it will just stir you up to pray and look at the world around you everyday in a more intentional, Gospel-centered way. Regardless, it will be worth your time. And you can definitely afford it. Here’s the details: Speakers: David Guzik- David is the new Senior Pastor of Calvary Chapel Santa Barbara. He has been in pastoral ministry since 1982. For the past seven years, David and his wife have been missionaries in Siegen, Germany directing the Calvary Chapel Bible College there. Craig Linquist- Craig Linquist has been the Pastor of Calvary Chapel of Entebbe in Uganda for the past seven years. He is from a long line of Missionaries, & the grandson of Alan Redpath. He has much to share on passion, service, surrender, obedience and the blessing of missions. His facility is complete with an exciting church, school, farm and medical outreach. He and his wife Loren have three tremendous sons who are also incredibly given to the service of the Lord. Serge Poteau- Serge is the Senior Pastor of Calvary Chapel Port-au-Prince in Haiti. Calvary Chapel Port-au-Prince started with a couple of home Bible studies at the end of 2006. Since then the Lord has grown the church to 3 services on Sunday: 7am, 9am, and 11am and a Wednesday night service at 5:30pm. CCPAP currently ministers to about 200 adults and 100 kids weekly.
Workshops on serving as amissionary in:
Europe, South America, Africa, & Asia
Details:
Who Can Come- This conference is open for all believers that have a heart for missions, and want to know more about the Great Commission. Current Missionaries, Senior Pastors, and Missions Pastors are encouraged to attend as well. Cost- This Conference is free When- Saturday, May 19th, 9am – 5pm Any questions or for hotel accommodation information please contact Carlos Kalczuk at 215- 969-1520, or by email at ckalczuk@ccphilly.org To download the brochure click here.
Did the Church Persecute Galileo? A Discussion of Science & Faith, Part 6
In this series we’ve been tracing the historical flow of Galileo’s run in with the church. We’re up to the point where Galileo decides he’s tired of being disrespected by the academic establishment, and makes a move to do something about it. We continue with Kirsten Birkett’s article:
As we have seen, Galileo’s battle was with Aristotelian philosophers who were highly offended that a mathematician would challenge them at all. Normally, this kind of academic battle would be dealt with internally, in the academic environment, through debate, publication, and so on. Galileo, however, refused to play on their terms. He was not going to let a stagnant academic network stifle him. He moved out of the university system altogether and discovered another setting in which he could be a philosopher.
It was a brilliant career move. In 1608 Galileo discovered, with the use of the telescope for which was to become famous, the moons of Jupiter. Though this is held up mostly as the empirical vindication of Copernican theory (and certainly helped Galileo’s arguments for Copernicanism), at the time the main use Galileo made of his discovery was political. He dedicated the moons of Jupiter to Cosimo II, the Medici Grand-Duke of Florence. In beautiful prose he compared the moons to the four virtues, inescapably attached to Jupiter, who was symbolic of Cosimo I, founder of the hereditary Medici dynasty. Galileo’s flattery paid off. In 1610 he was granted a position at the Medici court, with no teaching duties, at the staggering salary of 1000 scudi per year and with the coveted title of “philosopher.”
Birkett goes on to explain that, as a court philosopher, Galileo was required to engage in intellectual debates for the entertainment of his patron. He was “on-call” to debate scholars with opposing positions, and, “the court audience applauded satirical, biting wit—which Galileo was only too happy to provide.” Man, this sounds like the blogosphere and Barnes & Noble book shelves of our day (think, Richard Dawkins). The issue, though, was this—“Galileo was in a position to be highly offensive to university philosophers.”
After he began to publish his ideas in written form, especially when he was championing heliocentrism, Galileo called out more focused opposition against his views, and more importantly, against himself.
It was a debate about physics, but there was much more at stake—Galileo was arguing for his own theories against those of Aristotle, against to the academics who relied on Aristotle for their position, prestige and world view. Galileo’s biting sarcasm thoroughly ridiculed his opponents. He made bitter personal enemies from what should have been a professional dispute.
Galileo was by this time 48 years old, a highly paid and important court personage, and a world-famous astronomer whose telescopes were in demand from nobles all over Europe. He had made bitter enemies in the academic world by treading on disciplinary toes and treating established academics with scorn and personal ridicule—but won the debates, and won respect as a philosopher amongst the court literati. He had taken on the academic establishment and won. Not many Aristotelians had been convinced by his arguments, but they had been unable to silence him. At this stage, he had had no trouble with church authorities; if anything, they respected him as a talented astronomer. This raises an important question. If the battle was not really ‘religion versus science’ but ‘old science versus new science’, why did the church get involved at all?
It is probably fair to say that Galileo’s enemies, unable to defeat him in logical argument or by social pressure, took the battleground to the church. Galileo had not allowed his opponents to silence him in the normal ways, so they looked to silence him through creating theological trouble. There is evidence of a deliberate strategy used against Galileo…
In the next post we’ll see how this mix of academic dispute, personal grievances, and church power played out.
For the rest of this series, click below for…
What am I after in this life?
This is the type of thing that is easy to post and then write big words about. I don’t want to cheapen someone else’s story (these are real people, peers), but here’s one observation about the video below: it seems to so perfectly line up with the kind of things the Lord’s been taking us through in the word on Monday nights–how would God have us connect to reality in His name and for His purpose…? …to live in the world, with people, for His purposes, and not for the purposes we create and long for… I hope, together, we’re beginning to see what a big thing it is to step into the life of God, the freed and redeemed life. Many small things may die along the way, but the narrow path leads to the open door of true life. But now I’m doing what I said I didn’t want to do. Here’s the story of Ian and Larissa:
Christ is Lord of Our Entertainment: Notes from Last Night
Last night’s installment in our series on how the lordship of Christ affects every area of our life was a look at Entertainment. Check out yesterday’s post for an introduction.
Here’s the study notes:
Part One: Thinking about Entertainment
What we use entertainment for:
- To have fun, experience excitement or be amused
- To unwind or relax
- To socialize
- To distract ourselves
Therefore, for much of our culture entertainment is:
- A source of happiness….A reason to get through the day. (Joy)
- A relief from stress. (Peace)
- A center to gather around. A source of unity and community. (Center)
- A diversion from an otherwise boring or unhappy life. (Reality)
Critical question #1: What place does entertainment really have in the lives of Americans? Looking at these four things, isn’t it reasonable to say entertainment has taken the place of a god? (Think about it: What would the average person do if all their entertainment was taken away?)
Critical question #2: Can entertainment actually deliver these things? If it could, then since we live in the culture with the most (and best) entertainment, shouldn
Part Two: Christ is the true version of all these things.
- He is the source of Joy: John 15:11, Ps 16:8-11 (Ps 36:8)
- He is the giver of peace: John 14:27; Phil 4:6-9 (Isaiah 26:3)
- He is the center that creates true community: Mt 18:20
- He gives engagement in reality instead of diversion from it: John 1:14; Mt 28:18-20, (Jn 17:15, 18). The Gospel gives Mission and Purpose instead of diversion.
Part Three: Getting Practical
- What should I watch/play? What kinds of things entertain Christians? (Mk 7:17-23)
- How much time is OK to spend on entertainment? What do I have time for? (Eph 5:3-16)
Finishing up: Do we have an inner source of life? Jeremiah 2:12-13
There is a glorious, infinite God to get to know. He offers Himself as a fountain of life for all our issues. There is a world He created inhabited by real people who have real destinies. There is a message about God’s restoration of this real world, through the sacrificial act of the Messiah. There is a commission to know it and proclaim it, and to live it out in real community with others. Those who’s sin is forgiven are now reconnected with the Source of life and set free to live the fullest, most meaningful lives possible—forever.
“A threat to the souls of modern men…”
Tonight’s study, Lord willing, will be on how the lordship of Christ affects how we think about entertainment. Not that this will be some sort of hack-fest about entertainment choices (although, of course, that is an issue…), but instead it seems like there are big things we can find in the scriptures, things that get to the root of what kind of life we want to live, and are called to live. Like, what is entertainment? And why does our culture love it so much? And what does the Gospel have to do with any of this?
If you look long enough, you’ll find that someone else has already said what you’re feeling like saying. In this case, I didn’t have to look very long–A.W. Tozer was ruminating on these things a generation ago. This is vintage Tozer, and right up the line with the things I think the Lord would have us chew on. I may read from this tonight, but here it is for you now…
A German philosopher many years ago said something to the effect that the more a man has in his own heart the less he will require from the outside; excessive need for support from without is proof of the bankruptcy of the inner man.
If this is true (and I believe it is) then the present inordinate attachment to every form of entertainment is evidence that the inner life of modern man is in serious decline. The average man has no central core of moral assurance, no spring within his own breast, no inner strength to place him above the need for repeated psychological shots to give him the courage to go on living. He has become a parasite on the world, drawing his life from his environment unable to live a day apart from the stimulation which society affords him.
Schleiermacher held that the feeling of dependence lies at the root of all religious worship, and that however high the spiritual life might rise it must always begin with a deep sense of a great need which only God could satisfy. If this sense of need and a feeling of dependence are at the root of natural religion it is not hard to see why the great god Entertainment is so ardently worshiped by so many. For there are millions who cannot live without amusement; life without some form of entertainment for them is simply intolerable; they look forward to the blessed relief afforded by professional entertainers and other forms of psychological narcotics as a dope addict looks to his daily shot of heroin. Without them they could not summon courage to face existence.
No one with common human feeling will object to the simple pleasures of life, nor to such harmless forms of entertainment as may help to relax the nerves and refresh the mind exhausted by toil. Such things if used with discretion may be a blessing along the way. That is one thing. The all-out devotion to entertainment as a major activity for which and by which men live is definitely something else again.
The abuse of a harmless thing is the essence of Sin. The growth of the amusement phase of human life to such fantastic proportions is a portent, a threat to the souls of modern men. It has been built into a multimillion dollar racket with greater power over human minds and human character than any other educational influence on earth. And the ominous thing is that its power is almost exclusively evil, rotting the inner life, crowding out the long eternal thoughts which would fill the souls of men if they were but worthy to entertain them. And the whole thing has grown into a veritable religion which holds its devotees with a strange fascination, and a religion, incidentally, against which it is now dangerous to speak.