tournament time

So Stephanie and I are having a little head-to-head bracket competition with this year's NCAA tourney and, thankfully, after a horrid day one, I've taken the lead.

It's tough to be a huge sports fan (heck, I majored in "Sport Studies" at UGA...no joke...) and be down to your wife in the bracket. But that's exactly where I stood when I went to sleep after the first day of the tourney.

I spent that evening hearing Steph with excitement proclaim "I voted for them!" each time one of her teams won.

Apparently the NCAA tournament is now a democracy. Who knew?

Somehow or another, though, the tide has turned and she's no longer happy when her team wins; now she's only happy if her team wins and my team loses. So it goes.

But, as I type at 7:32 on Saturday night (UNC 74, LSU 63), I'm 24-for-32 in the first round, with only one team out of the second round and Steph's 23-for-32 in the first with five teams out of the second.

Not trying to brag about beating my wife and all. Or maybe I am.

My ego needs all the help it can get.

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For what it's worth...

My sweet 16: Louisville, Arizona, Kansas, Mich State, UConn, Purdue, Marquette, Memphis, Pitt, Xavier, Villanova, Duke, UNC, Illinois, Syracuse, Oklahoma.

My Elite Eight: L'ville, Mich State, UConn, Memphis, Pitt, 'Nova, UNC, Syracuse.

My Final Four: L'ville, Memphis, Pitt, 'Cuse.

My Championship Game: Pittsburgh over Memphis.

stanley and vestal on expository preaching

Once again, I'm straight stealing a blog post. This came off of two posts from my friend David Wilhite. (By the way, his blog is one I highly recommend.)

The first bit is from Andy Stanley in response to a question Ed Stetzer asked in a recent interview. If you don't know him, Stanley is pastor of mega-church North Point Community Church in the north Atlanta suburbs. I've been there a couple times. It's huge. He's a great communicator, but his comments below confirmed my suspicions...

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Stetzer: What do you think about preaching verse-by-verse messages through books of the Bible?

Stanley: "Guys that preach verse-by-verse through books of the Bible--that is just cheating. It's cheating because that would be easy, first of all. That isn't how you grow people. No one in the Scripture modeled that. There's not one example of that.

All Scripture is equally inspired, but not all Scripture is equally applicable or relevant to every stage of life. My challenge is to read culture and to read an audience and ask: What is the felt need? Or perhaps what is more important, what is an unfelt need they need to feel that I can address? Because if they don't feel it, then they won't address it."

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Today, Wilhite posted a response to his intial post that he got from another friend of mine, Michael Vestal. Its a little lengthy, but I thought it was very insightful and worth a read. Here's what Michael said:

"I think it is a subtly self-centered or man-centered basis that leads us to despise exegetical preaching. If we believe the task is to 'read the times' and then apply an appropriate answer from the whole scope Scripture, we must believe that the fundamental need lies in a smart use of Scripture. We've assumed a role that's not ours; we've assumed we have something to offer, something to say. (And sometimes there might be good reason for that approach - in writing a book, in giving a specific seminar, teaching a class, or just in discussion with friends, etc.)

But if this approach is taken in the time slot traditionally assigned to 'preaching the Word' then we forfeit (at least one opportunity for) what we need most of all: to hear from God Himself. Do we trust in our own insight and resourceful citing of Scripture (almost as a tool to support our message)? Or do we believe, whatever our current situations might be, that what we need more than anything else is to see and treasure Christ? If we're trusting in Him - not in ourselves, at some level - then we'll want to hear His Word, to get on His 'agenda,' to absorb His perspective, even if to do that I am required to put my personal issues on the back-burner and trust that He cares for me.

I would not think that a strictly verse-by-verse approach is always necessarily called for. Of course, some consideration for the particular audience and thoughtful selection of the Word is required - essentially the same reasons that we have services in English instead of Latin or Greek or Hebrew. So, I definitely think that pastors must thoughtfully consider their congregation's particular need and should responsibly seek to bring the Word to them.

And I would be very comfortable giving Andy Stanley the benefit of the doubt - that he's doing just that. But underneath whatever particular approach we take there should be a fundamental trust in God's Word, not our own. Our mentality should be that people need to hear from God - and not necessarily on the topics they would choose - or that we would choose for them. In some respects, the very thing we need is to be removed from our own perspective, to be immersed in a Biblical perspective. Then, when we return to the everyday practical concerns, we'll see them more accurately. And we'll have a high view of Christ's glory, and if we embrace Him, we'll have what we essentially need in any setting.

Consider what Dietrich Bonhoeffer says about reading the Psalms: 'We also ought not to select Psalms at our own discretion, thinking that we know better what we ought to pray than does God himself. To do that is to dishonor the prayer-book of the Bible' (Psalms, p.26)."

censorship in the 21st century

Apparently, according to WND, Wikipedia doesn't allow anything negative to go on Barack Obama's page on the online "encyclopedia", even if it's something that's been published in reputable sources.

Still think Wikipedia's legit?

(HT: Tim Challies)

Sexting and Abuse in Teen Relationships

I've got two separate topics today that I'm going to deal with together because they both should give us great concern for our teens and the direction in which our culture is heading.

Post #1:

Teenage "Sexting" Statistics are Alarming.

I checked this out after seeing a spot on the "Today" show this morning discussing an 18-year-old girl who committed suicide after a nude photo she sent by cell phone to her boyfriend was forwarded to dozens of people after they broke up.

These numbers blew my mind:

Percent of teens who have sent or posted nude or semi-nude pics of themselves:

20% of teens overall
22% of teen girls
18% of teen boys
11% of teen girls, age 13-16

Percent of teens sending or posting sexually suggestive messages:

39% of teens overall
37% of teen girls
40% of teen boys

15% of those who sent pictures did so to someone they knew only from online.

21% of teen girls and 39% of teen boys send these messages to someone they simply want to hook-up with.

36% of teen girls and 39% of teen boys say it is common for these photos to get shared with people other than the recipient.

12% of teen girls report feeling pressured to send this type of content.

The numbers are very alarming. As I said earlier, at least one suicide has been linked to this messaging, after the breakup of the relationship found the pics distributed freely. More frequently, teens can face felony child pornography charges due to spreading these photos.

There are so many layers to this societal problem that I'm not sure that I could unpack them all. It's easy for me, a 26-year-old with no children, to blast parents for not being involved enough to know what's going on when I don't have kids of my own and have no way to know what raising teenagers in today's society is like. But something's going on here that must be discussed. For some reason we've got a generation of girls and boys who want to be adults, who want to "feel sexy" and who morally have no reason not to attempt to act on these desires.

In a world whose standard of right and wrong is now determined only by causing harm to another, teen sexting then only seems like a "no harm, no foul" issue to these teenagers.

And speaking of this standard of right and wrong...

Post #2:

Some Teens Say Dating Violence is Normal.

In the wake of the Chris Brown/Rihanna abuse case, more and more is coming out about teenagers' view of violence in dating relationships.

I read this story (from the Chicago Tribune) in yesterday's Raleigh News and Observer. Listen to these teenagers own words about this type of violence:

"People said, 'I would have punched her too!'" one girl said. "And these were girls!"

"She probably did something to provoke it!"

"There was a girl this week at school with a scratch on her eye," another girl said. "She was talking openly about her boyfriend hitting her, but she was smiling and saying it was funny."

The numbers say 1 in 10 teens experience such abuse, and females age 16-24 are the most likely to experience violence in romantic relationships.

Again, I'll leave it to you mostly to draw conclusions. But, as I told my wife last night, what can we expect in a society where there is no standard right and wrong. If I'm okay with it after you hit me, then it's okay for you to hit me.

Moreover, in a culture that is rapidly losing it's distinction between males and females, it only follows that it becomes increasingly acceptable for men (and boys) to abuse women (and girls). I was raised in a home where hitting a girl was more or less a capital offense. Sadly, those types of homes today seem fewer and farther between.

All in all, the church has to do something. From calling on fathers and mothers to shepherd their children carefully through our dangerous culture to youth pastors and pastors engaging the church with stories like these. If the numbers for so many areas of life are virtually the same in the church and outside of the church (e.g., divorce, etc), we'd be naive to think these two issues are any different. As SEBTS President Danny Akin says, for ministers not to engage churches over this would be ministerial malpractice.

cleaning the inside of the cup

Jesus has seven "Woe's" that he pronounces on the religious leaders of his day recorded in Matthew 23:13-36. It's easy for me to read these on cruise control, smugly thinking to myself that I'm glad I'm not like those Pharisees.

Only, after further inspection, the comparison isn't as far-fetched as I'd like it to be.

So here's the brief version of the Woe's, with one question for each that I asked myself this morning:
____________________
1. You shut the Kingdom of heaven in people's faces, neither entering yourself, nor allowing others who would to enter.

Q: Am I bringing others with me into the Kingdom of heaven, by grace alone through faith alone?

2. You travel abroad to make a single convert and when you do, you make him twice as much a child of hell as you are.

Q: Realizing that my practices are multiplied into those I lead spiritually, is my life following in line with Scripture or with mere tradition? Have I examined it carefully?

3. You say it's more important to make an oath by the gold of the temple or by the gift on the altar than by the temple or the altar itself.
[Christ is calling out the Pharisees as "blind" and "fools" b/c they neither see nor understand that God calls for utter faithfulness to Him that is not dependent on nuances of words.]

Q: Am I walking in faithfulness to God's word or am I trying to find loopholes and ways around wholehearted obedience?

4. You tithe mint, dill and cumin and neglect the more important things of justice, mercy and faithfulness - which you should do without neglecting the other.

Q: Am I following the "weighter matters" of the law, even when it goes unnoticed, while still obeying the more noticeable commands, or am I only doing what will be seen by others?

5. You clean the outside of the cup but the inside is still full of greed and self-indulgence.

Q: Am I concentrating on my outward appearance of righteousness for the approval of others or am I focusing on the inward and true righteousness of faith in Christ and obedience from the heart, even when unseen by man?

6. You are whitewashed tombs - you appear beautiful on the outside but are dead on the inside, you appear righteous but are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Q: Am I seeking conformity to the law of Christ or merely giving lipservice and ultimately following my own law?

7. You build the tombs of the prophets saying "if I lived in the days of my fathers I wouldn't have murdered these prophets" -- and in your lives you show that your are the murderers sons.
[By only outwardly honoring the prophets but not following what the prophets preached, they show that they do not honor them from their hearts.]

Q: Am I honoring Christ with my life - day in, day out; seen or unseen - or just with my words and outward appearances towards others?

be a Caleb

I read Numbers 13-14 this morning and wanted to say a quick thanks to some people out there.

I've had a handful of people in my life be Caleb to me. Like Caleb, who was among the spies to go check out the Promised Land and then urged the people to follow God faithfully in the face of seemingly overwhelming opposition, these people - in Athens, Dahlonega and now in Wake Forest - encourage me to keep trusting, keep following, and keep seeking to obey God's voice.

In my estimation, I can think of no higher way to love a fellow Christian.

In times of great need - when I felt ready to "throw in the towel" - and in the day-to-day walking with God, these people have been there. Standing beside me. Walking with me. Encouraging me, at times with urgency, to go into the Promised Land of trusting in God's word.

I'm thankful for you guys. You make me want to be a Caleb as well.