A Meeting Place for Those Who Aren't Afraid of the Border

Every Tuesday, tune in for your weekly dose of Border Devos. The formula is simple: A passage of Scripture or other confessional document, a short reflection, questions for discussion, and prayer. Enjoy!

Belgic Confession Article 2 The Means By Which We Know God.
We know him by two means:
First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God: his eternal power and his divinity, as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20.
All these things are enough to convict men and to leave them without excuse.

Reflection:
Have you ever had someone ask you, “How can God punish people who don’t have the Bible or know about Jesus?” Throughout Scripture, we are taught that God has made himself clearly known in creation. In other words, all we have to do is walk outside and look at the world to understand that God is real, powerful, majestic, beautiful—the list goes on. All we need to do is take a look at our own hearts, and we discover God has written his law inside us. Every person has a sense of right and wrong. Every person knows that he or she has sinned before God.
We can be sure of this: God has given every person enough revelation to chose whether to accept or reject him.

Questions:
• The Belgic Confession says that “all creatures” are like “letters to make us ponder” God. Pretty cool! Take a few minutes and use your imagination: What kinds of things do each of the following creatures tell us about God:
o Butterflies
o Elephants
o Lions
o Dinosaurs
o Spiders
• What are some other parts of nature that help you understand and experience God more fully?
• Do you think that our modern culture—with tv, video games, climate-controlled houses—can sometimes make us feel cut off from the natural world? Do you think this might affect the way we understand God? Why or why not?

Prayer: Creator God, we thank you for the beauty of this earth. Even though the world has been touched by sin, we see your goodness shine through. We thank you that all of creation points to you. Please give us eyes to see you more clearly in our world. Please forgive us for not giving you praise! We praise you now and celebrate your amazing beauty! In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

So much for a “private choice between a woman and her physician.”

So…what do you think:

The Simple Church movement is a Evangelical Christian movement that seeks to redefine the nature and practice of church.
The movement claims to be “a Christ-centered community established primarily on relationship both to God and to the other members of the group.” In doing so it discards many aspects of conventional expressions of church, which is considered beneficial by some, and problematic by others. This gives those in the movement the opportunity to focus on what it considers to be the core practices of Christian spirituality.

Here is an outline from the first session in a 7-week class I recently taught:

1. Because my parents taught me the Bible from a very young age and modeled a life lived in submission to Scripture.
a. Proverbs 22:6; Acts 16:1; 2 Timothy 1:5, 3:14-15

b. Parental authority founded on Biblical authority; by constantly linking their authority to Scripture, my parents demonstrated a real trust in the Bible.

2. Because the Holy Spirit has been at work in my heart from a very young age, helping me to trust the Bible and desire to obey it.
a. Psalm 138:2; John 6:44

b. Tuning the Piano (Holy Spirit has “tuned” my heart to the voice of God in the Bible)

3. Because the Bible is leading me through a process of transformation that no other text could duplicate.
a. Ps. 119:9-11; 2 Tim 3:16-17;

b. conviction and empowerment

c. Define sanctification
1) formal definition, including mortification and vivification
2) Sanctification of mind
3) Sanctification of desire
4) Sanctification of action

d. The Bible, like no other book, can confront and comfort

…what happens if you eliminate anything from the Bible that offends your sensibility and crosses your will? If you pick and choose what you want to believe and reject the rest, how will you ever have a God who can contradict you? You won’t! You’ll have a Stepford God! A God, essentially, of your own making, and not a God with whom you can have a relationship and genuine interaction. Only if your God can say things that outrage you and make you struggle (as in a real friendship or marriage!) will you know that you have gotten hold of a real God and not a figment of your imagination. So an authoritative Bible is not the enemy of a personal relationship with God. It is the precondition for it. (Keller, The Reason for God, 114)

4. Because as I grew to read the Bible for myself, I found it to be what it claims to be.

a. Psalm 12:6, 19:7-11, 119:24,

b. self-authenticating

In addition to all the external proofs that we have for the Divine Inspiration of the Scriptures, the believer has a source of evidence to which no unbeliever has access. In his own experience the Christian finds a personal confirmation of the teachings of God’s Word…The description of the Christian which is found in Romans 7 is something which none but a regenerate person can understand. The things there mentioned as belonging to the same man at the same time, seem foolish to the wise of this world’ but the believer realizes completely the truth of it in his own life. (Pink, The Divine Inspiration of the Bible , 123)

5. Because as I committed myself to seeing reality through the lens of Scripture, I have found the Bible presents a view of God, the universe and life that is absolutely true, explaining all of life in a way no other perspective ever could.
a. Ps. 119:105, 30-31; Psalm 36:9

b. Correspondence, Coherence and Truth (the philosophically inclined might appreciate this article for a little bit of what lies behind the points I made here)
1) ILLUS: Jenny in the other room: Correspondence
2) The puzzle fits and presents a clear picture: Coherence

c. Commitment: A Watershed Issue
1) College, The Alps and Francis Schaeffer
2) Either the Bible is or it is not God’s Word
a) The Smorgasbord Approach
b) We can’t, on the one hand, claim to trust the Bible when it speaks of things we like, while, on the other hand, ignoring the things we don’t like. As long as I exercise the right to determine which parts of Scripture are accurate and which are not, then my mind, not Scripture, serves as the true authority.
3) If it is God’s Word, then it possess an authority much higher than any other perspective
4) If it is not God’s Word, then it is the perspective of another human and we are left without a Divine Revelation

Valentine’s Day weekend was packed last weekend. Don’t worry, guys, I did get her flowers and a card all the while expressing my undying love and affection. But Jen and I are finally getting a chance to head out for some QT tonight. I’m going to keep this advice in mind the entire date: