Tag: United States

PART III from Dr. Ben Witherington on the Imago Dei

Read Part I here.

Read Part II here.

Thanks for joining me in this series that summarizes Dr Ben Witherington’s lectures on the Imago Dei (at the Welsey Forum 2014, Evangelical Seminary).

The following are snippets of the talk; the things that made the biggest impact on me.

(Scroll to the bottom to read a bio of Witherington and access his books.)

 

“By loving God you become like God. You become what you admire.”

The Kingdom of God is here now.

my note: (God broke into history and time with Jesus and his mission-and has always done that, to which the Bible attests.)

The Kingdom is also to come.

Kingdom means dominion (a realm). Dominion is a noun. Dominion is our inheritance.

 

“We live in a foreshadow, not a foretaste of the kingdom.”

my note: (The kingdom will come fully in the “fullness of time” and all will be put to rights-evil vanquished.)

 

Yom means day in Hebrew.

Yahweh can be translated as “Ancient of Days”

“Jesus is the only human + superhuman.”

Jesus is laid in the tomb and covered in incense

 

Matt 11:27

I Tim. 2:3-5

Jesus:

• he is fully unique

• he meets the requirement (for sacrifice)

• he is the only God-man

• he is the only one worthy to be a mediator

 

Jesus imposed self-limitation
(Satan tempted him to abandon that.)

Jesus’ limitations on the “OMNIs”:

• Time

• Space

• Knowledge

(He did have immediate access to God through his intimate relationship with God and that is why he could know secret or hidden things and how he could prophesy.)

• Mortality

• Power

Jesus accepted our natural limitations.

Phil. 2:6-8

Though in the form of God,
he did not think of equality with God
as something to cling to.
Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;
he took the humble position of a slave
and was born as a human being.
When he appeared in human form,
he humbled himself in obedience to God
and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

The big difference? He sinned not.

How Jesus dealt with problems:

1. Using the scriptures

2. With the spirit of God

Thus:

• We have the same resources

• We can imitate Jesus

BIO:

Bible scholar Ben Witherington is Amos Professor of New Testament for Doctoral Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary and on the doctoral faculty at St. Andrews University in Scotland. A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies.

Witherington has also taught at Ashland Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, Duke Divinity School and Gordon-Conwell. A popular lecturer, Witherington has presented seminars for churches, colleges and biblical meetings not only in the United States but also in England, Estonia, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Australia. He has also led tours to Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt.

Witherington has written over forty books, including The Jesus Quest and The Paul Quest, both of which were selected as top biblical studies works by Christianity Today. He also writes for many church and scholarly publications, and is a frequent contributor to the Beliefnet website.

Along with many interviews on radio networks across the country, Witherington has been seen on the History Channel, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, The Discovery Channel, A&E, and the PAX Network.
Click to View the Books by Dr Ben Witherington.

Re-inventing how we use Money?

raining-money

When you don’t have enough money, you start to question the idea of it in the first place.

Who controls it? Why? and how?

You start to wonder if the typical system makes sense or if it’s really up to any good.

I’ve often wondered why the most important work doesn’t pay well. The answers are more complicated than I can talk about here or even truly understand without a lot of research. Nevertheless, many of the answers tend to stem from issues of power, the sources of control/power, and the desire to keep things a certain way for people who have amassed wealth and power.

 

The capital of the United States is now the richest city in the country and awash in new millionaires and billionaires; not because these folks created important and noble things, but because they are following a gravy train of money, special favors, and power for a very few.

I don’t subscribe to all of Charles Eisenstein‘s views, but what he has to say about money and what we can do to make our relationships better and the world a better place are worth hearing.

It’s good to question the influential things in our lives. It’s smart to vet them for their goodness and test them for their true benefits. If our ways are left wanting, it’s good to re-invent how we interact and exchange with one another.

Today, I give you this video as food-for-thought. How could we do things differently?

I’m planning a webinar on April 24th with my friend Bill Fox. I’ve learned that he is beginning to use a gifting model for his work. It’s intrigued me and I’m starting to investigate it for my purposes too. More on the webinar (topics and schedule) will be coming in the next week or so…stay tuned!…

OKAY UPDATE! My newest resource is now available using the gifting system. Check out the details HERE!

 

 

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Thinking Class: Session 3

Here’s the third one.

Do you ever get the feeling that your work is useless and that no one will bother listening anyway? I confess, in the wake of so much going wrong with the leaders of the United States I’m more than a little depressed.

Thinking reasonably is in short supply, and yet I don’t suppose that teaching how to come to contentions and conclusions logically will actually be of much help in the world. Be that as it may, I still want to do the right thing and (potentially) expose others to learning what critical thinking and a reasoned argument is, in case they ever come in contact with one.

Yes, this is the Sasquatch of educational knowledge and intellectual integrity. Enjoy!

(Click to enlarge)

thinkingclass3

Want to read the others?

Cool, here you go!

Session 2

Session 1

Hey, just two more things, friends. Will you to pass it along? You can embed it at your site, or just share it on Pinterest or Facebook. (It’s free to share: a Creative Commons work).

And please join me regularly by getting email delivery or an RSS feed for new posts!

 

2012: Half Full or Half Empty?

Infographic on 2012. Are you optimistic?

Share your predictions.

2012 Predictions:

1. Mit Romney will accidentally expose the battery pack that gives him life, and grey hair confined to the temples.

2. 8% unemployment will be seen as “the glory days of old”.

3. Obama will sustain another basketball injury. This time a ligament, and a foreshadowing of things to come.

4. The London summer olympics will give us a jolly good overload on all things British.

5. The Mayan focus will renew interest in corn…as a killer.

Free to use and distribute. Creative Commons (when credit is given to creator)

The Story Behind the Song “Jesus Loves Me” (a poem by Anna Bartlett Warner)

Here’s the Story behind the song Jesus Loves Me.

The song most of us have sung, Jesus Loves Me was written by Anna Bartlett Warner  who was born August 31, 1827 – died January 22, 1915. Warner was an American writer, the author of several books, and of poems set to music as hymns and religious songs for children. (Via Wikipedia)

Anna’s family home was quite close to the United States Military Academy at West Point, in New York, in the era just before the Civil War. Each Sunday Anna taught Bible classes to the cadets. Her remains are buried in the military cemetery, and her family home is now a museum on the grounds of  the United States Military Academy.

Undoubtably, her most well-known work (and the point of this post) came from the poem from her and her sister’s 1860s quite sentimental and best-selling novel entitled Say and Seal. It was soon set to music by William Bradbury, who added the chorus we still sing today in one of the most well-known children’s Christian hymns of all time…you guessed it! Jesus Loves Me. Many soldiers on the battlegrounds during the War Between the States sang this hymn and found spiritual comfort.

In a scene that brought many people to tears in the novel, a child lays dying and is comforted from his pain, as the main character recites a poem:

Jesus loves me! This I know,

For the Bible tells me so.

Little ones to Him belong;

They are weak, but He is strong.

Children of God, let it be your simple prayer today.

Blessings.
-Lisa