Please welcome guest blogger Martha Cotten to the site. Thanks for contributing, Martha! ~Ben
I spend a lot of time wondering where my place is in the world. Wondering what I’m doing with my life, and if I am making the right choices. I realize how short life is and how each decision I make is crucial to not wasting my time on earth.
Here is Penn (from Penn & Teller) talking about an encounter he had with a Christian after one of his shows. Penn is an atheist.
Link to Embedded Video
I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize. If you believe that there’s a heaven and hell, and people could be going to hell, and you think, ‘Well, it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward’… How much do you have to hate somebody not to proselytize?
I’d say he has a point. I’d also say that the christian that gave him the Bible has guts. Serious guts. First, he had to have enough of a Biblical world view as to not be intimidated by celebrity or atheism. Second, he had to have a soft heart so that he could respond to the urging of the Holy Spirit to follow through. Remember, he had to plan ahead and come a second night, buy another ticket and wait for Penn after the show.
What’s missing in most of us that we cannot see ourselves doing this?
Hat tip to Ed Stetzer
After the death at Wal Mart, you would think some people would simmer down. I suppose greed runs deeper in our culture than we thought.
Moral of the story:Â Don’t be like these people.
Link to Embedded Video
Brian Regan is one of my favorite comedians. This bit is one of his funniest. Also check out the video clips on going to the emergency room, going to the doctor, and flying. All are laugh-out-loud funny.
Enjoy!
Link to Embedded Video
This is a quote from p.15-16 of Tim Keller’s new book The Prodigal God. The book is a beautiful rendering of the prodigal sons parable found in Luke 15:11-32. Keller argues that the younger brother (the one traditionally called the “prodigal”) is representative of the irreligious. The older brother is representative of the religious of the day. Both are totally and equally lost.
Jesus’ teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the Bible-believing, religious people of his day. However, in the main, our churches today do not have this effect. The kind of outsiders Jesus attracted are not attracted to contemporary churches, even our most avant-garde ones. We tend to draw conservative, buttoned-down, moralistic people. The licentious and liberated or broken and marginal avoid church. That can only mean one thing. If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. If our churches aren’t appealing to younger brothers, they must be more full of elder brothers than we’d like to think.
FOR COMMENT: Is this true in your experience? What must happen for this NOT to be true?
If there is any doubt in your mind that materialism is the great American idol, this will fix you…Â This is grievous.
