Video: Sermon on Psalm 1

Here is another class video, this one from Psalm 1.  Please let me know any thoughts/critique that comes to mind after watching it.  What you don’t see is that, after my sermon, I get critiqued for over 30 minutes by my six fellow students and my professor.  So I’m used to a little (encouraging) critique!  This is something we all went through… so we both dished it and received it.  It was seriously very, very helpful.

 

Question:  What was my over-arching main question or point.  And secondly, what were my main points answering that question?

Video: Sermon from Mark 7:14-23

Here is another recent sermon I preached in early April for my preaching class.  Some of you helped me out with one of my illustrations via Facebook, and I very much appreciate that!  Hope you enjoy… I welcome any feedback/constructive criticism, etc.

 

 

Speaking of Sin: Augustine, Luther, and The Inward Curve (Part 4 of 4)

Read part one, part two, part three

Personal Critique

I believe Incurvatus in se to be an excellent metaphor for sin today. It is visual, striking, historically rich in men such as Luther and Augustine, and helps break “sin” from being mere actions to being something we suffer from and cannot change on our own. I have struggled to describe the nature and origin of sin on more than one occasion, being unaware of such an image from these men until recently. While there are many excellent definitions of sin, the “inward curve” on the self and away from God is as good as anything I’ve heard. Additionally, incurvatus in se is inherently relational, and our sin against God does not happen in a vacuum isolated from relationship. God has created us relational beings; this is a fact we cannot deny nor avoid. That being true, we need to

Speaking of Sin: Augustine, Luther, and The Inward Curve (Part 3 of 4)

Read part one, part two

Comparing and Contrasting Augustine and Luther

It is no exaggeration to declare that Augustine and Luther’s writings have shaped many millions of lives. It seems to be the case that people associate them as very similar thinkers, given that Luther was an Augustinian monk and knew Augustine’s thought very well. Yet, as we will see, the differences within their thinking are deep, beginning with the very way in which they speak of the inward curve.

Let us begin to compare these men with each man’s definition of incurvatus in se. Nygren writes, “In Augustine, the sinful soul is ‘bent down’ to earth; in Luther it is ‘bent upon itself.’”[1] For Augustine, the problem is that we are no longer upright; we only look to what we can see. Still seeking salvation and justification, we primarily look for it in one another. For Luther, the problem is actually worse than imagined. We don’t simply look to other people, but we use people for our own sake, for our own good. It would be safe to say that

Speaking of Sin: Augustine, Luther, and The Inward Curve (Part 2 of 4)

Read part one

 

Luther and the righteous sinner

Martin Luther was profoundly influenced by Saint Augustine, being himself an Augustinian monk before being one of the catalysts of the Reformation.  While the two men are closely linked for good reason, there are also significant differences in emphasis and flat out incongruity between them in several areas. In Augustine, we needed to first take a step back and see some of the key threads such as self-love and the two Cities that influenced his thoughts about our inward curve; in Luther we need to look at simul iustus et peccator.

 

One of the primary thrusts of Luther’s theology was that a Christian is

Speaking of Sin: Augustine, Luther, and The Inward Curve (Part 1 of 4)

Recently I wrote a paper titled Speaking of Sin – Augustine, Luther, and the Inward Curve.  As you can guess, it is a paper comparing Luther and Augustine’s writings about sin.  Both men spoke of sin as a kind of inward curve, with Augustine informally writing about it and Luther cementing the idea into a more coherent system.  Click on the title above for the entire paper… because it is about 5000 words, I decided to split it into four posts to be released over the next couple of weeks.  Here is part one…

 

What is the best way to understand and talk about sin in the 21^st century?  Is there a new description we should embrace, or would we be smarter to stick with ideas put forth many centuries ago?  These questions and many others could be asked as Christians strive

Discipleship, Part 1: How did Jesus Disciple?

Within Christianity there are always buzz words – words or ideas which get popular for a season then fade, maybe rising to prominence again and maybe not. Sometimes it is a theological concept such as with justification and the “New Perspectives on Paul” movement. At other times it is a spiritual discipline, such as fasting. In many Christian circles, there is a buzz word reaching as far back as the days of Jesus, and even further than that: discipleship. While other words rightfully garner attention, “discipleship” is one that should always have our attention because it is the command of Jesus on every Christian’s life (Matt. 28:19-20).

But still the question remains:

Doctrine of Christology

My Seminary Papers posts are, well, seminary papers I’ve recently turned in and been graded on.  After seeing the reviews/critiques of the professor, I do my best to clean it up and then want to share it with you.  Any time the paper is “Doctrine of…” it’s going to be a short paper, required to be only 1 or 2 pages in length depending on the assignment.  Dr. Breshears, the professor who assigned it, wants concise sentences with strong biblical proof… thus the large amount of Bible citations.

I believe Jesus Christ is

Doctrine of God

The Nature of God

I believe there is one God (Deut. 6:4), eternally Father, Son, and Spirit, distinguishable but not separable (Matt. 28:19, 2 Cor. 13:14).  I believe God is one in essence and three in personhood (Matt. 28:19).  In the economy of salvation, the Father is the one who elects and reveals, the Son purchases, redeems, and reconciles, and the Spirit convicts, regenerates, and sanctifies us (I Cor. 8:6, Eph. 1:3-15, I Pet. 1:2)  All parts of the Godhead have

Chronology of the Life of Christ

A chronology seeks to put the events of someone’s life together in sequential order.  The assignment was to piece together, to the best of my ability, the top 12-15 most important aspects of Jesus life in an accurate timeline.  Each topic has a paragraph explaining