A Brick in the Valley

Justin Taylor:

Technology can be abused, but it sure can be amazing.

As many of you undoubtedly know, film critic Roger Ebert is no longer able to use his vocal chords and has no voice, due to multiple surgeries. For a while he spoke via a computer. According to this Esquire profile, his voice was called Alex—”a voice with a generic American accent and a generic tone and no emotion.”

But Ebert has been so prolific as a speaker—think of his countless spoken reviews and DVD commentaries—that they were able to construct a database using his actual voice.

Watch the video below to see Ebert and his wife Chaz hear his new “voice” for the very first time.

If you’re one of the millions of people who have read The Shack, or, if you’re thinking of reading it, you can benefit from reading Al Mohler’s interaction with it. 

The publishing world sees very few books reach blockbuster status, but William Paul Young’s The Shack has now exceeded even that. The book, at first self-published by Young and two friends, has now sold more than 10 million copies and has been translated into over thirty languages. It is now one of the best-selling paperback books of all time, and its readers are enthusiastic.

According to Young, the book was originally written for his own children. In essence, it can be described as a narrative theodicy — an attempt to answer the question of evil and the character of God by means of a story. In this story, the main character is grieving the brutal kidnapping and murder of his seven-year-old daughter when he receives what turns out to be a summons from God to meet him in the very shack where the man’s daughter had been murdered.

In the shack, "Mack" meets the divine Trinity as "Papa," an African-American woman; Jesus, a Jewish carpenter; and "Sarayu," an Asian woman who is revealed to be the Holy Spirit. The book is mainly a series of dialogues between Mack , Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu. Those conversations reveal God to be very different than the God of the Bible. "Papa" is absolutely non-judgmental, and seems most determined to affirm that all humanity is already redeemed.

The theology of The Shack is not incidental to the story. Indeed, at most points the narrative seems mainly to serve as a structure for the dialogues.

Read the rest here.

I’ve posted several other times about Pastor Matt Chandler’s battle with cancer.  Here is an AP article.  Below you can also see his latest video update.

DALLAS – Matt Chandler doesn’t feel anything when the radiation penetrates his brain. It could start to burn later in treatment. But it hasn’t been bad, this time lying on the slab. Not yet, anyway.

Chandler’s lanky 6-foot-5-inch frame rests on a table at Baylor University Medical Center. He wears the same kind of jeans he wears preaching to 6,000 people at The Village Church in suburban Flower Mound, where the 35-year-old pastor is a rising star of evangelical Christianity.

Another cancer patient Chandler has gotten to know spends his time in radiation imagining that he’s playing a round of golf at his favorite course. Chandler on this first Monday in January is reflecting on Colossians 1:15-23, about the pre-eminence of Christ and making peace through the blood of his cross.

Chandler’s hands are crossed over his chest. He wears a mask with white webbing that keeps his head still when metal fingers slide into place on the radiation machine, delivering the highest possible dose to what is considered to be fatal and incurable brain cancer.

This is Matt Chandler’s new normal. Each weekday, he spends two hours in the car — driven from his suburban home to downtown Dallas — for eight minutes of radiation and Scripture.

At the hospital, Chandler sees other patients in gowns who get chemotherapy through catheters in their chests and is thankful he gets his in pills before going to sleep at home next to his wife.

Chandler is trying to suffer well. He would never ask for such a trial, but in some ways he welcomes this cancer. He says he feels grateful that God has counted him worthy to endure it. He has always preached that God will bring both joy and suffering but is only recently learning to experience the latter.

Here for the rest.

HT: Z

See also an update from Matt Chandler.

There probably isn’t a church in North America right now that doesn’t have people facing unemployment.  Do you know someone you can direct to these excellent thoughts from an elder at Capitol Baptist who is facing unemployment?

Like many congregations around the country, we have had many of our people this year struggling through unemployment. Included among those is one of our elders, who has been unemployed for nearly a year now. Over the past twelve months, I’ve seen this brother hurt, I’ve seen him get excited about potential jobs and then have his hopes dashed when the job didn’t come through. I’ve seen him cry when the struggle got simply exhausting. But I have also watched this brother continue to trust in God, and through it all walk alongside others who are navigating that same hard road.  Even as he is shouldering his own load, he is helping others to shoulder theirs, too.  That has been and continues to be a deep and beneficial ministry.

A few weeks ago, this dear friend and brother shared with the congregation ten things he had learned from his unemployment.  Here’s what he said:

#1: Own your unemployment

This struggle has revealed how much I wrongly value work and wrongly value being seen as important.  As a reaction to this new reality, my flesh wants to pass through this trial quickly.  My flesh doesn’t want to slow down and absorb the lessons that God has for me in this season.

So there is a constant struggle to avoid admitting that I am unemployed or that my unemployment has extended so long because it tells my flesh that the world doesn’t think much of me.  So I am tempted to tell people that I took a few months off before I really started looking; anything to minimize the embarrassment.

Embracing the trial, to me, means being honest with myself and forcing myself to run to God and to depend on him.  I need to work at not putting up defenses.  I need to regularly admit to people that I am unemployed… 

This honest assessment drives me to the scriptures to find rest and solace in God and His word and NOT in anything else. 

#2: Preach to yourself

In times like this, it is too easy to speak to yourself and become discouraged, to doubt and even to accuse God.  We need to arm ourselves with His word and battle those thoughts.  As Paul says in 2 Corinthians: “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

The rest of, “Trusting God Through Unemployment, Part I”

“Trusting God Through Unemployment Part II”

HT: Z

Click here.

More Haiti pictures from the Big Picture.

Here for more.

Pastor Matt Chandler gives an update regarding his battle with cancer.

Obviously, pray for this family.

If you are pressed for time, at least listen through the first couple of minutes when he gives a quote from Sibbes.

Or, only listen to the last minute when he gives an update to the Village church.  The thoughts he has for their church family are instructive.  Any time we find ourselves going through a tough time, God will also give us grace to learn and grow in particular ways.

If God is touching your heart about Haiti, but, you’re not quite sure how to respond, here’s a devotional exercise you could do in the next few days.

1. Read Matthew 25 aloud.  It is a good thing to force yourself to slow down and hear a segment of God’s Word.
2. Notice that there are three segments:
1. The parable of the Ten Virgins
2. The parable of the Talents
3. The final judgment
3. Reflect on the significance of each of the three sections.  Do you agree with these summary statements?
1. Matthew 25:1-13: Only foolish people are not prepared when Christ comes back.  And, we can be sure that the Master will return when many are not ready – - at which time it will be too late.  Oh, can you say you are ready, brother? 
2. Readiness looks like aggressively leveraging what God has entrusted to us, not playing it safe.  Matthew 25:14-30: Wise people aggressively multiply the resources entrusted to them.  Christians are not called to bury their savings in a 401K (which doesn’t turn out to be so safe after all) or to put our stuff in a safety deposit box of one kind or another. We are to shrewdly dream about the ways that we can shine the light of the Gospel across the street and around the world (see also Luke 16:8-9).
3. In particular, readiness means being mobilized to help hurting people.  Those who decline to help the hurting should fear for their souls.  Matthew 25:31-46: To ignore the least of these is to ignore Jesus.  Our Lord said is that if we have no heart for the “naked,” then we have no heart for him – - indeed, those who think they are His, but bear no fruit of compassion – - these have a Hell of a shock in front of them (Matt 25:46).  Deeds of compassion don’t save us; but, the saved feature deeds of compassion.  2 Corinthians 13:5.

On a corporate level, if a local church is just a local church; then it may one day have a hell of a shock; if a group of believers look only inwardly, only locally, then they have reason to question if they are the real deal or not.

Rather, let us see Christ when he is naked.

We need to look at these.

How are we going to help?

Click here for more.