Seeing Heaven, Smelling Hell

Sorry it took a bit this week - here is the question I have for you all...how do you develop healthy spiritual appetites?

Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 

- 1 Corinthians 3:1–2

1 Corinthians 2:5-16 - The Mind of Christ

Here is the question: What is the mind of Christ and how can you have it? If you have some thoughts post them in the comments section. Please comment on your thoughts for this section too:

1 Corinthians 2:5-16 TNIV

so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,

what no ear has heard,

and what no human mind has conceived—

these things God has prepared for those who love him” —

for God has revealed them to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit within? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for,

“Who has known the mind of the Lord

so as to instruct him?”

But we have the mind of Christ.

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

 ¹⁸ For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. ¹⁹ For it is written:

   “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
   the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”^[c]

 ²⁰ Where are the wise? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹ For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. ²² Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, ²³ but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

 ²⁶ Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. ²⁷ But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. ²⁸ God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, ²⁹ so that no one may boast before him. ³⁰It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. ³¹ Therefore, as it is written: “Let those who boast boast in the Lord.”^[d]

^{Some thoughts on this would be great - what is an area you have "been made strong in weakness"}

^{Do you still feel the Cross is foolishness to the rest of the world?}

^{Feedback and meditation on these verses would be great:)}

Baptism and Spiritual Authority

If anyone wants to post some thoughts on either Spiritual Authority (who are your spiritual authorities) and/or baptism (what it means to you, have you been baptized, what it means today?)

! Corinthians Week 2

Hey everyone - here is the text for this next work. The main theme seems to be "Spiritual Authority"
I would love your thoughts on that subject, insights about the text or feelings towards Corinthians in general. Post your thoughts in the comments for this blog.


¹⁰ I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. ¹¹ My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. ¹² What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas^[a]”; still another, “I follow Christ.”

 ¹³ Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into^[b] the name of Paul? ¹⁴ I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, ¹⁵ so no one can say that you were baptized into my name. ¹⁶ (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.) ¹⁷ For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

Collective Knowledge

Recently I was thinking about the awesomeness of Wiki knowledge and realized that the very ways in which we think and process information have fundamentally changed in the last decade (I believe for the better). Now we are able to access more information than ever before at a fraction of the time it used to take. This is all possible because we realized that "experts" did not necessarily hold the keys to the cosmic warehouse of wisdom and knowledge.

That being said, I think theology and theological thinking (thoughts about God) needs to update their software to match the hardware we are all using. I want this space to be open for us to dialogue about thoughts on God and to shape the thinking of Kairos (our church plant) by forming and writing sermons together. While I may be the one usually giving the sermon when Sunday morning roles around, I hope that it is a culmination of a lot of different thoughts and experiences from conversations I am having we others - both on here and in real time.

So, if you have thoughts about the subject, text, illustration or if you have been doing some studying about the upcoming weekend's portion of the Bible we are looking at - post it. I will try to start a new post for the upcoming week on Mondays.

I look forward to seeing this work out.

p.s. You do not have to be a part of Kairos to post here, you just have to be sincere:)

We will all Innoventually Die...on Facebook

Several years ago a woman at our church died suddenly in surgery. It was shocking and unexpected but the stranger aspect to the event occurred a month or two later when I came across her Facebook page that was still up and running. This was during the earlier days of Facebook (when it was still under a billion users:) - so I had never experienced something like this. I thought it quite strange that she was still receiving posts and there were even some strange comments on here wall regarding quiz scores and results from some of the insipid surveys and games people play on FB. 

Flash forward several years and many more FB friends later I find myself in a state of deja vu...sort of. Tonight I received a message from my friends brother letting me know she died 3 days ago. I am still reeling from the shock and sadness. In addition to this there is an incredible sense of surrealism to the matter. As I sat alone in my office reading about my good friend's demise and having no concrete details...I went to her FB page and saw all of her friends comments to her post-mortem. The idea of online-life-after-death makes the process of grief and dealing with the finality of it all that much more difficult. 

In a sense, the online community provides a chance to instantly connect with other friends and family members whom you might not be able to grieve with in person. However, the disconnect between reality and online personality leaves me feeling more isolated and removed from the tangibility of a situation where you are talking and dealing with people. I still remember reading that Michael Jackson had died on TMZ...hours later Wolf Blitzer was still unsure if it had happened and was, what one friend referred to as "a hot mess". I'm sorry, but I still think I need Blitzer or Brokaw to tell me in person...or a phone call from a friend. I feel that the next war will "innoventually" (Donaghy) see parents of deceased soldiers gathering the news of their passing children's from a military officer's Twitter feed.