One of the most refreshing parts of my summer was a little book called “A Simple Way to Pray” by Martin Luther. He wrote it for his barber of many years when he asked Luther  how he ought to pray. I learned from this book the (obvious?) lesson that I can’t pray well from a cold start. I need to prepare my heart to pray well. Luther would begin by turning to the Gospels and reading a saying of our Lord or some other such passage to warm his heart to pray. When his heart was warmed to pray he would begin. I’ve found that preparing my heart before praying helps me pray much better.

Read Luther’s book. It’s only a letter actually, just a few pages long.

This one reads well online.

This one prints to a booklet if you print it doublesided.

This one is fullsize if the others are hard to read and you don’t mind waiting a moment for the download.

He played a good game. He eventually blundered a bishop as he tried to win a pawn and a rook for a rook. I then forced the trade of both queens and he chose to trade the remaining rooks to lead us into the endgame with me a bishop and pawn ahead. I think the position was essentially won at that point. It dragged on for another 20 moves before he resigned. I came close to blundering it myself by moving to centralize my king in the endgame when I should have gone straight for his passed pawn. I caught the error in time to capture the passed pawn before it was too late.

Isn’t it better to do good by admitting our evil than to continue as we are by denying there’s a problem? Who would rather keep a good reputation than gain a good heart? The wisdom of Diogenes is that he who denies his sin still retains what he counts to be his shame.

This distinction between the rationalist who reads a text by the power of his own mind, and the Christian who has the mind of Christ in his reading of scripture has been the main theme of my epistemological thinking for a couple years.

I had a new thought yesterday. I noted that Donald Hall, in his book “Queer Theories” seems to suggest that the body of knowledge he calls queer theory would be essentially unchanged if it ceased to be a primarily white upper-middle class phenomenon and a plurality of voices were included from other cultures and classes. The choir may grow larger but he seemed to suggest that the tune would be unchanged. I pointed this out to my classmates as a major epistemological failure. The church, I was thinking, was composed of people representing all the world’s cultures. Her doctrines are framed by members from all eras, nations, cultures, classes, etc. I had the sense that the church had wisdom epistemologically that was lacking in the “queer theory” of Mr. Hall. I, as a white upper-middle class American member of the church understand that I have a theology that must be changed through an encounter with my fellow members whose cultural, national, gendered and class background are different from mine, and who are able to see things I miss. Hall seemed to acknowledge the need for “diversity,” but missed its epistemological significance. I pointed this out to the class and folks agreed.

After the fact, I realized that my understanding of “having the mind of Christ” left no room for other church members from varying backgrounds to teach or sharpen me or my white American church. What do third-world theologians, for example, have to offer me if I already have the mind of Christ?

Is it possible that it is not I, but we the Church universal, who have the mind of Christ? That we need to sharpen and lovingly share our wisdom with each other in order to participate fully in the blessing of receiving the mind of Christ? Is it possible that my personal theology or that of my church is not the mind of Christ, but that in the collective scriptural learning or those who are and have been truly members of Christ’s Church we have the mind of Chrsit?

For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. ‘For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.

This seems to be the way people explain their own experiences. Some feel they’ve been gay their whole lives as if it were something they were born with, while others feel it was a choice. Why should we be threatened by either alternative? Both seem very much in keeping with the Biblical account of our nature and our choices. Why have many Christians so heavily invested themselves in a view of homosexuality that insists it can only be a choice?

Just a thought.

“A devil, a born devil, on whose nature
Nurture can never stick;”
~Prospero in The Tempest

I love God.

I love people.

So does He.

This is why I get utterly furious when I learn about pastoral sex scandals and folks using God as a tool to take advantage of the unsuspecting.

So, as the world now knows, Earl Paulk, the so-called “Archbishop,” the great founder of the “Tabernacle of the Holy Spirit,” is the unholy father of his nephew by his own brother’s wife. Also, it seems he manipulated another woman into sleeping with him many times over the course of more than a decade by convincing her it was her only path to salvation. What does he make of the warning of scripture that those who become teachers face a stricter judgment? What of the words of our Lord who warned/promised that what is whispered in secret will soon be proclaimed from the housetops? Has he no fear? (more…)

As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? (more…)

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2008/smiles-sermon-at-trinity-reformed-chapel-pistol-river-oregon/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2008/the-thin-line-separating-genius-from-insanity/ http://garrettperks.com/2008/the-thin-line-separating-genius-from-insanity/#comments Sun, 13 Jan 2008 01:06:45 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/2008/the-thin-line-separating-genius-from-insanity/ I just stumbled upon this article from the UK’s Daily Mail from my buddy’s Facebook, and it’s really stunning. I almost wonder if it can be real. Apparently this old gentleman in Italy dug a massive complex of beautifully sculpted temples beneath his hillside home. The complex spans 300,000 cubic feet, or 20 times the volume of London’s Big Ben clocktower. The artistry of the complex is simply stunning. There is no other word for it. Apparently Italy is calling it the eighth wonder of the world.

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2008/the-thin-line-separating-genius-from-insanity/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2008/law-gospel-in-the-proverbs/ http://garrettperks.com/2008/law-gospel-in-the-proverbs/#comments Tue, 08 Jan 2008 19:46:38 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/2008/law-gospel-in-the-proverbs/ I’ve been thinking about Mary & Martha lately. The lesson is basically a very practical example of how the gospel is lived. It is about how grace is applied practically in being and becoming who God wants us to be. It seems to me to parallel the passage about John laying his head on Jesus’ chest, the instruction to seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness and all ‘these things’ will be added to you, and the teaching about Jesus being the Vine in which we must abide.

We do a great deal of wondering about what God’s will is. Books are written in droves on the topic. What these passages teach me is that I do not become who God wants me to be by thinking about who He wants me to be and then trying to be that way.

Often as I worship, as I am enjoying God the most, or put another way, when I am abiding most richly in the Vine, I find that I am changed. The strange thing is that I am usually surprised by what I am changed to. God makes me into someone quite different than what I expected.

What this proves to me is that I never could have gotten there by thinking about who God wanted me to be and trying to be that way. I never would have thought of what God intended. I think the difference between trying to figure out who God wants us to be and then to be that way on the one hand and simply worshiping and seeing who we become on the other hand is the difference between leaning on our own understanding or else turning away from evil by fearing the Lord. Put another way it is the difference between law and grace, work and faith.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
and do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the LORD, and turn away from evil.

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2008/law-gospel-in-the-proverbs/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2008/sermon-why-should-we-worship-jesus/ http://garrettperks.com/2008/sermon-why-should-we-worship-jesus/#comments Wed, 02 Jan 2008 09:09:43 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/2008/sermon-why-should-we-worship-jesus/ So here’s my latest. I was set the question, ‘Why should we worship Jesus?’

I think I learned more from preparing this sermon than I’ve learned from preparing any other of my sermons. I learned not just about my material, most of it I’ve already been learning, but I learned a lot about me and how I must lead and preach. It was the most worshipful and enjoyable time I’ve had preparing a sermon.

Here it is.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

Or, you can download it here.

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2008/sermon-why-should-we-worship-jesus/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/a-note-from-my-alter-ego-the-economics-student/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/a-note-from-my-alter-ego-the-economics-student/#comments Tue, 11 Dec 2007 22:19:58 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/2007/a-note-from-my-alter-ego-the-economics-student/ So, I research the North Coast regional economy as writer/assistant editor of the Humboldt Economic Index. This is a bit from my real estate economics hack alter-ego.

I just had a thought. Foreclosures are at the highest level our nation has seen since the Depression. Estimates are that barring Federal intervention (and perhaps in spite of it) a couple million more ARM’s will reset before the smoke clears and a solid chunk of these resets will result in foreclosures. Already in some areas it is not uncommon to see families in front yards full of furniture after a forcible eviction has been served. This amounts to a comparable, perhaps larger, refugee crisis than Katrina, just one that is not focused in such a narrow region as a single city.

The thought is just that a lot of folks need our prayers during this time. Many of them will be discovering that they have little else.

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/a-note-from-my-alter-ego-the-economics-student/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/anselm-redux-prayer-to-st-benedict/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/anselm-redux-prayer-to-st-benedict/#comments Fri, 09 Nov 2007 22:48:51 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/2007/anselm-redux-prayer-to-st-benedict/ attention to earthly things bends my soul away from the knowledge of things above;
earthly love extinguishes in me delight in heavenly things.
The habit of vice has wiped away in me the knowledge of true good.

This is from Anselm again, from his Prayer to St. Nicholas. OK, it’s funny to think of a guy praying to Santa Claus, but Nicholas was actually a third century bishop in the city of Myra. Anyhow, it’s interesting how in these lines Anselm predates the postmodern observation that our beliefs and what we take to be our knowledge often does not correspond to what is objective or to absolute truth, but is rather an imprint left on us by our experiences and our desires. His knowledge of true good he says is wiped away when he habitually sins and delight in and attention to earthly things bends him from true knowledge. The truth is that when we want to continue in sin it blinds us to an understanding of truth and when we do the evil it blinds us to understanding as well. Through a prophet God speaks saying, ‘I will bring distress on mankind, so that they shall walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the Lord.” What is the meaning of that proverb that ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’ and ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge?’ Finally, Isaiah tells the people of Israel ‘We hope for light, and behold, darkness, and for brightness, but we walk in gloom. We grope for the wall like the blind; we grope like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight…For our transgressions are multiplied before you, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and we know our iniquities…

Isn’t it true that in those places where we know we are committing sin if we willfully persist it blinds us to understanding truth.

The runaway returns
and asks forgiveness for his errors and disobedience,
He shows to the good and healing shepherd
the gashes of wounds, and the bites of wolves,
which he ran into when he strayed,
and the neglected sore places
that he has had for a long time.
He begs him to have mercy while there is still life in him,
and he prays more by showing his need
to the merciful shepherd
than by any beseeching.

It ocurred to me how great a mercy it is that God continually rescues us from sin. Imagine a man who goes for a hike in the woods and is attacked by a mountain lion. He is injured, bleeding and unable to escape to safety. Imagine his gratitude if he were rescued from death.

When we sin and God does not abandon us fully to our sin but grants us the sweet gift of repentance, how much more grateful ought we to be. Is it not true that our enemy roams about like a lion, roaring in search of an opportunity to destroy us? (more…)

When Erwin arrived, he asked his son if he would ask the other boy for forgiveness. His son said no. He asked his son why and he said “Dad, you said I never had to do this Christian stuff if I didn’t want to and I don’t want to. I want to go home.” Erwin told his son that if he wanted to go home he should go pack his bags, hoping the boy would relent. His son went and packed. When he was done, he came back with the bags. Erwin told him to load them in the car if he wanted to leave, hoping again that he would relent. He didn’t.

After the car was loaded he took his son to a place in the trees and sat down with him. He told his son, ‘You know you should really stay here and work this out.” His son said “I don’t want to stay. I’m not going to.” Erwin asked, “Is there any voice inside of you telling you what to do?” “Yes,” his son said. “What is it telling you to do?” Erwin asked. His son said, “It’s telling me to stay here and work it out.” Erwin asked him, “Can you tell what that voice is?” And his son said, “Yes it’s God, but I’m still not going.”

Is this not us? What is God’s will we ask? And yet we are unwilling to obey. When we have not honored the gift of hearing from God we wonder why He will not continue to speak. As it says in Hebrews our disobedience causes our heart to grow hard and our ears to grow dull. We continue in this process until we are living as if we were deaf and God were silent. Then we curse Him for His silence.

As G. K. Chesterson says, obedience is the opener of eyes.

Here’s another thought. Eric Rofes is saying that becoming infected with HIV is a decision that we must respect. People must decide for themselves whether receiving body fluids from potentially HIV positive partners is more valuable to them as a sexual or spiritual part of their life than remaining alive is. The question arises whether the larger society is then responsible to provide treatment for men who seroconvert as a result of this decision.

Put another way, having unprotected sex of the sort Rofes is discussing risks health and life and also a great deal of money. Is the community responsible to subsidize that risk? Can someone demand that their community pay whatever it costs for them to have the sex acts the person feels they need to be fulfilled?

In the end, I think the answer is that a community owes sick people treatment. We can’t watch folks suffer without mercy. We must provide treatment to people suffering from AIDS. If we as a community take responsibility to provide treatment for these HIV positive men, then even if their decision to risk infection is educated, it is not a decision that affects only them. Unless they are able and willing to take responsibility to provide their own medical care, then they are only taking partial responsibility for their decision.

If they expect their community to join them in assuming responsibility for the risks of their personal decisions, can the community not express a degree of risk it is willing to accept and a degree it is not willing to accept?

The personal is political.

He helped me understand how AIDS felt to members of the gay community in a way I never did before. He tells the story of that culture from the early ’70s through the outbreak of the epidemic and the early fallout; the initial response and then the evolution of response as it became clear that AIDS wasn’t going away, in fact was going strong through the ’90s. He discusses what it felt like when he first heard of ‘gay cancer’ and then GRID, he discusses the impact of Stonewall and so forth.

Finally, he tries to reconceive a means of addressing the epidemic. I’m really startled by his view of AIDS prevention. He is critical of an approach to prevention that emphasizes safe as opposed to unsafe behaviors. For example characterizing unprotected sex with an HIV positive partner as an ‘unsafe behavior’ is problematic for Rofes. That’s startling. I was startled by that anyhow.

He argues that exchanging body fluid is an act with more value for some gay men than staying alive. (more…)

By the way, I had a thought about my last post. See, I was talking to a buddy yesterday and he said he was feeling tension about the idea that God knows who He will save and does all that is required to save them Himself. My friend said it seemed like there was something he had done on his own to be saved.

I know what that feels like. I felt that very way the first time I encountered a person who believed that God does it all. Anyhow when I saw the title of my last post I thought of a little ditty.

What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus.
And something extra of my own
To complete the blood of Jesus.

Just a thought.

Pretty amazing if you think about it. These two passages taken together tell us that every page of the Bible is about Jesus. All good theology, if it is faithful to the message of the Bible is about Jesus. All good preaching comes back to Jesus. In the story of the Bible, in the story of the Church, in the story of our lives, there is Christ and there is the irrelevant.

I really liked it because I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the relationship between our actions and our beliefs. The fact that our actions are shaped by our beliefs is sort of worn out and tired from its being much repeated, but what about the fact that our thoughts are shaped by our actions. (more…)

The passage that fell to me was 1 Corinthians 9:1-18. (more…)

Hopefully there aren’t any Scotia locals in the audience today. But, seriously, I wonder where Scotia got it’s name. I think the Romans called the territories of Ireland and Scotland ‘Scotia.’ Maybe that’s where it came from?

Anyhow, it was a pretty amazing verse. It says the Life was the Light of men and in the darkness it is shining, but the darkness has not laid hold of it. The other interesting word is κατελαβεν (katelaben). This is to grasp or cling or lay hold. It’s interesting because it is the word at play in the famous kenosis passage in Philippians 2 that I’ve been writing about in other posts.

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

There are a ton of amazing things in that passage. Two in particular jumped out. It said Jesus upholds the universe (more…)

35 Reasons Not To Sin

1. Because a little sin leads to more sin.
2. Because my sin invites the discipline of God.
3. Because the time spent in sin is forever wasted.
4. Because my sin never pleases but always grieves God who loves me.
5. Because my sin places a greater burden on my spiritual leaders.
6. Because in time my sin always brings heaviness to my heart. (more…)

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/35-reasons-not-to-sin/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/do-what-to-santa-claus/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/do-what-to-santa-claus/#comments Fri, 18 May 2007 13:34:10 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/?p=62 Ok, I’m a little embarrassed to put this up here, but it’s just golden. A buddy of mine dug this up from who knows where. Someone we went to high school with must have had it laying around and someone digitized it.

Me and a couple buddies were in an aquatics class during my Junior year. We thought it would be a pretty easy A because we were swimmers and polo players. We lived in the water already. How hard could it be? We were right, except for one unit of the class, synchronized swimming. How could we maintain our adolescent sense of masculinity and compose a synchronized swimming routine? Here’s the result.

I think we took at least one of the shirts out of the lost & found in the locker rooms. If I remember we composed the whole routine the night before and it was nothing but each of the required movements one after the other. We added in a Hungarian drill from polo and then we did a throw to show off the treading water skills. The fellas threw me completely out of the water without touching bottom. The camerawork really falters at that point, but it was a pretty sweet little maneuver. Click on the image to see the full video.

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/do-what-to-santa-claus/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/mom-passed-the-texas-bar-exam/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/mom-passed-the-texas-bar-exam/#comments Thu, 03 May 2007 23:19:42 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/?p=61 WOW! I’m pretty excited for my mom. She just got the list of candidates who passed the Texas state bar exam. She passed! It was a gruelling process of studying and she put a lot of time into it. She’s incredibly bright. I didn’t really have any doubt.

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/mom-passed-the-texas-bar-exam/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/does-god-have-to-obey-the-ten-commandments/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/does-god-have-to-obey-the-ten-commandments/#comments Wed, 02 May 2007 11:11:57 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/?p=59 And, how many commandments are there anyhow?

Check out this chart on how many commandments there are according to whom. Apparently everyone agrees there are ten, but they have a hard time agreeing which is which. Jews, Catholics and Lutherans combine the ones about making idols and having other Gods. To make ten the Catholics and Lutherans divide the commandment about coveting your neighbor’s house and wife into two commandments. No, I didn’t just make that up. Jews make ten by counting ‘I am the Lord your God’ at the beginning as a commandment. I thought that was pretty interesting. Protestants count the one about idoos and the one about no other gods as two. As a result, the one about coveting houses and wives need not be split and the statement that God is God at the beginning need not be construed as a commandment.

Anyhow, to the point at hand: is God required to obey the ten commandments? I say no. (more…)

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/does-god-have-to-obey-the-ten-commandments/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/sovereign-grace/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/sovereign-grace/#comments Tue, 24 Apr 2007 03:57:48 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/?p=58 I’ve decided I no longer like sovereign grace. It’s a redundancy.

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/sovereign-grace/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/i-won/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/i-won/#comments Tue, 24 Apr 2007 03:52:18 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/?p=57 I was pleased to discover in my mailbox this evening an announcement that I had won a modest scholarship from the Economics Department. I am the proud new owner of a 2007-2008 Rob R. Kittleson scholarship. Cool eh?

There’s Kittleson over on the right.

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/i-won/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/glory-passion-courage/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/glory-passion-courage/#comments Tue, 03 Apr 2007 11:58:24 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/?p=54 There’s a legend told by the Roman historian Livy in his history of Rome called Ex Urbe Condita. In the 6th century BC, Rome was invaded by an Etruscan king, Lars Porsena. Porsena laid siege to the city of Rome. Seeing the city hard pressed and starving, a number of youth were outraged and determined to deliver Rome from the catastrophe and restore the honor and glory of their city. They swore themselves to assassinate Porsena. They drew lots and each would attempt in the order of their lot to kill the enemy king. (more…)

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/glory-passion-courage/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/free-to-choose/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/free-to-choose/#comments Sat, 17 Mar 2007 14:52:33 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/?p=51 I think one of the greatest obstacles to folk’s belief in a God who’s in charge of the world in the way He claims to be is the sense everyone has that they choose freely. How can God rightly be said to know and ordain all that comes to pass if we’re free to choose? (more…)

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/free-to-choose/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/50/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/50/#comments Thu, 15 Mar 2007 20:01:37 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/?p=50 I’ve been reading a little booklet by Ken Sande’s Peacemaker Ministries, and it’s got some useful stuff. I read the first section today. It began looking at peacemaking by discussing conflict not as the problem, but as an opportunity to glorify God. Sin is the problem and conflict can be an opportunity for growth and repentance if it is handled in a God-glorifying way. The substance of the booklet will be to examine how to do this. I think it’s based on Ken’s book, The Peacemaker.

Another related issue is that peace is not the absence of conflict. This is the conception most of us use functionally in our daily lives, and it’s the conception underlying most struggles for peace. The truth is that if peace were the absence of conflict, none of us could have peace here and now because conflict will always happen. Peace is part of the work of God within His people. God enables them to have peace in the midst of conflict, and also to achieve peace with others through conflict resolution. This conflict resolution involves beginning by seeing conflict as an opportunity to obey and glorify God, humbling myself and acknowledging my contribution to the problem. This acknowledgement isn’t merely a formality but a spiritual discipline that must change my perspective on the conflict and on the contributions of others to it.

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/50/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/kenosis-part-2-reymonds-view/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/kenosis-part-2-reymonds-view/#comments Wed, 14 Mar 2007 10:02:52 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/?p=49 << Kenosis Part 1, the Classical View

See Phillippians 2:6-11

The difficulty Reymond finds with what he calls the classical view is that
if the statement that Jesus “being in very nature God,” “made Himself
nothing, taking the very nature of a servant.” refers to His incarnation as
the classical view holds, then we are presented with difficulty by the
phrase that comes between these two statements, specifically that He, “did
not consider equality with God something to be grasped.” (more…)

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/kenosis-part-2-reymonds-view/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/whats-in-a-name/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/whats-in-a-name/#comments Sat, 03 Mar 2007 01:00:43 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/?p=44 I remember working at Hume Lake while the camp band was Everybody Duck. I really liked them. I still do. They have some really good songs. They do a great job of God-centered worship leading. Darin McWatters is a great guy and I really appreciated his wisdom on the few occasions when I talked to him back then. There’s one song in particular that I remember especially enjoying. I still sing it in the shower sometimes to be honest. I’m not sure if it’s their original work or if somebody else wrote it, but in any case it’s called I’m Sustained. One part of the song reads, “I know what I’m worth, I remember the cross.” I never really thought too much about this but recently I’ve run into a lot of passages of scripture that seem to refute this way of looking at the cross. Is. 48:9-11 comes to mind. (more…)

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/whats-in-a-name/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/benny-hinn-makes-me-angry/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/benny-hinn-makes-me-angry/#comments Fri, 23 Feb 2007 11:33:26 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/?p=41 Really angry. You see, it all started when a buddy and I started talknig about Benny Hinn. I told him about my favorite Benny Hinn quote. It goes like this.

“Somebody’s attacking me because of something I’m teaching. Let me tell you something, brother: You watch it! You know, I’ve looked for one verse in the Bible; I just can’t seem to find it. One verse that said ‘If you don’t like them, kill them.’ I really wish I could find it! Sometimes I wish God would give me a Holy Ghost machine gun; I’ll blow your head off!”

(more…)

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/benny-hinn-makes-me-angry/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/feminist-vision-strategy/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/feminist-vision-strategy/#comments Thu, 15 Feb 2007 10:32:01 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/?p=40 Someone recently suggested to me that the possible responses of the Church to feminism are threefold. He said,

1. You could denounce feminism and argue feminists disagree with the Bible. Of course that approach actually supports feminist arguments so it might very well have the opposite effect in terms of convincing people.
2. You could try and nit pick at the facts feminist arguments are based on. This might work but you don’t have a congregation full of conservatives. Most of them could do the same thing with the Bible, so in that fight feminism probably wins.
3. You could say that metaphor is a type of fashion and every believer can construct there own metaphorical language. There is no real Tiamet to worship, however it’s possible to relate to the God of the Bible in a female way. Christianity never asserts that God has actual gender. You could use female pronouns for “God the Father.” Jesus represents the dying Corn God. You could start using that sort of language, “he died so that all life could be renewed.” Try and create a syncretic faith and then pull that syncretic faith closer to orthodoxy and thus win the people’s hearts for Christ.

I disagree. (more…)

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/feminist-vision-strategy/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/hear-that-its-life-rushing-past/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/hear-that-its-life-rushing-past/#comments Wed, 14 Feb 2007 08:40:03 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/?p=39 I long for young men to realize how much they can be accomplishing. They wouldn’t be satisfied with sacrificing hours and hours to build a stupid video game character if they realized (more…)

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/hear-that-its-life-rushing-past/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/the-bondage-of-the-will-martin-luther/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/the-bondage-of-the-will-martin-luther/#comments Wed, 14 Feb 2007 06:05:05 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/2007/the-bondage-of-the-will-martin-luther/ This is a complete audio version of the Bondage of the Will by the famous reformer and in many ways the father of the Reformation, Martin Luther in mp3 format. It is not read by a human voice, but rather converted to voice with my text to speech software. My vision is poor, so whenever I can I find my books in text format and read them by converting them to mp3 and listening. It’s a lot easier on my eyes. Whenever the book is in the public domain, I try to make my audiobooks available to as many folks as I can. This jewel is an incredible little Puritan book. I hope the audio quality is sufficient and that this little version proves a blessing to many. [Sample]

Full .zip
Archive

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/the-bondage-of-the-will-martin-luther/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/the-power-of-the-foolishness-of-god/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/the-power-of-the-foolishness-of-god/#comments Tue, 13 Feb 2007 05:57:16 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/?p=32 Well, I preached the sermon yesterday. I was much happier with this one than the last. There’s a lot of room for growth. I think I handled the microphone better this time. The passage is one I was totally stoked about. I was really passionate about the passage, but I wasn’t able to express that passion as well as I hoped. I want people to get hold of the understanding of the passage I have in mind, but I also want to communicate to them a passion about the power of God that Paul discusses and about this power in terms of all people, even the ones that are not like us, especially them. If our thoughts are changed but our passions are unaffected, then we haven’t gotten it at all. (more…)

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/the-power-of-the-foolishness-of-god/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/mortification-of-sin-john-owen/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/mortification-of-sin-john-owen/#comments Sat, 10 Feb 2007 12:43:21 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/?p=35 This is a complete audio version of the Mortification of Sin by John Owen in mp3 format. It is not read by a human voice, but rather converted to voice with my text to speech software. My vision is poor, so whenever I can I find my books in text format and read them by converting them to mp3 and listening. It’s a lot easier on my eyes. Whenever the book is in the public domain, I try to make my audiobooks available to as many folks as I can. This jewel is an incredible little Puritan book. I hope the audio quality is sufficient and that this little version proves a blessing to many. Note that unlike my copy of Luther’s Bondage of the Will, I haven’t had a chance to prepare the text of this book yet for the text reader. As a result, this book will have more mispronunciations and difficult sentences than the Bondage of the Will. If folks do download this and find it difficult to understand compared to the Bondage of the Will, then feel free to leave comments to that effect. I’ll make the time to clean this book up as well if it looks like it will be helpful to some.[Sample]

Full .zip
Archive

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/mortification-of-sin-john-owen/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/the-man-house-hand-up-house/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/the-man-house-hand-up-house/#comments Mon, 05 Feb 2007 15:55:12 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/?p=30 I’m really excited about an internship that we’re putting together at church. It’s sort of a learning by doing thing at this point. A buddy Josh and I are building it by doing it. The idea is for each intern to create a missional ministry. The experience will be an opportunity for us to discover our gifts and talents and what God has called us to do, and then to cultivate the skills and habits necessary to be successful in that calling. The emphasis is on being outwardly focused, ministering intentionally to and for those who are outside the church and not just those who are within it. (more…)

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/the-man-house-hand-up-house/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/god-centered-epistemology/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/god-centered-epistemology/#comments Thu, 01 Feb 2007 03:11:59 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/?p=29 Well, I’m pretty stoked right now about a meeting I had on Monday. The church offered me an opportunity to preach my second sermon on Sunday the 11th, week after next. The passage is 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5. It’s a passage I’ve thought about for a while now, long before I knew I would preach it; even before I knew the church was going to work through the book of First Corinthians.

Partly, this was because of one of my classes last semester. I took Feminist Theory and Practice. A large part of the class was dedicated to questions of knowledge and epistemology, the philosophy of knowledge. I think the first chapter of 1 Corinthians lays out Paul’s epistemology. (more…)

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/god-centered-epistemology/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/darwins-contribution-to-nineteenth-century-racism/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/darwins-contribution-to-nineteenth-century-racism/#comments Thu, 25 Jan 2007 21:38:25 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/?p=26 Wow! Things have been busy. School just started this week and it’s been crazy. Haven’t had much time for blogging. During one of my classes this week we watched a PBS video called “Race: the power of an Illusion.” It traces the way race as a concept has been strategically deployed throughout the history of the US in order to serve specific political, economic and social interests. One of the more interesting facets of this treatment of race was the discussion of the ways race has been handled by the scientific community. (more…)

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/darwins-contribution-to-nineteenth-century-racism/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/kenosis-part-1-the-classical-view/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/kenosis-part-1-the-classical-view/#comments Mon, 15 Jan 2007 20:20:40 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/2007/kenosis-part-1-the-classical-view/ Kenosis Part 2, Reymond’s View >>

I read an interesting analysis of Phillipians 2:6-11 recently in Dr. Robert Reymond’s systematic theology, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith. This part of Phillipians is the famous passage where Paul tells us that Christ humbled Himself to the point of death in obedience to the Father. In verse 7 Paul says that Christ made Himself nothing, or emptied Himself. Kenosis is the Greek word Paul used to describe this emptying. In this three part series we’ll look at what Dr. Reymond calls the classical view of what this passage describes, Dr. Reymond’s own slightly unusual view, and then an alternative to the two that seems to me to capture the best of both. (more…)

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/kenosis-part-1-the-classical-view/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/17/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/17/#comments Sat, 13 Jan 2007 15:28:39 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/?p=17 I’m reading through the four accounts of the Gospel to learn how Jesus spoke His message. It isn’t always intuitive at all. One of the things we Christians strive for is to present the Gospel clearly. This didn’t seem to be a priority for Jesus. (more…)

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/17/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/gods-will-would-he-be-doing-anything-else/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/gods-will-would-he-be-doing-anything-else/#comments Fri, 12 Jan 2007 06:46:08 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/wp/?p=16 I’ve done my share of agonizing over what God’s will is for my life. I suppose it’s not an uncommon thing. Sometimes it’s even necessary. I had a cool thought the other day about how to discern what it is God wants us to do with our lives. (more…)

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/gods-will-would-he-be-doing-anything-else/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/its-alive/ http://garrettperks.com/2007/its-alive/#comments Tue, 09 Jan 2007 05:37:20 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/wp/?p=10 The blog is alive. Installed WordPress last night and did the css design tonight. Here’s a screenshot of the blog’s first design. The design is based on the default “kubrick” wordpress template. Pretty much all that remains of it though, is the two columns. (more…)

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2007/its-alive/feed/ http://garrettperks.com/2006/my-first-sermon-old/ http://garrettperks.com/2006/my-first-sermon-old/#comments Tue, 01 Aug 2006 12:45:32 +0000 G.T. http://garrettperks.com/2006/my-first-sermon-old/ This is an old post. I just preached on Genesis 39. It was ok for a first shot. There were a lot of opportunities I could have made more of and things I could have said that I didn’t. I’m not too disappointed though. It was ok. (more…)

]]> http://garrettperks.com/2006/my-first-sermon-old/feed/