Authority

Stephen Um on authority...

"Authority is not authoritarianism. Authority is the ability to influence others -- the right to give orders and make commands with the good of others in view. Authoritarianism is enforcing strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom.  It is 'showing a lack of concern for the wishes or opinions of others; domineering; dictatorial.'  Authority is having a supervisor who seeks his or her staff's good in harmony with the good of others, leading to personal and social flourishing. Authoritarianism, however, is having a supervisor who demands strict obedience and crushes both individual and social flourishing for the purpose of maintaining control. The problem is that all of the uneasy feelings associated with authoritarianism (which are good and proper!) have been imported into the conception of authority."

Stephen Um (1 Corinthians: The Word of the Cross, Preaching the Word Commentary Series)

A Personal God.

From Stephen Um's commentary on 1 Corinthians:

“The idea of a personal God would have been almost impossible for the Corinthians to understand. In a sense it is equally difficult for us. And it is much easier to keep God at a safe distance. If he is just a set of data or a perceived lack of data, then we can treat him like an impersonal force. God becomes a decision that I need to make (“Do I believe in God or not?”) rather than a personal reality with whom I need to reckon.”

1 Corinthians: The WORD of the CROSS by Stephen T. Um

Happy Anniversary, My Love

Preaching Jesus Christ... Crucified

“His task had been plain, his purpose definite; he determined to know nothing among them but Jesus Christ, and to know and proclaim him in a way least acceptable to the wisdom of the world, namely, as reduced to the deep disgrace of death by the cross. It was Christ and his atoning work and not any human philosophy of human salvation that formed the sum and substance of Paul’s message.”

Charles Erdman (The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians: An Exposition)

we miss her when she's gone...

A couple of videos 

that I submit as evidence 

to how much we miss my wife 

when she is not in the house... 

You may draw your own conclusions... 

patronage

You ever read something in a book that leaves you sitting there, mind spinning? It is usually followed by an audible "hmm..."  I will then usually look up from the book and slightly to the left. (I'm not sure if that means anything, but that is how it happens for me. I love it when that happens, and I am usually grateful, because this occurrence goes along with my sermon study as I am preparing for Sunday.

This happened a couple of days ago as I was reading my commentaries for my 1 Corinthians study. This one came from Stephen Um's commentary in 1 Corinthians.

Welcoming All

At my church, when we are going through a book of the Bible, I never feel as if "I" have accomplished something or completed something... I always think of it as "we've made it through." In my mind... we worked our way through this, and this last book has been one of the largest undertakings of our Church: The Acts of the Apostles.

This morning, we will be completing our study of Acts. I believe that we started Acts in November of 2017. (You can find most, if not all, of the sermon recordings on our Edgewood Podcast.)  We've had a couple of side notes along the way, but I believe that it adds up to almost 50 sermons. I've learned so much on this particular journey, and I hope that those who have attended Edgewood, a little over the last year, have also learned from this endeavor. I thought about typing a post with some of the lessons that we've learned... but that felt a little too overwhelming. Instead, I would like to share a small fraction of the lesson that I found for today.