Opening sermon illustration; 2 Chronicles 12

I’m keen for feedback. Please offer your thoughts. 

Does this text work as a sermon introduction? Is the illustration and the transition from illustration to exegesis sound? 

--/--

TEXT: 2 Chronicles 12

TITLE: Discipline as necessary as grace

DATE: 18 October 2018

I am in the process of taking my child through 120 hours of driving instruction while on L plates. It is a long process. My child has reached the 80 hour mark. Now, the 80 hour mark is a very dangerous one. With it, there is a certain confident attitude. My child knows enough to be road safe; enough to steer, change lines, contemplate what other drivers are doing, but she does not have depth of experience. Being confident of your abilities before time can be a very dangerous thing. At worse, it can cut you off from further learning.

[Slide #X; Extract of child’s Learner logbook depicting 80 hour total]

Now, King Rehoboam, was a bit like my child at the 80 hour mark. Chapter 12 of 2 Chronicles opens after three years of very good kingship. Rehoboam had walked with God and had prospered. During those three years, Rehoboam had fortified cities, built the priesthood of the kingdom and placed his sons into the cities that surrounded Jerusalem. But, Rehoboam had became too confident with himself and with his own abilities. He neglected the dependency that he and his kingdom had on God. He had not reached the 120 hour mark. Rehoboam would never reach it. He cut himself off.

 --/--

This is in preparation of a third sermon in a series of twelve on sin. The sermon is due to be presented in October 2018.



{Previous in series on sin}
{Next in series on sin}



Shalom,
Ozhamada



[213 words] 
#Bible #heisrisen #jesus #Christ #messiah #preaching #sermon #homiletic
#2CHRONICLES 

Review of book; Keep Christianity Weird

“Keep Christianity Weird – Embracing the Discipline of Being Different” by Michael Frost is a delight. The book has the chance of shaking the church to a realisation. The realisation is that the church, for all the weirdness of the message it counter-culturally is tasked to present, can fall into a stasis of its own conventionality. Christ was weird for his time, indeed for now, so it follows that the church should be weird. That is, the church should stand apart from the world and call the world for what it is. Frost uses weird as in ‘eccentric’, rather than as in ‘zany’.

 

Image source: https://goo.gl/images/dQ9kVe

The book is timely in that much of the church in the Western World runs to close to point with the world. In this respect Frost captures a similar notion to another current book: God is Good for You, by Greg Sheridan. Indeed, I found that Frost and Sheridan have quoted similar sources.

The high point of the book was in respect two concepts; threshold of collective behaviour and level of collective disinhibition. I would very much like to see Frost explore these further in another book. I appreciate these for clarifying a reading of Bonhoeffer.

In The Cost of Discipleship, Bonhoeffer makes the point that man is lost in the crowd of the world up until such point as he finds Christ. In finding Christ*, man then recognises that his identity is in Christ. Man then leaves the comfort of the crowd to live in Christ and in Christ communities (church). To Frost’s first concept the man must have a break in his threshold of collective behaviour to turn from the crowd and to approach Christ. To Frost’s second concept, man must cognitively accept data that is beyond his customary filters. This is the step of faith – to accept the unseen.

The book has a great depth of research but never falls into the trap of sounding academic. It is readable by all. The Chapters flow well and there is a neat symmetry in word count from one chapter to the next which makes it easy to compartmentalise a journey through the book.

I follow Frost on Facebook and read his blog posts. I do not always agree with him. This was the first of his books that I have read. I hope to read more.

Shalom,

Ozhamada

*Theologically, Christ finds the man rather than the other way round.

This review follows from reading: “Keep Christianity Weird – Embracing the Discipline of Being Different” by Michael Frost. I read the paperback version, 2018, Navpress, ISBN 978-1-63146-851-3. The book was purchased from Book Depositary.

This page indexes from a title page. It also indexes from my http://www.goodreads.com/ review of the book.

[412 words] #jesus #weird #heisrisen #keepchristianityweird #book #reading #read #wyrd

 #BookDepositary