Claimed, gathered and sent

I just finished reading Scot McKnight's latest post on Jesuscreed.org. There is a website that is an online community for Christian spiritual formation. The link is http://www.metamorpha.com/Home/TabId/36/default.aspx. Check it out and see what you think. It looks promising.

Another interesting question was posed to our Ministry Communication Skills class. What does Kraft mean when he writes that God “acts and speaks and then allows us to struggle with what these actions and words mean. When we have discovered the meaning, it is truly ours and has a greater impact than if he had done it all and made it easy for us” (p. 21)? Is he correct about this? If a message is easy to understand, does this necessarily make it less effective? Kraft’s meaning seems clearer when read within the larger context. “He, rather, entices us to discovery rather than insulting our intelligence by predigesting his messages and laying them out on a platter in a form that is fully obvious” [1] Next is the quote in the question followed by, “God’s method is to lead people, as Jesus led his disciples, to discover who he is…rather than to simply tell them who he is.” [2] Kraft is partially correct about this; after all, we are trying to understand the l...

The following question was posed to our Ministry Communication Skills class. My response follows the question. In the question, Adam refers to Peter Adam the author of one of our texts. In the footnote you'll find the complete info. Adam seems to distinguish between the spoken (past tense) message of God and the written and preserved (present tense) message. Is this distinction helpful for Christian communicators? Explain why or why not. If the distinction was not as clearly articulated, that is, if one viewed the written and codified words of God as his (current) speech to us, would this make a difference? Is this something with which Adam would agree or disagree? Adam’s distinction is helpful. Some things were strictly for the culture or people of that time; i.e. the Jewish dietary codes, codes for temple worship. Some were given with the initial listeners/readers in mind, but are also a living word for us today. John 1 exemplifies both the past and present tense of ...