Brook Hills College – Blog

  1. Desperate for the Word

    May 10, 2009 by admin

    I want to be desperate for the Word. I want to want the Word every minute of everyday no matter what the cost. But life happens: lists at work have to be done, the house has to be clean, errands have to be run, TV shows have to be watched… you get the picture. I am not alone. As much as I want my life to be bible saturated and gospel centered, so easily I become distracted. There is no excuse.

    I have been reading the story of a Chinese Christian Brother Yun. The book is called “The Heavenly Man.” Here is his account of his pleading for a bible…

    From that day on I earnestly wanted to have a copy of my own Bible. I asked my mother and fellow Christians what a Bible looked like, but no one knew. One person had seen some hand copied Scripture portions and song sheets, but never a whole Bible. Only a few old believers could recall seeing Bibles may years before. The Word of God was scarce in the land.

    I was so hungry for a Bible. Seeing my desperation, my mother remembered an old man who lived in another village. This man had been a pastor before the Cultural Revolution. Together we started out on the long walk to his home. When we found him we told him our desire, “We long to see a Bible. Do you have one?”

    He immediately looked fearful. This man had already spent nearly 20 years in prison for his faith… He felt compassion but still didn’t want to show me his Bible… If caught with a Bible, it would be burned and the owner’s whole family would be severely beaten in the middle of the village.

    The old pastor simply told me, “The bible is a heavenly book. If you want one, you’ll need to pray to the God of heaven. Only he can provide you a heavenly book. God is faithful. He answers those who seek him with all their heart.”

    I fully trusted the pastor’s word.

    When I returned home I brought a stone into my room and knelt down on it every evening for prayer. I had just one simple prayer: “Lord, please give me a bible. Amen”. At that time I didn’t know how to pray, but I continued for more than one month.

    Nothing happened. A bible didn’t appear.

    I went back to the pastor’s house again. This time I went alone. I told him, “I’ve prayed to God according to your instructions, but I still haven’t received the Bible I want so much. Please, please show me your Bible. Just a glance and I will be satisfied! I don’t need to touch it. You hold it and I will be content just to look at it. If I could copy down some of the words I will return home happy.”

    The pastor saw the anxiety of my heart. He spoke to me again, “If you are serious, then you should not only kneel down and pray to the Lord, you should also fast and weep. The more you weep the sooner you’ll get a bible.”

    I went home and every morning and afternoon I ate and drank nothing. Every evening I ate just one small bowl of steamed rice. I cried like a hungry child to his heavenly father, wanting to be filled with his Word. For the next 100 days I prayed for a Bible, until I could bear it no more. My parents were sure I was losing my mind.”

    God finally gave Brother Yun a Bible. Sitting at my desk right now I have 3 bibles. At home on my bookshelf I have at least 4 more, not to mention the endless supply of resources I could find on the internet. I don’t have an excuse. We don’t have an excuse. It must be apathy, or a hard heart. Maybe it’s pride, arrogance, or self sufficiency. Maybe it’s unbelief.

    If we truly want to know and become like Christ (Phil 3:10), and we believe that Christ is the Word (John 1:1), and believe that we are sanctified through the Word (John 17:17) there should be no disconnect. Our time should be spent lavishing in the word.

    Lord, may our delight be in the law of the Lord. May we meditate on it day and night. Make us like trees planted by streams of water which yield fruit in season and whose leaves do not wither. (Psalm 1:2-3)

    Category: Gospel, Uncategorized Comments (0)

  2. Tweet the Gospel (140 Characters or less)

    May 5, 2009 by Britten Taylor

    So we are less than 5 posts into this whole blogging world and I am already going negative. I know, if you cant say something nice- don’t say anything at all.  But sometimes you need to call it like it is.

    Here is a excerpt from a Christianity Today interview I read this weekend with Rob Bell.

    CT: How would you present this gospel on Twitter?

    Bell: I would say that history is headed somewhere. The thousands of little ways in which you are tempted to believe that hope might actually be a legitimate response to the insanity of the world actually can be trusted. And the Christian story is that a tomb is empty, and a movement has actually begun that has been present in a sense all along in creation. And all those times when your cynicism was at odds with an impulse within you that said that this little thing might be about something bigger—those tiny little slivers may in fact be connected to something really, really big.

    Ummm…Wow! So I’m going to try to be careful here.  And I am going to do so primarily for two reasons.  First, I understand the permanent nature of this mode of  communication.  Once it has been stated online, it cannot be retracted- not tomorrow or 10 yrs from now.  Secondly, I understand that Rob Bell is widely popular among college students.  His ability to communicate well is not in question here.  He has an enormous following among college aged individuals. His books, videos and speaking tours are all so trendy on campuses around this area.  So I am going to try and be s-l-o-w  t-o  s-p-e-a-k.

    Alright. Let’s be honest.  Is that really the best we can do in 140 characters or less? Where is the Cross? (1 Pet. 3:18) Where is the sacrifice? (1 Cor. 5:7) Where is sin? (Rom 3:10-18) Where is the divine substitution? (2 Cor. 5:21) Where is the necessity of faith? (John 3:36) I know this one is not a popular truth…but where is the rescuing from God’s wrath? (1 Thess 1:10)

    I hate to be the Monday morning quarterback here, but we have to do better than this.  It is the Gospel that is the power of God for salvation (Rom 1:16).  To get this wrong, even in 140 characters or less, is a blunder that has far reaching negative effects, too many even to mention here. I am reminded of a quote I once heard from JI Packer, “To recover the old, authentic, biblical Gospel, and to bring our preaching and practice back into line with it, is perhaps our most pressing present need“.

    Maybe a better answer would have been something like this…

    CT: How would you present the Gospel on Twitter?

    Bible: But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. (Rom 3:21-26)

    And just in case someone were to give me more than 140 characters, say maybe an hour….I would say what our Pastor said last spring in his sermon series Lifeblood, The Gospel: What we believe

    Britten

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