The Emerging Scholars Blog

Easter Eggs

Do you think of worship, hospitality, or celebration as spiritual disciplines? If you’re like me, you associate the idea of “discipline” with things that are hard, like fasting, daily prayer, intense Bible study, and so on. But if a discipline is something that trains us to live and think rightly, then what better response to the resurrection can there be than over-the-top celebration?

In fact, celebration holds a place of honor in both of my top two books on spiritual disciplines. Richard Foster, in Celebration of Discipline, places celebration at the conclusion of his classic work, while Adele Ahlberg Calhoun puts Celebration at the very front of her Spiritual Disciplines Handbook.

Here’s what Calhoun writes about Celebration:

The world is filled with reasons to be downcast. But deeper than sorrow thrums the unbroken pulse of God’s joy, a joy that will yet have its eternal day. To set our hearts on this joy reminds us that we can choose how we respond to any particular moment. We can search for God in all circumstances, or not. We can seek the pulse of hope and celebration because it is God’s reality. Heaven is celebrating. Right now the cherubim, seraphim, angels, archangels, prophets, apostles, martyrs and all the company of saints overflow with joy in the presence of their Creator. Every small experience of Jesus with us is a taste of the joy that is to come. We are not alone — and that in itself is reason to celebrate. (Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, 27)

The Hickerson Family, all dolled-up for Easter

Here are a few ways that my family and I celebrated the resurrection of Jesus:

• Dressing up in new clothes (including new shoes for me)
• Attending a packed church, taking communion, and hearing a powerful message on the hope of the resurrection
• Singing “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” and the “Hallelujah Chorus” (and hearing perfect silence at that moment of tension before the final “Hallelujah”)
• Joining extended family and old friends for an Easter feast of lamb, ham, and too much sugar, all while being welcoming my principal role models of hospitality, my father- and mother-in-law
• Catching up – unexpectedly – with some good friends who have had a rough spring
• Puzzling over my 6-year-old’s sudden obsession over reading the Bible – and trying to decide whether it is sincere or not (and whether that matters)
• Delving into the study of God through conversation about justification and covenant
• For my wife, playing (and winning) some great board games with cousins and friends we don’t see nearly often enough

All in all, a great day of celebration. And I didn’t even mention the eggs.

How did you celebrate Easter?

What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? Anything special with some time off or is there too much going on with the holiday?

As usual, here’s a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them.  In addition, if you have items you’d like us to consider for the top five, add them in the comments or send them to Tom or Mike.

1. In Star-Studded Wise Men: Rethinking the Christmas Story (December 7, 2009), Ben Witherington delivers a strong corrective regarding some popular renderings of Christmas.  Ben has a similar post focused upon Luke 2:1-7, No Inn in the Room (December 09, 2007).  (HT:  Arlene)

2.  More stocking stuffers?  Stan Guthrie and John Wilson, Christmas Books, Part 3 (Podcast, posted 12/08/09).  Forward the link to Buster Keaton’s College (1927) and have a laugh. Any additional suggestions you have for our Christmas Wish List?

3. Even more stocking stuffers! Don’t forget about the discounts you receive with your ESN membership from IVP, Eerdmans, Zondervan, and great periodicals. Books and subscriptions make great gifts (hint, hint).

4. This is a time of year when many interviews and job searches are conducted, so take a few minutes to read this good advice from David Perlmutter about “Avoiding a ‘Nuclear Veto’ in Hiring” from the Chronicle. Perhaps it will make next Christmas a bit merrier! (HT: Kim)

Books

5. From Mike: Laura Vanderkam in the WSJ recently wrote “Seen and Not Heard in Church,” about the tension between the ideals of intergenerational worship and the messy realities of crying babies, restless toddlers, and bored children of all ages. May I recommend a couple of that my wife (who teaches music to very young children) has found helpful?

Parenting in the Pew (IVP) by long time IV staff, current John Brown U. faculty member, and Dead Theologian’s Society founder Robbie Castleman – a very practical, and compact, book on training your children to worship

Teaching Kids Authentic Worship (Baker) by Kathleen Chapman – a guide with 52 ideas for “worship moments,” in and out of church

Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder (Algonquin) by Richard Louv – not about worship per se, but about children encounter reality around them – which, in a way, is what worship does, too

And there’s one more that I can’t find right now. You’ll just have to check back later today when I add it to the comments!

Your Mind Matters

John Stott wraps up Your Mind Matters with “Acting on Our Knowledge.”  He begins by pointing out that we avoid the swing from anti-intellectualism to hyper-intellectualism, by remembering “just one thing:  God never intends knowledge to be an end in itself but always to be means to some other end.”

As a corollary to the mind and biblical knowledge being essential to the six spheres of Christian living, see Your Mind Matters 3: The Mind in Christian Life, Stott highlights the truth that:

“the acquisition of biblical knowledge must lead into these things [i.e., the six spheres] and enrich our experience of them.  Knowledge carries with it the solemn responsibility to act on the knowledge we have, to translate our knowledge into appropriate behavior.”

As a result, we find knowledge leading to worship, faith, holiness, and love.

Knowledge is indispensable to Christian life and service.  If we do not use the mind which God has given us, we condemn ourselves to spiritual superficiality and cut ourselves off from many of the riches of God’s grace.  … What we need is not less knowledge but more knowledge, so long as we act upon it. …

How have you found knowledge leading to worship, faith, holiness, and/or love?  Do you have particular illustrations in your own life and/or those of other followers of Christ (present or past) to share with the ESN community?

To inspire you, below’s a quote from A Priest Serving in Nature’s Temple: Robert Boyle’s Career Blended Faith, Doubt, and the Use of Science to Heal Disease and Fight Atheism.

Robert Boyle (1627-91)

As he [Robert Boyle, 1627-91] stated in A Disquisition about the Final Causes of Natural Things, he desired “that my Reader should not barely observe the Wisdom of God, but be in some measure Affectively Convinc’d of it.” There was no better way, in Boyle’s opinion, to “give us so great a wonder and veneration for it,” than “by Knowing and Considering the Admirable Contrivance of the Particular Productions of that Immense Wisdom,” by which he mainly meant the exquisitely fashioned parts of animals both great and small. Thereby, Boyle believed, “Men may be brought, upon the same account, both to acknowledge God, to admire Him, and to thank Him.” A pious and humble man, Boyle always sought to cultivate the same attitude in others. — Ted Davis Christian History 21(4) (November 2002): 28-31.

Note:  For more visit the Robert Boyle Project and read Davis’ longer article Robert Boyle’s Religious Life, Attitudes, and Vocation Science & Christian Belief 19.2 (2007): 117-38.  If you’re interested in my notes from Davis’ 6/29/2009 lecture on Robert Boyle’s Religious Life, Attitudes, and Vocation, drop me an email.