Sunday Dispatch Megathread

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.734


Christianity is the story of how the rightful King has landed, you might say in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in His great campaign of sabotage.

~ C.S. Lewis

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.735

I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.

~ Philippians 3:14 (The Message)

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.736

“Once you realize that Jesus died on the cross and forgave you of your sins, you’re like, ‘Wow, somebody did that for me!’ It’s pretty crazy to know that someone died for us — yet we’re all sinners! I’ve done so many things and asked for his forgiveness. But even today, I know I’m still going to fall short in certain ways. I’m still a work in progress.”

~ Reginald Quincy "Fieldy" Arvizu, bassist for the band KoЯn

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.737

Christ Holds It All Together

We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him.

He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.

He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end. From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. So spacious is he, so roomy, that everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding.

Not only that, but all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.

~ Colossians 1:1-20 (The Message)

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.738

In a word, we may reasonably hope for the virtual abolition of education when I'm as good as you have fully had its way. All incentives to learn and all penalties for not learning will vanish.

The few who might want to learn will be prevented; who are they to overtop their fellows? And anyway the teachers--or should I say, nurses?--will be far too busy reassuring the dunces and patting them on the back to waste any time on real teaching.

We shall no longer have to plan and toil to spread imperturbable conceit and incurable ignorance among men. The little vermin themselves will do it for us.

~ C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.739

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRSr9xS7MHk

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.740


“If God were to remove all evil from our world (but somehow leave human beings on the planet), it would mean that the essence of 'humanness' would be destroyed. We would become robots.

Let me explain what I mean by this. If God eliminated evil by programming us to perform only good acts, we would lose this distinguishing mark - the ability to make choices. We would no longer be free moral agents. We would be reduced to the status of robots.

Let's take this a step further. Robots do not love. God created us with the capacity to love. Love is based upon one's right to choose to love. We cannot force others to love us. We can make them serve us or obey us. But true love is founded upon one's freedom to choose to respond.”

~ Billy Graham

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.741


You who love the Lord, hate evil!

~ Psalm 97:10 (NLB)


Hate evil and love the good; remodel your courts into true halls of justice.

~ Amos 5:15 (NLB)

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.742

“In Jesus, God has put up a "Gone Fishing" sign on the religion shop. He has done the whole job in Jesus once and for all and simply invited us to believe it - to trust the bizarre, unprovable proposition that in him, every last person on earth is already home free without a single religious exertion: no fasting till your knees fold, no prayers you have to get right or else, no standing on your head with your right thumb in your left ear and reciting the correct creed - no nothing. . . .

The entire show has been set to rights in the Mystery of Christ - even though nobody can see a single improvement. Yes, it's crazy. And yes, it's wild, and outrageous, and vulgar. And any God who would do such a thing is a God who has no taste. And worst of all, it doesn't sell worth beans. But it is good news - the only permanently good news there is - and therefore I find it absolutely captivating.

~ Brennan Manning

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.743


One of the few things in life that cannot possibly do harm in the end is the honest pursuit of the truth.

~ Peter Kreeft

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.744

What makes art Christian art? Is it simply Christian artists painting biblical subjects like Jeremiah? Or, by attaching a halo, does that suddenly make something Christian art? Must the artist’s subject be religious to be Christian? I don’t think so. There is a certain sense in which art is its own justification. If art is good art, if it is true art, if it is beautiful art, then it is bearing witness to the Author of the good, the true, and the beautiful.

~ R. C. Sproul

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.745

“Jesus was not a white man; He was not a black man. He came from that part of the world that touches Africa and Asia and Europe. Christianity is not a white man’s religion, and don’t let anybody ever tell you that it’s white or black. Christ belongs to all people; He belongs to the whole world.”

~ Billy Graham

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.746


Look for Christ and you will find Him.
And with Him, everything else.

~ C. S Lewis

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.747

I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God’s great mystery. All the richest treasures of wisdom and knowledge are embedded in that mystery and nowhere else. And we’ve been shown the mystery! I’m telling you this because I don’t want anyone leading you off on some wild-goose chase, after other so-called mysteries, or “the Secret.”

~ Colossians 2:2-4 (The Message)

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.748

“There is treasure buried in the field of every one of our days, even the bleakest or dullest, and it is our business, as we journey, to keep our eyes peeled for it.”

~ Frederick Buechner

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.749

The Truth Is Out There: Christian Faith and the Classics of TV Science Fiction


~ Amazon reader review of the book by Thomas Bertonneau and Kim Paffenroth

These authors have used six television shows, Doctor Who, Star Trek, The Prisoner, The Twilight Zone, The X-Files and Babylon 5, to examine the ways such television shows acknowledge a God who is intimately engaged with humans. Each of these television shows offered its viewers iconic archetypal heroes and villains, ones who are not that different from the great figures of the biblical text.

Over time these productions grappled with human choices when presented with ethical dilemmas. They looked into the multidimensional faces of evil in the human realm. Viewers were thrust into the midst of such grand storytelling, right along with the characters in the television production. These authors have looked at the power of one aspect of the popular culture, linked it to theology in informed ways, and offered conclusions that are hopeful. Rather than reject television as "trash," Bertonneau and Paffenroth offer readers a fascinating analytical consideration of an inextricable part of our everyday lives.


~ From a review of The Twilight Zone episode “The Gift” on IMBd

Rod Serling was never one to try shy away from religious themes, and this is an example of such. It's not so much a science fiction story as a veiled retelling of the story of Christ: a mild-mannered man comes to Earth to bring a message of peace, but, instead, he is seen as a threat and killed, with a crowd calling for his death. One character is even called Judas for betraying his whereabouts to authorities.

It's fascinating to see, as you watch this and other episodes of the Twilight Zone, just how much faith Serling put into religion and belief in God.

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.750

Selected from a commentary by David Robertson posted January 12, 2016 in Christianity Today:

And that set me thinking – what do we really think about heaven? I thought that in this naturalistic, materialist world we could be all grown up and just say, "He's gone, he had a good life, did a lot of daft things, did a lot of good things, we will miss him, but he's gone". I haven't checked but I almost expected Richard Dawkins to tweet, "He's gone. There is nothing left of him but his music and family. He's not in heaven". But it appears that in popular culture, we still cannot face up to the nihilist existentialism of atheistic naturalism. It seems that the Bible was right about eternity being in our hearts. "I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end"(Ecclesiastes 3:10-11).

David Bowie's death, grief, and the frustration of a society that has nothing to offer the lonely | Christian News on Christian Today

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.751

Have some of you noticed that we are not yet perfect? (No great surprise, right?) And are you ready to make the accusation that since people like me, who go through Christ in order to get things right with God, aren’t perfectly virtuous, Christ must therefore be an accessory to sin? The accusation is frivolous. If I was “trying to be good,” I would be rebuilding the same old barn that I tore down. I would be acting as a charlatan.

What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.

Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.

~ Galatians 2: 17-21 (The Message)

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch.752

“When it comes to doing something about what is wrong in the world, Jesus is best known for his fondness for the minute, the invisible, the quiet, the slow – yeast, salt, seeds, light. And manure.”

~ Eugene H. Peterson

[the iron horse]

Sunday Dispatch..753

“I don’t know one thing about the future. I don’t know what the next hour will hold. There may be sickness, accident, personal or world catastrophe. Before this day is over I may have to deal with death, pain, loss, rejection. I don’t know what the future holds for me, for those I love, for my nation, for this world. Still, despite my ignorance and surrounded by tinny optimists and cowardly pessimists, I say that God will accomplish his will, and I cheerfully persist in living in the hope that nothing will separate me from Christ’s love.”

~ Eugene H. Peterson