Truth.
Without it the world devolves into an amorphous chaos where everyone's preferences describe a personal reality disconnected from everyone else's. In that dark place no decision is good or bad, no action is right or wrong. But in the presence of truth - we are exposed for what we are. Therefore we need truth as the divine measuring rod of our identities.
"I am the truth" - Jesus The Christ.

Back to Seminary

Submitted by tcblack on Tue, 01/17/2012 - 4:05pm
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Since I finished my time at Moody I have yearned to return to seminary. Since I sat down in Dr. Ron Sauer's Greek class(es) I began yearning for a masters degree in Biblical Languages.

Having put it off for years because the timing wasn't right or for whatever other reasons came up at the time, I do not wish to wait any longer. I want to go back to seminary. Technically I suppose I'm not "going back" since Moody Bible Institute isn't exactly a seminary - it's a Bible College. Nevertheless I desire a masters degree.

To that end I've begun the Master's program at Lincoln Christian Seminary (Henceforth LCU) in Lincoln Illinois this fall.

This decision was not reached in a vacuum. It comes on the heals of prayer, expresses the fulfillment of a deep seated desire, and has the blessing of my wife.

When embarking on a large undertaking it is wise to seek counsel and then make your decision. To that end I did a bit of searching concerning the return to seminary.

A few years ago Mark Dever wrote about How to Pick a Seminary. In the article which I pulled from the digital mothballs he provides five factors to consider in picking a seminary.
In brief they are:

  1. Confession of Faith
  2. Quality of Education
  3. Cost
  4. Church
  5. Connections for Life

Begin With Forgiveness

Submitted by tcblack on Sun, 01/01/2012 - 10:00am
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Begin with your own Forgiveness

Today as we celebrate communion, we celebrate our own forgiveness. It is a great way to start a new year. Every year the new year’s resolutions people cling to for a few weeks are the hope of making a fresh start. They express the desire we all hold to make each year better than the one before it. But resolutions usually fall sooner rather than later, and the New Year energy is replaced with the drudging move through winter’s cold months and into another year more or less just like the last. This morning we ought to start with something other than resolutions. We’ll start with something more lasting, indeed something that is by its very nature: Permanent! Today we begin with forgiveness. And we will begin by talking about our own forgiveness.
Communion as a celebration for us serves as the proper place to start talking about forgiveness for what it is. Forgiveness goes way beyond telling someone “I’m sorry.” And it goes way beyond responding with, “That’s OK, I forgive you.” When someone has apologized. Forgiveness has a much deeper meaning, application and cost to us than the cheapness of words which can be stated without any fact behind them. After all, God does know the difference between what we say and what we mean, but often times we do not know ourselves the fullness of what we are asking.

The Greatness of our Need

Submitted by tcblack on Mon, 12/19/2011 - 10:49am
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...
Some of my fondest memories as a child involve the sears catalog.  

That thing was massive!  Every year, my mother would hand me a pen and instruct me to flip through and to circle anything I wanted and write my name next to it.  Dutifully and with excessive glee I would flop down on the floor in front of the fireplace and turn with trembling fingers to the toy section.  Oh the bliss of those afternoons searching for toys that I couldn’t wait to uncover Christmas morning.  It’s a shame that the sears catalog is no longer the behemoth it once was; clicking the wishlist on Amazon just doesn’t have the same tangible thrill to me today.  With the book fully marked and every toy page covered in circles I would wait eagerly till Christmas morning.  

Now to be fair, I did get some toys on Christmas morning but the assortment under the tree was always paltry compared to the selection in the catalog.  Hindsight informs me that my parents were both loving and generous but invariably Christmas morning would arrive not merely with a much smaller collection of things that I wanted but always seemed to include with it a passel of items I needed but did not necessarily want. Every Christmas I was certain to find things like jeans that covered my ankles and lacked the holes I was prone to putting in them, shirts to replace the ones I had outgrown and the most dreadful yet needful Christmas present of all: socks and underwear!
...

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