Theology and aggies.


Before I get to a more serious post requested by Eron, I need to give some street cred to my man, Billy ,G of the Texas A&M Fightin' Aggies. I'll start off by saying that I expected to drop both the games to Kansas and Texas (i did still watch supporting them). After the Kansas victory I was a bit shocked, but proud of BCG and Icie Law for coming through in a clutch. Excellent play and coaching decisions in the final minutes. One of the bigger wins in a somewhat history-less program
Now I have watched Durant this entire year and been very, very, very impressed with him. Hands down player of the year. Oden doesn't even hold a candle. He's decent and has the size to be great, but Kevin Durant is above anybody else this year. His outside shooting is excellent as well as being money inside. He also has great D in the paint. The only downfall is his outside D and it can be improved. For the Aggies to come off of such a huge emotional upset win in Lawrence and come down to Reed Arena and take care of a very talented, athletic Texas team speaks volumes for the improvement of this team. I would love to see them play LSU or UCLA again. I don't know that they'd beat UCLA, but believe they could spank the cajuns and Big Baby if given the chance again.
I think that if the aggies continue this style of play, an elite 8 appearance at the least will be expected.


“You are in a reformed church but secretly long for more of an experience of God, you are in a charismatic church but secretly enjoy listening to preaching and reading books that teach substantial theology.”
-Adrian Warnock

Now to a more serious note. My friend Eron recently asked why I consider myself a reformed charismatic. He referenced my love for Matt Chandler, who is definitely a influence on my theology and approach to evangelism. But I would say that me getting to the point where I consider myself is far removed from the influence of one pastor. My time with calvinists in San Angelo as well as my pastor friends, LakanM and RyanD have had much more influence in that. While Lakan probably wouldn't call himself that... he has a very strict interpretation of the scripture and would put all of God's glory in salvation on God.
To answer this we need to look at what "reformed" and "charasmatic" are. I find it very interesting that separately these 2 words can bring about some negative connotations...
i.e.:
reformed - close-minded, calvinist, fundamentalist
charismatic - loose interpretation of scripture, holy roller, liberal

But when the words are put together it brings about an entirely different picture than either of them alone. People like Matt Chandler and Mark Driscoll are thought of when this term is used. What these men are known for is their commitment to the scriptures, as well as their passion for evanglism and knowing God. I will not say that these men are flawless in their study of the scripture, but they are bible believing men who love the Lord and lost people.

Before I go any further here's a great Blanket Statement: Certain things are absolute: the Trinity; the deity and humanity of Christ; his future second coming; salvation being by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone; and the complete trustworthiness of the Bible.

I have friends that I would define as charismatic. Holy rollers or whatever they may be called. Most are non-denominational and ended up that way because of being scorned from another denomination or pissed off at their previous church and denomination. Some remain very dogmatic to their original denomination, but choose to attend this church for various reasons. Why I would call myself charismatic is that I fully believe in the spirits acting and moving today. I think to discount its importance and presence would be foolish. I see no scripture that says otherwise. Speaking in tongues is a gift. I don't really care if you think that it is irrelevant today. 99% of the time, speaking in tongues is a misused gift, done in sin. I believe the Spirit of God heals people today. But I just can't believe that 1 Cor 14 is irrelevant Others call them miracles and good medicine... I call it God. I just cannot believe and buy into those gifts being useless in today's day and age... or dispensation or whatever. This believe must be taken w/ a grain of salt. How many people do I know that use their gift of tongues? very few. Healing as well. I don't know that I've met somebody with the gift of prophesy ever. For those that do believe that these don't exist, they are entitled to their own opinion. I do not believe however that they are able to judge somebody who does posess that gift, because they are judging on their interpretation of scripture and doctrine... not scripture itself. I don't see how we can say somebody has the spirit of teaching, faith, helps, evangelist, or of administration that we have today.... and say that Wisdom, Knowledge, Discernment, Prophecy, Tongues, Interpretation, Faith, Healing and Miracles. ... meh... we stopped needing them early in church history.

On the flip side I don't think I'll ever be quite as "reformed" as several of my friends... and that's fine. I know they love scripture and doctrine as a result of loving our Lord. But the total sell out to the doctrines of grace is something I have never been able to do. It doesn't really matter at what point I can't agree... but it's something I've never been able to fully embrace. I can fully embrace the idea of the reformation and what it was truly about at it's time. Salvation is by the good graces of God alone (Rom 11:16). That includes his calling, our response and life as a christian... all up to his will and kindness. That being said, I don't believe my response is a work... but still a necessity.

I also believe in the 5 Solas of the reformation...fwiw

For some strange reason... in our christian culture, many believe that those two can not coexist... But I do. I have to believe that they can. I find both to be biblical and essential. I long for the deep things of God and know his scripture and be absolutely entralled w/ his glory and have that be the overwhelming theme of my life. But I also long to be filled w/ the spirit of the scriptures like the saints of old.

I can not believe the statement in John 4:24 that God told us to worship in spirit and in truth to not apply today. Or am I only supposed to worship in truth now that the spirit is not moving? Am I to be led by the spirit, but not let the truth of God take hold of me? I can't seperate them.

Well..

it's been a long time since a post. And with good reason. Between finishing up moving into our house, starting a new job, finals, graduation, and having a baby I have free time now.

kinda. I guess... a little. suprisingly after you graduate you don't have all the time in the world like one would think. It's annoyingly busy.

College football has come and gone. College basketball is getting to conference play soon. The NFL is winding down w/ just conference finals left to play. I'm always a little sad the day after the BCS National Championship game. Even last year when I was cheering for Texas (one time thing) as they won the national championship game, I was sad afterwards. Just kinda stinks. I mean the NFL playoffs are still there. And I love college hoops, but it really just isn't the same as football. Jay would disagree, but he's a Duke fan (horrible at football and the Notre Dame of BBall).

Which leads me the fact that, I need to start reading again. During college I haven't hardly read anything due to my schedule the entire time. I had thought upon graduation, I would jump right into it but the kid didn't share my sentiments. Upon recommendation of my pastor I've picked up Master Plan of Evangelism. Great read. Very simplistic, biblical approach to Jesus' practice of reaching the masses. The idea is that Christ did not try to hold trendy attractive large services that brought in the masses, but instead took a group of 12 imperfect men and invested in their lives, and encouraged them to do the same after they were equipped. By developing them as indivdual's he brought up 12 (well 11) godly men that were ready to go into ministry. I'm not sure if the idea of reaching the masses w/ shallow sermons was an American invention or just something that developed. I'm pretty sure it was around way before our modern day church got ahold of the idea. I'd be interested to find out where it came from though. If you have a chance pick it up.

I guess that's all for now.

I hate the BCS... only the BCS could have a one loss Texas and Notre Dame ranked below two SEC teams that were beaten by teams ranked lower than themselves at the time.

Michigan and OSU are there correctly. Can't argue those but let's move down the list here...

West Virginia... One victory over a team w/ a winning record. One. If you're going to put them there then you have to put Boise State there as well. Where's there love for the smurfs??? They have at least 4 victories over teams w/ winning records. Louisville is even a better pick for #3. They have 4 over winning teams and one over a ranked team. For all I know WVU will mop the floor w/ the Cards come Thursday, but right now they have proven NOTHING to be where they are.

Moving on to the one loss teams...

How can a Auburn team that has had almost 3 losses to unranked teams and one lost to an unranked team jump UT and Notre Dame? Preposterous!!! Auburn has had nothing short of mediocrity this year and yet they sit in the top 6? Tennessee above them too? Come on BCS... I'm an Ag and hate ND but this is the royal screwover!!!



Explain to me 2 weeks ago where

Cal was over Tennessee
Mizzou was over A&M
Arkansas over Auburn
Clemson over Boston College.

Tell me this, O' technological genuises of college football how you can take teams w/ even records, and put the team that lost the head-to-head on top of the team that beat them!!!??!?1/11/!?!!?!?1/1??!!/!1

It's almost as if the computers can't think logically enough to take the real world situation of what happened and who has won and put them in a proper place.... Oh wait... they can't think logically!!!

But let's put the deciding vote of who's better into an inanimate object that can't determine that Tennessee beat the ever living daylights out of California. Let's let a computer determine that Texas losing 24-7 to the #1 team in the land deserves to push them down further than Auburn losing 27-10 to an unranked team.

The BCS should not come out until after the last game is played. here's why:

1. look @ Boise State or Rutgers. Great chance that both of these teams can win out and miss the big dance. Any system that doesn't allow ANY team amongst the 119 to win is completely unfair. If you don't start in the top 20 you don't have a chance usually.

2. I'm an admitted aggie fan... but bare w/ me here. Let's say that Auburn wins out the rest of the year and so does A&M ( I don't use Texas in this instance because they began ranked highly). They both win their respective championships and finish the regular season 12-1. A&M was beaten by #25 by 4 points w/ 26 seconds left. Auburn was losing the entire game to a team that wasn't even in the ORV category in most polls by 17 points. A team that smoked them by running the Annexation of Puerto Rico w/ a guy who's 4'11 at that!!!! Who's ranked higher? Auburn. What have they done to deserve it? Have a better team last year? Start out ranked higher? Is one of these fair? Did they take on some strong and great team out of conference better than A&M? Wazzu? Buffalo? Tulane? Do these teams strike more fear in your heart than ULaLa, Army, and Louisiana Tech? Take this year for this year and leave last year and the preseason out.

The BCS and Myles Brand lucked out last year. There was a cut and dry #1 and a cut and dry #2... Unless you're Matt Leinart saying something about being the better team as a scoreboard and large black man wearing the number 10 and carrying a large crystal ball disagree w/ him in the background... but I digress. I have a strong feeling that this year is going to end the same way. Some 11-1 teams are going to be left out of the big dance. Another one will get the invite and get smoked and all the 11-1's are going to be saying wouldacouldashoulda. And they're completely justified in being angry. They do deserve a shot. And they deserve a system that doesn't screw them... be it the playoffs ( write it down. 32 teams, 4 from each major conference, 2 from mid-majors and the independents can join up or shut up), or be it removal of the computers for 12 weeks of the season. Something's got to be done.

This being the first blog on here I feel the necessity to discuss what we'll be discussing on here.


The topics may include but aren't limited to.
Jesus Christ.
Things that make fun of Texas Tech
Theology that I happen to come across and be worthy of posting.
Duke bashings
My experiences w/ my crazy but beautiful wife.
Funny things my dog does
UT Football and the criminals it hosts.
Sports triva, quirks, announcments, scores and stories
J.J Reddickisms

As you can see, there is a vast array to discuss, not that anybody cares how I feel about it, but I'm sure Jay, Cates, or somebody will have an opinion to make or disagree with. Hope it's good for a laugh or encouragement.