JW June 5, 2015 God is good

Happy Friday!

Well we’ve done it! We’ve made it through another work week, and it has been a busy one here at The Jagged Word. We are happy as can be with our new contributors that stepped up this week and joined our family. We look forward to many more engaging and thought provoking post to come.

But now its time to slide back from whatever it is that is consuming your thoughts and worrying your mind. It’s time to call the babysitter and take the one you love out for some much needed downtime. Why not head out to your neighborhood pub and settle into a worn barstool, call up some old friends and sing along to the jukebox.

Friday evening is a perfect time to get off your phone for a while and get lost in the face to face conversation happening all around you. It’s a time where laughter doesn’t have to be encouraged by the laugh-track on your favorite sitcom but spring up from the joy of the moment you’re living.

And when you go out tonight take a moment to buy a drink for a neighbor. Do it for no other reason than to simply spread a little cheer this Friday!

Cheers!!

21Comments

Add yours

1

John J Flanagan on June 5, 2015 at 5:18 pm

Do you think spending time at a bar is a good thing? Buy a drink for your neighbor? I know Lutherans are not exactly like Baptists when it comes to alcohol, but you seem to make getting smashed in a local pub a virtue. There are other forms of gatherings and recreation besides running to a local gin mill for a glass of Jack Daniels. You have just encouraged your readers to hang out at bars, and in my view this does not set a positive example nor is it representative of what one might expect from a pastor.

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kirkskeptic on June 5, 2015 at 8:29 pm

I’m an abstainer for medical reasons only (no, I’m neither a 12-stepper nor doing skittles), and, while I see no problem with going to pubs, you folks do seem to put an inordinate emphasis on it – as if trying to reverse the image of churchmen as tea-swilling milquetoasts by being mas macho. Even when I could drink I normally preferred quiet restaurants or the homes of friends, as bars are not always the most congenial places (drunkenness, fights, etc). I’m curious as to where this comes from.

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jb on June 5, 2015 at 10:31 pm

The pietists among us cannot help themselves.

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  Delwyn X. Campbell on June 6, 2015 at 7:14 am
  
  No, that isn’t pietism; it’s being practical. There are better ways to enjoy physical rest than hanging out in a bar, ways that don’t involve exhortations top drunkenness – which is still, by the way, forbidden by the Word of God. Go out to dinner, take in a movie, go roller skating… see, you can have fun without risking a DUI conviction.
  
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  kirkskeptic on June 6, 2015 at 8:40 am
  
  Like whom?
  
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Don Moore on June 6, 2015 at 8:53 am

I didn’t notice anyone advocating drunkenness. Just a few fussing about it, when no one else brought it up. It is indeed possible to enjoy a drink with friends, without being a drunken knucklehead.

Ecclesiastes 9:7 Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.

Obviously there are many passages about the problems of drunkenness, and there are other things to do with joy and comfort, but really! The man likes to take a drink with his friends. Pietism kinda messes up all things joyful, even with good intentions. But then again, Pharisees are always like that.

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  kirkskeptic on June 7, 2015 at 10:53 am
  
  No, Don, nobody’s being a Pharisee just as (I’ll assume) you’re not being an antinomian – another group which revels in messing things up. You folks must admit that you’re the ones making a big deal of if, with your award, frequent references, the whole sports thing – me muscular Christian, you Evanjellyfish. I, who used to love my single malts and malbecs but had (vs wanted) to eschew them, am simply curious as to what point may lie behind the frequent verbiage. I didn’t judge drinking per se, so why do yiu insist on the abusive ad hominem? It’s an English thing…
  
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Been There, Done That on June 6, 2015 at 8:57 am

DXC –

I do not intend to belabor the obvious – you are assigning the guilt of sin to someone not necessarily sinning.

What you make of that is up to you. You need to change to oil on your Law and Gospel!

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  Delwyn X. Campbell on June 8, 2015 at 8:00 am
  
  Someone’s, friend, it’s not just about YOU! Most of my non-believing friends were unimpressed by our attempts to “fit in,” just like Gospel Rap/Holy Hip-hop/whatever never really had a chance of success.
  The point is, not that I am forbidding it, but that you seem to be SELLING it, as another commentator posted. We simply ask, “Why the urgency” about something that is, at best, adiaphora (the use of alcohol), and, at worst, for some, a gateway to bondage. You do you, whatever; but why challenge our spirituality just because we can find other, more profitable ways (to us, at least) to spend our time and money?
  
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10

Don Moore on June 7, 2015 at 4:59 pm

OK. Objection sustained. Nobody’s making you do it, though.

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  kirkskeptic on June 8, 2015 at 7:39 am
  
  True enough, but my question on your emphasis remains unanswered. I saw this same sort of stuff in my Reformed days, when a groups would center their socializing around pubs and sports in what appeared to be some niche marketing along with a probable genuine interest. The concept was a play on the old “muscular Christianity” ploy of the early 20th century; ie we’re-not-those-wimpy-teetotalers-we-are-real-men-just-like-you. Having only a physical problem with alcohol, this less bothers me than piques my interest as to why the emphasis, rather than on the coccasional reference. Mooning pietists is amusing only for a brief time.
  
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    Don Moore on June 8, 2015 at 8:15 am
    
    I can’t answer for the emphasis. It’s not mine. These guys like a drink at a bar, like the atmosphere, and things attached. All I’m saying is, it isn’t a big deal – at least not to me. I do agree it is a little more emphasis than I would ever place on such a thing, but then again I don’t really spend much time in a bar.
    
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Been There, Done That on June 8, 2015 at 8:47 am

Gentlemen . . .

I have no intention of engaging you further. You are intent on being right in your opinion, and anyone who takes issue is somehow, to what ever miniscule degree any of you can divine – wrong.

I leave you to your own conclusions. Subtle accusations of sin where none has been committed is the GREATER sin. I don’t do pubs or bars or any of that. I just happen to understand the distinctions between Luther’s classic Bondage of the Will, and Christian freedom (Law and Gospel)

Rather than coming to various sites and sidetracking decent and good posts, I would suggest you guys start your own blogs, post your own opinions, and take what comes your way for posting your opinions. I would motion that were you to do so, you would think very carefully before you key off some emotional response on another site that, whether subtly or directly accuses another of sin.

Who are you to do that? I mean – who in hell (which is where said inclination comes from) did you get appointed as the “morals sheriff?” My suggestion would be – shell out the big bucks and go to CPH and order the entire set of Luther’s Works, refrain from commenting on ANY site until you have read all the volumes.

JJF – none of those words are directed at you – we settled matters as they should be settled.

It is curious – the admitted Reformed backgrounds (an automatic misunderstanding of Law and Gospel) . . . the continued pietistic demands that everyone acquiesce to your view . . . the contentiousness with which you write.

As DM said, nobody’s forcing your hand or making you do it.

I reject it out of hand.

Pax – jb

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  kirkskeptic on June 8, 2015 at 9:49 am
  
  Need a Midol?
  
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  Delwyn Xavier Campbell on June 8, 2015 at 10:13 am
  
  JB, What Reformed Background? I never gave MY background; perhaps you need to specify who you are talking to – by the way, I hope THAT suggestion isn’t received as pietism too. Nobody around here is trying to play Jiminy Cricket over you. You really are full of something, and I don’t know that it’s the Holy Spirit. Count to 10, go pray, read the SC or LC, whatever you do to get back into your happy place.
  
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    kirkskeptic on June 8, 2015 at 10:42 am
    
    I think the reference was to me, who spent all too much time in Geneva and Edinburgh. I was also a pentecostal and baptist, so most unfortunate in not having been a cradle Lutheran. Our friend got his knickers in a knot over my habit of writing what I think and sharing my “problem areas” with the FC – although never those which challenge the Small Catechism. I thought I could speak frankly in a causal atmosphere with Lutheran pastors and informed laymen, but some contributors prefer the rarified air of the truly enlightened. Their loss.
    
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17

kirkskeptic on June 8, 2015 at 9:53 am

@DM: no judgment intended, just curiosity – the sort our high-horsed Defensor Fidei above can’t seem to handle.

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Delwyn X. Campbell on June 8, 2015 at 10:05 am

There was something that might have gotten misinterpreted in my first comment. I wasn’t trying to say that the OP encouraged drunkenness. I was talking about the general atmosphere in a bar. Since I wasn’t born a Christian, I spent my time in the world, so I speak from experience. In a bar, drinking is viewed as a recreational activity, one that makes for a more festive atmosphere. As a result, other than the legal consequences that occasionally flow from a DUI-related death that could be traced back to a bartender’s failure to police the bar, the owner-operators of the bar have little incentive to slow down the flow. THAT is what I was talking about in reference to encouragements to drunkenness. If you have any doubt, watch a few episodes of Bar Rescue for a refresher course in bar culture.
Hopefully, we can now move on and drop the accusations – its petty and, frankly, rather immature. Speaking for myself, I didn’t need to read ALL 55 volumes of Luther’s Works to know the difference between making wise decisions and suggestions, on the one hand, and taking responsibility for ensuring that others do what I say, on the other. My parents taught me that long before I ever heard of Martin Luther without the King.
Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

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  kirkskeptic on June 8, 2015 at 10:13 am
  
  Amen…oh, sorry, real Lutherans don’t say that – silly, pietistic, erstwhile Reformed me.
  
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Been There, Done That on June 8, 2015 at 2:09 pm

Delwyn; Kirk . . . Are your blog sites up yet?

I’d like to visit and comment. And DXC – my throwaway about reading Luther’s Works had to do with you getting a clue about Law and Gospel.

BTW – duncanoflorn,wordpress.com is my joint.

C’mon over – comment – but gird your loins!

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  Delwyn Xavier Campbell on June 8, 2015 at 10:27 pm
  
  Well, Duncan, According to the pastoral certification boards of Concordia University St. Louis and the Cross Cultural Ministries Center, Concordia University Irvine, my knowledge of The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel is just fine, thank you for your concern.
  
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