The Blazing Center

Abraham Piper is a Christian, husband, dad, and blogger. He may be some other things too, such as accomplished ninja, but you’ll have to ask him personally. He blogs personally at 22 Words and Downhill Both Ways, and he also blogs for Desiring God Ministries.

Abraham was kind enough to take a few moments to answer some questions about blogging.

All of your blog posts are limited to exactly twenty-two words. Why do you do such short posts and what are you trying to accomplish with the blog?

I write short posts for four reasons.

• I enjoy seeing if I can summarize an idea that briefly.

• I like being freed of the responsibility to explain myself. When people don’t get what I’m saying, I’d have no excuse if my words could’ve been unlimited. But the way things are set up now, when I make no sense I can just shrug my shoulders and point to the premise of the blog as my excuse.

• I’m lazy. I can’t even imagine writing full posts every day. Writing 22 words, on the other hand, is pretty easy.

• People don’t generally read much more than 22 words of any given post anyway.

I want following my blog to feel similar to knowing a person: Sometimes it will be encouraging or funny other times depressing or infuriating.

Obviously, with certain individual posts, I want to make things happen in my audience’s hearts or minds or behavior, but I wouldn’t say I’m trying to accomplish anything in particular with the blog as a whole. It’s just me living life, saying some hopefully helpful things and also saying some definitely stupid things.

You blog personally and for Desiring God. What do you think makes a good blog? What separates the good from the mediocre?

Despite all the varieties of good blogs out there, I think what is true pretty much across the board, is that excellent bloggers care about how to blog. They’ve educated themselves and experimented enough to know what will work for them and their audience.

You can find answers all over if you Google for what makes a good blog. And they’ll all say mostly the same things. And they’re mostly right. Good bloggers obey these rules or disobey them carefully.

In light of the fact that there are eight bazillion blogs now, should someone start a new blog? If so, what is one tip you would give them?

Absolutely. Maybe no one will read it, but if that’s ok with a potential blogger, then go for it.
May I give three tips, instead of just one?

1. Use a theme that has a light background.
2. Use a professional-quality photo in your banner.
3. Keep every paragraph to 5 lines or less.

DT 29.29 “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

There are many profound and perplexing mysteries in life, like why could the Steelers win the Super Bowl one year and play so dismally the next?  Why did God create okra?  Or opera?  Why does Jefferson Davis look so thin?  Or how anyone can ever hope to get enough antioxidants without consuming large quantities of coffee every day?

There are things that are truly sad and difficult to understand.  Why would a young mom get MS?  Why would a 1-year-old child die?  Why does God not save everyone?  We’ve probably all got questions like these, that when we die, we want to make a beeline to the throne and ask God about.

If we knew all mysteries, we’d be equal to God. There are secret things that belong to him alone. But he’s given us his Word, which holds all we need to know and do.

So I try not to trouble myself with questions God won’t answer, like:

• What if I pray for a person who’s not elect?
• What if it’s not God’s will to heal someone I pray for?
  
• Why does God tell me to pray if he has ordained all things that happen?
• Why am I going through this particular trial?
• Why did God allow me to make a decision that resulted in grief?

We can’t know God’s deep will in suffering, but we  know he’s always good.  We don’t know why God doesn’t elect  everyone, but we know he’s perfectly just. We don’t know the future, but we know Jesus will never leave us nor forsake us.  We don’t need to know if God has chosen those we pray for, but we know he desires none to perish.  We don’t know if the Lord will heal a Christian sister, but we know he’ll work affliction for her good. We don’t know how we’ll experience God, but we know he’ll draw near to us if we draw near to him. We don’t know if God will give us all we ask for, but we know he’ll give us all we need to glorify him.

What questions do you leave in God’s hands?

The other day I was thinking, what if Jack Bauer became a Christian, and then suddenly felt a call to ministry?

What would his church be like? His counseling sessions? Here’s what I think it would be like…

• Counseling sessions would be fast. Really fast. Because he only has two minutes, and you better tell him what’s going on or he’s going to mash your knee with his oversized Bible.

• He would scream the word “now” a lot. As in, “Tell me why you were impatient with your wife. NOW!”

• Every counseling session would end with a confession, because Pastor Jack can pull a confession out of anybody. Even if you didn’t do it.

• In every elders meeting Jack would inform the elders that “he did what he had to”.

• He would answer every theological question the same way: “It’s complicated…”

• He would probably fake his death several times as sermon illustrations.

• Scripture references in sermons would be called “backup”.

• The church would meet in an abandoned warehouse. The ushers would also be snipers and would establish a perimeter around the building.

• At least three times a week Jack would be misunderstood by his congregation and have to go “dark” until he could clear his name.

What else would Jack Bauer do if he were a pastor?

Tony Reinke is part man, part reading machine.

He also happens to be assistant to C.J. Mahaney and friend to me. He blogs, dads (verb meaning “to dad”), husbands, and most importantly, passionately follows Jesus. I like hanging out with Tony.

As I mentioned earlier, Tony reads. A lot. More than me. And probably more than you.

Because I want to learn from Tony, and I want you to learn as well, I asked Tony to answer three questions about reading. Here they are:

Why should the average Christian, who works a hard job and comes home really tired, bother with reading books beside the Bible?

The short of it: Christians walk by faith and not by sight. We build our lives on spiritual truth, truth we can only know through words. We know that God is holy because that truth is written for us. But we live in a world that is saturated by images that can’t communicate unseen realities. This doesn’t mean that images and pictures have no value, but it does mean that the written word is a priority for Christians.

And history shows that words succumb to the visual. In the Garden of Eden Eve saw the fruit shimmer in the sun and ignored God’s words. Later the newly exiled people of God melted their gold earrings into a calf at Sinai (note the emphasis from the ear to the eye). Later the nation of Israel ran after visual pagan idols and were defeated by their enemies and sent into exile for it (2 Kings 17).

Part of being faithful to God is maintaining a priority on the written word and remaining aware of visual temptations. This conviction keeps me reading my Bible, and other books, even when I’m tired and would rather watch TV.

How would you encourage a person who knows that they should read more but just doesn’t like to read?

Reading is too often assumed to be an isolated discipline. I would encourage them to find someone in the church that enjoys reading, and read a good book together. The books I most appreciate are the ones that I have read with others, and often the sections that have most impacted my life are the ones that I have read aloud with friends or heard quoted in a sermon. Reading in the context of community is an often powerful and untapped resource for encouraging reading. And once I experienced the benefits of reading with others I more easily tapped into the benefits of reading alone.

So often I forget what I read or struggle to understand it. How can people get more out of the books they read?

The books I have benefited from most are the books I have read for specific answers. Too often I approach reading passively and I read with no clear purpose in mind. Find one area of life that you want to improve, write a list of 20 questions that you have and want answered, ask someone for a book recommendation, and then read for the purpose of answering your questions. This seems to help me benefit from the books I choose to read. And of course this helps me determine what books not to read.

BONUS: If you could be a ninja, Jedi, or NASCAR driver, which would you pick?

Being a Nebraska boy I am automatically disqualified from two options. That makes the picking pretty easy.

So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. (AC 2.41).

“There is no way of belonging to Jesus Christ except by belonging gladly and irrevocably to the glorious ragbag of saints and fat-heads who make up the one, holy and universal church!” – Bishop Geoffrey Paul

If our churches are to grow, we’ll be adding a lot of people not like us.  Are you ready?  What if a guy walks into your meeting with bright orange hair and wearing a skirt?  It happened in our church a few years ago.  People made a beeline to him and welcomed him warmly.

A few days later I saw him in a local restaurant.  Only this day his hair was brown and he was wearing jeans.  He looked like any other college student.  I recognized him and said “hi” to him.  He commented on how friendly everyone was, then said, “I dressed that way just to see what everyone would do.”  He didn’t join the church, but I was glad to see our church would welcome anyone.

Are you ready?

photo by louisbickett

Here’s the scene: Jesus is raised from the dead. He has gathered his scattered disciples and is preparing to unleash them on a dead world. It’s the kind of atmosphere that naturally gives birth to strategies.

If I had been one of the disciples, I would have immediately called a strategic gospel outreach planning session. We would have had piles of doughnuts and gallons of strong coffee. We would have gathered together in a secret location and required a password to get through the door. We would have graphs and bar charts and statistics.

By the time we were done we would have a plan. A plan called something dramatic like “Taking No Prisoners For Jesus”, or “Global Outreach Attack Team” (GOAT for short). We would have it all figured out.

But Jesus didn’t tell the disciples to call a strategic huddle. Instead he said:

And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” (Acts 1:4–5)

What’s up with that? No strategy. No killer evangelism plan. No five year growth projections. Just wait for the Holy Spirit. Seems kind of passive, doesn’t it?

It turns out that the Holy Spirit is the one who empowers God’s people to complete God’s mission. If I want my church to grow, I need to ask the Holy Spirit to fill me and every other member of my church. I need to ask the Spirit for boldness and power. I need to ask for courage to speak to my relatives and neighbors who don’t know Jesus.

Don’t get me wrong, strategy matters. But strategy is dead apart from the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit causes people to be born again. The Holy Spirit gives evangelistic boldness. Jesus grows his church through the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit doesn’t need me. I need Him.

Questions for Discussion:

• When are you tempted to rely on your power rather than the Holy Spirit?
• What is the role of planning and what is the role of the Holy Spirit?
  

Growing up I watched every horror movie, Twilight Zone, and Outer Limits ever made.

When I see Twilight Zone now I wonder how I could ever have been terrified by a show about a man who freed the devil from old monks who’d captured him.  But at the time, the unearthly howl behind the barred door where they kept him sent shivers down my 13-year-old spine.

Once my folks were out late and I watched a particularly frightening Twilight Zone just before television went off the air.  Each night at midnight the national anthem would play, as jets flew over the American flag, an Indian head would appear (I lived in Oklahoma) with TV beams radiating out from it and the TV would emit a high pitched tone until the next morning’s broadcasts.  I turned off the tube and sat there in the silent, creaking house, waiting for something evil my way to come.

Suddenly a painting on the wall across from me began to vibrate.  I was sure that invisible hands would start tossing lamps across the room, and an axe would float through the air!  I leaped up, grabbed the picture.  The whole wall was vibrating.  To my relief, I discovered that the furnace behind the wall had just kicked on and was shaking the wall.

You may laugh, but all the nights of “Chiller Theater” and Alfred Hitchcock sowed fear into my heart that continued into my twenties, even after I became a Christian.

I’d wake up in the night terrified there was someone or something in the room.  I tried to fight it directly repeating “I rebuke you, spirit of fear, and command you to leave in Jesus’ Name,” over and over.  But the more I rebuked, the stronger my fear grew.  The same was true with other temptations, like lust.  The more I rebuked, the more I wanted to lust.

The more we try to fight something directly, the more we focus on it, and the worse it gets.  It’s like trying not to think of the word “elephant” for the next 10 seconds.  See what I mean?

A better approach is pray and praise.  Pray to Jesus to deliver you from temptation then start praising him.  Say, “Praise you Lord, my fortress and shield.  Thank you that your love hems me in.  Thank you for delivering me from fear (or lust, or anger, etc).  Praise you for the power of the Holy Spirit, and for your victory over my sin and Satan.”

Focus on fear and it seems stronger.  Focus on Christ and he will become greater in your eyes.

How do you fight temptation when it comes?

photo by Roadsidepictures

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People are wigging (street talk meaning “getting excited about”) out about Apple’s new iPad. Tim Challies calls it the most disappointing thing since the Blue Jays lost the World Series in 1993. Josh Harris, on the other hand, thinks that it’s the greatest invention since slap bracelets and Reebok Pumps.

I think I side with Tim Challies, but for slightly different reasons. Here’s why I’m not so impressed with the iPad…

• Zero capacity for time travel. After reading all the hype I was under the impression that I was going to be able to transport myself directly back to 1992 and watch brand new episodes of “Home Improvements”. Apparently Steve Jobs hasn’t heard of a flux capacitor (see Back to the Future).

• No ability to be my personal bond-servant. I was envisioning something along the lines of “Hal” from 2001: A Space Odyssey, except that the iPad wouldn’t attempt to kill me or take over my life. It would just make my bed and be a true friend.

• No shoulder support. It would appear that the iPad is really just an enormous, Shaq-sized iPod. With an iPod this large, I want to wear jam pants and carry it on my shoulder through the mall, pumping out the tunes, like an old boom box. But there’s no shoulder support. Come on Apple, looks aren’t everything.

• No bulletproof anything. Okay can we be honest for a second? For what it does, the iPad is enormous. Almost like a police riot shield. If I’m going to carry it around, shouldn’t I at least be able to block a bullet with it as well? But I didn’t see one mention of bullet proof casing on the specs.

• No built in celebrity voices. You can read books on the iPad. Not impressive. I can read books on paper too. I want something that is going to read books to me, preferably in pre-recorded celebrity voices. I want to have Sean Connery reading the book Desiring God to me.

Okay, I’m done wigging out about the iPad.

Your turn. Are you impressed with the iPad?

Question: Are you shocked by the sins of non-Christian?

Let me bring this home a little bit. When your non-Christian son, daughter, neighbor, or friend takes part in some wicked sin, are you shocked? Disgusted? Do you want to stay away from them?

We shouldn’t be shocked by the sins of those who don’t know Christ. Romans 1:28 says of those who don’t know Christ:

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

Apart from Christ, our minds are debased. Darkened. Filled with wickedness. We can’t think correctly about spiritual things. The result of trying to live apart from God is a debased mind, which always leads to debased actions.

So how do you treat your homosexual neighbor? Your workaholic friend? Your arrogant coworker? Your rebellious son?

We shouldn’t expect them to be righteous people. We shouldn’t stay away from them. They’re debased and darkened. But they can be rescued, just like we were.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes… (Romans 1:16)

Two questions:

• Are you ever turned off by other people’s sins?
• How should we relate to non-Christians who are enslaved by sin?