Weblog: 'This Crowd Uses Gays as the Enemy'
Plus: Ga. abortion bill changed, Ron Sider's State of the Union on poverty, Christian manuscripts found in pharaoh's tomb, and other stories from online sources around the world.
Compiled by Ted Olsen | posted 02/22/2005 10:45 a.m.

On secret tapes, candidate Bush talks about James Dobson, the Christian Coalition, and how he keeps his ego in check
The White House's immediate reaction to Doug Wead 's release of secretly taped conversations with George W. Bush is to label Wead a Judas. "These were casual conversations with someone whom the President considered, or believed to be, a friend," is the repeated line from White House spokesman Ken Lisaius.
That's the buzz on Wead from journalists, too
"There is no kind way of saying that this is anything but a betrayal," says the Rocky Mountain News in an editorial.
The Dallas Morning News agrees. "Wead … pretended to be the future President's friend—Mr. Bush's pet name for him was 'Weadie'—while surreptitiously taping the unguarded Mr. Bush hoping for … what, exactly?" the paper asks in an editorial. "To cash in if Mr. Bush became President? It sure looks that way: Mr. Wead has a new book to promote. The tapes tell us little new about the character of the President, but they speak volumes about the character of Doug Wead. He's a former Pentecostal minister, so surely he was taught that it profits a man nothing to sell his soul, even to gain the world. Alas for poor Weadie, who settled for the front-page of the [New York] Times!"
Even David D. Kirkpatrick's New York Times article keeps returning to the idea that Wead—how to put it?—doesn't share Bush's high values on loyalty. One such clue: "A White House adviser to the first President Bush, Mr. Wead said in an interview in The Washington Post in 1990 that Andrew H. Card Jr., then deputy chief of staff, told him to leave the administration 'sooner rather than later' after he sent conservatives a letter faulting the White House for inviting gay activists to an event."
But while Wead gets accused of "hypocrisy" (The Dallas Morning News's word), Bush comes off as honest and anything but a hypocrite. One wonders if the White House isn't quietly cackling about Sunday's front page news.
With little variation, the newspapers say that the tapes reveal little about the President except that he's pretty much the same guy publicly that he is privately.
"If this is a window into his soul, it's not such a bad view," says Newsday columnist James P. Pinkerton .
A Los Angeles Times editorial finds plenty to complain about, noting that Bush has abandoned what he calls "my shtick, which is, 'Look, we have all made mistakes.'"
'That's a true statement'
But if there is news here, it's that the conspiracy theorists were dead wrong in supposing that a) Bush isn't really an evangelical and doesn't believe all that religious stuff, but just uses it for his own political ends, and/or that b) Bush is a tool of the Religious Right and is the puppet of "theocrats."
In fact, the tapes reveal a strong personal spirituality on Bush's part along with ambivalence toward religious political groups.
When Wead warned Bush, "Power corrupts," Bush countered, "I have got a great wife. And I read the Bible daily. The Bible is pretty good about keeping your ego in check."
Bush was willing to meet with evangelical leaders privately, but was wary of public rallies with them. Kirkpatrick reports, "When he thought his aides had agreed to such a meeting, Mr. Bush complained to Karl Rove, his political strategist, 'What the hell is this about?'"
Once he did meet with the leaders, Bush kept to the basics: "As you said, there are some code words. There are some proper ways to say things, and some improper ways. … I am going to say that I've accepted Christ into my life. And that's a true statement."
Apparently one Christian leader that had some doubts—or at least was perceived to have doubts—about how much Bush believed those code words was Focus on the Family founder James Dobson, whom Bush went to visit in September 1998. Kirkpatrick reports:
"He said he would like to meet me, you know, he had heard some nice things, you know, well, 'I don't know if he is a true believer' kind of attitude," Mr. Bush said.
Mr. Bush said he intended to reassure Dr. Dobson of his opposition to abortion. Mr. Bush said he was concerned about rumors that Dr. Dobson had been telling others that the "Bushes weren't going to be involved in abortion," meaning that the Bush family preferred to avoid the issue rather than fight over it.
"I just don't believe I said that. Why would I have said that?" Mr. Bush told Mr. Wead with annoyance.
By the end of the primary, Mr. Bush alluded to Dr. Dobson's strong views on abortion again, apparently ruling out potential vice presidents including Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania and Gen. Colin L. Powell, who favored abortion rights. Picking any of them could turn conservative Christians away from the ticket, Mr. Bush said.
"They are not going to like it anyway, boy," Mr. Bush said. "Dobson made it clear."
If Bush still perceives Dobson as an unsatisfiable perennial critic, it may explain why a Bush aide recently told Time , "We respect him greatly, but [Dobson's] political influence is not everything people might think." (So far, there's no response from Focus .)
While Bush suggested that he was willing to fight on abortion, he seemed awfully reluctant on homosexuality:
"I think he wants me to attack homosexuals," Mr. Bush said after meeting James Robison, a prominent evangelical minister in Texas.
But Mr. Bush said he did not intend to change his position. He said he told Mr. Robison: "Look, James, I got to tell you two things right off the bat. One, I'm not going to kick gays, because I'm a sinner. How can I differentiate sin?"
Later, he read aloud an aide's report from a convention of the Christian Coalition, a conservative political group: "This crowd uses gays as the enemy. It's hard to distinguish between fear of the homosexual political agenda and fear of homosexuality, however."
"This is an issue I have been trying to downplay," Mr. Bush said. "I think it is bad for Republicans to be kicking gays."
Told that one conservative supporter was saying Mr. Bush had pledged not to hire gay people, Mr. Bush said sharply: "No, what I said was, I wouldn't fire gays."
As early as 1998, however, Mr. Bush had already identified one gay-rights issue where he found common ground with conservative Christians: same-sex marriage. "Gay marriage, I am against that. Special rights, I am against that," Mr. Bush told Mr. Wead.
The New York Daily News doesn't get it:
The disclosures could weaken support for Bush with his conservative base — and crack his renowned aura of predictability and discipline.
"It ought to be damaging," said Baruch College political scientist Doug Muzzio. "It's hypocritical to say one thing now but to have said other things … in the past."
A senior Democratic operative added, "Put aside the admission of drug use, his comments about gays are certainly not going to energize his base."
Really? Being against gay marriage and "special rights," but insisting, "I'm not going to kick gays, because I'm a sinner" sounds straight down the middle of the evangelical world to Weblog. Criticizing the Christian Coalition for "using gays as the enemy"? Preach it, brother, and we'll turn the pages. The only people who are going to be upset with these comments are those whom Bush might say, "They are not going to like it anyway, boy."
 

Not a Tame Lion
An engaging theologian questions the Jesus of modern scholars.
Reviewed by Jeremy Lott | posted 02/15/2005 09:15 a.m.

FAMILIAR STRANGER:An Introduction toJesus of Nazareth Michael J. McClymond, William B. Eerdmans, 224 pp.; $16
For the last few years I've threatened to write a book titled The Jesus I'll Never Know. It would be a response to the tendency in the wider world of U.S. Christianity to personalize the Son of Man—and tame him in the process.
As the vulgar Eric Cartman character of the South Park cartoon memorably put it, Christian tunes often sound like love songs that swap in "Jesus" for "baby." Likewise, in the M. Night Shyamalan movie Wide Awake, Rosie O'Donnell played the role of Sister Terry, a baseball-cap-wearing nun who assigned her young students chapters in the workbook Jesus Is My Buddy as homework.
The point of my book would be that the closer we get to the Gospels, the more we realize that these four witnesses to Jesus' life and ministry intentionally placed some distance between the reader and the wonder-working preacher from Nazareth. Of Jesus' childhood we know little. We get a quick peek at him as a young man, going at it with scribes in the Temple (foreshadowing the fireworks to come); then we see him fully grown, being baptized by John, proclaiming the kingdom of God, teaching, healing, casting out evil spirits, calming stormy waters, and hurtling himself toward his own demise by refusing to make nice with Jerusalem or Rome.
But we don't really "see" Jesus. For some reason—possibly the Jewish prohibition of idolatry—the Gospel writers forgo almost all physical description of him. Whether Jesus towered over the crowd like Saul or could see eye-to-eye with Zacchaeus we know not. And so we guess: The history of Christian iconography attests to the thousands of attempts to give physical expression to this mystery.
One of many the things that I appreciate about Michael J. McClymond's new introduction to scholarly approaches to the life of Christ, Familiar Stranger, is that the theologian from Saint Louis University respects this distance. McClymond scorns scholarly attempts to intuit Jesus' feelings and motives. And yet he wields modern Bible scholarship as an effective tool to goad us closer to the truth.
The buildup is methodical but effective. In the opening chapters, McClymond gives people a rough overview of the current scholarship of the issues surrounding Jesus' life and ministry. He starts with the broader religious and political culture and, as the book progresses, narrows to Jesus' mission and message. When he weighs into scholarly controversies, he has a way of being reasonable. Given his careful approach—his reluctance to put Christ on the couch, if you will—it should hardly surprise that Jesus-Seminar-type arguments do not make out well.
McClymond seems to realize that Jesus' message is a little easier to get at than his portrait, but not by much. He spoke in parables, and the context for making sense out of them is not always obvious. Even his closest confidants either didn't know or didn't fully believe that he was God's "only begotten Son" until after the Easter event.
In his post-resurrection appearances, Jesus is very much alive but at the same time different. Physically, he's not a ghost, but he's not what we would normally describe as human. He has holes in his hands and side and seems to have need of food, but normal constraints like, oh, walls or gravity, no longer apply. Attitudinally, he seems more impatient, more driven, more aloof than the prophet who would not let his audience go away hungry, and who insisted that the little children be allowed access to him. He appears driven to complete his mission and go home.
Overviews of Jesus scholarship are hardly new. McClymond notes the most famous author in this genre was Albert Schweitzer, the German physician who wrote The Quest of the Historical Jesus. It was a depth charge of a book whose impact still reverberates among Jesus scholars. The physician ridiculed attempts to reconstruct Jesus as an enlightened liberal and forcefully pressed the case that these academics often view Jesus through the narrow lenses of their own concerns.
If scholars thought there was no such thing as divine intervention, Schweitzer argued, then Jesus was just one smart cookie who was misunderstood. If a professor had a strict religious upbringing that he was trying to live down, then Jesus was some kind of ancient hippie, and all that fire-and-brimstone stuff was a product of the conflict between the religious authorities and the early church.
Jesus the Magician
No one would accuse Schweitzer of fashioning a mirror-image Jesus with his failed apocalyptic prophet of doom. Nor have all modern scholars projected themselves onto Jesus. But they have looked at the same data, with some supplemental material thrown in, and come up with different reconstructions: from Jesus the Torah-observant rabbi to Jesus the magician to Jesus the cynical, wisdom-spouting sage. As McClymond deftly puts it, "The scholars' reconstructions are balanced as delicately as an artist's mobile: touch one piece and all the rest tremble in their places."
McClymond is a theologian and not a text critic or a language scholar, so he is inclined to pull strands of information together, rather than apart. He challenges the sometimes narrow field of biblical studies by insisting that the distinctions that seem so important for conference papers and journal articles are not significant for helping most Christians to understand the life and message of Jesus of Nazareth.
Yes, Jesus was a teacher of Jewish wisdom, the author says, but he also warned that the end would come, and many would be caught unawares. He was kind, but he was also "a totalitarian," insisting that he was the one true path to God the Father.
In contrast to what McClymond calls the "family values Jesus" of modern evangelicalism, the author issues some "hard sayings" of his own in the final chapter. The two most stinging are "Jesus sided with the poor"—which might call for some family sacrifices—and "Jesus was a home wrecker" (recall his warning that following him would bring division). McClymond's own all-too-brief portrayal of Jesus is what the kids in Narnia would have called "not a tame lion."
To make their cases for a kinder, gentler Jesus, modern scholars must exclude large chunks of Jesus' teachings. McClymond argues that most proposals to exclude whole classes of Jesus' statements simply won't work. He gives two reasons. First, we don't know enough about the composition histories of the Gospels to do this with any degree of confidence. Second, it reeks of cherry-picking.
If the reader decides to look for a certain predetermined Jesus and to exclude all contrary evidence, McClymond says, then she will find what she's looking for—but probably miss the guy who changed the world, and overcame it.
Jeremy Lott is the foreign-press critic for GetReligion.org .
 

Thinking Biblically Commentary 2/7/04
What's With The Divisiveness ? A Few Thoughts On Christian Unity and Judgment (Part 1 of 3)(no time to read ? Listen to it online: http://theologicallycorrect.com/realaudio/unity-part1.m3u - 13:45)

I recently caused a bit of a stink (don't I always) when a friend of mine posted on a discussion board that I frequent regarding her experience at a Benny Hinn crusade. After some other folks on the board noted that Hinn had been exposed as a fraud on Dateline a few years ago, I chimed in with Hinn's history of false prophecy and false teaching, and providing a link to his 2000 prophecy that Jesus would physically appear with him during his crusade in Nairobi, Kenya.As in times past, I got an eyeful via e-mail, accusing me of being divisive, stuck on 'head knowledge' and not being concerned about people, lack of compassion and a few other things. I told the person I wrote back to that I wondered if they'd read their bible regarding what the scriptures say our responsibility is when folks preach false doctrine.This isn't a new problem, by the way. Paul warned Pastors in Acts 20 to guard the flock because as soon as he left, savage wolves in sheep's clothing would try to make their way in and destroy the flock with false teaching. Hinn's not the only guilty party here. I've heard (and have saved here on site) a whole sermon where Creflo Dollar denies that Jesus Christ was God during the incarnation. Yet folks still flock to his church and conferences like ants to a picnic. What's even worse is that even in the face of direct evidence, some folks seem not to care about false doctrine. Just as long as we all 'love each other in Christ', it'll be ok.Speaking of false brethren, thanks a lot Mase and R. Kelly. Mason Betha, for those of you who don't listen to hip-hop, was the second up and coming starchild of Bad Boy Records (owned by Sean 'P-Diddy' Colmes). A few years ago, after Bad Boy's headliner act, Notorious B.I.G. was gunned down, Mase left the hip-hop scene, claiming to be born-again. "Man, Tupac and Big lived that life and look at where they are now. You think I want to end up there ?', he told a popular magazine. So Mase left. He began preaching on how hip-hop music was 'evil' and disdained ALL manifestations of it - even slamming gospel hip-hop artists like the very theologically sound Cross Movement.Well, it's 2005 and Mase is not only back, he's back like he's never left (his album dropped in August of 2004). All of his spokespersons have put a positive spin on his sudden return to what he once called evil, never mentioning any of his past comments. They, instead, say that he's now going to minister to those in the industry and be one of the few forces in the industry with clean lyrics. Don't think folks in the world haven't noticed. Rappers like Cam'ron have called up local NYC radio stations while Mase was on-air and called him a hypocrite to his face. Rapper Fat Joe of the Terror Squad sings 'I was goin' to find God, but now that Mase is back, I think I'd rather find a ménage.' When Mase was ordained as Pastor over his own S.A.N.E. (Saving A Nation Endangered) Church International after only a few months of leaving out of the hip-hop game, who didn't see this as 'too soon' ?Do I even need to mention R. Kelly ? In one breath, he's got a song out entitled 'You Saved Me', in the next, he writes about a lady moving her body in a seductive fashion ('Move Ya Body Like A Snake, Ma'). Kells lost his credibility a while ago and has been a bit of a joke amongst many, especially in the African-American community. He's had a history of accusations of sexual misconduct with underage girls and a history of shutting his accusers up with money. Anyone else thinking Kirk Franklin endorsed him a bit too soon a few years ago in New Man magazine ?Of course, this is the point where I say 'now let's stop and think biblically about this for a moment'. What's the common denominator in all of the examples given above ? Why am I bringing up divisive topics like who might be brethren and who ain't and running down lists of sins ? Don't I have my own sins to deal with and couldn't someone just as easily pull out a list of things we've all done which have served to drag Christs' name through the mud ? Doesn't the Bible tell us not to judge ?Putting aside all issues named above, let's FIRST talk about the divisive issue of whether or not believers should make 'judgment' calls against the behavior of folks who claim to be believers. The answer is an unequivocal YES. This doesn't constitute a judgment on the heart of a person - only God can judge the heart, because only God sees the heart. But believers ARE commanded - repeatedly - in the NT to judge the FRUIT of the lives of professing believers around them. The other half of Matthew 7:1 reads like this: "2 For in the same way as you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." (Matthew 7:2-4, NIV) What Jesus is telling us here in this very hilarious word-picture is that we are to judge with RIGHTEOUS judgment. The same standard for judging, for example, false teaching, MUST equally be applied to both the judger and the judgee. This introspection is given as an admonition to be 'real' with our Christianity. No one could call Mase a hypocrite if he'd fess up that he was wrong in the past on calling hip-hop the 'devil's music'. He'd be judging his own work fairly - both past and present AND he'd be letting us know he is 'real' and capable of being wrong and open for correction.But that's not all. We're commanded to 'diligently test all things' in 1 Thessalonians 5:21 and hold on to that which is good or proved. The image is of a jeweler applying a hot fire to rock of gold to find impurities. In 1 Corinthians 11, we are told that every man is to examine himself before coming to the table of the Lord. And further, Paul chides the church for not disciplining its' membership and points to it as proof of why some have grown weak, sick and some have passed away. A few chapters prior in chapter 5, Paul tells the very loving and tolerant Corinthian church to put out a man who has been involved in an incestuous affair with his mother-in-law. The reason ? A little leaven leavens the whole lump. Put away the evil from among you. Do not associate with someone who claims to be a brother, but whose visible life is either "sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler" (1 Cor. 5:11, NIV). Don't even have lunch with him.But 1 Corinthians 2 is the clincher. Believers are told that because we have the Spirit of God, we are qualified to judge things - not just some things, but ALL things. 1 Timothy 3:16-17 tells us that the scriptures are God-breathed and are to be used for reproof, correction, training in righteousness and all areas of the Christian life so that the man or woman of God may be thoroughly equipped to carry out every good work. How in the world can you decide what is a 'good work' if you're not judging anything to be good or not good ?Many of our churches today are missing this level of discernment. They do not judge righteously - in fact, many don't judge at all! And here lies the root of the problem facing believers and their visible unity.Such things were not a problem in the early church. When false teachers floated around teaching that the resurrection and final judgment had already passed, Paul did not only deal with the doctrine at length in 2 Thessalonians, but he named names. This point is important - if someone was going around murdering folks, wouldn't you think it stupid of the police to issue a statement saying 'Well, we just want to let you know there's someone murdering people. We know his name, but out of kindness, we're not going to reveal it to the public. We don't judge people.' How much more for those who teach doctrines that lead people into SPIRITUAL death! So Paul tells us to 'mark off' or 'point out' folks who cause these types of divisions in congregations (2 Thess. 3:14) and not keep company with him. Paul reminds us of folks like Hymenaeus repeatedly in 1 Tim. 1:20 and 2 Tim. 2:17 who are false teachers. Jude tells believers to 'earnestly contend for the faith' in Jude 3 and 4. All of these passages are utterly useless if the believer doesn't make some 'judgment' as to what the faith is and what the faith isn't. Further, all of these commands to abstain from company with folks who fall under these categories cannot be carried out if we don't take time to analyze the fruit put out by folks who claim to be brothers. It is in this non-discerning atmosphere that 'false prophets' secretly bring in destructive heresies, as foretold in 2 Peter 2:1."Wait, Kerry.. I thought this was about Christian unity ?" It is. We need to have discernment, first and foremost on WHAT it means to be a Christian and WHO we call 'brethren'. One of the questions recently posed to me by a charismatic believer who shuns my criticisms of Benny Hinn is 'What Did the Holy Spirit Tell You ?' Well. God doesn't work in a vacuum of ignorance. Old Testament prophets were studied and steeped in the scriptures and all they taught. The bulk of today's pseudo-prophets and 'evangelists' have about as much in common with OT prophets (or NT Prophets for that matter) as a Lexus RS 330 has in common with a horse and carriage. The falsity of their claims becomes apparent when they can't even get basic doctrine right - or don't care to. Christ said His sheep know Him and hear His voice. It is highly unlikely that His audible voice would discourage further systematic study of His word, which is His written voice. And until we get back to the final 'standard' for judging all things righteously, which is the Word of God, the church will remain divided.When we take the offensive with righteous judgment and judge the fruit of those professing to be believers - well, a lot of things come to light. First, we know that any true prophet of God won't fudge on basic doctrine. So when a T.D. Jakes says 'I've purposely remained aloof from theological controversies because they don't matter to me', we know something is WRONG with this picture. So when Benny Hinn comes forth and claims to make a prophecy that Jesus will appear physically on the platform with him during his crusade, we know that this is false. After Jesus left the earth in Acts 1, the angels told us He would return in like fashion as He left. We see this will be fulfilled in Rev. 19 at His second coming. So Hinn's theology is already suspect. Even examining the truth of his prophecy and whether or not it came to pass - Hinn falls terribly short.When Creflo Dollar comes out and teaches that Jesus was not God the Son when He entered humanity, red lights go off all over the place for me (and if you believe the scriptures, they should for you too!). John 1:1-14 vs Creflo...guess who wins. No matter how many people attend Creflo's seminars, he's a heretic if he gets this point wrong (and he does). He is NOT a brother - and falls under the condemnation of 2 Peter 2 and Jude 8-17.When Mase gets ordained in a short amount of time with no solid theological background coming straight out from the world, the passage on the qualifications for a bishop or elder come to mind. one of which is NOT to lay hands on a new convert. So Mase's going back into what he once called evil and having other rappers mock him and Christ is no real surprise to me.When I hear R. Kelly come out sounding spiritual in one song and quite fleshly in the next, questions like "Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring?" I truly wonder if this brother is simply pimpin' folks in church because he has a good voice. And even moreso, I wonder why those who name the name of Christ who have named him as a 'brother' in the past are not condemning his behavior and calling for his visible repentance. Of course, many of us have 'R. Kellys' in our churches.like the choir director and a member living in open sin or the members who cohabit and engage in sexual sin intercourse prior to marriage. Or the openly homosexual deacon. Need I go on ?The question I've heard is 'Where is your love and compassion ?' Actually, this call to be discerning IS love. It's Biblical love. Biblical love pulls no punches, speaks the truth, lacks the mushy sentimentalism we've come to accept as love and is active in demonstrating itself. Because the Holy Spirit within me is grieved at the state of the church today, I write these words and implore those who name the name of Christ to follow the words of the Master. Because I love my brother and want to see him live, I'm going to not keep company with him so that he might be ashamed of his sin (2 Thess. 3:14) and repent. I'm going to warn him as a brother that the wrath of God is coming upon him and all those like him who think God is mocked. I'm going to warn the Mases' of the world that he, like Peter, was demanding that folks live one way and then himself going back to living another and that this is hypocrisy and does nothing to advance the cause of the Kingdom.I'm going to write letters to ministries like T.D. Jakes and Creflo Dollar and ask them to stand up for the truth or stop calling yourselves Christians. And if they chose to remain in error, by the power of the Holy Spirit within me Who testifies of the God-Man Christ, I will oppose such false teaching and continually preach 'REPENT!' until the last breath of air passes from my lungs and the Triune God Himself calls me home.This, my friend, should be cry of every Christian heart. A love and a passion for God's truth is the FIRST step on the road to Christian unity. And when we're unified on truth and able to judge rightly because of it, the church of Christ will grow.For Theologically Correct dot Com, I'm Kerry Gilliard. Be blessed.

An awesome piece from John Piper:In Luke 2:10-11 we hear a word from God to the shepherds: "But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; (11) for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.'" Now what was the aim of this word? It was, at least, to produce joy. "We bring you good news of great joy." Huge joy! In other words, the truth about Jesus – that he is a Savior and Messiah and Lord and that he was born in the prophesied city of David – this truth was to inspire great joy (and it did, Luke 2:20). And when it did, who got the glory? Jesus did. He is Savior, Christ, Lord. This is what the Word revealed, and this was what inspired the joy. Therefore the change brought about by the Word gets glory for the truth of Christ in the Word.
But suppose the shepherds were out in the fields keeping watch over their flocks by night and suddenly the Holy Spirit came upon them and filled them with great joy with no news at all. No Word. No revelation. Only the feeling of joy. Who would be honored for that? Nobody, except maybe the Shepherds for being so resilient against the cold winter's night. How would it honor and glorify Christ if the Spirit created in us all kinds of good feelings and good resolves with no reference to Jesus and his cross and resurrection and the great acts of God in history? It wouldn't. So the way the Spirit brings about change in our lives is to quietly enable us to see in the Word the beauty of Christ and his ways. Then our motivation consciously flows from the truth about Christ, and he is glorified, and the Spirit remains the behind-the-scenes power that opened our eyes.
So you see why my main point says, prayer and meditation are as inseparable in living the Christian life as are the Spirit of God and the Word of God. Prayer is the human act that corresponds to the Spirit of God, and meditation is the human act that corresponds to the Word of God; and just as Word and Spirit are inseparable in how God changes us, so prayer and meditation are inseparable in how God changes us.