Thinking

Engaged!

Those of you who are avid readers of my blog (and perhaps I kid myself into thinking I have such fans!) would know that I sometimes update on exciting life events. This time, I have gotten engaged to my wonderful fiancee, Beth. She is in the picture that shows up when I comment on things. We are both extremely excited and we are so thankful that God has blessed us in this very wonderful way. We look forward to the next year of planning!

At last, I’m back!

Moved into an apartment now, finally have the internet up and running. Now I can focus on working on this site and a couple journal articles I’ve been trying to complete. Not to mention reading books…

The Devotional Life of a Christian Apologist/Philosopher

As a Christian Apologist and Philosopher (if I may be so bold as to refer to myself in such a way) it is important to maintain an intimate relationship with my God. Often, it is easy to get lost in all the “If… then…”s the “therefore”s, and the premises of arguments about God and forget that God is the Living God, who wants to interact on a real, personal level with all His people. It is a trap that awaits those who talk about God in such abstract terms: forgetting that that same God is there and should be praised and loved.

Thus, it is important to maintain a devotional life.  I encourage readers to set their own routines for exploration of God’s Word, prayer life, etc. It is important to utilize those periods of downtime–be they periods of an hour, two hours, or even ten or fifteen minutes–in order to expand knowledge of Word and Truth. I’ve outlined my own routine below (though I sometimes stray from it) in order to provide a potential base for study and some recommendations.

Daily (or as often as possible)

1. Read at least 1 chapter from the Bible: This may be done all in order (as I’m doing right now) or by a variety of other methods (such as following a “read the Bible in a year” type of thing).

2. Devotion: I use and very highly recommend the Treasury of Daily Prayer, which has readings from Scripture, church fathers, etc. along with liturgies for personal devotion.

3. Pray: This can be done independently or by using various books of prayer (I utilize the Lutheran Book of Prayer).

4. Hone Greek/Hebrew Skills: This one takes some prior study and knowledge, but I definitely recommend learning Biblical Greek and Hebrew in order to study the Word (a wonderful Hebrew Text is here, while a great introduction to Greek is here). Once one can utilize these languages, they can be used in daily meditation by taking a reader (such as this one) to practice this wonderful gift.

5. Other readings: Normally, I’m working through at least one “hard” book and one “light reading” book at a time. An example of a “hard” book could be God and Necessity while a “light reading” can be C.S. Lewis. Daily, I would say try to read as much as possible in whatever downtime one has. A fifteen minute period can mean 10-20 pages of reading for a “light reading” book, while I usually save “hard” books for times I have an hour or more. Utilize a notebook to take notes on the readings you do. Also, sometimes it’s good to read both a “hard” and “light” book from the same author, as this will reinforce the ideas (for example N.T. Wright–one could read The New Testament and the People of God [hard] and The Challenge of Jesus [light]).

Weekly (at least)

1. Church: Attending worship with fellow believers is extremely important for spiritual nurturing.

2. Extra reading: Take at least one day a week to sit and have some serious reading time from Scripture and books you are reading.

3. Exercise: Don’t forget to utilize the body God gave you. Take a 1-3+ mile run 1-3 times a week. While running, reflect on the gifts God has given. Pray, think about topics you’ve read from Scripture or other readings, recite verses.

4. Memory work: Try to memorize at least one verse a day. You may not retain them all in your memory, but once you start to do this, you will find you’ll be opened to an even more intimate understanding of Scripture.

Hopefully these ideas will serve to encourage others who are looking for devotional life. Do not neglect prayer and reading the Word; these are vitally important to the spiritual life of the Christian.

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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick (apart from citations, which are the property of their respective owners) and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author.

Updates to Site

Frequent readers of my site have probably noticed a few changes. I changed the header recently, along with my theme. I cleaned up the categories a bit, though there is still more work to be done with that. I’m also going to be deleting some old posts, because as I’ve studied more, I want to update them and make them more in-depth and accurate. Thus, there may be some broken links showing up. If any appear, please let me know. Most of the posts I’m deleting are from my earlier days on here. I’m planning to redo a few of them, though some will be gone for good. Please let me know any suggestions you have as I try to make this site even more useful as a springboard for thought and discussion of Christianity, theism, philosophy, etc.

I’m an Uncle!

Hah! Now I’m posting something that has nothing to do with apologetics!

I’m now an UNCLE! My sister had a son, Isaac Bejamin, who is the first child on her side of the family, the second on her husband’s side.
He is currently very sick, but getting much better. I had the joy of visiting yesterday and earlier today. I’m going to be the Godfather .

YAY

Cleaning the Altar

This past Saturday (the 19th), I went with my girlfriend to clean up after a church had been vandalized.

When we got to the church, most of the damage had already been undone. There were several crosses that had been smashed amongst the pews. There was a safe in the basement that had a hole punched through it. The vandal(s) had dumped powdered bleach all over the items in the basement, including chairs and tables.

The church is having an event this weekend, so cleaning up was a top priority, not just cleaning the damage, but doing as much as we could to get the church in general in top shape.

Part of my job was to clean the altar. It was wonderful. I was polishing/washing and my girlfriend was drying. As I was wiping down the altar, I was singing softly “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy… on me.” It was a wonderful connection. God’s presence is real in the world and such events do nothing but confirm God’s hand in all things as far as I am concerned. It was a truly spiritual experience and one that I’ll never forget.

Thinking as a Christian Philosopher

I think one of the most interesting things I’ve found as I continue on my path as a Christian Philosopher is how it can shape thinking about everything.

Faith in Christ permeates every aspect of my being.

I just experienced it as I was walking across campus. I stared out over the hills and looked at the trees. There is one that is dead, and has fallen to the ground. Sitting as it was, on a grassy hill at night, with only faint light to set the scene, it was tragically beautiful. I continued in this mindset, observing the beauties around me as I walked back.

It is impossible for me to survey such beauty of nature without reflecting on the beautifier behind it all. Even the idea of light seemed glorious to me. I thought about how the light rays spread out from each light along the path, imagining lines tracing the light into the distance, an infinite path for some, and it was beautiful. I saw a hill that had the paths traced by water flowing down it darkened by shadow in the pale light. It was beautiful. I heard the thousand thousand crickets, the song they sing echoing through the night. It was beautiful. Above all, there was the cross on top of the chapel, the highest point on campus. It all came together. The rays of light streaming around it, the crickets singing to it, and the water flowing from it.

The world God has created is nothing short of unfathomably beautiful.

Being a philosopher has some very interesting effects on thinking. As I observed all this beauty, I was also thinking about qualia related to the mind, dualism vs. physicalism, the warrant of Christian belief, etc. It is striking to contrast these things going through my head, for despite the seemingly vast gap between, say, observing the beauty of light and thinking about pressuppositionalism, there is one tie that binds: Christ.

It is also interesting to me to see how this has changed my thoughts on life. There is eternity to ponder. The current life serves as a framework from which to ponder this eternity. The present life is vastly important, but the smaller things seem to matter much less. Some things that seem like “big deals” seem to fade into smaller things. God calls in all things to ponder Him. We are to love Him with all our heart, mind, strength, and soul. It is this that brings all things again into perspective–for the Christian, there is but one filter through which to see all things: the filter of faith in Christ. That is why a Christian can take all things in stride. We can walk in faith. Accusations against such faith do nothing to our soul.

Again, in all things, there is one tie that binds: Christ.

Why this blog?

I’ll start by simply stating the purpose of this blog. I’m going to use it to talk about mostly topics related to Christian Apologetics, though I may use it for other things.

Doctrinally, I’m Lutheran. I believe in Jesus Christ as God and Savior. I believe in the Triune God, the innerrancy of scripture, the depravity of man, etc. What this blog is going to be about, however, is less doctrinal apologetics and more philosophical apologetics.

I’ll make another post as soon as I can.