Borrowed Light

Will You Arc With Me?

June 3, 2014Mike Leake

Do you love studying Scripture?

Would you like studying Scripture with a group of other believers?

Do you want a tool to help you really get the meaning of a passage?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to really wrestled with a passage of Scripture and to interact with a group of others wrestling with the same passage of Scripture?

If you answered yes to these questions then I want to invite you to join with me on Bible Arc.

This is not an activity for the faint-hearted. Arcing is difficult. It will cause you to sweat and think hard and at times feel like your head is spinning and nothing in the world makes sense anymore. But the labor is worth the sweet fruit that comes from really struggling through a passage of Scripture.

How to join

Step One: If you haven’t already complete the Arcing 101 class. It’s not terribly difficult to learn. You can do it in a day or two. And this will help you know if arcing is something you’d like to do more of.

Step Two: You need to create an account on Bible Arc. Yes, you’ll need to put a little skin in the game. Bible Arc isn’t free but it’s worth every penny. Cancel your Netflix subscription and spend your money on this instead.

Step Three: Let me know that you want to join our group. Once you have a Bible Arc account you can email me and let me know that you want to be a part. (You can email here: mike [at] fbjasper [dot] org)

Step Four: Start arcing and chatting with others.

From Here

I am going to be doing this whether anyone joins me or not. I’m teaching a Sunday school class on Philippians and though I’m not directly teaching arcing yet it is still necessary for me to do this.

I am also discipling a couple of men and trying to teach them how to arc. So, I’m doing this no matter what. But I think it would be fun to do this with a group of other believers.

Are you in?

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If you need a little more motivation consider this from John Piper.

Today in Blogworld 06.03.14

June 3, 2014Mike Leake 1 Comment

Baseball’s Unwritten Rules

This was a longer article but I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the unwritten rules of baseball.

10 Tips of Christian Leaders Who Don’t Want to Become Self-Promoting Jerks Online

These are really good.

The Unattainable Good Life of Elliot Rodger

Elliot Rodger was the young man that killed himself and six other people (while also injuring more) in California a couple weeks ago. I wanted to provide some commentary on this but I think Alan Noble’s is terrific.

Social Media Outrage and the Gospel

Russell Moore reflects on our propensity to be outraged online and how this relates to the gospel.

Everything we do at weddings is weird. Here is proof:

Why Did God Harden Pharaoh’s Heart

June 2, 2014Mike Leake

I’ve long been intrigued by the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. Truth be told I’ve been a bit emotionally bothered by the story. I’ve often read it as if Pharaoh would have repented and turned out to be a good dude around plague #4 but because the Lord hardened his heart he remained a stubborn jerk.

I read it differently now.

The Purpose of Exodus

When I read the Exodus account what I see is a God that is flexing His muscle. He is doing it so that the whole world, and especially the Hebrews, might know who he is. You see this in Exodus 5:2 when Pharaoh says, “Who is the Lord…I do not know the LORD”. It’s not by accident that the Lord continuously says things like, “the Egyptians shall know” and “then you will know that I am the LORD”.

In the Exodus story it is as if God is challenging the mighty Egyptians to a weight lifting contest. And it becomes painfully obvious by plague 3 that “this is the finger of God” and the Egyptians don’t stand a chance. And so after plague 4 the mighty Pharaoh admits defeat…sort of. He’ll let them go but he is still under the delusion that he is control.

To use our weight-lifting analogy it is as if Pharaoh is hardening his heart and resolving to beat this God in the next match. “Okay, I’ll give you this one, but I’m going to train and then I’m going to kick your tail next time. Our magicians will figure out how to do the same thing that you did”.

I don’t believe that we should make too much out of the fact that there are verses were Pharaoh hardened his own heart. That is certainly happening. But I believe on top of that we need to hear what the Lord says at the beginning in Exodus 7:3. Here he says, “But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart”. Ultimately what is happening is that God has raised up Pharaoh for the purpose of showing His power.

So why does He need to harden Pharaoh’s heart?

Let us return to our weight lifting analogy. What happens if Pharaoh calls uncle around plague 4? It’ll be a great show of power, people will know that the LORD (at least in this instance) has gotten the best of Pharaoh.

But do you think the worship of Exodus 15 will be as deep and far reaching? Would they say, “your right hand, O LORD, shatters the enemy”. Could they say shatters? Or would they just say, “bruises”.

For the sake of Israel, for the sake of Egypt, and for our sake, God cannot just beat Pharaoh by a nose. He has to utterly embarrass and decimate him. And so he doesn’t let Pharaoh throw in the towel at plague 4. If he does there will rise up another power that is stronger than Pharaoh, and the Israelites will be wondering if maybe God will lose this time.

And so God hardens Pharaoh’s heart. He doesn’t let him cry uncle. He causes Pharaoh to keep going like a stubborn mule even though he is being whipped the whole way.

And let’s not think that if Pharaoh calls uncle around plague 4 that he’ll stop and turn into a good guy and start worshipping the Lord. I believe this is why the Bible also says that Pharaoh hardened his heart. He’s still a wicked dude. It’s just that God isn’t going to allow him to be a pansy and call for a truce, and then go train with the intention of besting God later.

God in his glory and grace will shatter the mighty Pharaoh so that He can display His greatness. And this is to our greatest good. Pharaoh isn’t worthy of worship (or any of the other false god’s that will follow in his stead). And so God will crush these idols so that our heart’s will find satisfaction in the only place where true satisfaction can be found.