12 Witnesses

I hope to have some follow up answers on my post Inviting the Lost to Church 1 by tomorrow.

In the meantime, please enjoy the Week 4 standing of the Blogtown Football League.

My team, the Ramblin’ Wreckers has scraped back into a 2-2 start. My angst is compounded this week in that I traded Dallas Clark for two wide receivers, and therefore had to let a wide receiver go: Patrick Crayton, Dallas, who had a blowout week and was the receiver I had been needing and hoping he would be. This is compounded by the fact that the King of the Patriots picked him up. That team is 4-0 and not in need of blowout receivers.

This is fun, huh? At least Scott Gordon (TheNOTS) is not talking smack this week - yet…

Almost done now. The Spiritual Disciplines Blogging Crew hosted by Joe Kennedy has but four measly posts before our long journey is done. Check it out.

Confession.

I remember vividly when I found out what the word “confession” actually means. You see, in our culture, we equate confession with the telling of something unknown - to spill the beans, so to speak. Like a criminal admitting to a crime to the police. No longer a need to go t trial, the criminal confessed - now we know.

The word “confess” in the New Testament is a compound word made of of two simple parts: (homo) the same, and (logeo) to speak or say - to break it down simplistically. The accurate translation is something along the lines of “to say the same thing about” or “to agree.”

So to confess your sin to God is to agree with Him about your sin. You are certainly not telling Him something He doesn’t know. You are not “spilling the beans.”

Rather, you are looking at your sin from God’s perspective and agreeing with Him about it. The reason we participate in sin, aside from being born into it, is that we fail to see sin for what it really is - the way He sees it.

As a discipline, confession is about introspectively evaluating the things in your life through God’s eyes and changing your mind if it doesn’t line up with the way you have been looking at it. By constantly filtering your worldview this way, your personal holiness is refined and you become more and more conformed to the image of Christ.

I’m putting off the response to the “Inviting the Lost to Church” post for a little bit. I’ll probably answer later this week, but I definitely have some thoughts - especially to what has already been posted. If you missed it, you might want to check it out or even add to the discussion here.

In the meantime, I am privileged to host a Q&A with our SBC President during the Tulsa Metro Association of Baptist Churches Leadership Dialog in conjunction with our annual meeting. Dr. Page and Dr. Milfred Minatrea will be with us this coming Sunday night for the annual meeting and the following day for the Leadership Dialog.

The Q&A will take place during lunch on Monday. Not wanting dead time with no questions, I have been asked to have several questions prepared to ask Dr. Page to get or keep the ball rolling, so to speak.

So here’s your chance. What would you like to ask Dr. Page?

Pointed and relevant questions are welcome. Agenda driven questions are not. Recognize the difference? I hope so.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

I’ll not be live blogging, obviously, but I will try and post the answers after the meeting.