He's Been In Prison A Long Time . . .

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

He's Been In Prison A Long Time . . .

My Father-in-law just can't stay out of prison. At 70, he's still working as a chaplain helping inmates to find the grace of God and a new start. Recently, he was featured on the local news - again. This time, it's a story about his "prison art show," which is made up of paintings, drawings and sculptures crafted by the incarcerated men he's worked with over the years. It's pretty amazing stuff.

Click this link to see the video: http://ozarksfirst.com/content/fulltext/?cid=19079

3 comments:

AnonymousApril 28, 2009 at 11:53 PM
lol... when I read first sentence I thought: ooo, so old and he did something bad, poor your wife...
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THEOparadoxApril 29, 2009 at 9:23 AM
Natasa,

Sometimes the irony of a 70 year old man still laboring for the Lord in prison ministry is too much to take. We tease him about it all the time.

Years ago, my Mother-in-law sold Tupperware to supplement their income. Once when she was at a Tupperware party and he was doing work in the prison, the kids were left home alone. My wife's brother, probably 10 years old at the time, knocked on a neighbor's door and asked to watch their TV. The neighbor said, "Where are your parents?" He replied, "My Dad's in jail, and my Mom went to a party."

We're still laughing about that one.

Blessings,
Derek
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Rob PeckApril 29, 2009 at 9:14 PM
Hey Derek,
It has been a while my friend. Once again I am encouraged by your father and the work he does for the Lord. My father is also a great man on God. Such a blessing! Hopefully our sons will think the same of us when they are our age! Blessings my brother!
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THEOparadox MISSION Statement:

~To honor God by upholding the authority, inerrancy and sufficiency of His Word, the Bible.
~To help students of the Word to interpret Biblical paradoxes in a way that faithfully reflects God's heart.
~To ignite a devotional flame that will help believers to warm up their theology and burn up their pride.
~To encourage Christian faith by resolving or explaining apparent contradictions in the Scriptures.
~To explore the nature and extent of paradoxes in historically orthodox, Reformed, Biblical theology.

~To provide Biblical resources for those who desire to know God and His Word better.

~To glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, the Friend of sinners and the Savior of the lost.

What is a PARADOX?

A tenet or proposition contrary to received opinion, or seemingly absurd, yet true in fact.

Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828 Edition

"... it is synonymous with apparent contradiction. A 'paradox' thus amounts to a set of claims which taken in conjunction appear to be logically inconsistent. Note that according to this definition, paradoxicality does not entail logical inconsistency per se, but merely the appearance of logical inconsistency."

James Anderson, Paradox in Christian Theology

Wise Words . . .

"By advocating paradox I don't want to give the impression that I'm giving a carte blanche to not think philosophically, to not think deeply, about these doctrines. Quite the opposite. . . . My position is that with each of these doctrines we reflect on them as hard as we can, we penetrate them as best we can based on the Scriptural data that we do have, but we also recognize that there are going to be limits, and that those limits are actually a positive thing and not a reflection of some inherent problem in the doctrines or in the process of theological reflection. . . . I think we can make progress, we can make

considerable progress, in understanding these doctrines and resolving some of the . . . initial difficulties that we have with them, but at the same time recognizing that we're always only going to get so far and when we bump up against the limits of our capacity to formulate them in certain ways or to resolve certain difficulties in them, we

shouldn't be too concerned about that. We certainly shouldn't say, 'Okay, we need to admit that Christians are ultimately irrationalists.' No. We don't need to say that at all. . . . It's a Biblically constrained rationality. It's a middle way between rationalism, of which I think [Gordon H.] Clark was a representative, and irrationalism, of which, to take an example I think the Neo-Orthodox - Karl Barth - would be an example, where you're saying that there are actual contradictions in there. So I think it's navigating a Biblical middle way between these two extremes: having too high a view of the human intellect, and perhaps too low a view of the intellect, of our ability to know the things

of God."

~Dr. James Anderson

Theological Paradoxes

Below I have listed some of the classic theological paradoxes (and a few interesting ironies, too) . . .

~The Trinity - God is One being revealed in three distinct persons (Father, Son, Holy Spirit)
~God is transcendent (separate from His creation) yet immanent (in His creation)
~Omnipresence - God is always present everywhere, yet He sometimes speaks of Himself as "present" in a special way
~The Incarnation - God became a man
~The Virgin Birth - A Jewish virgin gave birth to the Son of God
~The Two Natures of Christ - Jesus is fully (100%) God and fully (100%) man

~The Atonement is sufficient to save every person, but efficient only for those who believe
~God is completely sovereign (in control of everything, everywhere, all the time) yet He is not the author of sin and he uses human choice to accomplish His purposes
~Inspiration of Scripture - The Bible was written by sinful human beings yet it is the inerrant and flawless Word of God
~Divine Revelation - Sinful man cannot comprehend God, yet God reveals Himself to sinful man
~Sanctification - Christians are sinners by nature, but saints by grace
~Suffering - God brings His joy and comfort into our lives through our experiences of pain, disappointment and suffering

There are many others. Paradox is everywhere when we attempt to understand God's ways in a genuinely Biblical way.

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Tuesday, April 28, 2009

He's Been In Prison A Long Time . . .

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