Adam Hamilton is a super star in Methodism. He's the founding minister of the (18,000 member) Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City and a prolific writer. In a couple of weeks he's going to speak at our Florida Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. This is a yearly meeting where a big bunch of Methodists get together to do the business of the church and have some cool worship services. I attended the Florida Annual Conference for about 35 years straight and was a delegate most of those times - but then I met Dave and everything changed.
But in thinking about all of the above I decided to re-read one of my favorite Hamilton books - Making Sense of the Bible - only this time I've done it as a devotion...reading one chapter every morning and meditating on it.
Following are a couple of "food for thought" sections:
How do you perceive God? Hamilton discusses "God as micro-manager" as opposed to "God the absentee landlord." The first makes everything that happens - happen. The second created everything and then said, "I'm outta here. You're on your own." Discovering "The nature of God" has been a decades long pursuit for me.
In another section Hamilton talks about putting scripture into Three Baskets:
1. The Timeless will of God for human beings - Hamilton suggests that this is the vast majority of scripture.
2. God's will in a particular time but not for all time.
3. Scripture that reflects the culture and historical circumstances in which they were written but never reflected God's timeless will.
To me, the most important thing about all of Hamilton's books, is that they make me think. After all, spirituality is a personal choice. We learn this from Joshua 24:15.
But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, ...as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.
I love the first part of this scripture - but I have a lot of problems with the last part. I think it represents Old Testament culture. The man can't really speak for his household, only himself.
I guess I'd have to put that scripture into two baskets.
***
