sin

Redefinition (or, “Paul: broken & beautiful” or, “on why the lack of bloggage”)

/ Paul Burkhart / 8 Comments

This is a weird post to write. The past two months have seen such a change and revelation in so much of who I am. God, that sounds so dramatic. Well, this season has been pretty dramatic, so I guess it’s okay. Let’s talk.

A little over a year ago, I wrote a series of blog posts called I’m A Fearful Man (and i need to get over it). In them, I talked about some of the subtle currents of fear at work in my heart; I talked of their source, their outworking, and how they led to great anxiety, insecurity, and non-communication in my life.

Throughout the series, I received great encouragement and comments from others and there seemed to be an excitement building as I wrote each post. People saw much of themselves in my story and baggage and were looking forward to the conclusion of this story to see how I was going to address these issues.
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Dmitri, I Am (on sin, story, & salvation)

/ Paul Burkhart / 4 Comments

I once read a very good book by one of my former professors called When People Are Big and God is Small. It’s about the sin many in church history have called “Fear of Man.” I read this entire book with a particular friend in mind, wanting to know what I could say to her to help her in her struggles with this. It wasn’t until the final pages that I realized that this was something that I myself wrestle with profoundly.

But the book was now done, I didn’t want to immediately re-read it, and so I had missed my place in the story; I had missed how it could have spoken to me and perhaps led me to some freedom and healing in this. Indeed, even though I’d hear the author lecture about it years later, I still write about and struggle with my “Fear of Man” issues today.

Have you ever had a similar experience of missing yourself in a story?
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Interpreting & Applying Proverbs (thoughts on Proverbs 10:12)

/ Paul Burkhart / 7 Comments

Proverbs is always such a weird book to try and apply to your life. The theme of the book is what? Wisdom. Is it teaching wisdom to give people a bunch of cookie cutter situations and tell them how to act? No.

In Proverbs 26:4-5, we see two Proverbs back-to-back that say opposite things. One says “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself”. The very next verse says “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes”.

Long story short, all of the book of Proverbs flows from Chapter 1, which talks about the fear of the lord being the beginning of wisdom. Those two contradictory proverbs show us that the book is not meant to be a cut-and-paste sort of thing. It’s not the case that a fool could simply read it, start acting like the “wise man” found throughout Proverbs and suddenly be wise (how would he apply those two verses above?).

Wisdom comes not from doing the things the wise man does, but by being the kind of wise man who fears the Lord and can discern what response to use in a given situation at the right time.
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Yeah, Church Community Sucks.

/ Paul Burkhart / 6 Comments

Church plants are weird creatures. In the beginning, most everyone is new and has to do the awkward dance of forming relationships while at the same time trying to see a fledgling church survive. It takes a unique person to really be a part of a church plant, that’s for sure. You mostly have to be self-motivated and spiritually self-sustaining, because the usual church structures that motivate, support and counsel just aren’t there in the early days of a church.

Over time, during these early days, your relationships slowly develop. They are usually borne out from the fiery flames of awkwardness and uncertainty, and having to force yourself into social situations you would not normally put on yourself, but this difficulty forges these relationships deeply. You get to know one another very deeply very quickly and love each other through it. This creates a very deep bond, however unspoken it may be.
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Weekly Must-Reads {05.24.11} | theology & politics edition

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As promised, this week’s weekly must-reads tend towards the theological. We do have some political “leftovers” from last week that you all should find interesting. So, as usual, read to your heart’s content and please comment and let me know what you think about these! 

__________

More Like Prayer 5 | Jesus Creed

Fascinating and oh-so-brief introduction to a whole new way of looking at the gospel, politics, and the church. Wow.

Mercifully Forsaken | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

Wow. Simply wow. Such a beautiful and powerful piece of writing on the mercy of God in his forsaking of us. Did not expect this from Christianity Today (front page, no less!).

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sin, joy, desire, & maturity (encouragement from a friend)

/ Paul Burkhart / 5 Comments

I think the sense of our wants, when withal we have a restlessness and a sort of spiritual impatience under them, and can make a din, because we want Him whom our soul loveth, is that which maketh an open door to Christ: and when we think we are going backward, because we feel deadness, we are going forward; for the more sense the more life, and no sense argueth no life.

–Samuel Rutherford, The Loveliness of Christ

I was sent this quote by a dear friend who’s probably starting to get to know me better than I would like.  It really spoke to me.
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The Hope of Gethsemane (of Lent, Mortality, & Ashes)

/ Paul Burkhart / 17 Comments


I always have high and lofty hopes for Lent. Each year I have visions in my head of those amazing “spiritual” things I will do over these 40 days that will result in life-long and generational sins merely falling away from my life; my heart finally unburdened of the weights and yokes it has borne for so long.

And alas, God consistently and assuredly meets me in this season, but the time is rather marked by a sharp sense and sting of failure in these things I have dreamt of doing.

And so, I find myself here, five days into Lent, having already felt this weight of my own shortcomings and self-deception: dearest brothers confronting me in the facades I present to the world out of my own fears and insecurities, telling me how hard it is to love me; finding my heart wander to those old idolatries that I thought only marked my youth and immaturity; my social anxieties paralyzing me in my greatest opportunities of worship; falling short of the fast I have offered to God in this season; etc., etc., etc., etc….

And it’s right then in these moments that my greatest love–my Bridegroom, my Lover, my Hope, and my Healer: the Lord–meets me. Continue reading →

Weekly Must-Reads {03.07.11}

/ Paul Burkhart / 4 Comments

This week’s weekly must-reads contain some links to articles I was reading a couple of weeks ago but didn’t end up doing one of these reading lists in order to share. They include articles on singleness, economics, foreign policy and art. I hope you find these intriguing, thought provoking, and discussion-causing. As usual, feel free to add your own links for myself and others to read in the comments section, as well as comment on these articles.

Tree of Failure – NYTimes.com

I know this is a few weeks old, but it’s amazing and I wasn’t able to post it when it came out. It’s a beautiful, substantive article on the necessity of weakness, sin, and failure in our search for civility and grace.  Anybody know the religious leanings of David Brooks?

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I Am A Fearful Man (and i need to get over it) {pt3}

/ Paul Burkhart / 5 Comments

[Read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series]

Finally, this is done. This is the last post in a three-part series that’s been walking through my development as a thinker and feeler in this world. The first part, at its core, was about the culture and world around me as I grew up that helped cultivate the arrogance I still war against inside me. The second part was about the things that have humbled me and showed me my finitude. So where does that leave me now; and why does it warrant this little series?

The confluence of all of these forces (of arrogance and humbling) has made a very interesting creature out of me as of late. A recent trip back home to visit my parents found me getting into several vehement fights with them over (of all things) politics. It’s not even that I disagree with them very much! It was mainly a frustration over just how unwavering and (I felt) naively arrogant their commitment to these ideas were. In short, I was getting mad that they seemed to allow no room for disagreement or for them to be wrong. A couple of times my Dad asked me, well what do you think? And I realized I had no answer. All I knew was that no one could know so surely what was right. Why? Because God had showed me in the past several years that I couldn’t. And if I (of all people) couldn’t know with certainty, then surely no one else out there could, right? (P.S.- that was sarcasm) It all culminated in a moment where my dad pretty much said that my writing had been steadily losing it’s quality ever since the “pinnacle of my writing”: a post I wrote called “On Holy Week, Suicidal Ideations, & My Heart“.

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Dancing, Pride, & Sanctification

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[photo by az. from Flickr]

Last night, I went swing dancing.

And it was amazing.

I hadn’t gone ballroom dancing (of any kind) in a while. I used to do it a lot more. Ever since middle school, I’ve been a pretty good dancer (believe it or not). In high school for a summer, I was even part of a community dance troupe, so I’ve done most all of the throwing girls in the air over my shoulders, around my back, and catching them in mid-jump — you know, all that stuff. At one point I was picked out of my school choir as one of the few people that would do the “more advanced” swing dancing moves in front of the choir in a concert we gave. There I did all the pulling girls between the legs and wrapping them around the back and all that. In college, many Friday nights were spent at Dancespace, where we would get lessons in ballroom dancing and then dance the night away. It would usually be my group of a handful of us college kids and a bunch of senior citizens. It was awesome. Our particular crew usually consisted of me, several girls that were very inexperienced in dancing, and a few guys that were super shy and not very good who were talked into going against their wills.

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Repentance (for Liberti & my Home Group)

/ Paul Burkhart / 5 Comments

I help lead a home meeting for Liberti Church: Center City. In these home meetings we usually further discuss the sermon from Sunday and try and see what bearing it might have on our everyday life. As most everyone knows, I have started my new job now and had to work last night so I wasn’t able to attend the home group. So, I thought I’d write out my thoughts here.

This post is mainly trying to place this past week’s message in the broader context of our current series “Lent For Everyone”. The first week, we looked at Jesus’ temptations in the desert to show us how we are meant to live life here and now in the “desert” of history — after our freedom from slavery but before the Promised Land (Audio). The second week of Lent Jared preached on how the God of Christianity  is unlike any other god we make, because of his Covenantal character, and how He does not demand that we bound ourselves to Him, but rather He commits Himself to us (Audio). This past week we heard God in Isaiah 55:1-9 invite us toward the gift of repentance, and in that find life (Audio). Next week, he will talk about the celebration this God is actually inviting to take part in (Audio), and in the final week, he will talk about who this King is that has been with us all along (Audio). In our home meeting, we’ve been talking about these ideas and how our sins reveal the true nature of our hearts.

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“Lord have mercy…”

/ Paul Burkhart / 6 Comments

[journal entry dated 2/28/10]

Father? Daddy?

I’m so f—-ed up. That’s just the best phrase for it. It’s Lent. It’s only a week in and I’ve already broken my fast several times. Why? Why can’t I just…stop?

(Okay, I get it.)

The point of giving something up for Lent is not to just “give something up”. At the heart-level it’s supposed to be a sign of devotion to You. That’s what it is at heart. And you know our hearts, Daddy. You know they’re weak. You know they’re willing. I’m willing Father, I’m just so f—-ing weak…

Ha!

I sound like “high-school Paul” all over again with those old Christian flavors of angst and “emo-ness”. I suppose there’s a place for him somewhere in my walk with You. But what is it? I’m not quite sure. But I don’t think he’s supposed to be here right now.

I’m secure. I’m loved. I’m Yours. I’m pleasing to You. I’m approved.

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Some Lord’s Day Meditations on Paul’s Thorn | 2Cor 12:7-11

/ Paul Burkhart / 2 Comments

I’m almost done going through 2 Corinthians, and last night I came across that oh-so-familiar passage of 2 Corinthians 12:7-11:

So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

I thought I’d share some of the things that really spoke to me as I meditated on it:

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