Grace & Truth (& Distractions)

From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
John 1:16-17 (NIV84)

Being a blogger is a lot like being a fisherman—lines in the water all over the place, always fishing for material to share.  I learn a lot.

One of the places I like to go fishing is in podcasts, listening to the likes of William Lane Craig, the scholars at Reasons To Believe, Andy Stanley, and Dick Woodward while commuting.  But this summer I agreed to read straight through the Old Testament, and that meant weeks of listening to the reading of all 39 books.  No podcasts—just reading through the Bible (an essential prerequisite for personal discipleship).

Finally, I reached the end of Malachi and the next day it was time for something new.  I really missed the podcasts, so I pulled out my iPhone and ran through some favorite podcast libraries, settling almost randomly on an Andy Stanley sermon entitled, “When Gracie Met Truthy.”  It’s a really powerful message on what it means to be a ‘Christian’, and I couldn’t wait to share it here on Veracity.

So here you go.  Click on the image below, then click on the video that appears and listen to some very fine homiletics.

Sometimes Less Is More

But…when I sat down to link everything up for this post, a simple Google search produced a lot more than I bargained for.  It turns out this is THE controversial sermon Andy Stanley preached on August 15th, 2012.  You know, the one where he made an illustration about a messy situation involving homosexuality and adultery.  The rocks started flying in the blogosphere, and even some big names weighed in on the attack.

So I went back and listened to the podcast two more times and didn’t hear anything particularly touchy.  Then I watched the video (linked above)—still no brouhaha.  Finally it dawned on me that the podcast and video had been cut and spliced.  (You have to get up pretty early in the afternoon to get ahead of me.)

My prior post was about our responsibility to not get distracted.  Sometimes, less is more.  And that concept works in more ways than one.

I really don’t want to weigh in on the firestorm. This is not a post about homosexuality.  It is simply about grace and truth, and what it means to be a Christian.