Matt Chandler

Matt Chandler is the lead pastor of The Village Church in Highlands Village, Texas. How the Lord brought him to this position is a fascinating story. Chandler is by far my favorite communicator. He has a God given ability to proclaim the gospel of Jesus in a very compelling way. I started listening to him because a friend of mine told me I would like a specific message... long story short... I have listened to ever sermon I can get my hands on. I can say that he has challenged me more than any preacher I have consistently listened to. This clip is from when he spoke @ a Desiring God conference. Listen to this snippet and then go to itunes or The Village website and download his sermons... you won't be sorry.

If you want the message notes CLICK HERE.

Should Christians Concern Themselves with Theology?

When presented with the question... "Should the average Christian care about Theology?" ... J.I. Packer responded with these words...

"A fair question! - but there is, I think, a convincing answer to it. The questioner clearly assumes that a study of the nature and character of God will be unpractical and irrelevant for life. In fact, however, it is the most practical project anyone can engage in. Knowing about God is crucially important for the living of our lives.

As it would be cruel to an Amazonian tribesman to fly him to London, put him down without explanation in Trafalgar Square and leave him, as one who knew nothing of English or England, to fend for himself, so we are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it.

The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place, and life in it a disappointing and unpleasant business, for those who do not know about God. Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfold, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul."

J.I. Packer, Knowing God, p.18-19.

What Translatioin Do You Use?

I have had a couple people ask me why I use the ESV (English Standard Version) translation of the Bible. So I decided to write a post defending why I believe this is the best translation for everyday use.

I believe that the Scriptures are the authoritative, inspired and inerrant Word of God to mankind as revealed in 2 Timothy 3:16, and 2 Peter 1:21. They are altogether lovely, true, precious and unfailing. The Word points to Christ, Who is truth itself, the living Word, and is therefore to be diligently embraced, read, and studied.

There are numerous English translations out there today. These translations are based upon the underlying philosophies and guiding principles of the translators of that particular work. On one end of the translation spectrum are the versions which adopt a “word-for-word” approach while the other end contains those which follow a “thought-for-thought.” For an example of where some common versions fit on this spectrum, please see chart below…



The word-for-word process attempts to render a literal reading of the original languages (Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic), relying on interpretation only when the text demands clarification. The philosophy which drives this approach is that interpretation is the cooperative work of the preacher/teacher and the believer and not necessarily that of the translator. On the other hand, the thought-for-thought process follows a highly interpretive translation procedure, driven by a philosophy of textual simplicity. With this tendency comes a decreased accuracy and faithfulness to the original text and a subsequent loss of many of the rich nuances therein. While the thought-for-thought method retains a high degree of readability, it also carries with it an inherent reliance upon the translator to interpret scripture for the reader.

When I was at Toccoa Falls College, they made us use the NASB in class, which was completely fine. I still typically use the NASB for thorough Biblical study. However, while the NASB served well for serious study, contextual flow was slightly altered, thus rendering it less ideal for the purpose of reading and preaching. Given that the ESV retains the precision and accuracy of the “word-for-word” approach while allowing for a greater degree of clarity of expression, it became the primary teaching/ preaching, and reading text for me.

Therefore, I use the ESV on a daily basis with some reference to the NASB when dealing with the original language or pursing a more in-depth study of the Scriptures.

Though I use the ESV, I do see the value in the thought-for-thought translations and like reading the Message on occasion. However, I would discourage using it to do detailed studies.

We Feel Fine ... Or Do We?

A few months ago I came across a website that I thought was interesting.  I initially learned about this experiment from a video on TED.com.  Basically, two guys named Jonathan Harris & Sepandar Kamvar had an idea to harvest feelings from people all over the world.  So they created http://wefeelfine.org.  This site is an exploration of human emotion on a global scale.

This is how it works... Every few minutes, the system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling."  When it finds such a phrase. it records the full sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.).  Because blogs are structured in largely standard ways, the age, gender, and geographical location of the author can often be extracted and saved along with the sentence, as can the local weather conditions at the time the sentence was written.  All of this information is saved.  

Resulting in a database of several million human feelings, increasing by 15,000 - 20,000 new feelings per day.  Using a series of playful interfaces, the feelings can be searched and sorted across a number of demographic slices, offering responses to specific questions like: do Europeans feel sad more often than Americans?  Do women feel fat more often than men?  Does rainy weather affect how we feel?  What are the most representative feelings of female New Yorkers in their 20's?  Which is the happiest cities in the world?  The saddest?  And so on.

"At its core, We Feel Fine is an artwork authored by everyone.  It will grow and change as we grow and change, reflecting what's on our blogs, what's in our hearts, what's in our minds.  WE hope it makes the world seem a little smaller, and we hope it helps people see beauty in the everyday ups and downs of life" (Josh and Kamvar).

I would encourage everyone to go on this site and simply observe the myriad of emotions documented by people all over the world.  It is truly fascinating to think about what people are going through on a daily basis.  On the other hand, it is so sad to read about how many people are hurting and crying out for someone to just listen.  There are some serious and disturbing entires that I have come across when viewing the site in the past.  For example... at this very moment...

93,390 people feel  - bad

254 - disgusting 

3,182 - dead

4,276 - fat

3,383 - stressed

31,591 - guilty 

17,988 - alone

7,273 - depressed

14,602 - lost

2,897 - ashamed 

This is just a few selections from the numerous emotions being described all over the world via blogs.  You might be wondering why I am so concerned about this... or why I even brought it up.  Well...

Often I get caught up in the Christian subculture that I am constantly surrounded by.  It is so easy to just interact with tother Christians and have friends that share the same belief system... while never reaching out to those who are hurting.  Wefeelfine.org has shown me that there are so many people out there who are hurting and dying inside everyday.  How often do I really listen... really try to interact with people, striving to understand what really is going on it their lives?

I Peter 3:15 says, "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.  But do this with gentleness and respect."  People are hungry for truth, for something real to believe in... for a Savior.  Christ died to set every one of these individuals free... free from guilt... free from anger... free from feeling lost and disgusting.  He shed Hist blood for humanity... so that in Him we can find true hope that surpasses tough days and emotional loneliness.

This has opened my eyes to be on the lookout for people who need someone to listen... someone to empathize with them.  Then... I can share the love of Christ with these hurting people.