The Barnabas Blog

The news has been caught up this week with Wikileaks and its very troubling posting of critical documents concerning the war in Afghanistan. The man in charge of the website is Julian Assange whose decision to release the documents for the whole world to see has placed a number of allies of the United States military at great risk. It is not without reason to believe that it could lead to the death of these Afghani supporters by the Taliban once they have determined their identities. But the greater and more troubling issue is how that Wikileaks obtained the documents. According to the Wall Street Journal Online , it appears that they were helped by Pfc. Bradley Manning who worked on the inside to gain access to these top-secret files who then managed to download them and pass them to Assange. As stated today (7/29/10), the military and government investigators have “concrete evidence” that Manning is the culprit. In observing this story at the periphery during the last week, I ha...

In this series of blogs, we have been entertaining the different aspects of what it means to be in a position where you are “hired” to be holy. The first post was more introductory about the position. The second post dealt with authority and its abuse despite the appearances of being “holy.” This third in the series goes at the opposite end of spectrum by just giving people what they want. Not nearly what they need but what they want. Most have probably heard a variation of the story about the fellow who was walking down the street and saw a sign in the window of a shop that said “Fresh Bread.” When he saw the sign, his mouth began to water as he thought about the fresh baked bread. So despite time constraints, he went in the door of the shop and told the proprietor that he would like some of the fresh bread. The proprietor laughed heartily and told the man, “Sorry, we don’t make bread, we paint signs.” It really wasn’t false advertising because it was indeed a sign company i...

As described yesterday , vocational holiness is the defined boundaries which those men who are in public ministry positions must uphold. There are certain places and things that a pastor cannot do. For instance, I cannot go to one of the local watering holes here in my hometown and say that I am just going to get a Coke. I cannot spend time riding around town with a young attractive twenty-something in my little Civic as this does not fall into the acceptable lines of vocational holiness. I cannot attend events that are unbecoming to the ministry that I am called to fulfill. However, as stated yesterday, this tenor of vocational holiness for ministry leaders can create a host of problems because it causes them to fall into the default mode of holiness by avoidance. Avoidance of certain places, certain people, and certain situations falls far short of God’s high call for holiness. One of the areas that holiness has to prevail is the area of authority. A pastor, who is also consid...

Robert Murray McCheyne —Do not forget the culture of the inner man—I mean of the heart. How diligently the calvary officer keeps his sabre clean and sharp; every stain he rubs off with the greatest care. Remember you are God’s sword, His instrument—I trust a chosen vessel unto Him to bear His name. In great measure, according to the purity and perfections of the instrument, will be the success. It is not great talents God blesses so much as likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God. A few days ago, I was foraging around the house looking for something to read. I wanted something easy that required little thinking on my part, purely entertaining in its content. My eyes caught a Louis L’Amour western entitled Galloway . Although I had read it years ago, I could not remember the plot and so I launched into it. Before too many pages I started tracking along with the story again. Galloway is a member of the famous Sackett family and has a brother nam...