Kevin Stilley

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January 7, 2011 by kevinstilley

Stopped Preaching and Gone To Meddling

When it comes to life transformation, asking the right questions is as important as it is when you are comparing high ticket items for possible purchase, diagnosing an illness, or trying to figure out what’s going on in your teenager’s life.  Here are a few questions for consideration.

Change: Do you get any “alone” time, with no television, music, traffic, etc.?

CHANGE: Could your time with your Lord use some fine-tuning?

CHANGE: Have you been taking care of yourself? Physically, have you had your annual medical check-up? Are you getting appropriate exercise? Are you getting enough sleep? And, of course, with what kind of food are you fueling your body?

CHANGE: Is there a person in your life, be it family or friend, that disagreement, bitterness, or misunderstanding has hindered that relationship? To begin with a clean slate would be a positive change, right?

CHANGE: Have you had an opportunity to step back and look at the way you work, play, worship, plan? What would positive change in any of those areas look like?

CHANGE: If you could hold a mirror up to your life, what one characteristic (not cosmetic) might need some attention — patience, sense of humor, attitude, work ethic, compassion, problem solving, etc.? What? Do you want to see positive change in one of these areas?

CHANGE: Think big. Do you need to make a “major” change? What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

(source: The questions above were adapted from some prepared by H.B. London, Jr.)

Filed Under: Blog, Ethics / Praxis Tagged With: change, Life Coaching, resolutions

January 6, 2011 by kevinstilley

Experiencing True Life

As the New Testament book of 1 Timothy draws to a close Paul tells Timothy that just as there are ideas that are falsely called knowledge, there are people who seem to be “experiencing Life” when it is really nothing more than a masquerade.  Paul wants Timothy and those in his church to “take hold of that life that is truly life” (1Timothy 6:19).  To that end he asks them to consider the content of the letter, lay it alongside their own lives, and use it as a tool for self-evaluation.

Have you gone through a similar process of self-evaluation.  Are you truly experiencing Life, or are you simply going through the motions?

What does it mean to Experience Life?

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

1.  True life is LIFE IN CHRIST.

A.  Have you trusted in Jesus Christ as your personal savior?

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1)

B.  Are you walking in Christ?

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him. (Colossians 2:6)

2.  True life is Life With Others

A.  Jesus intended his followers to live in community.

By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. (John 13:35

B.  Life with others means more than being social, it builds upon a mutual relationship with Christ.

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. (1 Thess. 5:11)

3.  True life is Life Expressed

A.  Jesus did not want his disciples to withdraw from the world, but instead to express their new life in the midst of the world.

B.  Jesus gave his followers a commission that they are to express their lives in such a way that non-believers take notice and to tell them about what it means to Experience Life.

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Mathew 28:19-20)

Do you think you are experiencing true life?  If not, what would it take to do so?

Are you growing in your relationship with Christ?  Are you surrendering to His instruction?

Are you connected in authentic, loving, transformational relationships?

Are you honoring God with all that has been given to you?

Are you taking the message of Christ’s love to a world in need of love?

Are you helping to meet the physical needs of others?

Are you engaged in the life of the church or simply showing up?

Filed Under: Blog, Ethics / Praxis, Spiritual Growth Tagged With: life, Spiritual Growth

December 16, 2010 by kevinstilley

Suggested Discussion Topics: Aristotle, Ethics

1. How does Aristotle apply praxis or practical wisdom to his ethical philosophy? What does the Bible tell us about practical wisdom?

2. How does Aristotle explain the role of ethos or character in his philosophy. How does character develop in the Bible?

3. What is Aristotle’s concept of the soul? How does it compare to the Christian idea of the soul?

4. Why is causation important to Aristotle’s philosophy? How does the Bible explain causation?

5. How did Aristotle influence the self-actualization philosophy of the twentieth century?

6. Explain the ethical system of Aristotle’s Golden Mean. Does it always work? How does the Bible state the golden mean or not?

7. What are Aristotelian virtues? How do they compare with biblical virtues?

8.What does Aristotle believe about free will, voluntary and involuntary actions? How does this concept compare to the biblical concept of free will?

9. How does Aristotle explain habits? What does the Bible tell us about our habits?

10. What is Aristotle’s concept of justice? What is the biblical concept of justice?

11. How does Aristotle see the body’s role, especially in the area of health? What is the biblical view of the body and health?

12. According to Aristotle, why is friendship significant? What is the biblical concept of friendship?

13. What is the final goal of happiness for Aristotle? How is it different from joy and pleasure? What is the Christian principle of happiness, joy, and pleasure?

Filed Under: Blog, Ethics / Praxis, Philosophy Tagged With: Aristotle, Ethics

December 15, 2010 by kevinstilley

Accountability Questions

Looking for questions to discuss with your accountability partner?  Check out these accountability questions from Chuck Swindoll, John Wesley, and H.B. London.

Filed Under: Blog, Ethics / Praxis Tagged With: Accountability, Christian Life, Ethics, sanctification

October 17, 2010 by kevinstilley

Temptation – select quotes

For every great temptation there will be many small ones. Wolves and bears are more dangerous than flies, but we are bothered most by flies.
~ Francis of Sales

The hell to be endured hereafter . . . is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way. Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be none. The drunken Rip van Winkle in Jefferson’s play excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, ‘I won’t count this time!’ Well, we may not count it, and a kind Heaven may not count it, but it is being counted none the less. Down among his nerve-ends and fibers the molecules are counting it, registering it, and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes.”
~ William James, in Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life’s Ideals, page 77

Temptation is not a sin; it is a call to battle.
~ Erwin Lutzer

It is easier to stay out, than to get out.
~ Mark Twain

To what may the Yetzer ha-Ra [Evil Impulse] be compared? To a man who comes to a door, opens it, and if no one halts him, enters as if he were an invited guest. If no one still objects, he gives orders as if he were the master of the house.
~ Talmud, Zohar, v, 267b

Walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.
~ The Bible, Galatians 5:16

Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.
~ The Bible, James 4:7-8a

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Filed Under: Blog, Ethics / Praxis, Front Page, Quotes Tagged With: discipline, Evil Impulse, sin, temptation

July 19, 2010 by kevinstilley

Abortion – select quotes

The wealthy, in order that their inheritance may not be divided among several, deny in the very womb their own progeny. By use of parricidal mixtures the snuff out the fruit of their wombs in the genital organs themselves. In this way life is taken away before it is given.
~ Ambrose of Milan

What reason would we have to commit murder when we say that women who induce abortions are murderers and will have to give account of it to God? For the same person would not regard the fetus in the womb as a living thing and therefore an object of God’s care.
~ Athenagorus of Athens

Moreover, those, too, who give drugs causing abortion are [deliberate murderers] themselves, as well as those receiving the poison which kills the fetus.
~ Basil of Caesarea

Why sow where the ground makes its care to destroy the fruit? where there are many efforts at abortion? where there is murder before the birth? For even the harlot you do not let continue a mere harlot, but make her a murder also…. Why then do you abuse the gift of God, and fight with his law, and follow after what is a curse as if a blessing and make the chamber of procreation as chamber for murder, and arm the woman that was given for childbearing unto slaughter?
~ John Chrysostom

Our whole life can go on in observation of the laws of nature, if we gain dominion over our desires from the beginning and if we do not kill, by various means of a perverse art, the human offspring, born according to the designs of divine providence; for these women who, in order to hide their immorality, use abortive drugs which expel the matter completely dead, abort at the same time their human feelings.
~ Clement of Alexandria

Women, reputed believers, began to resort to drugs for producing sterility, and to gird themselves round, so to expel what was being conceived on account of their not wishing to have a child either by a slave or by any paltry fellow…. Behold, into how great impiety one has proceeded, by inculcating adultery and murder at the same time.
~ Hippolytus

A plant is a plant the moment the seed begins to sprout. It has all that is essential to its nature, not only as a plant, but as a plant of a certain genus or species…. So with regard to every animal. I should suppose it must be granted that it has its specific character from the commencement of its organization. If this is so, why must it not be allowed that the human being is a human being from the beginning? There is no greater difference between the newborn infant and the embryo, than between the infant and a full-grown man. I should say, therefore, that he moment life begins, it is the life of a human creature, having all the essential attributes of such a being…. The human soul, as I understand the matter, has no separate existence (in this world) from the body, nor the body from the soul.
~ Charles Hodge

[They] drink potions to ensure sterility and are guilty of murdering a human being not yet conceived. Some, when they learn they are with child through sin, practice abortion by the use of drugs. Frequently they die themselves and are brought before the ruler of the lower world guilty of three crimes: suicide, adultery against Christ, and murder of an unborn child.
~ Jerome of Bethlehem

Let me put the issue plainly. If the unborn is not a human person, no justification for abortion is necessary. However, if the unborn is a human person, no justification for abortion is adequate.
~ Greg Koukl

But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?
~ Mother Teresa in her National Prayer Breakfast speech in Washington, D.C. on February 3, 1994

Murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy the foetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to the birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in the seed
~ Tertullian

For it was you [God] who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mothers’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.
~ Bible, Psalm 139:13-16

The word of the Lord came to me saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you.
~ Bible, Jeremiah 1:5

Filed Under: Blog, Ethics / Praxis, Quotes Tagged With: abortion, Ethics, morality, murder

December 13, 2009 by kevinstilley

The Sin of Omission

by Margaret E. Sangster

It isn’t the thing you do, dear;
It’s the thing you leave undone,
That gives you a bit of heartache
At setting of the sun.

The tender word forgotten,
The letter you did not write,
The flowers you did not send, dear,
Are your haunting ghosts to-night.

The stone you might have lifted
Out of a brother’s way,
The bit of heartsome counsel
You were hurried too much to say;

The loving touch of the hand, dear,
The gentle and winsome tone,
Which you had no time nor thought for,
With troubles enough of your own.

Those little acts of kindness,
So easily out of mind;
Those chances to be angels
Which every one may find

They come in night and silence
Each chill, reproachful wraith
When hope is faint and flagging
And a blight has dropped on faith.

For life is all too short, dear,
And sorrow is all too great;
To suffer our slow compassion
That tarries until too late;

And it’s not the thing you do, dear,
It’s the thing you leave undone,
Which gives you a bit of heartache
At the setting of the sun.

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Filed Under: Blog, Ethics / Praxis, Front Page Tagged With: good samaritan, ministry, omission, service, sin

December 13, 2009 by kevinstilley

Habit – select quotes

That which has become habitual becomes, as it were, a part of our nature; in fact, habit is something like nature, for the difference between “often” and “always” is not great, and nature belongs tot he idea of “always,” habit to that of “often.”
~ Aristotle, in Rhetorica 1.11

The end of educatin is reasonableness. The first point to note about such reasonableness is that it is a disposition or habit. Habit, not knowledge, is the main thing we take with us from a college education.
~ Brand Blanshard, in The Uses of a Liberal Education: And Other Talks to Students, page 74

Habit becomes a sort of second nature, which supplies a motive for many actions.
~ Cicero, in De Finibus, 5.25.74

Mens natures are alike, it is their habits that carry them apart.
~ Confucius in Analects

A nail is driven out by another nail, habit is overcome by habit.
~ Erasmus, in Diluculum

We sow our thoughts, and we reap our actions;
We sow our actions, and we reap our habits;
we sow our habits, and we reap our characters;
we sow our characters, and we reap our destiny.
~ Charles Albert Hall

The hell to be endured hereafter . . . is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way. Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be none. The drunken Rip van Winkle in Jefferson’s play excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, ‘I won’t count this time!’ Well, we may not count it, and a kind Heaven may not count it, but it is being counted none the less. Down among his nerve-ends and fibers the molecules are counting it, registering it, and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes.”
~ William James, in Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life’s Ideals, page 77

Habit is a cable; we weave a thread of it every day, and at last we can not break it.
~ Horace Mann

Plato did once chide a child for playing with nuts, who answered him, “Thou chidest me for a small matter.” “Habit” (replied Plato) “is no small matter.”
~ Montaigne, in Essays, 1.22

For the ordinary business of life, an ounce of habit is worth a pound of intellect.
~ Thomas B. Reed

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Filed Under: Blog, Ethics / Praxis, Quotes Tagged With: habits., quotations, quote

December 6, 2009 by kevinstilley

Christmas Shopping

I went to Wal-Mart yesterday to grab some Cockatiel food and some soda. As I walked through the front doors I was bombarded by Christmas decorations, Christmas packaging, Christmas mechandising and Christmas marketing. Almost immediately I felt an impulse to buy, buy, buy. It’s beginning to look alot like Christmas means that many people are going to be having those kinds of impulses.

Before doing your Christmas shopping, or succumbing to those impulses, consider the results of a new study conducted by Harris Interactive. According to this study, three out of four adults would prefer to receive a meaningful gift this holiday season that would help someone else instead of a traditional gift like clothing or electronics.

74% of study participants also indicated that they would increase their charitable giving once the economy improves. Given that three out of four adults would rather see gifts go to charity than to themselves, maybe the three out of four adults who want to give more to charity should do so now rather than waiting for the economy to improve. Check out the following video that offers an opportunity to do just that.

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Filed Under: Blog, Ethics / Praxis, Front Page Tagged With: charity, christmas, giving

November 9, 2009 by kevinstilley

Coyote Club

I am so proud of my friends and colleagues who are involved in this tutoring and activity club. What are you doing to show the love of Christ with those who really need it? What will you do?

Moores Video from tiffanydawnsmith on Vimeo.

Filed Under: Blog, Ethics / Praxis, Front Page Tagged With: Community Involvement, social justice

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