Chicago Fire: Jesus and a Church Bringing Life to the Dead
The Challenge of Modern Stoicism
Christ’s Power to Resurrect the Dead
The Challenge of Modern Stoicism
We repeat instruction because it is repeated in Scripture.
It is a safeguard (Philippaians 3:1; II Peter 1:12-15; I John 2:21)
Those who start strong but fizzle in the end do so because they do not employ the ways of the Lord
Acts 20:1-6
After the uproar ceased, Paul sent for the disciples, and after encouraging them, he said farewell and departed for Macedonia. When he had gone through those regions and had given them much encouragement, he came to Greece. There he spent three months, and when a plot was made against him by the Jews as he was about to set sail for Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia. Sopater the Berean, son of Pyrrhus, accompanied him; and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy; and the Asians, Tychicus and Trophimus. These went on ahead and were waiting for us at Troas, but we sailed away from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days we came to them at Troas, where we stayed for seven days.
"By flooding the consciousness with gnawing unpleasantness, pain provides a temporary relief from the burdens of self-awareness," researchers who investigated the phenomenon are quoted as saying. "Pain helps consumers create the story of a fulfilled life." -Inc. Magazine article Jack Dorsey Just Said He Sometimes Doesn't Eat for Days. Why Do So Many Founders Like to Torture Themselves?
There's one more possible explanation for the extreme behavior of a strikingly high percentage of successful founders, which comes from the New York Times' Nellie Bowles. Many of these fans of extreme self-deprivation, she points out, are equally enthusiastic followers of the ancient philosophical school of stoicism (though not Dorsey, at least not publicly), which "argued that the only real treasures in life were inner virtues, like self-mastery and courage."
If you're rich and bored and have it all, the only thing left to strive for may be the discipline to not eat or walk barefoot in the snow.
But from Roman times on up to today stoicism has also always been a favorite philosophy of the elite. At least in part that may be because of its relentlessly inward focus. It calls on the individual to shape him or herself to be better, not to shape the world to be better.
"Stoics believed that everything in the universe is already perfect and that things that seem bad or unjust are secretly good underneath. The philosophy is handy if you already believe that the rich are meant to be rich and the poor meant to be poor," Bowles writes.
Christ’s Power to Resurrect the Dead
Acts 20:7-16
On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered. And a young man named Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer. And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. But Paul went down and bent over him, and taking him in his arms, said, “Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.” And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while, until daybreak, and so departed. And they took the youth away alive, and were not a little comforted. But going ahead to the ship, we set sail for Assos, intending to take Paul aboard there, for so he had arranged, intending himself to go by land. And when he met us at Assos, we took him on board and went to Mitylene. And sailing from there we came the following day opposite Chios; the next day we touched at Samos; and the day after that we went to Miletus. For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so that he might not have to spend time in Asia, for he was hastening to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost.
Second City Church - Chicago Fire - Pastor Rollan Fisher 2019