Purgos

You may be wondering why I have titled the blog purgos.  It comes from a text in the New Testament that has always meant a great deal to me.  When I was working on my undergraduate degree at what is now Davis College I took homiletics (the science of preaching) from a man I deeply respected.  It was a sort of class/preaching lab, and he let us choose the text we were to preach our first sermon on in this particular class.  I chose one verse, Luke 14:28.  It says,  Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it?

The context surrounding this verse is a strong call to follow Him as a disciple.  He places this metaphor in his challenge and I think it speaks vividly of what we all as believers should desire, namely that our lives would be built into a long-lasting, enduring tower that will radiate His glory for all to see. Purgos, is the term for “tower” in this text. 

Discipleship is in part about counting the cost and in part about perseverance, and I think both of these ideas are caught up in Jesus words in this verse.  Like Eugene Peterson titles his book on the Psalms of ascent, it is “a long obedience in the same direction”.  So then as you can probably see the tagline flows from title.  The process of discipleship, properly understood in a nutshell, is building lives that make God look great.  May we each count the cost of building such a life and may God get the glory and may we share in His joy as we do so.      

This entry was posted on Monday, March 31st, 2008 at 8:51 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.