Gospel - Centered Everything

Have You Considered That God Loved You Before Time?

2011-11-26T09:01:00.000-08:00

Remember, that God loved you from before the foundation of the world..It makes the tears run down one's cheeks to think that we should have an interest in that decree and council of the Almighty Three, when every one that should be blood-bought had its name inscribed in God's eternal book. .. He thought of you before you had a being. When as yet the sun and the moon were not,—when the sun, the moon, and the stars slept in the mind of God, like unborn forests in an acorn cup, when the old sea was not yet born, long ere this infant world lay in its swaddling bands of mist, then God had inscribed your name upon the heart and upon the hands of Christ indelibly, to remain forever. And does not this make thee love God?

Charles Spurgeon, Love, A Sermon (No. 229) Delivered on Sabbath Morning, December 19th, 1858, at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

Glory in Our Midst

2011-11-25T12:59:00.000-08:00

I'm enjoying preparing for our Advent Series: "Glory in Our Midst." We will be taking the next four Sundays to examine the truth that Jesus is God's glory in our midst. First we will look at verses 1-3 and learn that He is "Divine Glory in Our Midst." Then, we will look at verses 4-9 and see that He is "The Light of Glory in Our Midst." For December 11th we will look at verses 10-13 and see that we are called to "Receive the Glory in Our Midst." And, finally, on December 18th, we will ponder that we are, "Transformed by the Glory in Our Midst."
There are so many wonderful things in this short section. Perhaps we have read through this too often and missed its riches. One scholar believes it is a beautiful poetic structure called a "Chiasm." Whether or not the Apostle John intended this isn't clear but we can certainly see the beauty of the structure of this passage in this Chiasm. Check out this diagram of the chiastic structure:

Looking forward to learning together from this fantastic section of God's word!

Word Cloud for Philippians

2011-10-20T14:19:00.000-07:00

Check out this word cloud (Wordle) for the entire book of Philippians (ESV)!

And in Koine Greek:

The Word Preached - Thomas Watson

2011-10-13T04:17:00.001-07:00

A godly man loves the Word preached, which is a commentary upon the word written. The Scriptures are the sovereign oils and balsams; the preaching of the word is the pouring of them out. The Scriptures are the precious spices; the preaching of the Word is the beating of these spices, which causes a wonderful fragrance and delight. The Word preached is 'the rod of God's strength' (Psalm 110:2) and 'the breath of his lips' (Isaiah 11:4).

Taken from the book The Godly Man's Picture by Thomas Watson 1666

A Carnal Heart, A gracious Heart - Jeremiah Burroughs

2011-10-12T05:49:00.000-07:00

A carnal heart thinks, I must have my wants made up or else it is impossible that I should be content. But a gracious heart says, 'What is the duty of the circumstances God has put me into?"

Taken from the book The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment
By Jeremiah Burroughs 1648

True Faith - DL Moody

2011-10-11T03:54:00.000-07:00

True faith is man's weakness leaning on God's strength. When man has no strength, and he leans on God, he becomes powerful. The trouble is that we have too much strength and confidence in ourselves.

Taken from the book The Way to God by DL Moody 1837-1899

The Beginning of Warfare - John Owen

2011-10-07T09:12:00.001-07:00

To labour to be acquainted with the ways, wiles, methods, advantages and occasions of (sins) success, is the beginning of warfare. So do men deal with enemies. They inquire out their counsels and designs, ponder their ends, consider how and by what means they have formerly prevailed, that they may get the start of them.

Taken from the book The Mortification of Sin by John Owen 1656

A.W. Tozer on Treasure

2011-10-07T09:07:00.001-07:00

"The man who has God for his treasure has all things in one." A.W. Tozer - @Grace_Quotes

Where God Dwells - Psalm 132 (ESV)

2011-08-17T07:53:00.000-07:00

A "Wordle" of Psalm 132 from the ESV:

Do Christians Have to Go to Church?

2011-07-14T10:35:00.000-07:00

Check out this helpful video taken from Justin Taylor's blog

Pastor Mike McKinley, author of Am I Really a Christian?

Do Christians have to join a church? from Crossway on Vimeo.

Songs for the Journey

2011-06-09T12:02:00.000-07:00

Right now we are going through Psalms 120-134, the Psalms labeled, "Songs of Ascents". These are Psalms used by Old Testament believers as they journeyed towards Jerusalem, the special place where God and his people dwelt together.

We, too, are on a journey, making our way to our final home when we will dwell with God and his people forever. These wonderful Psalms instruct and inspire us along the journey.

Click on this graphic to enjoy a "Wordle" word cloud of Psalms 120-134:

Make Every Effort

2011-06-09T06:37:00.000-07:00

Great post from Kevin DeYoung on the place of effort in the Christian life. It is so important to enjoy and rely on grace but not think that this means we are to be simply passive. Here are some excerpts:

Make Every Effort
Count the letters carefully: effort is not a four letter word. Even those who believe in blood-bought, Christ-wrought, undeserved, sovereign, gospel grace do not despise effort in the Christian life. How can we? 2 Peter 1:5 tells us to “make every effort.”

Of course, anyone familiar with this passage will remember that the effort enjoined by Peter is God-graced effort. Verse 3 says we have divine power through “knowledge of him.” Verse 4 says we can become “partakers of the divine nature” through “his precious and very great promises.” Verse 5 harnesses these twin turbines of Spirit energy when it says “For this very reason, make every effort.” In other words, Peter holds up a pattern of godliness–increasing faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly affection, and love. This pattern relies on gospel power. And the gospel-powered pattern requires effort....

Christians work–they work to kill sin and they work to live in the Spirit. They have rest in the gospel, but never rest in their battle against the flesh and the devil. As J.C. Ryle put it, the child of God has two great marks about him: he is known for his inner warfare and his inner peace....

But let us not misunderstand what it means to be gospel-centered. As gospel Christians, we are not afraid of striving, fighting, and working. These are good Bible words. The gospel that frees us from self-justification also frees us for obedience. In fact, 1 Corinthians 6 and Galatians 5 and 1 John and Revelation 21 and a dozen other passages make clear that when we have no obedience to show for our gospel profession, our conduct shows we have not understood the gospel....

When it comes to growth in godliness, trusting does not put an end to trying.

Read the whole thing here: Make Every Effort

Happy Maundy Thursday!

2011-04-21T12:11:00.000-07:00

Sound funny to you? It sounds almost like we are saying “Happy Monday Thursday.” Ever wondered what “Maundy” means? The word “Maundy” comes from the same root as “mandate”. The reason it is called, “Maundy Thursday” is because it was on the Thursday of Holy Week when Jesus gave his new mandate, or, new commandment:

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35 ESV)

Jesus gave this commandment in the context of the last supper where he had washed the disciples feet. It is amazing that Jesus Christ, the Holy One become a man, the rightful King of all and, the one to whom we all owe perfect worship, would lower himself to act like an abased servant and wipe the muck and filth from the feet and toes of his disciples. Furthermore, we know that his love led him even to do more than wash feet. On the next day, Good Friday, he bore the sins, the countless, horrific sins, of his people, on the cross. He did this in amazing humility and love. He did it to bear the just wrath of God for your sins and mine. He did it to forever wash us from the muck and filth of our sin. There is no greater love than this.

So, today, on Maunday Thursday, let’s remember the amazing love of the Savior and find ourselves profoundly grateful, rejuvenated and freshly eager to obey his new commandment - his mandate – to love like he does.

Happy Maundy Thursday!

Paul

My Hero

2011-03-22T07:15:00.000-07:00

John W. Buckley

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BUCKLEY, John W. Of Wellesley, 75, passed on peacefully March 13, 2011 while vacationing in Naples, Florida after a courageous battle with cancer. He is survived by his beloved wife of 52 years, Donna (Fitzgerald); his daughter Sheila and husband Lance Tucker, their children Victoria and Emma; his son Michael and wife Karen, their children Brendan, Joseph, and Susanna; his son Paul and wife Margaret, their children Daniel, Caleb, John, and Mary; his son Matthew and wife Ann, their son Noah; and sister and brother-in-law, Claire and Terence O'Shea. He was preceded in death by his parents, John and Winifred, siblings Margaret (Santagate), Thomas, Catherine, and Eleanor (Couture). John was raised in Brighton, MA where he was an all-scholastic athlete at Brighton High School and later graduated from Northeastern University. After serving his country as an Army officer, he had a long career with the Raytheon Company retiring in 1992 as a highly honored engineer and executive. He was a devoted husband, father, friend and faithful member and Eucharistic Minister of St. John the Evangelist Parish, Wellesley. He enjoyed golf, tennis, bridge, fishing, puzzles, the vacation home he built, his friends, and, most of all, time with his family. His steady love, unique humor, genuine faith, and constant devotion will be sadly missed by so many. A Memorial Mass will be celebrated on Wednesday, March 23rd, 10AM at St. John the Evangelist Parish, Wellesley. Visitation will be on Tuesday, March 22nd, 4-8PM at Henry J. Burke & Sons Funeral Home, 56 Washington St., Wellesley. Memorial gifts may be made to St. John's Discretionary Fund, St. John the Evangelist Parish, 9 Glen Rd., Wellesley, MA, 02481. Henry J. Burke & Sons Funeral Home www.BurkeFamilyFuneralHomes.com

John W. Buckley Obituary: View John Buckley's Obituary by The Boston Globe

Parenting: The Joyful Impossibility

2011-01-11T09:17:00.000-08:00

Paul David Tripp has been so helpful to us in parenting - not only helping us actually parent better but also helping us pay attention to our own hearts in parenting. I recommend reading everything you can find by him. Here is a portion of a recent article from the Gospel Coalition site.

Parenting: The Joyful Impossibility
It was eleven o’clock on a Sunday night, and I was pulling out of the grocery store parking lot exhausted and overwhelmed. After we had put our four children to bed, later than we had planned, Luella discovered that we had nothing in the house to pack for lunches the next day. With an attitude that couldn’t be described as joy, I got in the car and did the late-night food run. As I waited for the light to change so I could leave the parking lot and drive home, it all hit me. It seemed like I had been given an impossible job to do; I had been chosen to be the dad of four children.

It is humbling and a bit embarrassing to admit, but I sat in my car and dreamed of what it would be like to be single. No, I didn’t want to actually leave Luella and my children, but parenting seemed overwhelming at that point. I felt like I had nothing left to face the next day of a thousand sibling battles, a thousand authority encounters, a thousand reminders, a thousand warnings, a thousand corrections, a thousand discipline moments, a thousand explanations, a thousand times of talking about the presence and grace of Jesus, a thousand times of helping the children to look in the mirror of God’s Word and see themselves with accuracy, a thousands “please forgive me’s,” and a thousand “I love you’s.” It seemed impossible to be faithful to the task and have the time and energy to anything else...... Read the rest here: Parenting: The Joyful Impossibility

A Must Read for All Those Concerned for Our Nation's Critical Marriage Debate *

2011-01-05T06:50:00.000-08:00

Do you want to be salt and light in a culture confused about truth? One of the most significant ways to do this is to be informed and equipped for the nation-wide discussion of the nature of marriage. The conclusions to this discussion will drastically determine the future of our country because the nature of the debate goes to the roots of law, justice, family, society and morality.

For starters, check out this excellent presentation by Robert P. George, Ryan T. Anderson and Sherif Girgis, “What Is Marriage?” published in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.

You can also follow the inevitable counter arguments and debate here:

“The Argument Against Gay Marriage: And Why It Doesn’t Fail” (first response to Professor Yoshino)
“Marriage: Merely a Social Construct?” (Response to Northwestern Law Professor Andy Koppelman)
“Marriage: Real Bodily Union” (Response to Family Scholars blogger Barry Deutsch)
“Marriage: No Avoiding the Central Question” (Response to second Yoshino piece)

Stay informed and equipped to be salt and light!

* HT & Sources: Justin Taylor

Enjoy the Silent Singing Monks

2010-12-31T08:34:00.000-08:00

This is funny and very well done!

HT: Kevin DeYoung

The Digital Story of the Nativity

2010-12-24T07:19:00.000-08:00

How the Nativity might have been if the internet were around in the ancient near east!

Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

Leo Harrington

2010-12-17T13:56:00.000-08:00

Leo on the day he joined King of Grace church.

Leo Harrington went on to be with the Lord this past Wednesday afternoon after a sudden illness. It was very sad to see him pass so suddenly and the memory of his last days with his wife Maureen by his side will remain with me. But most of all I will remember the life of this man. I met Leo when he attended our Alpha course in 2007. We co-hosted that year with our friends at Ward Hill Church. Leo and his wife came because of their long-standing relationship with Pastor Alex Burgess and Maureen's recent friendship with my wife, Peg. They came and sat through the talks and Leo listened and wrestled with the truths of Christianity. As the course progressed, God gently drew Leo to himself out of the Jehovah Witness background that had painted such a wrong picture of Christianity for Leo into the wonderful grace and glory of God in Christ. Leo was baptized in January, 2008 and joined our church shortly after that. He was so grateful to be rescued from his sins and adopted into God's family and it showed. He was always eager to be there for worship on Sunday and loved being around his friends and church family and worshiping with us in song and the word. I can still see his smiling face and hear his eager appeals to help him learn more about God. Amidst his battles with sickness, he somehow found the energy to help take care of our church building. He and his wife were such a part of the life of our church family - many in our church befriended Leo and Maureen and will miss him so very much.

Leo being prayed for at his baptism.

Please come join us at King of Grace Church, Tuesday, December 21st from 3-6:30 for his viewing and at 7 pm for his funeral celebration. We will take time to remember his life and celebrate the blessing he has been. And we will commit him to his Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ who died for his sins and rose to life for his justification. Because of the Good Shepherd, Leo is in God's presence right now having the very best Christmas ever. We are so grateful for him and for the new life in Christ his Savior has given him.

Come to celebrate and say good bye to our friend.

Viewing: 3-6:30 pm, Tuesday, Dec 21st

Funeral: 7 pm, Tuesday, Dec 21st

King of Grace Church

28 Chadwick St.

Bradford, MA 01835
(978) 374-6562

Graveside Service:

12 pm, Wednesday, Dec 22nd

Westlawn Cemetery

7 New Estate Road

Littleton, MA
(978) 540-2480

Donations made be made to cover funeral expenses to King of Grace Church, attn. Leo Harrington (or you can use this PayPal button.)

Some New England Phrases

2010-10-06T18:02:00.000-07:00

I love how New Englanders speak. There are so many unique phrases that are endearing. Due perhaps to television and other media the New England dialect is morphing into something sounding more like the Midwest or Southwest dialect. But for now, here are some phrases to enjoy, some taken from the Wicked Good Guide to Boston English by Adam Gaffin.

"So don't I" - A negative positive, usually said elsewhere as "So do I."
"Ghoulsticka" - somebody who stays close to home base in a game of Hide-And-Go-Seek.
"Ollie Ollie In Come Free" - what the ghoulsticka says when he beats the seeker to the ghouls.
"Light dawns ova Mahblehead" - an epiphany of an obvious truth.
"No-Suh"...."Yes-Suh" - What is said in an argument after nothing else works.
"Wicked Good" - extremely good but better.
"I hosie that chair" - that chair is mine because I spoke first.
"Down Cellah" - located in the basement.

Do you know any other "New England-isms"?

Another Great Book from John Piper

2010-10-01T06:20:00.000-07:00

This looks like a must have!

Get it here, or here.

Why We Share the Truth and Love of Christ with a Disillusioned World

2010-09-30T07:06:00.000-07:00

Warning: This material is very somber and intense, but a sober reminder of the reality of life without the purpose we can only receive from an infinite, wise and all-good God.

What he left behind: A 1,905-page suicide note
By David Abel , Boston Globe Staff

In the end, no one really knows what led Mitchell Heisman, an erudite, wry, handsome 35-year-old, to walk into Harvard Yard on the holiest day in his faith and fire one shot from a silver revolver into his right temple, on the top step of Memorial Church, where hundreds gathered to observe the Jewish Day of Atonement.

But if the 1,905-page suicide note he left is to be believed — a work he spent five years honing and that his family and others received in a posthumous e-mail after his suicide last Saturday morning on Yom Kippur — Heisman took his life as part of a philosophical exploration he called “an experiment in nihilism.’’.....

“Every word, every thought, and every emotion come back to one core problem: life is meaningless,’’ he wrote. “The experiment in nihilism is to seek out and expose every illusion and every myth, wherever it may lead, no matter what, even if it kills us.’’

Over the years, as he became more immersed in his work, often laboring over it 12 hours a day, Heisman shared bits with friends and family but never elaborated on the extent of his nihilism — his hardened view that life is vapid and nonsensical, that values are pretense, that the “unreasoned conviction in the rightness of life over death is like a god or a mass delusion.’’.....

As his sister, Laurel Heisman, spent last week sifting through what remains of his things — a poster in German, a well-made bed, piles of books in a small room shrouded with a dark curtain — she said she received a separate, posthumous note from him asking that she preserve a website he created to publish his book, a burden she has agreed to bear.

“I love you,’’ he wrote to her.
She wishes she could have made him see more of the beauty of life, and how we create our own value and give our own meaning to life. She might have taken him up a mountain or held him more closely.
“He just told us the safe things, because he knew we would have tried to stop him,’’ she said. “It’s really hard. It’s not like someone who was really depressed because they lost a lover. His whole ideology was wrapped in this concept of nihilism. I wish we could have made him see things differently.’’

Read the whole article here.

HT: Dave Herring

How to Name a Church

2010-09-29T13:12:00.000-07:00

Jared Bridges has a really funny post on naming a church. It looks like we are somewhat safe from his satire with a name like, "King of Grace Church", but perhaps not. Enjoy these excerpts:

While there’s ample biblical precedent for the naming of animals, textual support for the naming of a church is scant.Thankfully, we evangelicals (who are typically disoriented without written instruction) have found a way to remedy this. I’m not sure as to the origins of the method, but the system below can account for approximately 83.585 percent of all evangelical churches. It’s really a rather simple process.
STEP ONE: Start with the list of words below:
Grace
Life
Community
Covenant
Fellowship
Creek
Calvary
Fire
River
Road
Word
Bible
Memorial
Chapel
Spirit
Faith
Cross
Hope
Light
Redeemer
First
Of course, one could readily add the word “Pointe” into the mix above, but by all means, make sure that the trailing “e” is in place if you want to look like a bona fide evangelical church. Otherwise, congregants might miss the “point.”
STEP TWO: Take any combination of the words listed above, in any order, add to them your denominational (or lack thereof) appellation, and tack on the word “Church” at the end.......Voila! Your church now has a name.

Read the whole article here.

A Christian and An American?

2010-09-22T08:22:00.000-07:00

Collin Hansen has an excellent post, Pay Your Taxes But Put Your Trust in Christ, discussing a Christian's approach to government and politics. Much of what he says is taken from a sermon given by Mark Dever. Having a clear and biblically informed understanding of citizenship is so important as we live in this world awaiting Jesus' return.

Here are some excerpts:

Lincoln Memorial
Enjoying a sunny fall day, I walked around the National Mall on Saturday afternoon. Before visiting any other favorite sites, I ascended the temple steps where Father Abraham presides on his throne over American civil religion. ......
Only three weeks earlier self-appointed political prophet Glenn Beck claimed Lincoln’s imprimatur by packing these same steps for a rally. But religious nationalists who invoke America’s greatest president never seem to understand the irony of his memory. The man who saved the Union understood that God transcends and judges it. God’s ways often surpass our understanding. We cannot manipulate him to baptize our pet causes..... Jesus Christ didn’t robe himself in an American flag...........

I heard from senior pastor Mark Dever the best sermon I know on Christianity and government ^[3].......In these days of overheated rhetoric and protest rallies, I pray that evangelicals will set aside 70 minutes to listen to Dever’s sermon. Much of the wisdom expressed here echoes the forthcoming book City of Man: Religion and Politics in a New Era ^[7], written by Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner, with a foreword by Tim Keller. We need to hear from the best evangelical thinkers about a faithful, biblical approach to politics. Perhaps I can help the cause by summarizing four pages of notes I scribbled from Dever’s sermon.

Mark Dever
Jesus Paid Taxes
....Jesus regarded the pagan state as legitimate when he said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” (Mark 12:17). The answer stunned the Herodians and Pharisees, because whatever their differences, Israel and Rome both derived their legitimacy by divine appeals.Human government is deeply biblical.....Government is not specifically Christian, but it is good. Certainly order is better than organizing society around unfettered self-interest.......In his second point, Dever argued that no earthly kingdom can be identified with God’s people. Christians are international. With his answer, Jesus unhitched God’s people from any one government, severing the national covenant that extended all the way back to Moses. If followers of Jesus could support Rome with their taxes, which government today—no matter how corrupt—can’t Christians support? “Christians are, by God’s grace, cockroaches,” Dever said. “We can survive anything.”.....With his third and final point, Dever argued that Christians are finally accountable to God. Many remember that Jesus told the Pharisees and Heroadians, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” Not so many remember that Jesus ended his teaching by saying we should render “to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17).

.....If Romans 13 calls Christians to obey government, then Revelation 13 illustrates what happens when the state rebels against God. No government commands the Christian’s unqualified support....

If we were ever tempted to invest our hope in the state, we should remember that Americans live in a country where spanking children is suspect but aborting children is okay. ....

Let us give to God what is God’s, Dever exhorted. Everything is God’s. Let us pay our taxes. But even more, let us trust in Christ.

You can read the whole article here.

A Christian Nation?

2010-09-22T07:52:00.000-07:00

Joe Carter's post, Founding Believers, discusses the religious persuasion of some of the founding fathers. It is important for us to understand that many were not orthodox Christians but Deists. While Christianity has had a strong influence on our country we must never think that it is or ever has been a "Christian nation" in the true sense of the word.

Here are some excerpts from the post:

What were the religious beliefs of the founding fathers? That question is at the heart of many of the most contentious debates about the role of religion in the American public square. Countless arguments are centered on claims that the founders were either God-fearing Christians or Deistically-inclined secularists.....

David L. Holmes, a professor of religious studies at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, provides a useful methodology for examining the relevant evidence in his book, The Faiths of the Founding Fathers. Holmes offers four types of evidence that can help us discern whether a Revolutionary-era political leader was a Deist, an orthodox Christian, or something in between:

1. Examine the actions of the founding father in the area of religion (e.g., Did they attend church regularly?).

2. Examine the participation of the founding father in a church’s ordinances or sacraments (e.g., Did they have their children baptized? Did they take Holy Communion?).

3. Comparison of inactivity versus activity in regards to religious involvement.

4. Examine the religious language used by the founding father.

Using these criteria, Holmes claims that the religious beliefs of the founding fathers can be broadly classified as: Non-Christian Deists who rejected all sacraments and rarely attended church services’ Deistic Christians/Unitarians who held Deistic beliefs, attended church regularly, but rejected the Lord’s Supper and confirmation;. and Orthodox Christians who accepted orthodox Christian beliefs, attended church regularly, and participated in the sacraments and ordinances......

Applying the method to other founding fathers, the list could be roughly delineated as:

Non-Christian Deists: Thomas Paine, Ethan Allen.

Deistic Christians/Unitarians: Ben Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe.

Orthodox Christians: Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, John Jay, Elias Boudinot, John Witherspoon.....

Most—whether they were non-Christian Deists or Deistic Christians—appear to have been held to the classic “five points of Deism”: (1) There is a God; (2) He ought to be worshiped; (3) Virtue is the principle element in this worship; (4) Humans should repent of their sins; and (5) There is life after death, where the evil will be punished and the good rewarded.

The views of the Deistic founding fathers would have been as repugnant to the modern secularist as those of the so-called Religious Right. The founding believers considered belief in a deity to be necessary for good citizenship, believed in intelligent design, had few qualms about establishment of state churches, and took a low view of atheists. They might not pass muster as orthodox Christians, but if they were around today they would considered theocrats.

Regardless of what was believed at the time of the founding, our country is not a “Christian nation” but rather, as the Baptist theologian Albert Mohler duly notes, “a nation of Christians.” America, he argues, “is not Christian by constitutional provision or creedal affirmation—but its people are overwhelmingly Christian by self-affirmation. Thoughtful evangelicals will not overestimate the convictional character of this self-identification. Secularists ought not to overestimate its superficiality.”

Read the whole article here.

Some Laugh Out Loud Humor from Brian Regan

2010-09-16T06:55:00.000-07:00

Oh how good it can be to laugh out loud..

HT: Kevin DeYoung

Got Humility?

2010-09-15T09:56:00.000-07:00

Not yet, really? Me neither....but we can keep learning by listening in on this excellent discussion on biblical humility between James MacDonald and C.J. Mahaney. via the Gospel Coalition blog.

You can also learn more from CJ's book, Humility:True Greatness.

Have you heard of humble orthodoxy?

2010-09-07T07:09:00.000-07:00

Check out this video by Bobby Shook based on a quote from page 225 of the Humble Orthodoxy chapter of Josh Harris' book, Dug Down Deep:

DugDownDeep_Shook.mov from Covenant Life Church on Vimeo.

Should We Emphasize The Cross vs. the Resurrection?

2010-09-03T13:36:00.000-07:00

Please take some time to read these excellent posts by Jeff Purswell, dean of Sovereign Grace Ministries Pastors College. Here's an index to the questions and Jeff's answers:

You can read all the posts in a PDF document here.

Reproduced from Tony Reinke's post.

A "Rant" on Worship Songs

2010-09-03T07:23:00.000-07:00

Check out what Jeremy Pierce hates about some worship songs in his post, "Rant About Worship Songs". (Warning: Be prepared for some tongue-in-cheek commentary.)

HT: Justin Taylor

What is a Hyper-Calvinist?

2010-09-03T06:45:00.000-07:00

Do you know the difference between "Calvinism" and "Hyper-Calvinism"? It is a very important distinction that is all too often confused.


Charles Spurgeon (via Adrian Warnock)

Iain Murray's book, "Spurgeon vs. Hyper-Calvinism", looks at Charles Spurgeon's struggles with the Hyper-Calvinists of his day. This book has been immensely helpful to me in navigating this important distinction and avoiding the serious errors of Hyper-Calvinism. Take a look at Ray Ortlund's summary from this book on his post, "Spurgeon vs. Hyper-Calvinism". I think it will help you avoid the danger of Hyper-Calvinism.

Here is an excerpt:

“Genuine evangelical Christianity is never of an exclusive spirit. Any view of the truth which undermines catholicity has gone astray from Scripture.” Spurgeon regretfully disagreed with hyper-Calvinists who “made faith in election a part of saving faith and thus either denied the Christianity of all professed Christians who did not so believe or at least treated such profession with much suspicion.”...... “This controversy directs us to our need for profound humility before God. It reminds us forcefully of questions about which we can only say, ‘Behold, God is great, and we know him not’ (Job 36:26).” “It is to be feared that sharp contentions between Christians on these issues have too often arisen from a wrong confidence in our powers of reasoning and our assumed ability to draw logical inferences.”.......... “The final conclusion has to be that when Calvinism ceases to be evangelistic, when it becomes more concerned with theory than with the salvation of men and women, when acceptance of doctrines seems to become more important than acceptance of Christ, then it is a system going to seed and it will invariably lose its attractive power.”

Read the rest here.

HT: Peggy Buckley :)

The Gospel Song Animated

2010-09-02T08:36:00.000-07:00

Check out this nice animation of "The Gospel Song":

HT: Dot Montague & Bob Kauflin

Do You Love God or Do You Just Love Thinking About God?

2010-07-14T06:53:00.000-07:00

Some wisdom from John Piper:

HT:Justin Taylor

Grace - Driven Marriage

2010-07-03T08:40:00.000-07:00

Some excellent biblical truth and insightful application on grace-driven marriage from Jared Wilson. Here are some excerpts:

Steps to Grace-Driven Marriage
What I mean by a marriage that is grace-driven is a marriage in which one or both parties have been captured by the grace of God in the atoning work and resurrection of Jesus Christ and therefore seek to glorify God in Christ in Spiritual power through the daily "drudgery" of their marriage. The chief step to this reality is believing the gospel.

In Ephesians 5:21-25, Paul writes:

. . . submitting to one another out of reverence to Christ. Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her . . .

There is a snapshot of what a grace-driven marriage looks like. Its central theme is the Person of Jesus, and the dynamic of "mutual submission" to each other's needs is chiefly about reverence for him.

The wife shows reverence for Christ in her submission to her husband. Submission to his headship is an act of grace to him, reflective of the grace given to her by God. She can demonstrate this grace-driven submission in many ways, but here are three:

1. Respecting him verbally and publicly. Men are terrible mind-readers and context-clue-picker-uppers, not because they're stupid but just because of the way they're wired. They need to hear that they're respected, as well as shown. They need to be verbally encouraged, and even if a wife finds opportunities to publicly praise her husband difficult to come by, she can "settle" for not criticizing him in front of others or bringing disagreements/difficulties between the two of them into public conversations. This shames a husband and is a sabotage act of legalistic leverage, not grace. ...... Read More

Husbands, your call to grace in your marriage to your wife is deeper and more demanding. It is nothing less than self-crucifixion in "reverencing" your wife as you would reverence yourself. Her call is to submission; your call is to sacrifice. Here are three practical ways to love your wife as Christ loved the church.

1. Honor her by way of priority. Put her first. Above yourself, above your kids. Make her fulfillment the gauge of your success. Do not coast. There is no autopilot setting for husbanding. If you fail to take the initiative in loving and respecting -- verbally, actively, constantly -- you implicitly take responsibility for your marriage going over the cliff. Treat your wife as precious. She is not your employee. Do not exploit her submission, and do not abdicate your responsibility if she neglects hers. Do not grow weary in an effort to present her pure and spotless before the Lord. Passivity is masculinity at its most fallen.

2. Talk! Christ engaged the Church; he put skin on and communed with her. He dines with her, speaks with her, sings over her, delights in her. Open your mouth and talk to your wife. Ask her how she feels. Ask her what she needs/wants. Ask her what her dreams/struggles/fears/concerns/entertainments are. Be her friend. ....... Read More

HT: Peggy Buckley :)

CJ Mahaney Impersonation

2010-06-30T12:45:00.000-07:00

Check out this very funny impersonation of our friend CJ Mahaney done by Jonathan Rourke at the 2010 Resolve Conference.

Jonathan Rourke as CJ Mahaney from Resolved on Vimeo.

HT: Bob Kauflin

Calvinist, Arminian, Pelagian or Something Else? Who Cares?

2010-06-24T12:18:00.000-07:00

I have enjoyed reading and learning about the various Christian viewpoints on the atonement and how God accomplishes salvation for mankind. Recently Justin Taylor posted "A Primer on Limited (or Definite) Atonement". Please take some time to read his thoughtful post and, also, take some time to read Bruce Ware's outline here as starting points.

Sometimes in light of these historical controversies we say, "If all these smart people haven't figured it out why should I try?" Please don't do that - it is unhelpful. I think we could apply the same logic to just about every controversy - filet mignon vs. cheeseburgers, Red Sox vs. Yankees, Republicans vs. Democrats, Christian vs. Atheist - no matter what opinion we have on anything smart people will disagree. That doesn't mean the truth is unknowable.

May I suggest an alternative? Take some time to get to the bottom of why these smart people disagree. You might be surprise how well you understand the differences and how clearly you are able to form your own opinion. I think in the area of the Calvinist-Arminian debate the 'bottom' is the understanding of what God's priorities are in arranging how he would work out the salvation of the lost. Theologians call this the 'Order of God's Decrees'. Most likely you already have an opinion on these "decrees' whether you are aware of it or not.

Here is a neat table from Theopedia that outlines these different understandings in the Order of God's Decrees. I think you will see how and why Calvinist's (those to the left of Arminian), Arminians and the rest differ on salvation based on this table. I think this might clarify where you stand and why.

Once you have studied it consider what you think. What does the bible best support? You can find biblical arguments for each one. Take time to sort through these, recognizing there are some significant differences between them. How you live your life can vary significantly according to your particular understanding.

Ultimately, God has an opinion on these - let us trust Him and seek His truth. Where things are clear, as God has made them so, let us stand firm, where they are unclear, as God has allowed them to be, let us be charitable and patient.

FYI: I come out in the Infralapsarian-Supralapsarian range. I think this best represents God's revelation in scripture. How about you?

D.A. Carson - One of My Favorite Living Pastor-Theologians

2010-06-23T09:32:00.000-07:00

One of my very favorite living pastor-theologians is D.A. Carson. He is an unusual combination of a world-class biblical scholar,a very wise and insightful apostolic-type leader who approaches things with a pastor's perspective and heart. I have benefited tremendously from his books, sermons and his devotional, "For the Love of God".

I highly recommend listening to some of the 200 or so of his sermons on the Gospel Coalition site. Check out the D.A, Carson sermon archive here and enjoy!

Andrea Bocelli's Beautiful Story

2010-06-04T12:25:00.000-07:00

A Beautiful true story from Andrea Bocelli.

HT: Tim Challies via Bob Kauflin.

Are You Contemporvant?

2010-05-22T12:57:00.000-07:00

Thought you might enjoy this humorous critique. Better yet, read Bob Kauflin's thoughtful post on it here.

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

Want to Be a More Radical Christian? A Review of "Radical" by David Platt

2010-05-21T13:16:00.000-07:00

I just went through David Platt's book, "Radical" in one wonderful sitting. I had first heard young Dr. Platt at the Together for the Gospel Conference back in April, 2010. I was very encouraged and challenged by his message, An Unadjusted Gospel in an Unreached World: Connecting Gospel Theology with Urgent Missiology. This great book was more of the same. I hope I am able to similarly lead King of Grace Church in living radically for Christ and his gospel.

Rather than having me produce another review, take some time at Discerning Reader to read this review of "Radical" excerpted below:

Radical
Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream

Reviewed 04/28/2010 by John Bird.

Recommended. A clarion call to live radically for Jesus Christ. But if you read it, will you?
David Platt has a burden—a burden to see believers in America acting like New Testament Christians. But for the most part, he says we're not. Instead, we are pursuing the "American dream" rather than Jesus. Jesus told his disciples not to lay up treasures on earth. They were to take up their crosses. They were to live for others. They were to be willing to die for others. But we live for ourselves. We live for security, for comfort, for ease, for entertainment, and for retirement.
With the best of intentions, we have actually turned away from Jesus. We have in many areas blindly and unknowingly embraced values and ideas that are common in our culture but are antithetical to the gospel he taught.
And, according to Platt, it's not just individual Christians embracing flawed values. Churches in America spend billions of dollars to build extravagant kingdoms and then praise themselves for sending a few thousand dollars to missions, while millions around the world are starving to death without ever hearing the gospel. Platt calls this lack of concern for the poor a "blind spot" in American Christianity. And it's a blind spot that should concern us: "If our lives do not reflect radical compassion for the poor, there is reason to wonder if Christ is really in us at all."....

In the end, Platt challenges readers to the one-year "Radical Experiment." This experiment involves five components meant to "radically alter the remainder of your life." My excitement built as I drew nearer to the final chapter. I imagined being called to martyrdom. I was nervous. "Can I do this? What will it cost? What will my wife say?" But when I got there, it was anticlimactic. Platt doesn't ask me to die, or even to sell my house. What he does ask is easier, something I can actually do. But the question remains: "Will I?" And as I consider the challenge, I realize that, in this selfish culture, it is radical. Indeed, to live as Christ calls His disciples to live is, in any culture, radical.

Get it for yourself and become 'Radical'.

Christian Hedonism Applied

2010-05-12T12:59:00.000-07:00

Came across an excellent post by Douglas Wilson on the need to pursue our satisfaction in God across a comprehensive spectrum of life. Check out these excerpts:

The first thing to note is that John Piper has done the Church a valuable service in establishing the inescapability of hedonism in the well-tempered service of God. The point is hard for many Christians to swallow, but it is equally hard to avoid. On this subject, I would refer anyone with questions about it to the basic Piper corpus.

But once we have jackhammered up the foundation of dour stoicism, and/or anemic pietism, and have poured the foundations of what it means to seek our true pleasure, we still have the need to build on that foundation. Here are a couple blueprint sketches of some areas that still need work.....

By the nature of the case, we cannot present an exhaustive list, but the ramifications would include beer, mowing the lawn, sex with your wife or husband, brown gravy, sitting on the front porch, listening to a good poem, making movies, getting out the guitar, going to church, and getting a foot rub. There are two sacraments, true, but there is only one sacramental. The world is a sacramental, and everything in it. Grace is everywhere, and gets into everything. Faith can dig it out of anything. The grandeur of God can flame out from anything, like shining from shook foil.

You can read the whole article here. And, you can get John Piper's books here.

Have You Encountered Secularism?

2010-05-12T12:41:00.000-07:00

Have you encountered secularism? It is a growing, if not dominant, religious viewpoint in the west and affects all of our lives. Sadly, there are many fallacies that go along with it and we need to be careful to detect them and defeat them.

For starters, check out Hunter Baker's interview with Sarah Harland-Logan at Harvard Political Review. The article by Harland-Logan did not fully represent the original interview. Here are some excerpts:

-What exactly is secularism about? Why have so many people turned to this idea/ideology in the last few decades?
Secularism is about removing religion/consideration of God from public life. The desire to do so does not have to be invidious. Those who embrace secularism, including many Christians, often do so because they believe it is a good answer to the problem of religious difference among people in a political community. They think that if they can remove differences among people, especially religious differences, our community will grow stronger. At the same time, secularists tend to see religion as something human beings once needed, but no longer do. They think religion is irrational and extraneous to the things that really matter in life.
On the other hand, some types of secularists are less well intentioned in their efforts to remove religious faith from public life. Secular totalitarians (such as Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and others) have the desire to marginalize religious belief and institutions because they are potential roadblocks to enforcing the will of the state. They would prefer there be no intermediary institutions between the state and the individual.

-You argue that the assertions made by secularists routinely fail. Would you be able to provide an “executive summary” of what you see as the principal assertions made by secularists, and why exactly each one fails?

Sure, this is the heart of my book, The End of Secularism, so I encourage people to read it and engage the arguments in fullness. But there are two prongs of argument that I think are very important.
The first is that secularists argue religion should be kept in the private domain because our society will be more socially harmonious as a result. This is an admirable hope, but I think it discounts how important religion is to people. Individuals bring their religious beliefs to the public square because they have integrity. They want to provide their real basis for a stand they take rather than formulate a false one that meets some secular language requirement. And we already have a built-in limit on religious language and philosophical stands. They must be persuasive or they will fail. If someone comes in quoting obscure sections of scripture without building any connection to reason on a public issue, they won’t be much listened to. I suspect many secularists think pro-lifers are guilty of doing that, but in fact, they are relentlessly rational in making their argument. You may agree or disagree with it, but it is not some kind of inaccessible argument that you could never understand if you weren’t religious.
The other problem with the social harmony argument, which is well-exposed by postmodernism, is that secularists are human beings and human beings have all kinds of orthodoxies (religious or not) to which they cling. Secularists are a team on the field of public debate who want to don striped jerseys and call penalties, as well. They can’t be neutral even though they claim to be.
The other key assertion is that secularists think they have a corner on the use of reason. Secularists sidle up next to science and say, “We’re the natural allies of science. Religious people are the enemies of scientific rationality.” That’s a publicity campaign, not the truth. Christians, for example, want scientific knowledge everywhere they can get it. It’s the best kind of knowledge we can have in many areas of life and we would be foolish not to rely upon it. Augustine made that argument many centuries ago. Too often religious opposition to some use of science (such as embryonic stem cell research) is confused with an opposition to science, itself, as a way of knowing. The reason for the somewhat insincere publicity campaign is that it is an effective way of marginalizing religious people. If an audience can be made to believe that Christians reject science, then they must not be rational people. And if people aren’t rational, then there is no need to listen to them. In fact, they may need their children taken from them, as some secularists have semi-seriously suggested.
There’s another critical point to think about. Secularism mostly has to do with separating politics and religion. I’ve already suggested that the separation of church and state is adequate and that separating politics and religion goes too far. Part of why secularists are wrong to attempt this isolation of politics from religion is because we cannot justify our basic political commitments without going beyond pure scientific rationality. For example, consider the idea of equality. How are we equal? The Federalist Papers point out that we could drag everyone back to the starting line of life and eventually people would sort back out in low, middle, and high because they have different gifts, talents, interests, etc. But we are committed to equality. In the western world, where we value equality more highly, the basis of this idea is equality before God. You can try to create another foundation for it, but I think even John Rawls’ version sounds like a conversation in heaven at the beginning of the world.
-If secularism actually damaging to the culture/the individual (as opposed to merely unpersuasive and/or unsustainable)?
I think the small threat of secularism is that it marginalizes religious people and groups and causes them to feel resentment. Thebigger threat of secularism is that it removes the church as an effective counter to the state. Rousseau complained that the church caused people to have a conflict between two masters which are the church and the state. But he failed to consider that having a counter to the government can be freedom-enhancing and protect against the development of totalitarianism. That is why Hitler was so keen to gain control of the church in Germany. He knew it could stand in his way. Of course, the part of the church that did, people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, were killed. Karol Wojtyla, who became Pope John Paul II, was part of a Polish church which worked for the freedom of the Polish people against the secular Soviet-sponsored state.

You can read the whole post here. You can also obtain Hunter Baker's book here.

Have You Heard of Haverhill Massachusetts - Yahoo Ranked It Among the Top 7 Cities...

2010-05-08T07:41:00.000-07:00

I love Haverhill...

So does Yahoo. Haverhill was ranked among the top 7 cities for good real estate deals in nice places. On the list: Pheonix, Orlando, New Orleans, Houston, Atlanta, Philadelphia and Haverhill!

Read the whole article here.

HT: Jim Fiorentini

Funny Signs - Chinglish

2010-05-07T06:36:00.000-07:00

A Sampling of Chinglish - Slide Show - NYTimes.com

www.nytimes.com

Some believe that China should embrace the fanciful melding of English and Chinese as the hallmark of a dynamic, living language.

.
HT: Kendra

Wondering About Church Planting in Sovereign Grace Ministries?

2010-05-01T11:30:00.000-07:00

Dave Harvey has started a series of posts on church planting in Sovereign Grace Ministries. In classic Dave Harvey style he communciated some of the thinking on church planting in SGM. Here are some excerpts.

It can be awkward, but only sometimes. It happens in certain conversations with other church-planting guys whenever the topic turns to vision for the future. Usually it goes something like this.
Church-planting guy (not me): So how many churches would you Sovereign Grace guys like to plant over the next ten years?
Me: Mumble, mumble, mumble… (sounds of me stuffing chips in my mouth to avoid answering)
Church-planting guy: We’re believing God for thousands of churches planted over the next few months. We’re calling it maniacal multiplication. So how many churches do you guys have right now?
Me (having no more chips to protect me): About 80, or maybe it’s 90—I forget exactly.
CPG: Wow, that’s great. How long have you guys been planting?
Me: Since “We Are the World” came out.
CPG: Wow, that’s incredible.
Me: The first one.
CPG (doing math in his head): Oh…I’ll pray for you dude.
End of conversation. Awkward.
Let me say something at the outset here. First of all, I am so grateful that there are church-planting groups who love the Savior and love the lost so much that they are willing to take the risks and send men so that many gospel-preaching churches can be planted quickly. That’s bigtime faith! And make no mistake, it’s being hurled at a bigtime need. I have no doubt God will bless those efforts. But as much as I’d like to see Sovereign Grace churches so widely and thickly planted that you couldn’t spit from a freeway without hitting one, that isn’t what God is calling us to. At least for now.

When it came to church planting, what mattered to us was that real, solid, gospel-loving, local churches would bloom. Churches that had shared values, relational connection with each other, and common purpose. We didn’t want to plant churches and walk away from them, or have them walk away from us. We call ourselves a family of churches because that’s what we’ve been. We wanted to build slow and plant slow because we wanted every church to apply the gospel and be a healthy contributor to the mission of church planting for years to come. We’ve made tons of mistakes along the way, but that’s what we’ve tried to do.

I highly recommend you read the first installment and stay tuned.

Do You Know the "New Atheists"?

2010-05-01T10:18:00.000-07:00

Justin Taylor has a post, entitled, 'What’s Right and What’s Wrong About the New Atheism?,' where he mentions what looks like a great book on the "New Atheists" - a group that will most likely grow in influence in our culture.

Take a few minutes to read his post here.

Keep Religion Out of Government?

2010-04-30T07:34:00.000-07:00

Have you entered the fray about the National Day of Prayer?

As I listen to the wrangling about "separation of church and state" I am concerned for a major fallacy that seems to be the foundation of many folk's arguments (see USA Today and Comments on Franklin Graham's editorial in the Washington Post). The fallacy is that there is somehow the ability to separate religion from government. I believe this is impossible and not the concern of the authors and ratifiers of the first amendment.

Religion is really the cosmological and functional world view system one believes. We all have at least a functional world view system. If we didn't we couldn't operate in life. To be human is to have a world view, an understanding of our purpose and the general principles by which we live. Every human being has some sort of world view, from the most devout Christian to the most convinced agnostic to the most sincere pantheist. And, every government conceived by man operates under some religious assumptions.

So let's stop making the nonsense statement that we can separate religion from government. That's like saying we can separate breathing from being alive - we simply can't both be alive and not breath. Neither can we be alive and not be religious in some way. We can not have government and not have some religion shaping it.

I seems clear that the point the founding fathers were after was to keep the federal government from preferring a particular denomination or religious institution over another. They never meant to separate a belief in a supreme being from the foundation of our country. To do so unravels the very fabric of our government, a government predicated on a firm belief in a God who has created all men equal and endowed them with certain inalienable rights, a government reliant on a common and cohesive belief in a Supreme Judge. Without such an assumption the rest of what is asserted in the Declaration of Independence and all the founding documents comes undone.

So let's stop the nonsense understanding of "separation of church and state" as keeping "religion" out of government. Let's instead honor the wisdom of our founding fathers by seeking to be careful to not prefer one religious denomination or institution over another while maintaining a firm and foundational belief in a Supreme Being who has granted us and sustained for us the privilege of a just and representative government. We will sooner or later lose this privilege if we fail to honor the wisdom of our forefathers.

A Government-sponsored non-partisan interfaith Theistic National Day of Prayer acknowledging our need for the help of the Supreme Being is not only constitutional but quintessential to our nation.

King of Grace Church VBS 2010!

2010-04-22T09:19:00.000-07:00

We are looking forward to this year's Vacation Bible School.

Come be a part of this July 12-16, King of Grace Church, 28 Chadwick St., Haverhill, Ma, 01835.

Register Here.

Life-Changing Preaching

2010-04-17T08:42:00.001-07:00

I heard David Platt for the first time at Together for the Gospel, 2010. Wow!

Check out these two messages below and let God use the preaching of David Platt to change your life!

David Platt: SBC Pastors Conference 2009 from Todd Thomas on Vimeo.

Phoebe Prince and the Golden Rule

2010-04-09T14:55:00.000-07:00

I have been heart-broken at the tragic suicide of Phoebe Prince from South Hadley High School. Seeing a vibrant young girl so overcome with despair because of the wanton cruelty of others made me weep.

This tragedy coincides with our study of the Golden Rule as a church as we are learning about Kingdom Living from the Sermon on the Mount. If only Phoebe's classmates, her friends and her teachers and perhaps even her family had applied this simple and profound teaching everything might have been different.

And, if only I had done better at following this beautiful command when I was young. I am no better than any of the bullies and probably worse. I regret the many times I bullied others. God was merciful to keep me from participating in such a tragedy though I certainly have done things of equal wickedness. And I continue to fall short myself in living the Golden Rule.

But there is hope and redemption. Christ himself fulfilled his own command in his beautiful life and his tragic death. His perfect life was offered as a sacrifice to pay the just penalty for those who willingly and knowingly spurn the justice and beauty of the golden rule and treat others cruelly. He died for bullies and young girls alike. He died that we might be forgiven for our horrible crimes and know perfect love. And in knowing this forgiveness and perfect love, we might learn to love like Him - doing to others what we would want for ourselves. Would you look to Him to rescue you from your sins and lead you in His ways?

May God grant us wisdom and grace to live the Golden Rule as we look to the King and Savior who gave it to us, who shed his blood to cleanse us from disobeying it and who recreates us in Him to live it truly.

May God give us a someone like Pheobe to love and perhaps keep from such a tragedy.

As a side note: I was perplexed to see a post from Ethics Alarms focusing on how the Golden Rule is creating an unethical reaction to the situation. I would submit it would be better to say it is an incomplete application of the Golden Rule that might be functioning here. Such an application of the Golden Rule is a violation of the Golden Rule in my opinion. I believe such a discussion is unhelpful.

Optical Illusion

2010-04-06T07:38:00.000-07:00

Check this out. It is not a spiral but a series of concentric rings. Our minds take the information our eyes see and interpret - sometimes wrongly. Pretty amazing!

(Courtesy of Neatorama HT: Sarah H.)

Try squinting and looking at it - you might be able to see the rings.

Don't believe everything your senses and your mind tell you - they can be wrong. We need something better and more reliable than what our five senses tell us.....

Pray for Juárez

2010-04-02T13:12:00.000-07:00

My friend Dave Harvey reports on one church's stand amidst the violence and turmoil of Juárez:

You may have seen reports of the murders of three people associated with the U.S. Consulate in Juárez, Mexico, earlier this month. ..As Mexico’s war on the drug cartels continues, the city of Juárez is embroiled in violence. On average, at least seven people have been murdered every day since 2009, including more than 500 murders since January. ...This ongoing social catastrophe has far-reaching effects. About 5,000 businesses have closed, and some estimate that as much as 15–20% of the city’s population has left. Those who remain face the daily threat of ruthless violence

Carlos Contreras..senior pastor of Iglesia Gracia Soberana de Cd. Juárez .. writes,
But there is good news also. The church in the city remains strong and has apparently become the only remaining source of hope for many people. We all pray and we pray a lot, and we pray boldly and we pray publicly for God to intervene in a miraculous way to change things and to do justice. But mostly we pray for revival and for the salvation of thousands.
Under the leadership of their pastoral team, Iglesia Gracia Soberana is taking the gospel to the streets. The most recent session of their Alpha class (an introductory class on the gospel) graduated 63 students, more than they’d ever had. The church is airing evangelistic programs on local TV. Earlier this month, 150 church members went to two busy intersections, handed out about 800 evangelistic tracts and about 200 New Testaments, and prayed for about 300 people. On Saturday they hit the streets again, handing out 6,000 invitations to church, 300 copies of the Gospel of John, and 200 New Testaments—and praying for 1,300 people.

You can read the whole article here.

Please pray for Juárez and Iglesia Gracia Soberana!

that God would grant wisdom and strength to Carlos Contreras and other pastors in Juárez.
that God would give sustaining grace to Iglesia Gracia Soberana and the other churches in this city.
that the gospel would be clearly preached and many would put their faith in Christ for forgiveness of sins.
that peace and justice would be restored to Juárez.

Check out this slide show of their prayer outreach:

Wrestling with Biblical Studies?

2010-04-01T08:09:00.000-07:00

Do you wrestle with studying God's word and preparing to preach?

Check out Andy Neselli's review of D.A. Carson's essay, “The Trials of Biblical Studies” from
The Trials of Theology: Becoming a “Proven Worker” in a Dangerous Business (ed. Andrew J. B. Cameron and Brian S. Rosner; Fearn, Scotland: Christian Focus, 2010).

It look's like this is another very beneficial resource from our friend Dr. Carson.

Here are 2 of the five points Carson addresses followed by Andy's bulleted summaries. (You can read the whole review here.)

3. Five facets of pride
Your desire to be admired and recognized is dangerous.
The sheer joy you find in your work does not make you spiritually superior to people who work in other disciplines.
Your academic specialty in an area of biblical studies does not make you a superior pastor.
Knowing more about the Bible than most people you serve does not make you a superior person.
You may experience inverted pride (i.e., being threatened because you are insecure and jealous) if successful professionals in secular work think lightly of your job.
4. Pressures to manipulate Scripture
Avoid the pressure from the right: safe exegesis that reinforces your confessional group.
Avoid the pressure from the left: clever exegesis that makes you academically respectable.
Avoid the nonconformist pressure to reach independent conclusions on nearly everything.
Avoid the pressure to so focus on the history of interpretation that you never decide anything.
Instead, genuinely and patiently listen to the text with integrity.

New Atheism Smackdown

2010-04-01T07:31:00.000-07:00

I came across Gayle Trotter's review of Mary Eberstadt's new book The Loser Letters. It is a Screwtape Letters type satire of the New Atheism. I can't wait to read it! Here is an excerpt:

The Loser Letters, Eberstadt’s first published work of fiction, draws on a long satirical tradition from Juvenal to The Screwtape Letters. Eberstadt’s protagonist, a young woman named A. F. Christian (as in, “A Former Christian”), details the journey of her enlightened abandonment of her “cradle Dullness” (namely, her Christian faith) and her adaptation to atheism. Christian writes excited, star-struck letters to the self-described so-called “Brights” of the New Atheism, in which she gushes about the Brights’ superiority while candidly evaluating the weaknesses that limit the New Atheism’s ability to win new converts. With this device, Eberstadt delivers a gripping story line with a chilling twist at the end and, in the process, administers a smackdown of the New Atheism.

You can read the whole article here.

Gospel-Centered Sloganeering?

2010-03-31T08:55:00.000-07:00

Came across a post from my friend Toby Kurth (HT: Justin Taylor). We often use the phrase, "gospel-centered" - may it be more about a lifelong pursuit of a Christ-centered lifestyle than a shallow passing slogan!

Check out what Toby says:

Gospel centrality must not be reduced to a slogan or way of defining yourself that does not really describe how you view the world. Gospel-centrality says that all of life and the Scriptures must be interpreted through the person and work of Jesus Christ. If gospel-centrality becomes just a way of speaking about ministry with certain buzzwords and catch phrases then it will have lost all meaning.

We do not drift towards gospel-centrality in our own lives or in our churches. It involves an active and frequent application of gospel truth to every situation we face. What makes me nervous are phrases like “Is he gospel-centered?” or “That is not a gospel-centered church.” Let’s not settle for shorthand. Being “gospel-centered” is a life-long endeavor, not a slogan. It is not the ability to recite a few well-crafted phrases; it is rather the commitment to continually turn away from defining yourself or your church in accordance with anything other than the person and work of Jesus Christ.

You can read the whole thing here.

"The Anti-Proverbs 31 Woman"

2010-03-30T06:36:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed this post from Jared Mellinger, Senior Pastor of Covenant Fellowship Church. Sometimes we learn from the negative example.

“The Anti-Proverbs 31 Woman”
A substandard wife, who can find?
Her husband must micro-manage her,
And he hesitates to delegate anything to her.
She does him harm, not good,
All the days of her life.
She takes no delight in working,
And she labors with unwilling hands.
She finds a large number of tasks objectionable,
And carries them out with a languid footstep.
She looks first to her own interests in everything,
And avoids being inconvenienced at all costs.
Her household receives no attention,
And her children are neglected.
Her life orbits around herself,
She is lost in her own world.
She often sleeps in,
Her mouth feasts on the bread of idleness.
She is indecisive in decision making,
And her husband is a crutch in all things.
She rarely plans ahead,
And it brings chaos to her home.
She lives in the grip of fear,
Her closest companion is anxiety for the future.
Her husband is floundering in the gates,
Where he sits among the elders of the land.
She occasionally fears the Lord,
But cares far more about physical beauty.
She receives the fruit of her hands
When no one praises her in the gates.
Aren’t we glad that God’s grace and mercy overcomes our Anti-Proverbs 31, or Anti-Sermon on the Mount, or Anti-First Corinthians 13 tendencies so that we increasingly live conforming to God’s will and obedient to His word.

Christ's Sympathy

2010-03-30T06:25:00.000-07:00

I hope you are encouraged by these thoughts from Octavius Winslow:

“Christ’s heart is a human heart, a sinless heart, a tender heart; a heart once the home of sorrow, once stricken with grief; once an aching, bleeding, mournful heart. Thus disciplined and trained, Jesus knows how to pity and to support those who are sorrowful and solitary. He loves to chase grief from the spirit, to bind up the broken heart, to staunch the bleeding wound, and to dry the weeping eye, to ‘comfort all that mourn.’ It is His delight to visit you in the dark night-season of your sorrow, and to come to you walking upon the tempestuous billows of your grief, breathing music and diffusing calmness over your scene of sadness and gloom.”

- Octavius Winslow, Evening Thoughts, January 10.

HT: Of First Importance

Peter Hitchens, “The Rage Against God”

2010-03-18T06:56:00.000-07:00

Peter Hitchens, the theistic brother of renowned atheist, Christopher Hitchens has written a book about his journey to Christianity, "The Rage Against God", available May 1 from Zondervan. Wikipedia has this on the new book:

"Peter Hitchens argues in his book that his brother's verdict on religion is misguided, and that faith in God is both a safeguard against the collapse of civilisation into moral chaos and the best antidote to the dangerous idea of earthly perfection through utopianism."

Here's a preview:

HT: Doug Wilson, Justin Taylor

The Greatest Danger Affecting American Evangelical Christianity?

2010-03-17T10:10:00.000-07:00

I have been enjoying Mark Noll's insightful, though perhaps dated, analysis of the place of the mind among evangelicals. His quotations from Charles Malik were provocative. Charles Malik was a Lebanese Christian intellectual, professor and politician. Read some of his comments from a speech at Wheaton College below:

This is a solemn occasion. I must be frank with you: the greatest danger besetting American Evangelical Christianity is the danger of anti intellectualism. The mind as to its greatest and deepest reaches is not cared for enough. This cannot take place apart from profound immersion for a period of years in the history of thought and the spirit. People are in a hurry to get out of the university and start earning money or serving the church or preaching the Gospel. They have no idea of the infinite value of spending years of leisure in conversing with the greatest minds and souls of the past, and thereby ripening and sharpening and enlarging their powers of thinking.

The result is that the arena of creative thinking is abdicated and vacated to the enemy. Who among the Evangelicals can stand up to the great secular or naturalistic or atheistic scholars on their own terms of scholarship and research? Who among the Evangelical scholars is quoted as a normative source by the greatest secular authorities on history or philosophy or psychology or sociology or politics? Does your mode of thinking have the slightest chance of becoming the dominant mode of thinking in the great universities of Europe and America which stamp your entire civilization with their own spirit and ideas?

You can read the whole speech here.

The Story of St. Patrick

2010-03-17T07:59:00.000-07:00

One version of the famous story of Patrick. Happy St. Patrick's Day! Enjoy!

The Conversion and Preaching of (St) Patrick in Ireland

An extract from the “History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century” by J. H. Merle d’Aubigné (1794-1872)

On the picturesque banks of the Clyde, not far from Glasgow, in the Christian village of Bonavern, now Kilpatrick, a little boy, of tender heart, lively temperament, and indefatigable activity, passed the earlier days of his life. He was born about the year 372 A. D., of a British family, and was named Succat.¹ His father, Calpurnius, deacon of the church of Bonavern, a simple-hearted pious man, and his mother, Conchessa, sister to the celebrated Martin, archbishop of Tours,² and a woman superior to the majority of her sex, had endeavoured to instil into his heart the doctrines of Christianity; but Succat did not understand them. He was fond of pleasure, and delighted to be the leader of his youthful companions. In the midst of his frivolities, he committed a serious fault.

Some few years later, his parents having quitted Scotland and settled in Armorica (Bretagne), a terrible calamity befell them. One day as Succat was playing near the seashore with two of his sisters, some Irish pirates, commanded by O’ Neal, carried them all three off to their boats, and sold them in Ireland to the petty chieftain of some pagan clan. Succat was sent into the fields to keep swine.³ It was while alone in these solitary pastures, without priest and without temple, that the young slave called to mind the divine lessons which his pious mother had so often read to him. The fault which he had committed pressed heavily night and day upon his soul: he groaned in heart, and wept. He turned repenting towards that meek Saviour of whom Conchessa had so often spoken; he fell at His knees in that heathen land, and imagined he felt the arms of a father uplifting the prodigal son. Succat was then born from on high, but by an agent so spiritual, so internal, that he knew not “whence it cometh or whither it goeth.” The gospel was written with the finger of God on the tablets of his heart. “I was sixteen years old,” said he, “and knew not the true God; but in that strange land the Lord opened my unbelieving eyes, and, although late, I called my sins to mind, and was converted with my whole heart to the Lord my God, who regarded my low estate, had pity on my youth and ignorance, and consoled me as a father consoles his children.”⁴

Such words as these from the lips of a swineherd in the green pastures of Ireland set clearly before us the Christianity which in the fourth and fifth centuries converted many souls in the British Isles. In after-years, Rome established the dominion of the priest and salvation by forms, independently of the dispositions of the heart; but the primitive religion of these celebrated islands was that living Christianity whose substance is the grace of Jesus Christ, and whose power is the grace of the Holy Ghost. The herdsman from the banks of the Clyde was then undergoing those experiences which so many evangelical Christians in those countries have subsequently undergone. “The love of God increased more and more in me,” said he, “with faith and the fear of His name. The Spirit urged me to such a degree that I poured forth as many as a hundred prayers in one day. And even during the night, in the forests and on the mountains where I kept my flock, the rain, the snow, and frost, and sufferings which I endured, excited me to seek after God. At that time, I felt not the indifference which now I feel: the Spirit fermented in my heart.”⁵ Evangelical faith even then existed in the British islands in the person of this slave, and of some few Christians born again, like him, from on high.

Twice a captive and twice rescued, Succat, after returning to his family, felt an irresistible appeal in his heart. It was his duty to carry the gospel to those Irish pagans among whom he had found Jesus Christ. His parents and his friends endeavoured in vain to detain him; the same ardent desire pursued him in his dreams. During the silent watches of the night he fancied he heard voices calling to him from the dark forests of Erin: “Come, holy child, and walk once more among us.” He awoke in tears, his breast filled with the keenest emotion.⁶ He tore himself from the arms of his parents, and rushed forth – not as heretofore with his playfellows, when he would climb the summit of some lofty hill – but with a heart full of charity in Christ. He departed: “It was not done of my own strength,” said he; “it was God who overcame all.”

Succat, afterwards known as Saint Patrick, and to which name, as to that of St Peter and other servants of God, many superstitions have been attached, returned to Ireland, but without visiting Rome, as an historian of the twelfth century has asserted.⁷ Ever active, prompt, and ingenious, he collected the pagan tribes in the fields by beat of drum, and then narrated to them in their own tongue the history of the Son of God. Erelong his simple recitals exercised a divine power over their rude hearts, and many souls were converted, not by external sacraments or by the worship of images, but by the preaching of the word of God. The son of a chieftain, whom Patrick calls Benignus, learnt from him to proclaim the Gospel, and was destined to succeed him. The court bard, Dubrach Mac Valubair, no longer sang druidical hymns, but canticles addressed to Jesus Christ. Patrick was not entirely free from the errors of the time; perhaps he believed in pious miracles; but generally speaking we meet with nothing but the gospel in the earlier days of the British church. The time no doubt will come when Ireland will again feel the power of the Holy Ghost, which had once converted it by the ministrations of a Scotchman.

1 In baptismo haud Patricum sed Succat a parentibus fuisse dictum. Usser. Brit. Eccl. Antiq. p. 428.

2 Martini Turonum archiepiscopi consanguineam. Ibid.

3 Cujus porcorum pastor erat. Ibid. p. 431.

4 Et ibi Dominus aperuit sensum incredulitatis meæ, ut vel sero remorarem delicta mea, et ut converterer toto corde ad Dominum Deum meum. Patr. Confess. Usser, 431.

Reference:
“HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY,” by J. H. Merle d’Aubigné, 1846. French edition 1835. Published by Baker Book House (USA), reprinted from the edition issued in London in 1846. Vol 5, pp 679-680.

HT: Reformation Theology

Looking for a Good Daily Bible Devotional?

2010-03-11T06:13:00.000-08:00

D.A. Carson's "For the Love of God" is probably the best daily devotional I know. And, it is now available via a blog from the Gospel Coalition.SWEET!

Read it here.

It is based on the Murray M'Cheyne daily bible reading plan and can be used to go through the whole bible in a year or two years. I recommend the two-year approach for starters.

Do You Worry You Are Passing On A Wrong View of God to Your Kids?

2010-03-10T07:53:00.000-08:00

Tony Reinke has an excellent post about passing on to our children a right view of God.

He includes some suggestions CJ Mahaney made to a dad who is worried that he might pass on his own misunderstanding of God to his children instead of the right view of God.

Communicating your affection for them—and joy when you are with them—promotes both good and accurate thoughts about God.

Initiate time with them at both planned and spontaneous times. Don’t leave them with the impression that they get most of your attention when they disobey. Let them know you are so grateful for them and love being with them as much as possible.

Bless your children with many gifts in many forms! See Luke 11 again. Study your children in order to discern what gifts would genuinely bless them and then purpose to surprise them as often as possible.

Requiring appropriate obedience does not promote hard thoughts about God. This only happens when we do so in self-righteousness or anger.

Frequently preach the gospel to them (and not at them). Reveal to your children just how far God has gone to show his love for sinners like us.

Take a few minutes to read the whole article here. I recommend it!

Do You Know the Difference Between Science and Scientism?

2010-03-09T14:26:00.000-08:00

Check out the following:

'They Need to Be Liberated From Their God'

2010-03-06T07:45:00.000-08:00

Check out this fascinating interview with Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of Hamas founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef. He talks about his conversion to Christianity and his work for Israeli intelligence while a member of Hamas. He reports that he worked with Israeli intelligence to save lives on both sides. Listen to him speak about his conversion.

"I converted to Christianity because I was convinced by Jesus Christ as a character, as a personality. I loved him, his wisdom, his love, his unconditional love. I didn't leave [the Islamic] religion to put myself in another box of religion. At the same time it's a beautiful thing to see my God exist in my life and see the change in my life. I see that when he does exist in other Middle Easterners there will be a change."

He also reports that the fundamental difficulty with Islam is that the God of Islam is not the right God.

"What matters is not whether my father is a fanatic or not, he's doing the will of a fanatic God. It doesn't matter if he's a terrorist or a traditional Muslim. At the end of the day a traditional Muslim is doing the will of a fanatic, fundamentalist, terrorist God. I know this is harsh to say. Most governments avoid this subject. They don't want to admit this is an ideological war. ..... The problem is not in Muslims...the problem is with their God. They need to be liberated from their God. He is their biggest enemy. It has been 1,400 years they have been lied to."

May God raise up millions of Middle Easterners who really know God and show it! May they teach us in the West what it looks like when you really know God! May Christ reign over the Middle East in a way that shows the world who he really is - not some by-product of the West or corrupted icon of marauding Crusaders but something much better, purer, altogether different and glorious!

أَبَانَا الَّذِي فِي السَّمَاوَاتِ لِيَتَقَدَّسِ اسْمُكَ. لِيَأْتِ مَلَكُوتُكَ. لِتَكُنْ مَشِيئَتُكَ كَمَا فِي السَّمَاءِ كَذَلِكَ عَلَى الأَرْضِ

Do You Know What Countries Allow Persecution of Christians?

2010-02-26T10:58:00.000-08:00

courtesy of Open Doors, UK. Download a PDF map here.

Seen Any Martyrs Recently?

2010-02-26T10:49:00.000-08:00

This is disturbing.

Pray for these Christians, contribute to the Voice of the Martyrs or Open Doors and contact Congress.

Do You Remember Getting Your "Bell Rung" in HS Football?

2010-02-24T17:33:00.000-08:00

I remember getting "your bell rung" was a normal part of playing football. One time I popped my Riddell air-filled helmet. Another time I bent my facemask on another guys head during a kickoff. We called the kickoff team the "suicide squad" - for good reason. After I bent my facemask everything turned yellow and this load hum filled my ears - probably a concussion.

I am glad for the heightened awareness of concussions these days. The NFL and our local high schools as well are actively seeking to protect athletes from concussions. Hopefully, getting "your bell rung" will be a thing of the past for all athletes.

Check out these articles here:
Dangerous games: As dozens suffer concussions, awareness of risks grows .
N.F.L. Acknowledges Long-Term Concussion Effects

Can My Marriage Change if My Spouse Doesn't Change?

2010-02-24T07:11:00.000-08:00

Some wisdom for improving your marriage from Winston Smith:

"Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye."
Matthew 7:3-5 (ESV)

Heard of Bible Arcing? It is very helpful!

2010-02-23T07:09:00.001-08:00

Together for the Gospel

2010-02-23T07:00:00.000-08:00

I am so looking forward to being at T4G with our guys, Jeff, Phil and David and many other friends.

And I'm looking forward to hearing from a man who greatly influenced my life - RC Sproul - a great husband and dad, bible teacher, theologian, football fan, golfer, ballroom dancer, outdoorsman and a funny guy.

Check out this video:

R.C. Sproul - Study Video from Together for the Gospel (T4G) on Vimeo.

And this:

Together for the Gospel: T4G 2010 Conference from Together for the Gospel (T4G) on Vimeo.

Sermon on the Mount from Memory

2010-02-20T08:46:00.000-08:00

We are in a series on the Sermon on the Mount entitled, "Kingdom Living". Studying the Sermon on the Mount has been rich and rewarding. Check out this recitation of the Sermon on the Mount from memory given by Pastor Trevin Wax.
HT: Bruce Webb

Part 1:

Part 2:

Love in Marriage - A Follow-up to the Five Love Languages

2010-02-20T08:16:00.000-08:00

In case anyone who read David Powlison's gracious critique of "Five Love Languages" might think him an armchair quarterback, please look at some of his excellent counsel for married couples. I know few people who combine the biblical wisdom and gracious care that David displays while wisely discerning the good, bad and neutral of the broader counseling world. Check out the following and see what you think.

The Five Love Languages

2010-02-18T07:53:00.000-08:00

Justin Taylor has an excellent post reviewing the very popular book, "The Five Love Languages" by Gary Chapman.

Here are some highlights:

Chapman’s model, Powlison argues, fails the class “Human Nature 101.”
Like all secular interpretations of human psychology (even when lightly Christianized), it makes some good observations and offers some half-decent advice (of the sort that self-effort can sometimes follow). But it doesn’t really understand human psychology. That basic misunderstanding has systematic distorting and misleading effects. Fallenness not only brings ignorance about how best to love others; it brings a perverse unwillingness and inability to love. It ingrains the perception that our lusts are in fact needs, empty places inside where others have disappointed us. The empty emotional tank construct is congenial to our fallen instincts, not transformative. It leaves what we instinctively want as an unquestionable good that must somehow be fulfilled. It not only leaves fundamental self-interest unchallenged, it plays to self-interest. . . .
Powlison goes on to contrast this perspective with the foreign “love language” of Christ:
The love of Christ speaks a “love language”—mercy to hellishly self-centered people—that no person can hear or understand unless God gives ears to hear. It is a language we cannot speak to others unless God makes us fluent in an essentially foreign language. We might say that the itch itself (an ear for God’s language) has to be created, because we live in such a stupor of self-centered itchiness. The love language model does not highlight those exquisite forms of love that do not “speak your language.” You and I need to learn a new language if we are to become fit to live with each other and with God. The greatest love ever shown does not speak the instinctively self-centered language of the recipients of such love. In fundamental ways, the love of Christ speaks contrary to your “love language” and “felt needs.” Does anyone naturally say, “I need You to rule me so I’m no longer ruled by what I want”? Does anyone naturally say, “For Your name’s sake, O LORD, pardon my iniquity for it is great” (Psalm 25:11)? Does anyone naturally say, “My greatest need is for mercy, and then for the wisdom to give mercy. I long for redemption. May Your kingdom come. Deliver us from evil”?
God’s grace aims to destroy the lordship of the five love languages, even while teaching us to speak the countless love languages with greater fluency.

Please take 5 minutes to read the whole thing here.

While this book has some excellent insight into how people communicate love, it can be understood and practiced in a way very contrary to the Kingdom ethic of love we find in the Sermon on the Mount. King of Grace church is going through a series on the Sermon on the Mount entitled, "Kingdom Living". Listen to the message on Kingdom love, "Be Perfect", here.

The Weight of Glory

2010-02-05T11:25:00.000-08:00

It's been almost two months since my last blog - sorry! I guess it has been a very full two months. Lots of good things going on - full family life, helping my High-School age kids with homework, lots of wonderful pastoring stuff, Alpha, learning Hebrew, teaching Latin, and, I'm sure, some degree of just goofing off.

Anyhow - in preparation for preaching from Mt. 6:1-4 in our Sermon on the Mount series I was reading some CS Lewis. I think he had it right in many ways in his understanding of heavenly reward. ( BTW - I very much like Lewis but do not consider him entirely reliabletheologically.) Take about 15 minutes or so and read his excellent essay, "The Weight of Glory", available through the Doxa website.

Enjoy!

The essay is reproduced below from the Doxa site.

The Weight of Glory
by C.S. Lewis

Preached originally as a sermon in the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford, on June 8, 1942: published in THEOLOGY, November, 1941, and by the S.P.C.K, 1942

If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

We must not be troubled by unbelievers when they say that this promise of reward makes the Christian life a mercenary affair. There are different kinds of reward. There is the reward which has no natural connexion with the things you do to earn it, and is quite foreign to the desires that ought to accompany those things. Money is not the natural reward of love; that is why we call a man mercenary if he marries a woman for the sake of her money. But marriage is the proper reward for a real lover, and he is not mercenary for desiring it. A general who fights well in order to get a peerage is mercenary; a general who fights for victory is not, victory being the proper reward of battle as marriage is the proper reward of love. The proper rewards are not simply tacked on to the activity for which they are given, but are the activity itself in consummation. There is also a third case, which is more complicated. An enjoyment of Greek poetry is certainly a proper, and not a mercenary, reward for learning Greek; but only those who have reached the stage of enjoying Greek poetry can tell from their own experience that this is so. The schoolboy beginning Greek grammar cannot look forward to his adult enjoyment of Sophocles as a lover looks forward to marriage or a general to victory. He has to begin by working for marks, or to escape punishment, or to please his parents, or, at best, in the hope of a future good which he cannot at present imagine or desire. His position, therefore, bears a certain resemblance to that of the mercenary; the reward he is going to get will, in actual fact, be a natural or proper reward, but he will not know that till he has got it. Of course, he gets it gradually; enjoyment creeps in upon the mere drudgery, and nobody could point to a day or an hour when the one ceased and the other began. But it is just in so far as he approaches the reward that be becomes able to desire it for its own sake; indeed, the power of so desiring it is itself a preliminary reward

The Christian, in relation to heaven, is in much the same position as this schoolboy. Those who have attained everlasting life in the vision of God doubtless know very well that it is no mere bribe, but the very consummation of their earthly discipleship; but we who have not yet attained it cannot know this in the same way, and cannot even begin to know it at all except by continuing to obey and finding the first reward of our obedience in our increasing power to desire the ultimate reward. Just in proportion as the desire grows, our fear lest it should be a mercenary desire will die away and finally be recognized as an absurdity. But probably this will not, for most of us, happen in a day; poetry replaces grammar, gospel replaces law, longing transforms obedience, as gradually as the tide lifts a grounded ship.

But there is one other important similarity between the schoolboy and ourselves. If he is an imaginative boy he will, quite probably, be revelling in the English poets and romancers suitable to his age some time before he begins to suspect that Greek grammar is going to lead him to more and more enjoyments of this same sort. He may even be neglecting his Greek to read Shelley and Swinburne in secret. In other words, the desire which Greek is really going to gratify already exists in him and is attached to objects which seem to him quite unconnected with Xenophon and the verbs in ??. Now, if we are made for heaven, the desire for our proper place will be already in us, but not yet attached to the true object, and will even appear as the rival of that object. And this, I think, is just what we find. No doubt there is one point in which my analogy of the schoolboy breaks down. The English poetry which he reads when he ought to be doing Greek exercises may be just as good as the Greek poetry to which the exercises are leading him, so that in fixing on Milton instead of journeying on to Aeschylus his desire is not embracing a false object. But our case is very different. If a transtemporal, transfinite good is our real destiny, then any other good on which our desire fixes must be in some degree fallacious, must bear at best only a symbolical relation to what will truly satisfy.

In speaking of this desire for our own far- off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We cannot hide it because our experience is constantly suggesting it, and we betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name. Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his own past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited. Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years. Almost our whole education has been directed to silencing this shy, persistent, inner voice; almost all our modem philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth. And yet it is a remarkable thing that such philosophies of Progress or Creative Evolution themselves bear reluctant witness to the truth that our real goal is elsewhere. When they want to convince you that earth is your home, notice how they set about it. They begin by trying to persuade you that earth can be made into heaven, thus giving a sop to your sense of exile in earth as it is. Next, they tell you that this fortunate event is still a good way off in the future, thus giving a sop to your knowledge that the fatherland is not here and now. Finally, lest your longing for the transtemporal should awake and spoil the whole affair, they use any rhetoric that comes to hand to keep out of your mind the recollection that even if all the happiness they promised could come to man on earth, yet still each generation would lose it by death, including the last generation of all, and the whole story would be nothing, not even a story, for ever and ever. Hence all the nonsense that Mr. Shaw puts into the final speech of Lilith, and Bergson’s remark that the élan vital is capable of surmounting all obstacles, perhaps even death—as if we could believe that any social or biological development on this planet will delay the senility of the sun or reverse the second law of thermodynamics.

Do what they will, then, we remain conscious of a desire which no natural happiness will satisfy. But is there any reason to suppose that reality offers any satisfaction to it? “Nor does the being hungry prove that we have bread.” But I think it may be urged that this misses the point. A man’s physical hunger does not prove that that man will get any bread; he may die of starvation on a raft in the Atlantic. But surely a man’s hunger does prove that he comes of a race which repairs its body by eating and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist. In the same way, though I do not believe (I wish I did) that my desire for Paradise proves that I shall enjoy it, I think it a pretty good indication that such a thing exists and that some men will. A man may love a woman and not win her; but it would be very odd if the phenomenon called “falling in love” occurred in a sexless world.

Here, then, is the desire, still wandering and uncertain of its object and still largely unable to see that object in the direction where it really lies. Our sacred books give us some account of the object. It is, of course, a symbolical account. Heaven is, by definition, outside our experience, but all intelligible descriptions must be of things within our experience. The scriptural picture of heaven is therefore just as symbolical as the picture which our desire, unaided, invents for itself; heaven is not really full of jewelry any more than it is really the beauty of Nature, or a fine piece of music. The difference is that the scriptural imagery has authority. It comes to us from writers who were closer to God than we, and it has stood the test of Christian experience down the centuries. The natural appeal of this authoritative imagery is to me, at first, very small. At first sight it chills, rather than awakes, my desire. And that is just what I ought to expect. If Christianity could tell me no more of the far-off land than my own temperament led me to surmise already, then Christianity would be no higher than myself. If it has more to give me, I must expect it to be less immediately attractive than “my own stuff.” Sophocles at first seems dull and cold to the boy who has only reached Shelley. If our religion is something objective, then we must never avert our eyes from those elements in it which seem puzzling or repellent; for it will be precisely the puzzling or the repellent which conceals what we do not yet know and need to know.

The promises of Scripture may very roughly be reduced to five heads. It is promised, firstly, that we shall be with Christ; secondly, that we shall be like Him; thirdly, with an enormous wealth of imagery, that we shall have “glory”; fourthly, that we shall, in some sense, be fed or feasted or entertained; and, finally, that we shall have some sort of official position in the universe—ruling cities, judging angels, being pillars of God’s temple. The first question I ask about these promises is: “Why any of them except the first?” Can anything be added to the conception of being with Christ? For it must be true, as an old writer says, that he who has God and everything else has no more than he who has God only. I think the answer turns again on the nature of symbols. For though it may escape our notice at first glance, yet it is true that any conception of being with Christ which most of us can now form will be not very much less symbolical than the other promises; for it will smuggle in ideas of proximity in space and loving conversation as we now understand conversation, and it will probably concentrate on the humanity of Christ to the exclusion of His deity. And, in fact, we find that those Christians who attend solely to this first promise always do fill it up with very earthly imagery indeed—in fact, with hymeneal or erotic imagery. I am not for a moment condemning such imagery. I heartily wish I could enter into it more deeply than I do, and pray that I yet shall. But my point is that this also is only a symbol, like the reality in some respects, but unlike it in others, and therefore needs correction from the different symbols in the other promises. The variation of the promises does not mean that anything other than God will be our ultimate bliss; but because God is more than a Person, and lest we should imagine the joy of His presence too exclusively in terms of our present poor experience of personal love, with all its narrowness and strain and monotony, a dozen changing images, correcting and relieving each other, are supplied.

I turn next to the idea of glory. There is no getting away from the fact that this idea is very prominent in the New Testament and in early Christian writings. Salvation is constantly associated with palms, crowns, white robes, thrones, and splendour like the sun and stars. All this makes no immediate appeal to me at all, and in that respect I fancy I am a typical modern. Glory suggests two ideas to me, of which one seems wicked and the other ridiculous. Either glory means to me fame, or it means luminosity. As for the first, since to be famous means to be better known than other people, the desire for fame appears to me as a competitive passion and therefore of hell rather than heaven. As for the second, who wishes to become a kind of living electric light bulb?

When I began to look into this matter I was stocked to find such different Christians as Milton, Johnson and Thomas Aquinas taking heavenly glory quite frankly in the sense of fame or good report. But not fame conferred by our fellow creatures—fame with God, approval or (I might say) “appreciation’ by God. And then, when I had thought it over, I saw that this view was scriptural; nothing can eliminate from the parable the divine accolade, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” With that, a good deal of what I had been thinking all my life fell down like a house of cards. I suddenly remembered that no one can enter heaven except as a child; and nothing is so obvious in a child—not in a conceited child, but in a good child—as its great and undisguised pleasure in being praised. Not only in a child, either, but even in a dog or a horse. Apparently what I had mistaken for humility had, all these years. prevented me from understanding what is in fact the humblest, the most childlike, the most creaturely of pleasures—nay, the specific pleasure of the inferior: the pleasure a beast before men, a child before its father, a pupil before his teacher, a creature before its Creator. I am not forgetting how horribly this most innocent desire is parodied in our human ambitions, or how very quickly, in my own experience, the lawful pleasure of praise from those whom it was my duty to please turns into the deadly poison of self-admiration. But I thought I could detect a moment—a very, very short moment—before this happened, during which the satisfaction of having pleased those whom I rightly loved and rightly feared was pure. And that is enough to raise our thoughts to what may happen when the redeemed soul, beyond all hope and nearly beyond belief, learns at last that she has pleased Him whom she was created to please. There will be no room for vanity then. She will be free from the miserable illusion that it is her doing. With no taint of what we should now call self-approval she will most innocently rejoice in the thing that God has made her to be, and the moment which heals her old inferiority complex for ever will also drown her pride deeper than Prospero’s book. Perfect humility dispenses with modesty. If God is satisfied with the work, the work may be satisfied with itself; “it is not for her to bandy compliments with her Sovereign.” I can imagine someone saying that he dislikes my idea of heaven as a place where we are patted on the back. But proud misunderstanding is behind that dislike. In the end that Face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised. I read in a periodical the other day that the fundamental thing is how we think of God. By God Himself, it is not! How God thinks of us is not only more important, but infinitely more important. Indeed, how we think of Him is of no importance except in so far as it is related to how He thinks of us. It is written that we shall “stand before” Him, shall appear, shall be inspected. The promise of glory is the promise, almost incredible and only possible by the work of Christ, that some of us, that any of us who really chooses, shall actually survive that examination, shall find approval, shall please God. To please God...to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness...to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.

And now notice what is happening. If I had rejected the authoritative and scriptural image of glory and stuck obstinately to the vague desire which was, at the outset, my only pointer to heaven, I could have seen no connexion at all between that desire and the Christian promise. But now, having followed up what seemed puzzling and repellent in the sacred books, I find, to my great surprise, looking back, that the connexion is perfectly clear. Glory, as Christianity teaches me to hope for it, turns out to satisfy my original desire and indeed to reveal an element in that desire which I had not noticed. By ceasing for a moment to consider my own wants I have begun to learn better what I really wanted. When I attempted, a few minutes ago, to describe our spiritual longings, I was omitting one of their most curious characteristics. We usually notice it just as the moment of vision dies away, as the music ends or as the landscape loses the celestial light. What we feel then has been well described by Keats as “the journey homeward to habitual self.” You know what I mean. For a few minutes we have had the illusion of belonging to that world. Now we wake to find that it is no such thing. We have been mere spectators. Beauty has smiled, but not to welcome us; her face was turned in our direction, but not to see us. We have not been accepted, welcomed, or taken into the dance. We may go when we please, we may stay if we can: “Nobody marks us.” A scientist may reply that since most of the things we call beautiful are inanimate, it is not very surprising that they take no notice of us. That, of course, is true. It is not the physical objects that I am speaking of, but that indescribable something of which they become for a moment the messengers. And part of the bitterness which mixes with the sweetness of that message is due to the fact that it so seldom seems to be a message intended for us but rather something we have overheard. By bitterness I mean pain, not resentment. We should hardly dare to ask that any notice be taken of ourselves. But we pine. The sense that in this universe we are treated as strangers, the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality, is part of our inconsolable secret. And surely, from this point of view, the promise of glory, in the sense described, becomes highly relevant to our deep desire. For glory meant good report with God, acceptance by God, response, acknowledgment, and welcome into the heart of things. The door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last.

Perhaps it seems rather crude to describe glory as the fact of being “noticed” by God. But this is almost the language of the New Testament. St. Paul promises to those who love God not, as we should expect, that they will know Him, but that they will be known by Him (I Cor. viii. 3). It is a strange promise. Does not God know all things at all times? But it is dreadfully re- echoed in another passage of the New Testament. There we are warned that it may happen to any one of us to appear at last before the face of God and hear only the appalling words: “I never knew you. Depart from Me.” In some sense, as dark to the intellect as it is unendurable to the feelings, we can be both banished from the presence of Him who is present everywhere and erased from the knowledge of Him who knows all. We can be left utterly and absolutely outside—repelled, exiled, estranged, finally and unspeakably ignored. On the other hand, we can be called in, welcomed, received, acknowledged. We walk every day on the razor edge between these two incredible possibilities. Apparently, then, our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honour beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache.

And this brings me to the other sense of glory—glory as brightness, splendour, luminosity. We are to shine as the sun, we are to be given the Morning Star. I think I begin to see what it means. In one way, of course, God has given us the Morning Star already: you can go and enjoy the gift on many fine mornings if you get up early enough. What more, you may ask, do we want? Ah, but we want so much more— something the books on aesthetics take little notice of. But the poets and the mythologies know all about it. We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. That is why we have peopled air and earth and water with gods and goddesses and nymphs and elves—that, though we cannot, yet these projections can, enjoy in themselves that beauty grace, and power of which Nature is the image. That is why the poets tell us such lovely falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into a human soul; but it can’t. They tell us that “beauty born of murmuring sound” will pass into a human face; but it won’t. Or not yet. For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendour of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy. At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in. When human souls have become as perfect in voluntary obedience as the inanimate creation is in its lifeless obedience, then they will put on its glory, or rather that greater glory of which Nature is only the first sketch. For you must not think that I am putting forward any heathen fancy of being absorbed into Nature. Nature is mortal; we shall outlive her. When all the suns and nebulae have passed away, each one of you will still be alive. Nature is only the image, the symbol; but it is the symbol Scripture invites me to use. We are summoned to pass in through Nature, beyond her, into that splendour which she fitfully reflects.

And in there, in beyond Nature, we shall eat of the tree of life. At present, if we are reborn in Christ, the spirit in us lives directly on God; but the mind, and still more the body, receives life from Him at a thousand removes—through our ancestors, through our food, through the elements. The faint, far-off results of those energies which God’s creative rapture implanted in matter when He made the worlds are what we now call physical pleasures; and even thus filtered, they are too much for our present management. What would it be to taste at the fountain-head that stream of which even these lower reaches prove so intoxicating? Yet that, I believe, is what lies before us. The whole man is to drink joy from the fountain of joy. As St. Augustine said, the rapture of the saved soul will “flow over” into the glorified body. In the light of our present specialized and depraved appetites we cannot imagine this torrens voluptatis, and I warn everyone seriously not to try. But it must be mentioned, to drive out thoughts even more misleading—thoughts that what is saved is a mere ghost, or that the risen body lives in numb insensibility. The body was made for the Lord, and these dismal fancies are wide of the mark.

Meanwhile the cross comes before the crown and tomorrow is a Monday morning. A cleft has opened in the pitiless walls of the world, and we are invited to follow our great Captain inside. The following Him is, of course, the essential point. That being so, it may be asked what practical use there is in the speculations which I have been indulging. I can think of at least one such use. It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat—the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.

Think Pornography Isn't That Bad?

2009-12-15T13:21:00.001-08:00

In preparing for the next message in our current sermon series, "Kingdom Living - Matthew 5-7," I just finished reading The Effects of Pornography on Individuals, Marriage, Family and Community by Patrick Fagan. Wow! It is a very thorough survey of research on the effects of pornography. Be afraid - be very afraid if you think pornography is not that bad. Please read the paper for yourself.

Let the words of the gracious King, Jesus, in Matthew 5 scare us into a desperate reliance on his grace to rescue us from this great evil:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell." Mt. 5:27-30 (ESV)

Some things you can do:

If you are dabbling in pornography get help and run as fast and as far as you can from it. Don't think it is okay - it is very dangerous and destructive.
If you are regularly engaging in pornography get some serious help from your pastor or a qualified counselor - don't delay - it may be too late if you wait.
Assume many if not most of your male friends have struggled with this and need accountability and help from other men who are successfully resisting this danger.
Replace the false and destructive pleasure of illicit sex with the true and lasting pleasure of knowing and enjoying God through Jesus Christ. (read this from John Piper for more help here.)
Support any changes in the regulation of sexually explicit material to keep this horrible stuff quarantined. If we regulate narcotics why should we not regulate pornography?? Take a look at this helpful pamphlet, Dealing with Pornography: A Practical Guide for Protecting Your Family and Your Community from the Family Research Council.
Contact our church if we can help you in any way. See www.KingofGrace.org .

Trying to Deal with S.A.D.?

2009-12-15T06:46:00.001-08:00

Do you feel "blue" during the holidays and winter in general? Some of the reason might be S.A.D. Check out this video to learn more.

Are you SAD? from Puritan Reformed on Vimeo.

Some additional resources:

HT: The Gospel Coaltion Blog

The Abortion Distortion

2009-12-10T06:23:00.000-08:00

"Just two months before the health-care bill’s passage in the House, a Rasmussen poll found that 48 percent of the public didn’t want abortion covered in any government-subsidized health plan, while just 13 percent did.....The idea that a bunch of pro-life rogue wingnuts have hijacked the agenda and thwarted the national will is a convenient, but fanciful, belief." So says Jennifer Senior in her candid article "The Abortion Distortion" in the New Yorker.

Maybe there is more hope for a reasonable and consistent stand on the right-to-life in our country. Maybe we can get past the demonizing rhetoric and have a good and helpful debate that will result in our country enforcing the most foundational right, a right, if eroded, collapses all other rights and eventually undermines government as we have known it.

Please take some time to read this article and contact your congressional representatives and urge them to vote to protect our most fundamental right.

HT: Justin Taylor

Rescuing Ambition

2009-12-05T13:32:00.000-08:00

My friend Dave Harvey is coming out with another great book. Here is an intro from the Amazon site:

This pioneering book rescues ambition from suspicion by putting it to work for the glory of God.

Ambition has developed a reputation synonymous with the love of earthly honor and fame hunting. As a result, the organ of ambition—the God-implanted drive to improve, produce, develop, and create—is neglected and well on its way to paralysis. For some Christians, dreams are numbed. For others, there are no dreams; life just happens. One thing is certain: ambition needs help.

Dave Harvey is calling for a rescue. He wants to snatch ambition from the heap of failed motivations and put it to work for the glory of God. To understand our ambition, we must understand that we are on a quest for glory. Where we find glory determines the success of our quest. With his transparent humor and conversational tone, Harvey expounds on insights from Scripture and everyday life as he calls readers to reach further and dream bigger for the glory of God.

Go to Amazon here to pre-order.

The Purpose of "A Christmas Carol"

2009-12-02T12:01:00.000-08:00

Just read a great article on the original context to Dickens' "A Christmas Carol". Bottom line, Charles Dickens wrote this classic and touching Christmas story not that we would wax nostalgic about old-fashioned Christmases but that our hearts would be stirred to give generously to the poor and thus "keep Christmas" well.

A question for us to consider: If Scrooge were alive today what sort of reforms would he make to keep Christmas well? How can we keep Christmas in terms of charity for needy folks?

Perhaps part of how we can celebrate Christmas this year is in giving to the needy. Here are someworthy causes to help us keep Christmas:

Merry Christmas!

Need Some Good Advent Readings?

2009-11-25T12:53:00.000-08:00

Are you looking for some good Advent devotionals? I came across this one from the Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches. It looks good. You can access it here.

HT: Nancy Wilson

Why Do You Go to Church?

2009-11-25T07:32:00.000-08:00

Jeff Purswell has an excellent post on the biblical perspective on "going to church". Check out this excerpt:

"But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel." (Hebrews 12:22-24 ESV) ....

Sunday Morning

So back to your home church this upcoming Sunday. When you enter and the music begins, what are you more aware of? Is it the song set? the musicians? the mix? Does the worship band wow you? Does the routine bore you?

Or do you perceive something beyond all this?

Your church is one authentic manifestation of the entire people of God that right now is worshiping before the throne of God. That is the reality of new covenant worship. And when we begin to wrap our minds around that, there springs to mind a thousand reasons to rejoice, to praise, and to sing; and to renounce flippancy, self-display, selfishness, superficiality, sloppiness, and thoughtlessness.

Before the God who is a consuming fire, we don’t shuffle in casually. We don’t demand our artistic preferences. We don’t merely gather with our friends. We don’t merely sing together. As the people of God, we enter into the very presence of God. Encountering God in this way is the very nature of the church. By definition, to be the church is to gather in God’s presence and to worship God together. And when we begin singing, we join the glorious worship that takes place unceasingly before the throne of God.

This is true regardless of how we feel, who leads worship, what songs we sing, or how we think worship went. There is something incredible happening on Sunday morning!

Be the church and go to church. Something eternal is going on in there. Don’t miss it.

(Read more.....)

Sign the Manhattan Declaration

2009-11-25T06:36:00.000-08:00

Are you concerned for our culture's misunderstanding of the right to life, the dignity of marriage and religious liberty? Then please consider signing the Manhattan Declaration.

This document winsomely, clearly and boldly presents a Christian worldview on these very important issues. The commitment elegantly communicated in this document is a vital one for every Christian dedicated to historic and biblical Christianity in a time of increasing confusion, controversy and conflict around Christian views of life, liberty and family.

Although some Christians might wrangle over the definition of "the gospel" in this document (see Tim Challis' post), I believe this is finding a tempest in a teacup. By signing the document you are in no way compromising either a Roman Catholic, Orthodox or Evangelical definition of the gospel. The document is constructed to allow Christians to unite over clear and historical Christian teaching on these social justice issues. Let's not lose an opportunity for forming a key and timely alliance because we would rather look for disagreement where none is intended.

I hope you are able to sign it!

Read the introduction below.

The Manhattan Declaration

Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.

We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are:
the sanctity of human life
the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
the rights of conscience and religious liberty.

Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. (Read More Here, Download PDF Here)

A Clarification on Separation of God and Sports

2009-10-22T11:24:00.000-07:00

In a recent post I wrote about the faulty idea and practice that you can somehow separate faith from the public arena - in this case, the sports arena. I cited an article written by Tom Krattenmaker from USA Today.

I want to clarify that Tom Krattenmaker is not calling for a "secular" sports arena, at least not directly or explicitly. As a matter of fact, Mr. Krattenmaker is fairly even-handed in his treatment of religious speech in the public arena. You can read his views on religious speech at Graduations here and his view on Intolerant Atheism here. You can learn more about Tom's views at his web site: tomkrattenmaker.com.

I do think Mr. Krattenmaker's article, And I'd Like to Thank God Almighty, unfairly and narrow-mindedly characterizes historic orthodox Christian beliefs and can be understood as a call to "secularization" of sports. But I wanted you to know that Mr. Krattenmaker is more of a friend of free-speech and overt religious convictions than an enemy.

More of the dialogue characteristic of Mr. Krattenmaker's earlier articles will help us all better enjoy the blessings of a free and just society.

The End of Secularism

2009-10-21T09:47:00.000-07:00

Another good discussion on the fallacy of "secularism". Here are some excerpts:

The Clothed Public Square

Hunter Baker was once a secularist. He believed in God while attending Florida State University, but he had no room for him outside of baptisms, weddings, and funerals. "If someone started talking about Jesus, it was like they were talking about their bathroom habits," Baker says. "That's how secularists feel, and they wish we would stop using religious language because it makes them uncomfortable." Now the Houston Baptist University political science professor is speaking up about the dangers of secularism. Christianity Today online editor Sarah Pulliam spoke with Baker about his new book, The End of Secularism (Crossway). ....
Secularism goes a lot further than the separation of church and state. Instead of saying that these things have to be institutionally separate, secularism says that religion has to be privatized and taken out of public life. Secularists argue that if we stop talking about God, we will create greater social harmony. But religion is not a hobby. To act as though God doesn't exist is fundamentally dishonest.

Second, it's unfair. [According to secularists,] you have Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Mormonism, all of which orbit the sun of secularism. That's utterly fallacious. Secularism is really a competing orthodoxy. And if that's the case, why should one of these competitors be allowed to declare itself the umpire?

Read the whole article here. Or, get the book here.

Separation of Church and Sport

2009-10-21T09:09:00.000-07:00

Once again, another fallacious appeal to separate "religion" from "secular" life in Tom Krattenmaker's article, And I'd like to thank God Almighty, appearing in USA Today.

While someone might argue persuasively for a humbler, gentler and more respectful advocacy of Christianity in sports it is impossible and fallacious to think we can somehow separate people's world views from what they think, say and do in the sports arena or any other context. Too often these appeals to separate "religion" from the public arena are just veiled attempts (even if unconsciously) to promote a simplistic humanistic worldview in the public arena to the exclusion of any other perspective.

I believe the better approach is a respectful and intelligent tolerance that fully allows divergent views to be freely expressed within the bounds of basic commonly held beliefs and values. I believe a thoroughly biblical Christianity is the best foundation for such an environment.

Read a good discussion of the sports article here. Also read a previous post on the fallacy of a "secular" view here.

Collision: Atheism vs. Christianity

2009-10-21T08:39:00.000-07:00

I highly recommend watching the movie, "Collision." It is a documentary/debate on the diverse world views of Atheism and Christianity by some very articulate and winsome proponents of their views, Christopher Hitchins for Atheism and Douglas Wilson for Christianity.

Check out a recent sample of their debate on the Huffington Post:

Religion Is Absurd
by Christopher Hitchens

Religion will always retain a certain tattered prestige because it was our first attempt as a species to make sense of the cosmos and of our own nature, and because it continues to ask "why". Its incurable disability, however, lies in its insistence that the answer to that question can be determined with certainty on the basis of revelation and faith.....

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-hitchens/collision-is-religion-abs_b_326673.html

This absurd belief would not even deserve to be called quixotic if it had not inspired masterpieces of art and music and architecture as well as the most appalling atrocities and depredations. The great cultural question before us is therefore this: can we manage to preserve what is numinous and transcendent and ecstatic without giving any more room to the superstitious and the supernatural. (For example, can one treasure and appreciate the Parthenon, say, while recognizing that the religious cult that gave rise to it is dead, and was in many ways sinister and cruel?) A related question is: can we be moral and ethical in our thoughts and actions without the servile idea that our morals are dictated to us by a supreme entity?

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-hitchens/collision-is-religion-abs_b_326673.html

If Moses and Jesus and Mohammed had never existed -- let alone Joseph Smith or Mary Baker Eddy or Kim Jong Il or any of the other man-made prophets or idols -- we would still be faced with precisely the same questions about how to explain ourselves and our lives, how to think about the just city, and how to comport ourselves with our fellow-creatures. The small progress we have made so far, from the basic realization that diseases are not punishments to the noble idea that as humans we may even have "rights", is due to the exercise of skepticism and doubt, and to the objective scrutiny of hard evidence, and not at all to faith or certainty. The real "transcendence", then, is the one that allows us to shake off the notion of a never-dying tyrannical father-figure, with its unconsoling illusion of redemption by human sacrifice, and assume our proper proportion as people condemned to be free, and able to outgrow the fearful tutelage of a supreme supervisor who does not forgive us the errors he has programmed us to make.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-hitchens/collision-is-religion-abs_b_326673.html

Atheists Suck at Being Atheists
by Pastor Douglas Wilson

From the perspective of a Christian, the refusal of an atheist to be a Christian is dismaying, but it is at least intelligible. But what is really disconcerting is the failure of atheists to be atheists. That is the thing that cries out for further exploration.
We can understand a cook who sets out to prepare a reduction sauce, having it simmer on the stove for three days. But what we shouldn't get is the announcement afterwards that he has prepared us a soufflé. The atheistic worldview is nothing if not inherently reductionistic, whether this is admitted or not. Everything that happens is a chance-driven rattle-jattle jumble in the great concourse of atoms that we call time. Time and chance acting on matter have brought about, in equally aimless fashion, the 1927 New York Yankees, yesterday's foam on a New Jersey beach, Princess Di, the arrangement of pebbles on the back side of the moon, the music of John Cage, the Fourth Crusade, and the current gaggle representing us all in Congress.

If the universe actually is what the materialistic atheist claims it is, then certain things follow from that presupposition. The argument is simple to follow, and is frequently accepted by the sophomore presidents of atheist/agnostic clubs at a university near you, but it is rare for a well-published atheistic leader to acknowledge the force of the argument. To acknowledge openly the corrosive relativism that atheism necessarily entails would do nothing but get the chimps jumping in the red states. To swallow the reduction would present serious public relations problems, and drive Fox News ratings up even further. Who needs that?

If the atheist is right, then I am not a Christian because I have mistaken beliefs, but am rather a Christian because that is what these chemicals would always do in this arrangement and at this temperature. The problem is that this atheistic assumption does the very same thing to the atheist's case for atheism. The atheist gives us an account of all things which makes it impossible for us to believe that any account of all things could possibly be true. But no account of things can be tenable unless it provides us with the preconditions that make it possible for our "accounting" to represent genuine insight. Atheism fails to do this, and the failure is a spectacular one. Nor does atheism allow us to have any fixed ethical standard, or the possibility of beauty.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-hitchens/collision-is-religion-abs_b_326673.html

Read the whole thing.

The documentary is now available from Amazon.

Check out this trailer:

Introducing Dave Harvey

2009-10-21T08:23:00.000-07:00

I am very jazzed to see that Dave Harvey will start contributing to CJ Mahaney's blog, "view from the cheap seats & other stuff."

Dave is the author of When Sinners Say “I Do”: Discovering the Power of the Gospel for Marriage (Shepherd, 2007). This is one of the best books on marriage I have seen!

Dave is a good friend of mine and a wise and Godly pastor. He is in charge of church planting for Sovereign Grace Ministries. He is also very funny.

He recently wrote his first post. Check out this excerpt:

Because we love proclaiming the gospel, Sovereign Grace Ministries created a new role and asked me to fill it. We’re not big on titles around here so I’m the “person-responsible-for-church-planting, international-expansion-and-church-care-in-Sovereign-Grace.” People typically start yawning about halfway through my title, so I often grab attention by also throwing in “bomb disposal.”

I live in Philadelphia, home of the world champion Phillies and some pretty awesome cheesesteaks. If you don’t know what a cheesesteak is, then eating one someday should immediately go on your prayer list. Many young men feel called to plant churches in Philly after eating one.

But I digress. .....

Sovereign Grace Ministries defines success partly by planting gospel-centered churches. It is so important to us that we dedicate an enormous amount of time, training, resources, and personnel to it. We’ve been doing it for 25 years…it’s in our DNA, our genes, our blood, it’s…well, you get the picture. But here’s the neat thing: It still feels like we are just getting started. There’s still so much to do, so much to learn. And then we’ve got to effectively transfer the whole thing to the next generation so that they can continue the mission in strength.

I hope this is important to you as well. But sheer enthusiasm is not enough. We need to understand from God’s Word why we as a ministry are called to plant and build gospel-centered local churches around the world.

Wow, I get excited just writing about this stuff. And I hope my blog contribution will encourage those of you with the same burden for church planting.

Next time we’ll get started by answering the obvious and foundational question: Why plant churches in the first place?

So log on, grab a cheesesteak and join me next time.

If you have a couple minutes check out his full post here.

Looking forward to more!

Domesticating God

2009-10-09T11:57:00.000-07:00

Preparing to preach on 1 Cor. 1:18-25 in relationship to trusting God. DA Carson has been very helpful in this regard. Here is a notable quote..

"Our self-centeredness is deep. It is so brutally idolatrous that it tries to domesticate God himself. In our desperate folly we act as if we can outsmart God, as if he owes us explanations, as if we are wise and self-determining while he exists only to meet our needs."

DA Carson, The Cross and Christian Ministry, p. 15

And from the word of God:

"For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,
'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.'
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."

1 Corinthians 1:18-25 (ESV)

What Is A Secular Education?

2009-10-07T07:32:00.000-07:00

Something I've been pondering for a while. Let me know what you think.....

There is an idea that is commonly held and even vehemently defended in our culture. People might even scoff if you disagree. They will perhaps quote supreme court rulings and excerpts from the constitution as well. The idea is this, that the only legal and proper education for public schools is a "secular" education.

Now this whole idea of "secular" living not only influences our view of education but really our view of everything in the public sphere - politics, community, neighborly talk, relationships at work etc.. "Keep your religion to yourself - that's a private thing." We all assume that life in the public sphere must be secular if we are to get along and coexist as good citizens. While I'm all for getting along and coexisting as good citizens I think that the idea of a "secular" realm is inherently contradictory. I believe a secular view is inherently religious and therefore the idea of a "secular" education violates the first amendment clause that prohibits government sanction of any particular religious view.

Webster defines "secular" as 1 a : of or relating to the worldly or temporal b: not overtly or specifically religious c : not ecclesiastical or clerical .

In order to assume that there are ideas and actions that are secular, not overtly religious, you must assume that there is the ability to divorce ideas and actions from a greater reality than that which is immediately and apparently at hand. So at the core of the secular perspective is the assumption that there is a realm that can somehow be limited to merely the immediate and pragmatic experience of the individual or community. In this place, functionally and hypothetically, there is no God, there is no transcendent truth, there is really nothing more than the individual's or group's experience.

But how do we evaluate that experience? What is it? What constitutes the difference between a "spiritual" experience and a "secular"? What is a group? What is an individual? What is right and wrong? How do we determine it? If secular is the realm with no God, what is God? Where and how is there no God? How do I determine how to interact in such a realm? What are my rights? What are the groups rights? What is a "right" anyhow? How do we get that concept? What is "is"?

Do you see what sort of trouble we get into when we try to carve out a place called "secular"?

I would submit that there is no such thing as a "secular" realm. Instead, we have used this as camouflage to cover what functionally is a state-sponsored religion derived from an increasingly abandoned Enlightenment view of the world that is more-or-less bound to the assumption that the self (whatever that may be) is the ultimate determiner of reality and thus the spiritual center of the universe.

And if this view is the central commitment of our education system aren't we proselytizing our children when we base their education on a "secular" worldview? Is not this a violation of the establishment and free exercise clause of the First Amendment?

Is there a way forward? I think so- so did Abraham Kuyper - that's for another blog.

Creativity and Congregational Worship

2009-10-06T07:52:00.000-07:00

Watch this interview of CJ Mahaney and Bob Kauflin on the use of creativity in corporate worship- some very helpful cautions and instruction.

Four Views on Christianity and Culture

2009-09-28T06:58:00.000-07:00

I came across an excellent discussion by Ray Pennings on four contemporary views of how Christians are to interact with the world. Here are some excerpts:

..... In my mind, there are at least four distinct approaches evident in Reformed circles today, each of which brings some perspective to the tension that this symposium seeks to address.
Neocalvinism focuses on the comprehensiveness of the gospel claim. "Every square inch" belongs to Christ, and the full effects of the cross—as fully conquering sin, including its effects in the groaning creation—are emphasized. .... That means challenging the presuppositions of secular reasoning and working carefully with both the books of creation and revelation.

The "two kingdom perspective" .. brings at least two valuable insights to the conversation. Negatively, it warns against the hubris that sometimes can accompany an attempt to define "the" Christian position on various contemporary issues. ... Positively, it brings a very strong ecclesiology into the conversation, emphasizing the calling of believers to focus on their place in the church and the bride of Christ, and to emphasize the transcendence of the gospel.

Neopuritans (which I prefer as a term to describe that group which Time magazine described as New Calvinists) focus on the sovereignty of God and the glory of God.... this perspective results in an approach that is more individualistic than corporate, focuses more extensively on responding to the needs of our neighbours through the diaconal ministry of the church, and relies on being an example, resisting cultural trends and intentionally working towards a Christian counter-culture.

"Old Calvinism".... One example of this approach is John MacArthur, who has essentially come to the conclusion that engaging the city inevitably leads the church to worldliness and that when the church attempts to engage the culture, the culture is usually more effective at influencing the church.... Promoting godly living and the fruits of the Spirit is a mission "far more good and profitable to men than any amount of social and political activism . . . [Christians] are content very much to let the worldly people deal with the worldly things of this world."

So to summarize the discussion within Reformed circles today: The neocalvinist says the fundamental presuppositions underlying the debate need to be changed if we are to have meaningful engagement. The two kingdom perspective responds that it won't happen; when we try to engage in discussion, we end up calling things Christian that really aren't, resulting in pride and a misrepresentation of the gospel. The neopuritans say that that is why we should avoid a systemic approach; we should focus more on the individual needs of our neighbors and show them, both in ministries of mercy as well as by positive examples, that faith makes a difference. The Old Calvinists say that in all of this activity, we are losing our focus and getting dirty as we dig around in the garbage cans of culture to retrieve a penny or two of value from the bottom. We and our culture need heart-surgery, not band-aids.

Framing the camps in this way can emphasize the gaps and overlook the significant overlap that in practice one finds as people seek to balance their response to the practical tension that can emerge between gospel proclamation and seeking the peace of the city. I think more work needs to be done in developing a coherent public theology. I believe such a theology needs to be rooted in orthodox doctrine (truth matters, and cultural engagement that focuses on activity without core content inevitably leads astray); have a robust worldview that answers the questions our neighbours are asking (in other words, is less concerned about an agenda than responding to the needs and questions of those around us); has an ethic of integrity (our example is an important part of our witness and the institutional church with her offices must be as a bright light and example); and is lived with a pilgrimage spirit (which probably means more emphasis on the doctrines of providence and eschatology as everyday realities in the life of the believer.)

You can check out the whole discussion here.

HT: Kevin DeYoung

CJ Mahaney Sermons on Video

2009-09-28T06:55:00.001-07:00

Check out this excellent resource - CJ Mahaney Sermons on video from Vimeo.

Enjoy!

Thoughts on Two Kingdom Theology vs. Neo-Kuyperism

2009-09-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

I have been reading a biography of Abraham Kuyper and digging deeper into his theology and philosophy. The more I read the more I like what he has to say and what he did.

Recently, Kevin DeYoung and some of the guys at the White Horse Inn debated the appeal of the Two Kingdom world view versus the Neo-Kuperian world view. Both views have value and biblical merit. See Justin Taylor's discussion for a good exchange among commentators.

I can't promise to add anything to their discussion. But, with the hope of helping us think a little more through these important ideas....my thoughts.

While I like aspects of the Two Kingdom approach I believe it has some serious drawbacks. Here are some thoughts on the advantages and drawbacks of the Two Kingdom view:

Advantages:

It is a good understanding in wrestling with the reality that the elect are also exiles living in a world largely opposed to the reign of God.
It helps protect the church from forgetting its chief priority of proclaiming Christ and displaying the fruit of the gospel first and foremost.
It allows for participation in the realm of the world, where we often see the work of common grace that is distinct from true kingdom work (it lacks true acknowledgment of Christ as King ie. good government, friendly neighbors, public charities etc.).
It keeps a healthy tension between the already and the not yet in our eschatology.

Drawbacks:

It can lend itself to a neo-Gnosticism where our spirituality can be disconnected with the nitty-gritty of life lived in a body that dwells in a world that has cultural, economic, social, civic and relational realities that are intimately related to the spiritual.
It can lend itself to an apathetic view of the world and the isolation of the Church from society. Christianity is a comprehensive worldview that is centered on Christ but finds application in every nook and cranny of life, both in a fallen world and in the future re-created world.
It can seem to excuse Christians and Christian leaders from thinking through the particulars of how a Christian is to live in the world because of the inherent difficulty in applying gospel truth to the complexities of life and culture. While there are inherent dangers with any church advocating how to shop or how to invest in stocks or which political party to support or what art forms to promote, this is no reason for separating the realm of the church and the world in this way. We do not wash our hands of the application of the reign of Christ to the nitty-gritty because the issues can become too complicated. We must think biblically about every arena of life. Certainly we must be humble and admit we are culturally biased in our applications, but this is no reason for neglect. "There is a lion in the streets" is the excuse of the sluggard. The reign of Christ extends to all things. We must humbly and diligently seek to apply His truth in all arenas of life even if it means coming up with some messy answers at times.
It seems where it has been embraced it has evidenced, to some degree, the negative effects of the previous three tendencies (ie. Lutheran & Mennonite vs. much of English, Dutch and American evangelicalism). Certainly Neo-Kuyperism has its drawbacks (a subject of a future post) but humble truthful comprehensive Gospel-centered activism, even with its misapplications and messiness seems to have a healthier legacy than the Two Kingdoms approach.

I am eager to think more through this more and hear your perspectives. What do you think?

Guaranteed by God - Romans 8:18-39

2009-09-22T08:38:00.000-07:00

I have been studying Romans 8:18-39 in preparation for Sunday. Check out this wordle of this passage from the ESV.

Go to Wordle to see more.

The Sluggard

2009-09-22T07:20:00.000-07:00

Check out this poem by Isaac Watts entitled "The Sluggard" drawn from the book of Proverbs. God grant us wisdom to avoid the way of the sluggard!

'Tis the voice of the sluggard; I heard him complain,
"You have waked me too soon, I must slumber again."
As the door on its hinges, so he on his bed,
Turns his sides and his shoulders and his heavy head.

"A little more sleep, and a little more slumber;"
Thus he wastes half his days, and his hours without number,
And when he gets up, he sits folding his hands,
Or walks about sauntering, or trifling he stands.

I pass'd by his garden, and saw the wild brier,
The thorn and the thistle grow broader and higher;
The clothes that hang on him are turning to rags;
And his money still wastes till he starves or he begs.

I made him a visit, still hoping to find
That he took better care for improving his mind:
He told me his dreams, talked of eating and drinking;
But scarce reads his Bible, and never loves thinking.

Said I then to my heart, "Here's a lesson for me,"
This man's but a picture of what I might be:
But thanks to my friends for their care in my breeding,
Who taught me betimes to love working and reading.

by Isaac Watts

HT: Josh Harris

Parenting Resources

2009-09-15T11:16:00.000-07:00

I recently heard a message by Dave Harvey that I would put on my list of the top 25 messages I've ever heard. It was entitled, "Parenting in Weakness" and it was an analysis and application of 2 Cor. 12 to parenting. You don't want to miss this one.

Go to Monergism to download an MP3: "Parenting in Weakness", 2 Cor 11:30-12:10, Dave Harvey.

You might want to check out some of the other excellent teaching on parenting on Monergism. Go to Monergism's Section on Parenting here.

Enjoy!

The Shack II

2009-09-05T16:38:00.001-07:00

Two recommendations for alternatives to The Shack:

Trusting God by Jerry Bridges

How Long, O Lord by D.A. Carson.

Enjoy!

The Shack

2009-09-05T16:17:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the summer respite from blogging.....

Something I've wanted to do for a while is write a review of The Shack by William Young. I read it this summer and enjoyed many aspects of it.

It is a gripping story that forces us to address some heart-wrenching issues that are very real for many folks.
It warmly portrays the compassion and tenderness of God.
It communicates the nearness of God to us amidst our struggles.
It does a good job of making us wrestle with the mystery of evil.
It attempts to show how God might resolve our questions in a way that is partially faithful to scripture.

But there are some significant problems...

It neglects to adequately portray the unfathomable glory and wisdom of God that is the ultimate answer for our questions about evil and suffering (see the book of Job).
It downplays or even eliminates God's sovereignty over all of creation, even evil. (It is a scary thing if God is not in control - there are no guarantees in such a world.)
It messes a bit too much with clear scriptural revelations of God for a 21st century version of God. (God as a woman, God as a cool older dude etc.)
It does not emphasize the awesome holiness of God and our obvious and complete unworthiness before him. (see Is. 6 for a biblical encounter between God and a man.)
It does not sufficiently highlight the ultimate resolution of evil in the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Hope that helps. Read it if you are able to sift the good from the bad, otherwise, stay away from it's ultimately unhelpful portrayal of God and the problem of evil. Also, Check out Trevin Waxes review for a fuller analysis.

Two Ways to Live

2009-07-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

My friend Jeff sent me this quote this morning. Check it out:

"Two men may have the same affliction; to one it shall be as gall and wormwood, yet it shall be wine and honey and delightfulness and joy and advantage and riches to the other. This is the mystery of contentment, not so much by removing the evil, as by metamorphosing the evil, by changing the evil into good."

Taken from the book The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment By Jeremiah Burroughs 1648

Isn't it true that two people can face the same circumstance and based on their relationship with God either experience that circumstance as a curse or as a great blessing?

Thank God that the promise for the child of God is to use "all things" for our good and his glory!

That changes everything.

Little Children, Keep Yourself from Idols!

2009-07-15T05:43:00.000-07:00

I spent time reading this post from John Piper out loud this morning. It so helped me! Last night we spent time looking at some home videos of some precious memories. It tempted me to love the gifts more than the Giver and pine for old times. This helped so much!

Take some time to read it out loud and let these truths lead you today. Enjoy. (I recommend reading through Dr. Piper's blog - he has a gift for getting to the core of things - see http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/. )

12 Ways to Recognize the Rise of Covetousness
By John Piper
June 17, 2009

Most of us realize that enjoying anything other than God, from the best gift to the basest pleasure, can become idolatry. Paul says in Colossians 3:5, “Covetousness is idolatry.”

“Covetousness” means desiring something other than God in the wrong way. But what does that mean—“in the wrong way”?

The reason this matters is both vertical and horizontal. Idolatry will destroy our relationship with God. And it will destroy our relationships with people.

All human relational problems—from marriage and family to friendship to neighbors to classmates to colleagues—all of them are rooted in various forms of idolatry, that is, wanting things other than God in wrong ways.

So here is my effort to think biblically about what those wrong ways are. What makes an enjoyment idolatrous? What turns a desire into covetousness, which is idolatry?

1. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is forbidden by God. For example, adultery and fornication and stealing and lying are forbidden by God. Some people at some times feel that these are pleasurable, or else we would not do them. No one sins out of duty. But such pleasure is a sign of idolatry.

2. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is disproportionate to the worth of what is desired. Great desire for non-great things is a sign that we are beginning to make those things idols.

3. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is not permeated with gratitude. When our enjoyment of something tends to make us not think of God, it is moving toward idolatry. But if the enjoyment gives rise to the feeling of gratefulness to God, we are being protected from idolatry. The grateful feeling that we don’t deserve this gift or this enjoyment, but have it freely from God’s grace, is evidence that idolatry is being checked.

4. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it does not see in God’s gift that God himself is more to be desired than the gift. If the gift is not awakening a sense that God, the Giver, is better than the gift, it is becoming an idol.

5. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is starting to feel like a right, and our delight is becoming a demand. It may be that the delight is right. It may be that another person ought to give you this delight. It may be right to tell them this. But when all this rises to the level of angry demands, idolatry is rising.

6. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it draws us away from our duties. When we find ourselves spending time pursuing an enjoyment, knowing that other things, or people, should be getting our attention, we are moving into idolatry.

7. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it awakens a sense of pride that we can experience this delight while others can’t. This is especially true of delights in religious things, like prayer and Bible reading and ministry. It is wonderful to enjoy holy things. It idolatrous to feel proud that we can.

8. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is oblivious or callous to the needs and desires of others. Holy enjoyment is aware of others’ needs and may temporarily leave a good pleasure to help another person have it. One might leave private prayer to be the answer to someone else’s.

9. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it does not desire that Christ be magnified as supremely desirable through the enjoyment. Enjoying anything but Christ (like his good gifts) runs the inevitable risk of magnifying the gift over the Giver. One evidence that idolatry is not happening is the earnest desire that this not happen.

10. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when it is not working a deeper capacity for holy delight. We are sinners still. It is idolatrous to be content with sin. So we desire transformation. Some enjoyments shrink our capacities of holy joy. Others enlarge them. Some go either way, depending on how we think about them. When we don’t care if an enjoyment is making us more holy, we are moving into idolatry.

11. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when its loss ruins our trust in the goodness of God. There can be sorrow at loss without being idolatrous. But when the sorrow threatens our confidence in God, it signals that the thing lost was becoming an idol.

12. Enjoyment is becoming idolatrous when its loss paralyzes us emotionally so that we can’t relate lovingly to other people. This is the horizontal effect of losing confidence in God.

Again: Great sorrow is no sure sign of idolatry. Jesus had great sorrow. But when desire is denied, and the effect is the emotional inability to do what God calls us to do, the warning signs of idolatry are flashing.
For myself and for you, I pray the admonition of 1 John 5:21, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”

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