Rowdy Catechising

Well this video is rough. It’s a little more loose than normal at our table, because sometimes an open mic causes silliness to notch up. We started wearing this little catechism book out when Karsten was 3 or 4, used it for a year or two and just picked it up again a few months ago. We are plugging along further than we have ever been and with room to keep learning. Memorization leads to understanding which leads to wise living.

Catechism is a boon to the soul. It’s a formal instruction in the faith that over time allows truth to be rooted into the heart. Wrong answers aren’t harmful unless they go uncorrected.

With a big gulp, we welcome you to our after-dinner table…

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Principles of Decision Making

David said it. Augustine said it. Jim Elliot said it. Now MacArthur is saying the same thing about Psalm 37:4.

If you meet the conditions, you can do whatever you want, confident your wants are from God. I’ve long loved the safety this verse affords.

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Thanksgiving Meditation

Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing, and gives being to all things that are; and as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone to many, yea in some sort to our whole nation;  let the glorious name of Jehovah have all the praise. – William Bradford

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Learning to Long for Home – A Guest Post, Part 2 of 2

[Read Part One Here]

The Stabilizing Force of Eternity

Our previous look at our eternal home revealed a fascinating truth: there is a direct continuity between this universe and the New Heavens and Earth. But many Christians regard this and other information about eternity as esoteric or fantastic, and not really “practical.” It is instructive, however, to see that the Bible consistently links a proper understanding of eternity to the way we must think and live today.

The New Testament has six major passages that explain various aspects of the new creation (1 Cor. 15, 2 Cor. 5, 1 Th. 4-5, 2 Th. 2, 2 Pt. 3, Rev. 21-22), and five of them provide detailed applications of these truths to our lives. We are to abound in the work of the Lord (1 Cor. 15.58) stiving to please Him (2 Cor. 5.9). We are to encourage one another (1 Th. 4.18, 5.11), while remaining alert, calm, and self controlled (1 Th. 4.6,8). Peter reminds us to live spotless, blameless, and peaceful lives (2 Pt. 3.14).

These admonitions are familiar and anticipated, yet one application is noteworthy for the number of times that it occurs, and that it is somewhat unexpected.

“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable”(1 Cor. 15.58). “So then, brothers, stand firm…and establish [your hearts]” (2 Th. 2.15, 17). “take care that you [do not] lose your own stability” (2 Ptr. 3.17).

Looking forward to our eternal home ought to stabilize us now.

At first glance this seems a bit odd. How would information about what will happen in the SEEMING far distant future enable me to stand firm in the turmoil of sin-corrupted living? What is the connection between the promises of eternity and our struggles with anxious thoughts, shifting relationships, and unexpected bills? Let’s think this through.

What do we normally consider to be stabilizing influences? A reliable job, stable income, strong relationships, sufficient food, good leadership in government. Yet aren’t we quite often reminded just how shaky these can be?

This life is inherently unsteady, because we are finite-life is bigger than any of us, and sin is fatally unreliable. All too often we compound our problems by attempting to control the vicissitudes of life with sinful responses, the very thing that creates instability. Shouldn’t there be something better for us to pin our hopes on, to build our lives on?

By meditating on the way we will live for eternity we are better able to handle, even overcome, the uncertainties and instabilities of this pilgrim life. Here are three key applications of these truths.

Eternity stabilizes us in both prosperity and unexpected calamity, for eternity moves the best and worst case scenarios out of the extreme category. We can live without being controlled by fear and sorrow, or pleasures and gain. Viewing life from an eternal perspective smooths out both the highs and lows.

Eternity stabilizes us in our hopes and ambitions, for we begin to realize that we don’t have to fill our bucket list, we don’t have to chase the possessions, relationships, and power that dominate so many in this present age. God has those things for us in eternity! Why settle for temporal, fading dreams and goals when God has lasting and substantial realities laid up in store for us?

Finally, just as there is a direct continuity between this earth and the redeemed New Earth, so there is a direct continuity between your present life and your redeemed eternal life. You pick up in eternity where you left off in existence…but you leave sin behind! So you are building for eternity in what you learn and how you live today. This encourages me to “reverse engineer” life. Think about it: we will live for all eternity employing virtues and activities and promises that are so strong and stable that they will last forever! If they are that reliable, should we not begin to live that way now? Won’t those fixed values help us to navigate the turbulence of this present life?

God intends the promises of our eternal home to stabilize us in a topsy-turvy world. These truths are not distracting wastes of time; they are practical as potatoes. We on a trajectory into eternity and, as A.W. Tozer said “we do well to think of the long tomorrow.”

____________________________

Recommended Resources

Heaven by Randy Alcorn. This is a comprehensive explanation of the biblical truths of our eternal home. The first half of the book explains the biblical theology of eternity, and the second half answers all the questions we have wondered, but are afraid to ask.

Randy is the director of Eternal Perspectives Ministries, and he has put a tremendous amount of thought into how eternity ought to impact our lives. He has written several other smaller books that highlight and expand on specific aspects of eternity. Among them are The Treasure Principle and The Law of Rewards.

Joni Earekson Tada also wrote a very beneficial book, Heaven, Your Real Home. As with all her books, this is deeply thought-provoking and incredibly vivid. Her devotional based on this book is also worth reading.

Erwin Lutzer’s Your Eternal Reward: Triumph and Tears at the Judgment Seat of Christ and One Minute After You Die are also helpful, as is John MacArthur’s The Glory of Heaven.

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Today’s post is the second of two installments on Heaven for TBAP by David King of Joelton, TN. I wrote a small bit of background to this earlier, and think it fits beautifully with the concept of the forward-thinking, pilgrimesque-living sponsored on this site. Here is part 1.

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Learning to Long for Home – A Guest Post, Part 1 of 2

Ask most Christians of their idea of heaven and you will typically hear something about pearly gates, streets of gold, reuniting with loved ones, and singing praises before God’s throne. So the essential picture is something like this: Heaven is one loooong church service in a place that is beautiful, even ornate, but rather cold and austere. We are mindlessly singing songs, while secretly looking forward to snatching a couple moments to talk with mom during the breaks. We don’t really do anything (heaven is, after all, a place of rest, isn’t it?), so we just exist for all eternity dreadfully bored by the monotony of singing the same worn out hymns and praise songs. But at least it’s not the alternative.

What if our picture is all wrong? What if we have swallowed a cheap imitation served up by silly songs, verses wrenched out of context, and an incomplete understanding of our God?

What if God’s eternity is located in a lush, verdant creation unsullied by the effects of sin? What if you got to explore a new material universe, learning more and ever more of God’s creative abilities, and in so doing, more of Him? What would you do and how would you live if you could let down your guard against yourself? What if you could spend all eternity pursuing your most fervent desires without your own sin weaknesses warping them into something wicked? What if these comprise major elements of eternally worshiping our sovereign Father? Is this too good to be true? Surely the Bible doesn’t teach this. Or does it?

As we look more carefully at the Scriptures, it becomes clear that there is a direct continuity between the present creation and the New Heavens and New Earth. God will purge away sin and all its effects, but the New Creation will be made of the same material as this current universe (2 Peter 3). But God doesn’t just deal with the negative and return creation to some moral tipping point. In His renovated creation righteousness will dwell supremely, permanently, and without any rivals (2 Peter 3.13).

Now just this one facet in the jewel of eternity deserves some contemplation. If God purges away all effects of sin, what does that mean? With no apologies to John Lennon, imagine a world that has no sickness, or injury, or death, so there are no hospitals, dentists, nor cemeteries. No need to fear assault, rape, or theft, so there are no police, armies, or lawyers. On New Earth the only sirens will be at hockey games!

How would things change if righteousness dwelt as an unrivaled virtue? Imagine being completely free to pursue all of your righteous desires with unfettered abandon. Imagine fervently loving God with all your heart and soul and strength and mind without being tripped up by sin, ever. Imagine always learning more and more of God and His creation, and in that growth, your love for and delight in God grows and deepens and flourishes. Imagine that growth continuing forever.

Peter tells us repeatedly that we are to be looking forward to this time. Our future home ought to be a regular source of meditation, and if we do contemplate these things it will change how we live now. That change is our next conversation.

In the meantime, stop to consider how much we have become used to sin and its effects on our lives. What will change? What else will be our “new normal” in eternity?

This is certain: for the foundation of the saints’ love to each other will be their love to the image of God which they see in them. Now most certainly the holier a man is, the more he loves the same degree of the image, so that the holiest in heaven will love that image of God they see in the least holy more than those do that are less holy, and that which makes it beyond any doubt that this superior happiness will be no damp to them is this: that their superior happiness consists in their great humility, and in their greater love to them, and to God, and Christ, whom the saints look upon as themselves. – Jonathan Edwards

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Today’s post is the first of two installments on Heaven for TBAP by David King of Joelton, TN. I wrote a small bit of background to this yesterday, and think it fits beautifully with the concept of the forward-thinking, pilgrimesque-living sponsored on this site.

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What’s Coming Up

Gustave Dore

Through the summer months at Charity Baptist, David King taught an extensive set of Sunday School lessons on the topic of Heaven. His zeal was unrivaled on a topic that I had scarcely considered past the very basics.

One of the important lessons I learned was that all Christians should be studying the concept of Heaven, because it changes the way we live here. It adds depth, color, perspective and richness to even our most mundane days. You get that? Read it again.

Well I’ve asked David to steal some snatches and do some encapsulating, and he has written two posts that will be posted here this week, the first will be Tuesday morning.

I hope that you will ready your heart for the lesson.

You can catch David on his blog, Cook in the Books, while you are waiting.

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Let the Good Things Run Wild

What a stunning end to rule-making!

“And the more I considered Christianity, the more I found that while it had established a rule and order, the chief aim of that order
was to give room for good things to run wild.”

G.K. Chesterton

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R.C. Sproul’s First-Hand Account of The Worst Train Wreck in U.S. History…And God’s Providence in It.

The doctrine of the providence of God leaves no room for fate, blind or otherwise. God is not blind; neither is He capricious. For Him there are no accidents. With God there are no cases of chance events.

Read Train Wreck, R.C. Sproul

HT: Challies

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Why Church History? A Guest Post

Many Christians today suffer from historical amnesia. The time between the apostles and their own day is one giant blank. That is hardly what God had in mind.

So says Bruce Shelley, author of Church History in Plain Language. C.S. Lewis called his generation out on their chronological snobbery, that condition in which they/we are so nearsighted, that we almost refuse to look backward to the past. Consider the rare feat among so many to be able to name the names of even their own great-grandparents. They were vital to your history, and you may have even known them. But who were they and what were they about? What about their parents?

I love that my pastor, even though he cares deeply about his ministry, it’s vitality and the state of the flock, does not see our church as the center of anything or as an end of all woes. He sees it as the current, vital cog in the the mandate of God–a part in which we get to play. And just as important, he looks to the past as an important way of living for today and for the future Kingdom we will inhabit.

In our SS class, he is walking us through the history of the church from Christ through the Reformation, and I asked him to answer the question here for us, “Why Do We Need Church History?”

I hope that you will hear.

_____________________________

 

William Carey

 

I’m a pastor and I believe the people I shepherd need to have a rich and colorful understanding of church history. The story of the church needs to be told because it’s our story. It’s where we came from. Church buildings don’t just pop out of nowhere—every part of a worship service from the doctrinal statement to the hymnbook is the result of ideas and traditions being passed down for centuries in the minds and hearts of believers. When we know that history, the entire experience of worship and church life becomes richer and more meaningful—and much more likely of being preserved.

Our connection with other believers (past and present) should be stronger than even familial and national loyalties. I love my country and I am proud to claim John Adams and George Washington as part of my national heritage, but in comparison, I am much more a son of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and my communion with Paul, Augustine, and John Bunyan is eternal, not temporal. When we stand together on Sundays and recite the Apostles’ Creed, we are linking arms with something much bigger than ourselves. Our American history is full of providence and mighty acts of God, no doubt, but it is still merely a truncated version of the whole story. A lot of us grew up with more pride in our American heritage than our religious heritage, and we need to change that.

For the church to rally, we have to pass on a heritage that evokes a visceral response, emotionally charged with love and loyalty. The hearts of believers have to be trained to love and hate the right things. If the church is to be preserved, the next generation has to give it more than a head nod—it has to love it fiercely and defend it against its enemies. Our story is full of heroes and tales of bravery, integrity and self-sacrifice. If we want our kids to love the church, then we have to tell them the whole story.

The church is changing a lot right now and the history of the church gives us stability. It gives us a point of reference that grounds us, stabilizes us and gives us certainty as we look out into a quickly changing world. There is nothing new under the sun and every heresy is just an old heresy repackaged for our time. I really believe that the church’s best inoculation from false teaching is simply an awareness of the church’s past. Most of our questions have already been asked and answered, but our ignorance keeps us searching around in circles for answers. We can only stand on the shoulders of giants if we study the past.

The last, but immensely important, reason that we must know our history is simply gratitude. Abigail Adams wrote: “Posterity, who are to reap the blessings, will scarcely be able to conceive the hardships and suffering of their ancestors.” Our generation’s lackadaisical attitude about church shows that this is sadly true. We owe our ancestors a debt of gratitude and the least we can do is not forget what they did for the church. As the anniversary of the Reformation approaches, it is with great love and pride and gratitude that I remember Martin Luther and the hundreds of other reformers who sacrificed all this world’s pleasures for the sake of the church. Their legacy inspires me to work hard and persevere. It keeps me from getting too tied to this world and this time and this place. It reminds me of our future home where all the church will be united and God’s plan throughout history will be made clearer than we see it now. And it is there that I want to be found faithful in working hard to preserve the only lasting institution of this world: the Church.

– Samuel Gage is the pastor of Charity Baptist Church in Joelton, TN.

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I’m Not Biased

OK. Here’s the rule:

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David and Goliath is About Me and My Problem, Right?

No, the Bible isn’t about you. Watch the whole video.

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Helpful Advice for Youths…And Elders

Advice on keeping a personal history of thoughts, input, output and plans: Advice From a Mentor

I especially enjoyed the last point.

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I Am the Murderer?

This portion Spurgeon’s autobiography pressed hard on me for a good, long time during my college years. I had it memorized and was pretty stirred by it. I think I need to stir me up again. [This would read better broken into paragraphs, but I'm just going to pull it straight from the original source and let you press your mind to it more fully.]

There was a day, as I took my walks abroad, when I came hard by a spot for ever engraven upon my memory, for there I saw this Friend, my best, my only Friend, murdered. I stooped down in sad affright, and looked at Him. I saw that His hands had been pierced with rough iron nails, and His feet had been rent in the same way. There was misery in His dead countenance so terrible that I scarcely dared to look upon it. His body was emaciated with hunger, His back was red with bloody scourges, and His brow had a circle of wounds about it: clearly could one see that these had been pierced by thorns. I shuddered, for I had known this Friend full well. He never had a fault; He was the purest of the pure, the holiest of the holy. Who could have injured Him? For He never injured any man: all His life long He “went about doing good;” He had healed the sick, He had fed the hungry, He had raised the dead: for which of these works did they kill Him? He had never breathed out anything else but love; and as I looked into the poor sorrowful face, so full of agony, and yet so full of love, I wondered who could have been a wretch so vile as to pierce hands like His. I said within myself, “Where can these traitors live? Who are these that could have smitten such an One as this? Had they murdered an oppressor, we might have forgiven them; had they slain one who had indulged in vice or villainy, it might have been his desert; had it been a murderer and a rebel, or one who had committed sedition, we would have said, “Bury his corpse: justice has at last given him his due.” But when Thou wast slain, my best, my only-beloved, where lodged the traitors? Let me seize them, and they shall be put to death. If there be torments that I can devise, surely they shall endure them all. Oh! what jealousy; what revenge I felt! If I might but find these murderers, what would I not do with them! And as I looked upon that corpse, I heard a footstep, and wondered where it was. I listened, and I clearly perceived that the murderer was close at hand. It was dark, and I groped about to find him. I found that, somehow or other, wherever I put out my hand, I could not meet with him, for he was nearer to me than my hand would go. At last I put my hand upon my breast. “I have thee now,” said I; for lo! he was in my own heart; the murderer was hiding within my own bosom, dwelling in the recesses of my inmost soul. Ah! then I wept indeed, that I, in the very presence of my murdered Master, should be harbouring the murderer; and I felt myself most guilty while I bowed over His corpse, and sang that plaintive hymn,—

“‘Twas you, my sins, my cruel sins,
His chief tormentors were;
Each of my crimes became a nail,
And unbelief the spear.”

The Great Change – Conversion

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You May Just Want to Gloss Over This Post

One of the most profound things I learned this month was the introduction to and then meditation on this hymn by John Newton. It’s a wholly uncomfortable lesson of being a pilgrim. (I couldn’t find a tune online to commend to you, though I learned it to the tune “Appalachia,” aka “The Water is Wide” .)

I Asked the Lord That I Might Grow

I asked the Lord, that I might grow
In faith, and love, and every grace;
Might more of His salvation know;
And seek more earnestly His face.

Twas He who taught me thus to pray,
And He, I trust has answered prayer;
But it has been in such a way,
As almost drove me to despair!

I hoped that in some favored hour,
At once He’d answer my request;
And by His love’s constraining power,
Subdue my sins–and give me rest!

Instead of this, He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart;
And let the angry powers of hell
Assault my soul in every part!

Yes more, with His own hand He seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe!
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourds–and laid me low!

“Lord, why is this!” I trembling cried,
“Will you pursue your worm to death?”
“This is the way,” the Lord replied,
“I answer prayer for grace and faith.”

“These inward trials I employ,
From self and pride to set you free;
And break your schemes of earthly joy,
That you may seek your all in Me!”

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I’ve Got to Mention Him Again

Here is Nate Wilson sitting in the Random House Author Spotlight. It’s a very good chunk of paragraphs you should read.

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You Cannot Imagine All The Things That Will Happen in This Next Decade

But God has it all scripted. For those who know Him, we are standing here on a brink of this great opportunity and joy, safe in Christ. A pilgrim is a person who lives for another time and another place. Go be valiant as you go onward.

The Things That Haven’t Been Done Before

by Edgar Guest

The things that haven’t been done before,
Those are the things to try;
Columbus dreamed of an unknown shore
At the rim of the far-flung sky,
And his heart was bold and his faith was strong
As he ventured in dangers new,
And he paid no heed to the jeering throng
Or the fears of the doubting crew.

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Poignant Parenting

Fantastic!

“There are two paradoxical emotions that I aspire to encourage my children toward. I want to cultivate in them a healthy, God-honoring indignation, because the world is not as it should be. The second emotion I pray for besides this is an utterly unshakable peace. I want them to go through their days without a hint of worry, without succumbing to fear, without surrendering to despair. I want them to wake up every morning and to go to sleep each night completely at ease knowing that Jesus Christ reigns over heaven and earth. I want them to understand that things not being as they ought to be is how things ought to be. The not yet of the kingdom exists precisely because of the already. Sickness, death and poverty still assault us precisely because the Lord of lords has determined that they should.”

– R.C. Sproul (December issue of TableTalk)

HT: Adam Jones

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Yeterday Was the Day that C.S. Lewis Died

His death was overshadowed by JFK’s death on the same day in 1963.

Lewis said,

I am the product of long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor silences, attics explored in solitude, distant noises of gurgling cisterns and pipes, and the noise of wind under the tiles. Also, of endless books.

Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom fully recognize the enormous extension of our being which we owe to authors. We realize it best when we talk with an unliterary friend. He may be full of goodness and good sense but he inhabits a tiny world. In it, we should be suffocated. The man who is contented to be only himself is in a prison. My own eyes are not good enough for me. I will see through those of others.

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What You Should Buy Your Child For Christmas

Let me not be a brow-beater. Let me just state plainly that you should buy your child, nay yourself, a copy of On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness for Christmas. Andrew Peterson has started his book-writing career with a full-tilt, high-charge adventure.

Let me go back a bit. I’m a fan of Lord of the Rings, but this is not that. I’m a much bigger fan of The Chronicles of Narnia, but this is not that either. Although it’s a fantasy adventure, it stands alone and different than either of those. It in no way pretends to be either of them either. It’s not a classic…but I think it might have the trappings to be one. It’s got a steady and sure plot, heaps of suspense, liberal doses of humor, adventurous and curious boys, a sweet and compassionate little girl, a stalwart mother, and really hideous bad guys.

Andrew Peterson was built by God for storytelling. He has a solid background (“All the Way Home”), cohesive overview of reality (“the world was good; the world is fallen; the world will be redeemed”), has the God of Heaven as his center (“Far Country”), and the beauties of redemption in his sights (“every breath is a mercy”). He feeds his family by traveling the country singing stories about those things. Andrew lives with his wife, two boys and a girl in Nashville, TN…where his house is.

The Story

Janner Igiby lives in the sleepy little town of Glipwood. Sleepy that is, except for the smelly and dangerous Fangs who wave the strong hand of control over the Glipfolk. Janner along with his younger brother Tink and their little sister Leeli live with their mother Nia and their grandfather Podo Helmer quiet, simple lives. Quiet and simple that is until we meet them. The quiet ease is disrupted when the Igiby children beginning discovering clues and truths about the real history of their country, their dead father, and the life that their family used to live before the domination by the Fangs and their evil ruler Gnag the Nameless. [I appreciate how unfair it is to summarize a story so succintly. Buy the book to promote justice.]

Prerequisites

You must be willing to read the story with the spirit of a child. That is, you must not be put-off to be immersed in a world where live Fangs (from Dang), thwaps who infest gardens, and toothy cows who are immensely dangerous and drooly. In new worlds are new places, games, names and creatures. Some, like horned hounds, are dreadful, and some are very pleasant, like sugarberries and gooeyballs, along with rhythmical ancient tunes, the beauty and grace of an upright mother, and the power of a common purpose and pull.

What to Notice Throughout

All throughout, Peterson is nudging from the background, trying to spread hints than the Igibys have weight and depth and import. They aren’t simpletons. They aren’t followers. They aren’t common. We can see it in the education that Nia is giving her children, the tugging at their hearts when the bard sings, the hazy memories of memories, and the way that bravado and pluck come to the surface when called on.

You Should Know

Each character is very well-developed. Janner wants to know and understand. Tink wants to see and experience. Leeli is just, plain sweet and compassionate. You will love each of them.

Peterson is a wordsmith and his metaphors and similes are top-notch at pulling you further into the story, except when he intentionally pulls your leg by makes comparisons between two things that are both fictional.

The footnotes are practically worth the price of the book as they reference you further in and further back into the world in which you are delved, making it all the more real.

You Must Know

While the story is entertaining, it’s also serious. In every good story, good must be good and then treated like good. Bad must be bad and then dealt with in the end as bad. And sometimes that fact is a little hard to stomach…just like in real life.

Building a world like Skree (Glipwood is just one town) and beyond is a process. Just as a table must be set and the food prepared before the eating takes place, so doth the story go. The setting takes a few chapters and is good.  Be patient; don’t blink; the goods are coming. You will want more when it’s over.

But It Gets Even Better

When you get to the end of this book, and your heart is racing, and your spirit is soaring, and the answers have been made plain(er), it will seem as if things have only begun. And they have. This book is “merely” the first installment. And……hang on……you’re going to love this……Book Two is already written and ready for purchase. I haven’t read it yet. I have my signed copy all ready to zip through, but…well, it will happen quite soon. The reviews I have read have said that Book Two, called North! Or Be Eaten!, is a little darker but even better than the first book is. I can hardly wait.

You should also know that this series (formally called the Wingfeather Saga) has it’s own official website that will give you lots of interesting background, maps, encyclopedia, beautiful illustrations, and more. You can find it here: Wingfeather Saga Online. It’s a great feature. C.S. Lewis would have used it if he could have.

Now, you absolutely must leave here to read this letter that Andrew wrote to you.

Then, you can come back here to spring over to Amazon to do what you know you should do.

Oh, and I would love to hear from you if you decide to purchase the book.

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It Takes Humility to Laugh

Gospel humility frees you from the need to posture and pose and calculate what others think, so that you are free to laugh at what is really funny with the biggest belly laugh. Proud people don’t really let themselves go in laughter. They don’t get red in the face and fall off chairs and twist their faces into the contortions of real free laughter. Proud people need to keep their dignity. The humble are free to howl with laughter.

– John Piper

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JECA Opens in Two Hours

This is what my life has been bent toward for the last two full years.

George Whitfield said that, “whenever God intends to bring about any great thing, he generally begins with a day of small things.”

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Nate Wilson Strikes Again

And my finger just hit Amazon’s Buy It Now button again. One click. We’ll start reading Friday night.

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But What if I Don’t Like Digging Ditches?

If we look externally there is a difference betwixt the washing of dishes and preaching the Word of God; but as touching to please God, in relation to His call, none at all.

William Tyndale

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“Thou Art Coming to a King…”

HT: Ortlund

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A Move Backward Is Afoot

There is good movement abroad for churches to move back to the fundamentals of the faith, to put aside the petty, to teach the congregants to be concerned with the true fundamentals of the faith as were fought for and defended throughout history and then elucidated somewhat in the early 1900s by Torrey, et al.

Lately, we have been making much of molehills and sidetracks and have forgotten our center, causing us to be be weak at our center.

It reminds me of the John Adams quote I’ve quoted here before about why we do hard things so that our liberties and studies can be expanded over generations. But when our liberties, boundaries and opportunities are expanded like this, it makes it easier to stop thinking about the core of what makes us as Americans or Christians, which is those founding, central, philosophies and Gospel.

I was thinking that when I read this today by William Hazlitt (1778-1830):

“When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.”

When a generation fights and bleeds for political freedom or inerrancy or the deity of Christ, the next generation assumes it. But the problem with assuming something is that over generations the thing is sometimes held more cheaply. As a Christian, I want to be centered on pure Gospel and cleave to the list of fundamentals (the Creed) that was ingrained into a memorized list in my head. As an American, I want to be centered on life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, limited government, earnest capitalism, etc. As an educator, I want to go back to the basics and teach kids how to learn and to exceed the prescribed expectations of a meager community.

Sometimes the means are a subject of controversy. The fluid, easy, quiet thing would be to go with the flow. “Why teach Latin?” “Why talk about the atonement?”

Why does all this trying to go back to the core feel so much like rebellion?

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I Love Super-Summaries

Here is a great blog post that summarizes (maybe not perfectly, but pretty concisely) the big idea from the biggest minds in Christian philosophy in the past 1,000 years.

I would summarize it here, but it’s worth spending a little time perusing.

Ten Lessons from Great Christian Minds

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Easier to Remember When You Can Carry it Around

My boys are only 6, 5, 3, and 1, but they have a list that they can reference to summarize who their friends and enemies are. They know them well. Christie and I encourage their alliances and encourage them to draw daggers to support them.

The Offical Boomershine Boys Guide to Closest Friends and Worstest Enemies

We would rather they learn deep fealty and sweet ardor to something that is overtly a fable (but a sort of supreme fable), than to never learn how to be loyal at all.

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How to Know Where Ryan Is

Wherever Nate Wilson is seminaring, booking, articling, that’s where I want to be. He has almost single-handedly (almost) taught me to see life as a story and to notice all these beautiful little sub-plots all along the way. His offerings are splendid little feasts of warm wit and careful clusters of comparison–showing me how all the reasons I must stop being so ridiculously bland.

Today I found Nate at Powell’s Books. He wrote an storytelling article called The Amazing Tale of the Butterfly-Unicorn-Ballerina-Princess and the Giant, Creeping Land Squid.

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Don’t Waste Your Strength

“Build only what you believe in.”

Kelly Johnson, designer of the U2 and SR-71

HT: Ortlund

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A Mobile Ministry That Sits Behind You in Your Minivan…Among Other Lessons

This is a portion of a personal letter written by my close friend, future-uber-blogger, current college professor, and soon-to-be missionary to Cambodia–Jeremy Farmer. I’ve removed the context of the letter but really wanted you to read his important comments about the theology of children. Please take some time with these thoughts. Chew them up and feel free to leave comments here about what you thoughts. Christie and I are expecting our fifth child and were thankful for the reminders contained here and lessons we learned from these words.

Stop and think upon these things. It will adjust the way you view your role as a parent.

_______________

…I’m coming to see [that the real] starting point for answering every question in life is biblical theology. From the very first page of Scripture, children are everything. No, I don’t think that’s overstatement. Gen. 1:26-28 makes a very tight connection between (1) the image of God; (2) man’s dominion over the earth; (3) and offspring. I think the most natural reading is that dominion is one of the primary means by which man is to image God (at least in the pre-fall state) and multiplying is one of the primary means for exercising this dominion. [Yes, I’m aware that the image of God involves much more than merely dominion and that offspring is not the only means of exercising dominion, but these are the most prominent items in the text.] After the fall, God immediately promises that the one who introduced sin and death would one day be crushed by the woman’s offspring. Thus, children are everything. The rest of the story of the Bible is about this multiplication of children—this is why genealogy is so important throughout the Bible—it’s the record of the offspring God is choosing to be the serpent crusher.

Interestingly too, from the very beginning, God also promises the woman that bearing children will now be painful—a pattern that continues all the way through the end: the victory over the serpent is certain, but it will be difficult and will not come without a fight (ultimately a fight that will cost the very Son of God His life). Anyway, I digress.

So, as Scripture continues to unfold, children are constantly prominent; in fact, if God wants to bless a person throughout Scripture, one of the, if not the, primary ways He does it is by giving him/her children—just do a simple search of how often “bless” and “child/children/son/sons” occur in the same paragraph. The results are quite amazing. On the flip side, one of the most grievous burdens throughout Scripture is barrenness—the absence of children (quite ironic when you consider the present aversion to children among many Christians today). Not only are children prominent throughout the entire storyline of the Bible, even in the poetic commentary of Scripture (such as Psalms, Proverbs), they come in for much attention. Thus, when the psalmist wants to describe children, out of all the things he could say (they’re expensive, tiring, a hassle, etc.), he calls them a “gift” and a “reward” (Ps. 127) designed to be a balm from the weariness of life’s rat race (vv. 1-3). Psalms 127 and 128 are both “wisdom psalms,” part of whose purpose is to describe “the good life” (i.e., what does life look like when lived in the fear of God?) And both of these psalms highlight the role of wife and children. In other words, when God wants to give a man the good life, he gives him a family (obviously, I’m not saying that barren couples or single men are in any way less favored by God necessarily; just that family is indeed always viewed as highly positive).

So, at this point, we have to stop and ask, “Why in the world would I not want children? What higher blessing can I invent than the one God has been using since the beginning?” I think that 1 Tim 2:15 makes most sense when read against this background—the woman was deceived and thus carries a horrible stigma for her role in leading the human race into sin; nevertheless, she will be saved (in the sense of her name being redeemed from this stigma) through the bearing of children. That is, the woman who invoked the curse is actually the instrument for reversing it, as she bears godly children (“if they continue in faith and good works”). Thus, even after the birth of the promised Offspring, the bearing of children is still in some sense redemptive, obviously not in the same sense that the birth of Christ (and the births leading up to his) were redemptive, but at least in the sense that as godly people multiply, God’s plans for the earth come more and more to fruition. This leads me to my next major reason…the Great Commission.

As we study and prepare for ministry, whether missions, pastoring, or whatever, we are constantly longing for more opportunities to minister; sometimes the Lord brings us people who are ripe for our ministry, eager to learn and do anything we tell them. When this happens, we often get quite excited—“what an opportunity for discipleship!” Yet there will never be a discipleship opportunity where I will have even close to the same kind of influence, input, and control in the life of the disciplee as I will in the lives of my children (and spouse too). For good or ill, my children will be like me (something very exciting and very scary). I influence them constantly, whether I am trying to or not—even my absence will influence them. I will never be able to influence the people in my church to this degree. So, if you want to fulfill the great commission, take Christ seriously and start making your own disciples; we’ve made four so far. Something that has come home to me with almost overwhelming weight over the past year has been the unparalleled opportunity I have for preaching the gospel as a father. Every time I discipline one of my girls, I go through the basics of the gospel—what you did was sin; you have a sinful heart; God loves you anyway; because Jesus died and rose, God will forgive you and give you a new heart if you want him too; you need to talk to God. No exaggeration, I get to preach the gospel up to 15 times daily! That’s hard to find even in the most “unreached” pagan village on earth! And the more I preach it to them, the better I’m learning it—the whole thing of God loving me even though I sin…

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