Considering Gospel Reset

It arrived at the church for free. I’m curious about free books. Sometimes they are important books that the publisher wants to put into the hands of pastors. I’ve gotten a few of those and appreciated them. Sometimes they are fringe-type books that contain some idiosyncratic ideas.

I wasn’t sure which Gospel Reset: Salvation Made Relevant by Ken Ham would be. It was a small book (I read it in three sittings, but it could have been two) and I had just finished a few books. I had a gap in my reading. This fit into that gap without setting me back.

This book isn’t exactly what I had hoped it would be. It did have some important ideas. It also had some idiosyncratic ideas.

Cards on the table time. I am a 6-day young earth creationist. I am therefore not taking issue or colored negatively by Ham’s view of creation, or of Scripture. In some ways, I guess I’m part of his choir. Not fully, because I used to adhere to the Framework Hypothesis and don’t consider the allowable views of creation in my denomination to be heretical though I disagree with them. My friends and co-laborers in the gospel have different views from me. One playful gives me grief for mine. I’m good as long as they hold to a real Adam (and Eve) and a real fall. Anyway …

Ham starts with the premise, a correct one, that western culture has changed significantly in the last 30 years. This shift should mean that how we evangelize needs to change. He discusses this in terms of an Acts 2 Jewish culture versus and Acts 17 Gentile culture. The first had a (generally) biblical worldview and knowledge of Bible content and terminology. The latter came from a pagan background with no biblical understanding. There was plenty of pre-evangelism that Paul had to do.

Paul didn’t merely have a different style of evangelism but because his audience was very different needed to get to the gospel in a very different way. They knew of gods, not God, and had a different concept of sin and its penalty, what an afterlife was about etc.

I grew up in a time when most people had some basic concepts down. Events from the Bible were common knowledge even if people didn’t go to church. That isn’t the case anymore. So we need to talk about these elementary ideas so that our evangelism is meaningful to the person even if they don’t convert.

It was the why our culture is this way that made the book idiosyncratic. There was mention of the indoctrination in evolution. This is a real struggle and problem. Ironically, I became a Christian, in part, while studying evolution in college. Put into the context of the possibility of extraterrestrial life, this seemed fantastical and required more faith in accidents of nature.

He devotes a chapter to another cause of this shift: Barack Obama. Yes, it was going okay until this point despite the frequent mentions of the Ark he built. While Barack Obama was a pluralist and post-modern, those were both issues long before he was elected President. He’s a result of the problem, not the cause of the problem. I’m no defender of President Obama, but he isn’t the devil and didn’t move us from an Acts 2 culture to an Acts 17 culture.

In terms of the solution, he’s essentially arguing for a more redemptive-historical approach than a systematic theological approach to evangelism. He doesn’t say that since it is taught in those “Greek seminaries” like the one I went to. “Greek seminaries” are those that views on Genesis 1-3 that are in addition to Ham’s (and my) view.

I wish it was fleshed out more. Compatible methods of evangelism would be one focusing on Creation-Fall-Redemption-Consummation including Two Ways to Live. This connects us to God’s great Story instead of zipping us in at redemption. You could do that in a culture that had general knowledge of the Bible.

Ham uses a form of presuppositional apologetics. I agree with that methodology and theological commitment. It is not just about evangelism but also helpful in theological debate/discussion. For instance, I find that differences of opinion on the proper subjects of baptism come from different assumptions or presuppositions about other subjects like ecclesiology. In apologetics you don’t simply discuss their views, but try to get to the root of their view and challenge that. It inevitably gets to the question authority (just like in theological debate).

At the end it is essentially an advertisement for Answers in Genesis’ curriculum. Other ministries have ads in the back, but not usually pages of book text. The effect is a little different.  Or at least struck me differently.

Keep in mind that I share his views on creation and apologetics! How he expresses them, and seems to discredit other Christians, can lend itself to cultic type thinking. That is the not only are we right, but we’re the only ones who are right kind of thinking. Having firm convictions is good! Placing everyone else on the outside can be dangerous depending on how small you draw that circle.

For instance, the exclusivity of salvation in Jesus is a good and biblical circle. To draw the circle around the issue of baptism- only those who have our understanding of baptism are saved- is to draw the circle too tightly. And there are groups who do that- cults like the Church of Christ Boston did.

Ham is holding to what I believe is a biblical view. But at times I wonder if he’s drawing that circle too tight. Is only the “fundamentalist” branch of the PCA “in” or do we recognize those who hold to the other acceptable views of creation “in” too? I’m not sure from this short book, but I have some red flags going up. My spidey-sense is tingling.

What I am afraid of (or concerned about if you prefer that terminology) is that people who affirm where he is right will also affirm the idiosyncractic and begin to disrupt the peace of the church because their understanding of the purity of the church permits no disagreement on how the Creator created.

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Considering God and the Transgender Debate

I’ve been swamped with reading lately, and this has meant too many books in process. My brain has been pulled in too many directions. To top it off I decided to preach on a series of “hot button” issues from Genesis. This meant reading a bunch of new books to prepare for these varied subjects.

In one case it meant picking up one of those books that I had started but had been languishing in the cabinet in our kitchen in which I keep my Bible and the books I’m currently reading at home. When God and the Transgender Debate: What Does the Bible Actually Say about Gender Identity? (GTD) by Andrew T. Walker came out I bought it and started to read it. After a few chapters, it sat there waiting while I focused on other reading that was more pressing.

Since I was preaching on gender last Sunday, I resumed my reading of GTD.

The book has evangelical & Reformed street cred with a forward by Al Mohler and book cover blurbs by Rosaria Butterfield, Russell Moore, Sam Allberry, Trevin Wax and (oddly) Rod Dreher. Walker will express a conservative and compassionate perspective on this issue. He avoids extremes that can so often be a trap for us. We tend to pit truth against love. He wants to uphold truth AND express love toward people who experience gender dysphoria.

He begins with Compassion and refers to Jesus’ quotation from Isaiah: “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench.” Jesus is the Truth and therefore spoke the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Yet, Jesus was also compassionate toward the suffering. His is the example for ministry we should follow, but often don’t. In the Gospels we see Jesus healing people with no hope for healing, giving strength to burdened people, and engaging with the outcasts of society (due to disease or sin).

Walker wrote this book because of the cultural changes in the West. “Society is now attempting to help people who experience doubts and struggles with their gender identity, rather than push those people to the margins.” I’d go farther- they are pushing those people to the center. But I won’t quibble too much. He wants to help us think through these issues biblically, and love our friends, children or neighbors who experience these doubts and struggles.

“… remember that the God who speaks to you in the Bible is the same God who loves you so much that he came, lived, and even died to strengthen bruised reeds and fan flickering flames.”

Bringing up Bruce Jenner, Walker then addresses How We Got Where We Are. Due to his cultural & historical stature, you couldn’t avoid media coverage of his dysphoria and going further to transgender. A public discussion ensued that was not limited to adults. Children, thru bathroom laws and sex ed courses, were being dragged into a discussion they are not able to process intellectually and ethically. Relativism has burrowed deep into our cultural understanding so that people with “narrow views” are pushed to the margins. Ours is now a post-Christian culture that doesn’t understand the Scriptures and wants to marginalize those who are still connected with this former majority worldview. Radical individualism and the sexual revolution are turning ethics upside down. We also see the influence of Gnosticism as the body becomes meaningless both in what it says (as part of the Book of Creation) and what we do to it. The person, their feelings or sense of self, matter more than the body (Nancy Pearcey explores this Cartesian dualism in post-modernism in her recent book Love Thy Body).

He then moves to The Language. He provides the working definitions he will use in the book for:

• sex
• gender
• gender identity
• gender dysphoria
• transgender

This helps dispel any confusion about what he means going forward. I wish more people would do this. I was frustrated yesterday with a page in Rosaria Butterfield’s Openness Unhindered where she didn’t define a key term in a discussion of temptation & sin.

The next chapter, On Making a Decision, focuses on how we can or should sort thru these issues by asking three important questions.

• Authority: who has the right to tell me what to do?
• Knowledge: who knows what is best for me to do?
• Trustworthiness: who loves me and wants what is best for me?

Relying on ourselves is not the best answer to these questions. We have all followed our hearts (desires, feelings, great ideas) into disaster. He points us to the Bible which tells us a different, better, all encompassing Story that makes sense of our stories.

“A crucified Creator is a God who has the authority to tell us what to do, who has the wisdom to know what is best for us, and who has proved that he can be trusted to tell us what is best for us.”

He then discusses creation in Well-Designed. He covers the Story in declaring us made in God’s image, made with care. The blueprint for humanity is two complementary genders. God had a good purpose in created humanity this way. Our bodies, as part of creation, declare His praises (Ps. 19). He does caution us against baptizing cultural stereotypes in our discussion of gender. Sometimes we create dysphoria because of extreme views of masculinity and femininity. There will always be outliers. They don’t cease to be their biological gender. Jesus affirmed the creational design in a discussion of divorce in Matthew 19.

Due to the fall & curse we see Beauty and Brokenness. We are glorious ruins, as Francis Schaeffer said. All of creation is a glorious ruin. Therefore we are beautiful but also broken. Adam & Eve’s Story is ours as well. We suffer from darkened understanding, futile thinking and disordered desires. We also suffer from broken bodies. There are people with genetic disorders. There are also people who due to darkened understanding experience real distress about their gender identity. “But experiencing that feeling does not mean that feeding it and acting on it is best, or right.” (pp. 67) In other words, some experience dysphoria, but some who experience it also act on it and try to live as the opposite of their biological sex. Dysphoria is a manifestation of our brokenness just like the rest of creation. We leave out God and creation from our thinking and people can live as if the dysphoria is speaking truth instead of lies to us.

Jesus offers us A Better Future than following our sometimes shifting and creation denying feelings and thoughts. Faith in Christ as our Savior unites us with Jesus who makes us a new creation. In sanctification we are renewed in God’s image, a process which is not completed in this earthly existence. Therefore we all wait for freedom, including many who struggle with gender dysphoria. With all of creation, we all groan. In Romans 8 the Spirit of Jesus groans with us in prayer as we struggle with the futility of creation due to the curse. We have the hope of the resurrection, the redemption of our bodies, when the futility will be removed from creation and our  bodies.

He then shifts to Love Your Neighbor. We should not use the truth as a club. Our attitude toward those who experience dysphoria or are transgender matters. Just like us, those people are made in God’s image and have dignity. We are therefore called to love both our neighbors and our enemies. We are to love truth and people. Often we love truth but are motivated by self-righteousness, pride, fear or a desire to win.

Walker admits that there are No Easy Paths for those who are transgender or experience gender dysphoria. The more boundaries you’ve broken, the more difficult it will be. Some are content to change clothing and names. Some use hormones to change themselves. Others change their body with surgery. Coming to faith and sorting out what next becomes increasingly complex. They require great wisdom and a loving community of faith. There are two aspects to this. First, all Christians will bear crosses. Some are heavier than others, but all are to deny themselves as part of the ordinary Christian life. Second, this cross bearing is not forever. The resurrection will resolve all these outstanding issues we experience in an already/not yet salvation.

This is Challenging to the Church. We will need to face our own self-righteousness and fear to become welcoming toward people who believe but still struggle. They don’t want to. Just like we may not want to struggle with anger, pride, passivity, pornography etc. While set apart and devoted to Christ, we are not perfectly sanctified. We will need to listen to other people’s struggles and groan with them. We bear their burdens with them.

Walker continues with Speaking to Children, and then Tough Questions to wrap up the book.

This is a readable book. It is not overly technical but accessible to people who aren’t scientists or doctors. He offers clear, biblical truth. He also calls us to compassion in how we speak to people. This is not a “these people are bad” book. But one that wrestles with the reality of our fallenness (original sin), and the sufficiency of Christ. He unfolds this in a Creation-Fall-Redemption-Consummation paradigm. This is a book deserving to be read by pastors and laypeople alike. I bought an additional copy for our library. Perhaps you should too.

Here is the sermon on the subject.

 

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Considering Edwards on the Christian Life

One of my new study leave traditions is to read one of the volumes in Crossways’ series on theologians on the Christian life. Each volume looks at one man’s thought and tries to identify their contributions and understanding of how we are to live in Christ and in the world. So far I’ve read the volumes on John Newton (whom Sinclair Ferguson repeatedly called “perhaps the wisest pastor of the Church of England” in his series on Romans) and Herman Bavinck. This study leave it was Jonathan Edwards.

Edwards has long been a favorite of mine, in part because he was a favorite of R.C. Sproul’s. In seminary I took a class, The Theology of Edwards’ Sermons, with R.C.. We read so much of Edwards it may have ruined me for a spell. I haven’t read many of his sermons since then, but have gone back to volumes life The Religious Affections and Charity and Its Fruits.

Dane Ortund’s volume Edwards on the Christian Life boils Edwards down to being live to the beauty of God. He begins with the beauty of God, moves to regeneration as to how we become alive to God’s beauty and then focuses on its affects on us (love, joy, gentleness, obedience) as well as how we grow in our knowledge and experience of that beauty in Scripture, prayer and pilgrimage until finally our fullest experience of beauty in heaven.

This is one of the shorter volumes in the series which is ironic when we consider the great length of Edwards’ sermons and how complex his thought can be at times (The Freedom of the Will is a challenge).  In many ways this serves as an excellent primer on Edwards’ and is much shorter than Gerstner’s Rational Biblical Theology of Jonathan Edwards.

In many ways Ortlund paints an attractive (beautiful?) portrait of the Christian life from Edwards’ view. Who can argue with love, joy and gentleness? What Christian doesn’t want to be loving, joyful and gentle? Yet we cannot separate these fruit of the Spirit from the Word of God, nor the growth in obedience as we live as pilgrims in this world. Yet, missing here is explicit reference to work and marriage. One of Ortlund’s critiques of Edwards was a neglect of the doctrine of creation in favor of redemption. This is one evidence of that neglect. Our life can’t be abstracted out of work and marriage for those are the places we most need the fruit of the Spirit (as well as church life).

One of the ironies that Ortlund points out is that while Edwards’ sermon series on justification was the means for the Northampton revival prior to the Great Awakening, Edwards’ focus seemed to be on sanctification, God’s work in us (subjective), rather than justification, Christ’s work for us (objective). Perhaps this is one reason why the sacraments aren’t mentioned much here or in Edwards’ sermons. This leads to another of Ortlund’s criticisms- that Edwards was overly introspective and more frequently called us to examine ourselves than to look to Christ. Assurance was focused more on Christ’s work in us than for us. He flipped the emphasis. His work for us is the primary source of assurance, with His work in us as the secondary source.

One thing that Edwards focused on that the church tends to neglect is regeneration in which God makes us alive to His beauty. He takes a Reformed position of regeneration preceding, indeed producing, faith rather than the common evangelical view of faith producing regeneration as if that is God’s response to our faith. We need to recapture this more biblical understanding that reflects God’s sovereign grace.

In his criticisms at the end of the book, Ortlund notes that Edwards did have some imbalance in even this. He failed to emphasize that unregenerate people are still made in God’s image, and are not as bad as they can be. They are still capable of civil righteousness even though they are morally incapable of delighting in Christ and the gospel. Additionally, he seems to give “too much” to regeneration this side of glorification. There is a great tension in the Scriptures. It is a total change (every aspect of our being is affected by regeneration) but the change is not total. As regenerate people we want to obey and we grow in obedience but we also feel more acutely our failures to obey. We still, or rather have begun to, struggle with sin. There seems to be a hint of over-realized eschatology in Edwards on this point. But I understand, I think, why. At times I’ve preached like that to get that point across that we have been changed and Christ is at work in us by the Spirit (see Titus 2). Too often we can minimize our need for obedience as a fruit of salvation, and our ability to obey. We live in this tension and it can be easy for us to err on one side or the other. At other times in ministry I note the admission by the Westminster Standards and Heidelberg Catechism that our progress in this life is meager. This is because some people so beat themselves up over their sin. This person needs to hear of Christ’s perfect imputed righteousness and to have more realistic expectations. The lazy and slothful Christian needs to hear the call to obedience. Edwards presumably thought he was preaching to the latter and not the former.

Ortlund puts together a very good volume. He sees Edwards as one worth imitating in many areas. He points out some of his imperfections in the final chapter. One was missing, and that one is particularly pertinent in our particular day. Despite his theological convictions, Edwards (like many in his day) owned slaves. Perhaps the reason why Ortlund doesn’t mention this is because Edwards doesn’t address this in his sermons or writings (at least what I’ve read). Edwards didn’t defend slavery, but did practice it. This should humble us because while we don’t explicitly defend sinful practices, we can certainly practice them (often without realizing their sinfulness). This is one big bone for us to spit out as we consider his life, and it would be great if Ortlund mentioned it.

All in all this is another solid contribution to the series. It should enrich not only my life but my preaching. I am reminded of the need to integrate them more fully.

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Considering Calvin and the Knowledge of God

I’ve been reading the new Essentials Edition of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion since this summer. This is not an edited version, but a new translation of the 1541 edition of the Institutes. I am enjoying it very much. As I’ve been reading, I’ve thought at times, I should blog about this. Unfortunately, for much of the fall I was editing my own book so there wasn’t much time to blog on it. I have a bit more time these days, so I thought I would go back. My desire is to encourage others to read this volume.

It begins with a chapter on the Knowledge of God. This should be no surprise to anyone familiar with The Institutes of the Christian Religion. This volume is not broken up into 4 books like the one edited by McNeill. The material is, at times, covered in a different order. Additionally, this edition is not as exhaustive as future editions would be.

The first paragraph is familiar:

“The whole sum of our wisdom- wisdom, that is, which deserves to be called true and assured- broadly consists of two parts, knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves.”

As made in the image of God, we cannot truly know ourselves without knowing God. As we know God, we discover that “he is the fount of all truth, wisdom, goodness, righteousness, judgment, mercy, power and holiness.” The purpose of this knowledge is that we would worship and honor him.

The purpose of knowing ourselves is “to show us our weakness, misery, vanity and vileness, to fill us with despair, distrust and hatred of ourselves, and then to kindle in us the desire to seek God, for in him in found all that is good and of which we ourselves are empty and deprived.” In other words, we see our depravity and the marring of his image that we might seek like in him. It sounds harsh, but it is similar to Paul’s discussion of the purpose of the law prior to conversion, to reveal our sin and drive us to Jesus.

This is why it is wisdom; this knowledge is to be acted upon, not simply studied abstractly. Knowledge of self is intended to encourage us to seek after God, and leads us to find him. Calvin then notes that “no one ever attains clear knowledge of self unless he has first gazed upon the face of the Lord, and then turns back to look upon himself.” This is similar to Isaiah 6, when the prophet saw God in his glory and then finally saw himself as he really was.

Calvin notes that an awareness of God is common to all people. We all have some “understanding of his majesty.” Calvin is quite dependent on Romans 1 as he thinks through all of this. He is not a speculative theologian, but one who seeks to understand what has been revealed to us in Scripture, and its implications. Romans 1 instructs us that people turned from the true God to idols, “exchanging the truth for the lie ” (Rom. 1). In rejecting the truth, we have become perverted by self-will. Instead of seeking all good in God, we have settled for the lie of the Serpent in the Garden and seek it in and by ourselves: for our glory, not his. Instead of seeking to submit to him, people resist and rebel against him. As Paul says in Ephesians and Colossians, people are at enmity with God. We fall prey to superstition and servile fear. People flee from him, as a guilty Adam and Eve fled from the sound of God approaching them.  This servile fear is “not enough to stop them from resting easy easy in their sin, indulging themselves and preferring to give fleshly excess free rein, rather than bringing it under the Holy Spirit’s control.” In other words, pride drives us to think we deserve better, and know better than God what is good for us. Fear leads us to believe that God does not have our best interests at heart and therefore his law is oppressive.

As we discover in the Psalms, he is good and wants good things for us, including trusting him to guard, guide, protect and provide for us. He wants us to trust him to redeem and rescue us.

Calvin briefly discusses the “Book of Nature” or creation which reveals his invisible qualities. If we study nature, and we should, we will discover much that testifies to his wisdom. We also see that he is revealed in his works of providence. We see that foolishness has consequences. (see Psalm 19 for instance)

But, as Romans 1 makes clear our thinking has become dark and futile. We don’t see what we should see, even though it is clear. The problem isn’t the Book of Nature (natural revelation) but how we understand and interpret it. We are without excuse. Instead of believing, we “so obscure God’s daily works, or else minimize and thus dismiss them” so that “he is deprived and robbed of the praise and thanks we owe him.”

We are dependent on God’s special revelation (Scripture) as a result (the second stanza of Psalm 19). We needed a book because we are prone to forget and are easily led into error. To know God we are utterly dependent upon the Scriptures (and the Spirit’s illumination).

Here Calvin reminds us that Scripture’s authority comes from God, as his word. It is not determined by the church (contra Rome). He briefly develops the ideas of the Spirit’s inner witness, it’s wisdom and truth and history of the truth which confirm the authority of Scripture.

“It is therefore not the role of the Holy Spirit, such as he is promised to us, to dream up fresh and original revelations, or to fashion a new kind of teaching, which alienates us from the gospel message which we have received. His role is rather to seal and confirm in our hearts the teaching provided for us in the gospel.”

The chapter ends with a slightly different form of “triple knowledge” than that expressed in the Heidelberg Catechism: “God’s mercy, one which the salvation of us all depends; his judgment, which he daily visits on the wicked, and which awaits them with even greater vigor, to their eternal shame; and his righteousness, by which his faithful people are generously preserved.”

“However, since God does not allow us to behold him directly and up close, except in the face of Christ who is visible only to the eye of faith, what remains to be said concerning the knowledge of God is better left until we come to speak of the understanding of faith.”

 

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Considering Bavinck on the Christian Life, Part 1

I’ve only read one book by Herman Bavinck. That book was The Doctrine of God, and I read it thanks to Doug Kelly while in seminary. I enjoyed the book and found it helpful, but until recently not much was available in English. I’ve got a copy of a biography on him, but I haven’t read it yet.

His influence, despite this handicap, is evidenced as I read the first few chapters of Bavinck on the Christian Life by John Bolt. I have been greatly influenced by people who have been greatly influenced by Bavinck. I saw much of my personal theology on display in those chapters, much of which is reflected in my approach to marriage in my forth-coming book.

For those who aren’t familiar with Bavinck, he was a Dutch theologian alive in the 19th and 20th centuries. He was a bit younger than his contemporary, the more well known Abraham Kuyper. The book begins with a brief biographical sketch.

Bolt begins the meat of the book with Foundations for Christian Living. The three chapters there cover Bavinck’s theological process so to speak. The first is about creation, Created in God’s Image. We can’t understand the Christian life if we don’t understand ourselves as created in God’s image. Redemption makes us whole humans, not into something altogether different. Bavinck takes a “trinitarian” approach to what it means to be in God’s image: creation, sin & redemption, and eschatology. Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 figure prominently in Bavinck’s thought: Adam as a type of Christ. They are the two covenant heads that govern humanity. As a result, Bavinck affirmed the “covenant of works” as vital to Christian theology. He saw this as “a divinely imposed relationship between God and humanity, a relationship under sanctions: obedience leads to blessing; disobedience results in death. (pp. 43)” And so “we are Christian in order to become truly human, not the other way around. (pp. 43)”

“This theological insight implies that in a Reformed understanding of Christian discipleship the creational, natural vocation of human beings is basic and primary.”

This this point, Bolt provides a critique of the more “radical” approaches to discipleship from Bavinck’s prospective. If he were alive today, Bolt (rightly I think) imagines Bavinck having something to say to people like Claiborne and Platt. He would affirm Christian discipleship in the ordinary callings. Some today sharply criticize the ordinary (creational!) and produce unnecessary and unproductive guilt. There is no hierarchy of callings so that one is better than another. As Paul notes in 1 Corinthians 7, serve God where you are whether rich or poor, slave or free, male or female. Your vocation- butcher, baker, candlestick maker or household engineer- is the context of your discipleship. It is not to be seen as a hindrance to it. The creation mandate is not opposed to the great commission (see pg. 44-45 in particular).

Bolt then brings us into common grace. He notes that the term is often misunderstood, and should not be used to excuse worldliness in Christians. It “is the confession that God continues to providentally watch over creation and fallen humanity and that this care is not restricted but extends beyond the elect. (pp. 48)” Bavinck, like Calvin, distinguishes between a grace common to all humanity, and special or saving grace. Common grace provides the stage for saving grace. His continuing to uphold the creation despite our sin & rebellion is gracious.

Bolt then moves to The Law and the Duty of Christian Obedience. The law is understood within the context of covenant. Our discipleship, occurring within the context of creation also occurs within the context of the law which guides us in a life which pleases God. Bavinck follows the Reformed confessions and catechisms in this expression of grateful obedience.

Bolt spends more time discussing the covenant of works (pp. 56-63) particularly since some prominent Reformed theologians are critical of the doctrine. He notes some of those criticisms, but brings us back to Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 again. We see that their roles as covenant heads are revealed matters. For Bavinck, religion is a revealed matter. Apart from revelation we don’t have true religion. Bolt notes the temptations of moralism and legalism. The law is intended to be kept within the context of covenant. The Ten Commandments are given in the context of redemption. They are to obey because they have been redeemed, not to gain salvation. The enjoyment of that salvation, and remaining in the land, hinged upon obedience (and repentance when they disobeyed) while looking forward to the greater Redeemer who would obey perfectly for us, and work in us by the Spirit to grow in obedience and restore the image of God. For Bavinck “covenant is the essence of true religion. (pp. 60)” It is intended to guide our discipleship as the words of a father are to guide the life of a son. We are to submit to the “living covenantal God with whom we are in fellowship. (pp. 61-2)” Our submission is not simply a matter of His Lordship, but also our love in response to His love toward us.

This means that God does not coerce us, but counsels us thru “admonition, warning, invitation, petition. (pp. 63)” This also takes place in the context of community. Not simply alone, or as a couple, but the whole of humanity (or the new man in Christ) is the fully developed image of God (see pp. 65). We also find that the reality of progressive revelation implies the reality of progressive understanding.

One of the interesting applications that Bolt makes is politics. As imitators of God, “we are always to conduct ourselves in way that enhance our neighbor’s liberty and responsibility (pp. 67)”

“And it suggests that Christians evaluate public social policy in terms of the same principles. It also implies, finally, that when it comes to matters of social policy and political actions, Christians have an obligation to respect each other’s freedom on matters that either are adiaphora (things indifferent) or require application of agreed upon moral principle. The example of poverty and poverty relief come to mind. The Bible is quite clear about the responsibility of God’s children to help those who are poor and needy. Whether or not this commitment to the poor demands support for higher taxes or greater government welfare is quite another matter. It is a mistake for Christians to treat their policy preferences as self-evident applications of biblical principle. Christians need to respect the liberty of those who take their Christian responsibilities in directions that are different from their own.”

Bolt then quotes an interesting section from the 1891 Christian Social Congress on general principles. “Therefore, it is entirely in keeping with Holy Scripture to: … oppose the accumulation of capital and landed property. (pp.68)” Not exactly where I would go with applying Scripture, but in Israel there were limits to wealth accumulation.

Bolt then moves to the third foundation: Union with Christ. This is the longest and most complex chapter, as Bolt confesses. But our redemption is “in Christ” and this concept must be understood. It plays, obviously, a big role in Bavinck’s understanding of Christianity.

Here Bolt talks about Bavinck’s dualities, not the same a dualism. He doesn’t operate with a dialectic: thesis, antithesis and synthesis. But two realities, held in a kind of tension: “earthly calling and eternal destiny; general revelation and particular revelation; common grace and saving grace. (pp. 69)” They are not to be set against one another: we experience both. We are pulled by competing, legitimate longings. These tensions don’t disappear, and we shouldn’t try to eliminate them. But … often we do.

Bavinck’s understanding of union is more than redemptive. Christ is the mediator of creation, a common theme in Bavinck. He “bridges the ontological distance between humanity and God.” We not only have the moral obstacle of sin to deal with, but the metaphysical obstacle to fellowship or communion with God. In light of this he speaks of accommodation like Calvin does. All revelation is tied to the work of Christ, whether pre or post-incarnate.

“He has brought creation, redemption, and eschatology all into the doctrine of Christ without in any way blurring the distinction between nature and grace or sacrificing the gracious character and preeminence of Christ as our Redeemer.”

Bolt then discusses the two dangers of discussing union. The elevation of humanity to divinity or bringing God down to us and losing all sense of transcendence. Bavinck warned about shifting back and forth between deism and pantheism. The former is helpful as we think about moralistic, therapeutic deism. The other is helpful as we think about theosis, and avoid the dangers of divinization and neo-Platonism. (pp. 78-80).

Bolt, in light of all this, discusses what the Chalcedonian formula did and did not do. It marked out boundaries for our contemplation of the hypostatic union. It didn’t really define it. He brings this into the disagreement between the Reformers and Roman Church on justification. Rome emphasizes union through sacraments. The Reformers emphasized a covenantal union.

Bolt then gets into Dutch Reformed church history with Arminius and the two seceding groups connected with Kuyper and Bavinck that eventually united. Some in Kuyper’s group held to presumptive regeneration. Bavinck argued that ordinarily the Spirit used appointed means for regeneration, though the Spirit can regenerate someone directly. We should recognize that as extra-ordinary, not ordinary. Therefore, the presumption regeneration regarding our children, as immediate and extra-ordinary, should not be affirmed.

In terms of our union itself, Bavinck joined together “the covenantal, legal and forensic dimensions of justification with the believer’s mystical union in Christ” (pp. 91). Bavinck also takes us to the “covenant of redemption” between the Trinity. Our union with Christ is built on the work of all three members: the Father electing, the Son providing redemption, and the Spirit applying it in union with Christ. Our union is not something considered apart from Christ’s objective work of redemption. The latter is the basis of the former. We receive the benefits of redemption in our union, particularly justification and sanctification. With regard to the latter, Bavinck notes it is both the passive gift of God, and our active responsibility. While not mentioned, this is helpful to keep in mind in the recent sanctification debates within the Reformed community.

Bolt did a great job laying the theological foundation by which we must understand Bavinck’s view of the Christian life. Without grasping creation, law and union with Christ, there is really no proper understanding of the Christian life.

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Considering Not a Chance

Daughter who spies me reading the book: “Daddy, isn’t R.C. Sproul boring?”

“No, honey. Not to me.”

She is only 9 and R.C. is still a bit over her head. But one of Sproul’s strengths has always been putting the cookies where average people can reach them (not necessarily 9 year-olds however). As a young Christian I read his books and listened to his tapes. I owe him a great debt, so to speak.

In Not a Chance R.C. Sproul turns (most of) his attention away from theology and toward the philosophy of science. His concern is the growth of irrationality in science particularly as it intersects with issues related to creation. For people who don’t usually read philosophy, or haven’t in quite some time, he strives to make it accessible. He also strives to see the application. He interacts with a very long list of philosophers. He mostly succeeds in his goal of accessibility.

He begins with discussing the notion of chance. It can be used in the mathematical sense of probabilities, which is appropriate in science. We speak this way often: what are the chances of rain today? It can also be used to speak of something being accidental or unpredictable. This is typically an inappropriate use of the term in science. This use is growing as some scientists talk about things being created by chance. His point is that chance is not an entity and therefore cannot create anything. To speak as it can is to descend into irrationality. It is not irrational to say we don’t understand something at this point in time. But speaking of it as by chance is.

“I have been contending for the rigorous application of the laws of logic to inferences drawn from induction. Indeed that is what this book is all about.”

He also delves into the question of the universe as created, self-created or self-existent. Sometimes self-created and self-existent are used interchangeably by some scientists. They are not the same. All scientific data at this point in time would appear to rule out a self-existent universe. There was a “time” when it was not. Self-creation is also a logical nightmare. It cannot be and not be in the same sense and at the same time. The universe would clearly appear to be contingent as a result. He makes a brief argument for a Creator.

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Considering Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, Part 2

The first part of Tim Keller’s book, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, is focused on apologetics: showing how Christianity has better and more complete answers regarding pain and suffering than any other way of looking at the world. The 2nd part of the book is called Facing the Furnace. It is about how Christianity looks at suffering, preparing us to enter the furnace. What does our theology say about suffering? That is an important thing.

“The world is too fallen and deeply broken to divide into a neat pattern of good people having good lives and bad people having bad lives.”

He begins with the challenge to faith. Christianity does not look at suffering simplistically like Job’s counselors. There must be answers that satisfy the heart and not just the mind.

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Considering the Creedal Imperative, Part 2

In the first chapter of The Creedal Imperative, Carl Trueman looked at the forces in society that are making it more difficult for Christians to use creeds and confessions to summarize and make their faith known. In his second chapter Trueman goes on the offensive and builds the case for creedalism and confessionalism.

He does not refute all the challenges in this chapter. He more clearly and expansively builds the case for the assumptions that he made to begin the book. These assumptions provide the foundation for seeing creeds and confessions as helpful and authoritative summaries of the faith for communities of faith.

He begins with the adequacy of words. Seems strange to have to do this since we read all the time: blogs, books, recipes, novels, school books etc. Words, oddly enough, reflect back to a biblical understanding of God’s nature: He is the God who speaks. We see this in Genesis 1 and that continues through the rest of the Scriptures. God speaks, and what he speaks are obviously words. He speaks to make himself known. He speaks to have communion within the Trinity and with creation. The use of language therefore is not incidental, but how God defines and sustains his relationship with humanity before and after the fall. It is “a means of his presence.”

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Considering Reeves’ Delighting in the Trinity

In this barren wasteland of books on the Trinity there are only a few oases out there. If you believe Michael Reeves, and I suspect you should, this is thanks to Schleiermacher who basically treated the Trinity as extraneous to Christianity. In Michael Reeves’ Delighting in the Trinity: An Introduction to the Christian Faith he treats the Trinity as the hub upon which all of Christianity turns. That is part of what makes this particular volume on the Trinity unique. He explicitly states and develops this as a steady drumbeat in the book.

“For God is triune, and it is as triune that he is so good and desireable.”

In part, the book is an apologetic for Christianity in general and the Trinity in particular. He spends some time examining what happens if you don’t have a Trinity, what does that mean about God. To put it simply, God is not love. He is wanting a creation, if he wants a creation that serves him. But if God is love, and there are more than 3 persons in this eternal community of love we understand creation (and redemption) as an overflow of the love they have for one another. This sets Christianity into a different light, a greater light.

“Before he ever created, before he ever ruled the world, before anything else, this God was a Father loving his Son.”

For instance, love is the motive for the mission of God. I am currently reading a book on that subject and the author of this otherwise good book seems to neglect this as the reason. He’s not seeing the mission as the Father sending the Son to adopt more children, but more a Creator wanting to be obeyed. This focus on God as loving community helps to clear the air of many misconceptions and present a more winsome Christianity.

“He creates as a Father and he rules as a Father; and that means the way he rules over creation is most unlike the way any other God would rule over creation.”

For instance, in the last chapter he explores how this focus influences how we view various attributes of God. God’s holiness, for instance, is that he is separate from us in that he loves. In Leviticus 19, he reminds us, that the call to be holy, or perfect, as he is is surrounded by the command to love your neighbor as yourself and explanations of what that looks like (caring for the poor, for instance). So our holiness is not to be mere obedience. Our holiness is to be a love that reaches out to others as God has reached out to us in order to meet the needs of others. Oh, there is obedience but as Jesus said in John’s Gospel this is because love Him who first loved us.

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Considering Strange Fire, Straw Men and Stupid Stunts

It has been a long week filled with in-fighting among Calvinist of various stripes. Lines are being drawn in the sand, but I’m not sure what color. There is much about this that disturbs me, and should disturb everyone involved.

Strange Fire is not John MacArthur’s book on Charismatic Theology. I have not read this particular go round. I did read his earlier book, Charismatic Chaos and some of his study materials on 1 Corinthians that touch on the issue. I was a young Christian who had both Charismatic and non-Charismatic friends (and still do).

At the time, I found some of what I learned in the 1 Corinthians study to be helpful. Some of that was undone with Charismatic Chaos. What I found in that book was disturbing to me. Among the things I read was the suggestion that my friends were being influenced by evil spirits. While I am still not convinced in what is normally called “speaking in tongues” is what happened in the Scripture or produced by the Spirit, I’m just not comfortable going there. That seems, to me, to be an unwarranted leap of logic.

The second thing that really put me off was the use of Straw Men in his argumentation. I doubt the average Charismatic would say that John MacArthur understands his position on this issue.

With his new book and conference, MacArthur has claimed that this book is not about most Charismatics. It does not apply to men like John Piper and Wayne Grudem. It might apply to Mark Driscoll, especially after his stunt. He says he’s going after the extremists, particularly the Word of Faith movement. But in his closing arguments, he said it really wasn’t about the extremists, and that he thinks most Charismatics are not Christians (and he’s not just talking about Oneness Pentecostals). Getting confused? Me too.

Part of the problem is that he confuses their continuationist theology with their prosperity gospel, Roman Catholicism or modalism. He fails to distinguish these theological errors from the continuationist theology they also hold. They are separate matters. In other words being charismatic does not mean that you hold to either the prosperity gospel, modalism, and Roman Catholicism. The prosperity gospel is found among some Charismatics. Neither modalism nor Roman Catholicism lead to being Charismatic. He is confusing correlation with causation as they say in statistics. He therefore does us a disservice.

Another problem is that he writes polemical theology. He tends to writing critical books instead of books that affirm positions. Not all of his books are that way, but many of them are. The problem with polemical theology is that you tend to move toward a more extreme position. As a result, the Charismatics I know get tossed under the Word of Faith and Oneness Pentecostal bus even though they don’t belong there. How he argues his points is part of the problem.

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Considering Sex & Money: Mostly Sex

Our world is insane about many things. Sin will do that, produce a form of insanity. But when it comes to Sex & Money, our world is really crazy. Paul Tripp’s newest book is about these “pleasures that leave you empty and the grace that satisfies.”

He confesses that this was a very difficult book for him to write, precisely because of what it revealed about his own heart. Really, that is what most of this book is about: the heart. The manifestations of a heart gone astray he’s focused on are sex and money. This is not an easy book to read for the very same reasons- the waywardness of your own heart will be revealed.

“I am sad to think that when it comes to sex and money, we still buy into the legalism that says if we can organize people’s lives, give them the right set of rules, and attach them to efficient systems of accountability, we can deliver people from their sex-and-money insanity. … Few areas of the human struggle reveal more powerfully the sad sinfulness of sin than the sex-and-money evils that are done thousands of times every day.”

He begins the book with a series of scenarios that illustrate our insanity when it comes to sex and money.

• A fifteen year-old self-appointed expert on oral sex.
• An 8 year-old boy who is addicted to internet pornography.
• A married man who masturbates daily.
• Teachers having sex with under age students (nearly nightly on the news these days).
• Unemployed high school students bombarded with offers for credit cards.
• The average amount of consumer debt people carry creating an “anxiety-producing dance debt.”
• Governments worldwide are deep in debt, near bankruptcy. And their citizens are rioting because they don’t get enough benefits.

And we could go on. You could go on. I know of pastors arrested in “massage parlors”. I know people arrested in the sting operations designed to get men trying to have sex with minors. And these are only what comes out in public. What of the sex and money sins that are still hidden?

“Both offer you an inner sense of well-being while having no capacity whatsoever to satisfy your heart.”

But there is a deeper theological orientation that Tripp wants us to consider: both creation and redemption. He made us sexual beings. He placed us in a world where sex and money issues are unavoidable and significant part of our ordinary experience. You should get the feeling that you are living in your own version of Deuteronomy 8: test, humbled and too often found wanting. Yet…

“The gospel graces us with everything we need to celebrate and participate in both areas of life in a way that honors God and fully enjoys the good things he’s given us to enjoy.”

Tripp moves into the dangerous dichotomy, expanding on the fact that God is Creator. One of the teachings that has done us much harm is that some of life is sacred and some is secular. The fact of creation shows, as Paul says in Colossians 1, that everything was made by God and for God. It is all intended to bring Him glory, and us good. it is all under His rule. A gospel-centered approach starts here because sex and money aren’t the real problem. We are.

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Considering the PCA and Theological Tensions

I’m just an ordinary PCA pastor (not to be confused with Erik Raymond, The Ordinary Pastor, who is not in the PCA). I don’t pastor a big church. Or even a medium sized church. I haven’t published any books (this is part of God’s providence to humble me). I am fairly anonymous in the PCA.

While I was in the ARP, I was not. It is a smaller denomination, and in my youthful exuberance (aka pride) I thought I had something to say about nearly everything. I was a chairman of a Presbytery committee, and therefore on the denominational board. There was an appearance of influence. At times I probably thought I had to save the denomination from “those guys”.

I miss the ARP and my many friends there who put up with me. There is much about the PCA I appreciate and enjoy, including the many friends who put up with me. I am a tiny fish in a lake now. There is much that goes on that I am not aware of here in the desert. But some things get through way out here on the periphery of the PCA. The news of the National Partnership was just such a thing. And so was the backlash, or push back.

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Considering Every Good Endeavor

It isn’t every day that you read a book that received its title from the liner notes of a classic jazz album. John Coltrane used it to explain A Love Supreme. Tim Keller borrows the phrase, and idea, to talk about work in Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work.

If I could summarize the book oh so briefly I’d say: If you like his other books, you’ll like this book. If you don’t, you probably won’t. If you haven’t read any of Keller’s books, what are you waiting for?

Tim Keller is pretty consistent in his writing approach. This book is another testament to that consistency is approach. That means that he seeks to bring together various threads of Christian tradition to show us the richness of our biblical heritage, he makes it accessible to ordinary people (including non-Christians), and keeps the gospel of Jesus Christ at the center in a winsome way.

He begins with God’s Plan for Work, pulling together the various emphases of different parts of the church. He wants us to recognize there is no one view of work, but that Scripture has a broader, deeper understanding of work. Various groups emphasize one or two aspects of that broader, deeper understanding. So, he is not trying to play them against one another, but they are different perspectives or aspects on the one whole. He brings in the Lutheran concept of vocation, and therefore the dignity of work. He brings in the ideas of work as cultivation, we produce something beneficial to others as well as ourselves. Work is also intended to be loving service to others. Holding all of these together is our creation in God’s image such that we are designed to work just as God works in creation and providence.

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Considering the Gospel in the Air

The second section of The Explicit Gospel by Matt Chandler with Jared Wilsom addresses the “gospel in the air”. If the gospel on the ground is the still photo of justification, the gospel on the ground is the movie that provides the context for the gospel. It addresses the meta-narrative of the Bible. What this meta-narrative does is help us see our personal salvation in a larger context of God’s glory and plan for the universe.

This is not a new idea. He quotes Martyn Lloyd-Jones as stressing the need for both the personal and cosmic sides of the gospel. We are to live in the tension instead of focusing exclusively on one. Fundamentalists live in the personal while liberals tend to live in the cosmic. Both are true. Both are in Scripture. So we must hold one in each hand. Chandler does a great job of balancing the two instead of affirming one at the expense of the other. This is something Greg Gilbert struggled to do in What is the Gospel?.

As a result, they display a good theological method. The chapters run thru Creation-Fall- Reconciliation- Consummation. They spend a lot of time in Romans 8 and Revelation 21-22.

“The bottom line is that science is in a constant state of subjectivity and do-overs.”

In the chapter on Creation, Chandler lays some cards on the table. He’s a scientific agnostic. I like the phrase and found this section interesting as he criticizes those who want to place science above Scripture and embrace theistic evolution. He is critical of BioLogos. He looks at some articles about the scientific process as well as how the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics are incompatible with (macro) evolutionary theory.

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Considering Union With Christ

“In Christ” is one of Paul’s favorite phrases. A parallel phrase he uses is “with Christ”. Both of these phrases are his shorthand for union with Christ. This is undeniably one of the most important theological concepts in the Scriptures, for our salvation is “in Christ”. Yet, this subject has been largely ignored by theologians for over 100 years. The contemporary church is much weaker as a result of the neglect of this foundational doctrine.

There have been a much needed spate of books that have sought to address this weakness and restore this doctrine to its rightful place in our minds and hearts. That this took so long reveals one of the weaknesses of the current state of publishing. Even Christian publishers are too focused on sales at the expense of needed truth. Thankfully, some smaller publishers have been acting contrary to common practice.

One of the authors of these books is Robert Letham. I must confess that I had not read any of his books, nor owned any until this past year. Now I own three of his books, including Union with Christ: In Scripture, History, and Theology. It shares its subtitle with his book on another neglected subject, the Trinity. The other work of his I recently purchased and began to read is on the also neglected Work of Christ (part of the excellent Contours of Christian Theology series).

Letham, for those unfamiliar with him, is the Senior Lecturer in Systematic and Historical Theology at Wales Evangelical School of Theology. He has advanced degrees from Westminster Theological Seminary and the University of Aberdeen. The book has an academic feel to it, and I was intellectually stretched while reading much of it. This is not a bad thing, people. This is not a fluffy topic, but one that requires rigorous thinking in addition to the illumination of the Spirit to grasp.

I was well rewarded for my efforts. This book is only about 140 pages long, but it is a dense 140 pages. It is full of meat as he grapples with the topic at hand. True to the subtitle, Letham examines Scripture, the history of the Church and theological formulations to help us understand and apply this most important subject. The importance of this subject is evidenced by how many doctrines Letham addresses in the course of examining it: creation, incarnation, the atonement, justification, adoption, resurrection, sanctification etc.

“Because man was created in the image of God, he was made for communion with God, to rule God’s creation on his behalf.”

Letham begins with creation, which surprised me. But since Jesus is the 2nd Adam, this is the best place to begin. Humanity’s communion with God was destroyed by the first Adam’s sin. Jesus would become man in order to restore this communion, and be the means of that communion. So you see that the book takes a few unexpected twists (I’ll be interested to see how the other books I’ve picked up on the subject work thru this). He spends a chapter on the Incarnation, surveying the development of the doctrine. The Eternal Son united himself with human nature, joining Himself with humanity in order to secure our salvation. In salvation, He then unites Himself with the elect as the means of their salvation thru the Spirit. We only partake of the benefits of salvation if we are so united to Him. This is one of the tougher chapters since it grapples with the nature of the hypostatic union. He traces its development through the ecumenical councils and expressions by Athanasius, Cyril, Nestorius and others. He also shows how this is not neglected by the Westminster Confession of Faith but expressed most often in the Larger Catechism.

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Considering Disciple

Uneven.

If I were given one word to describe Disciple: Getting Your Identity From Jesus by Bill Clem, that is the word I would use. It is published as part of the RE:Lit line and has a forward by Mark Driscoll. It comes with blubs by people like Paul Tripp. In other words, it intrigued me.

Bill is trying to create a paradigm shift in how we think about discipleship. Someone in the church I pastor has been asking me questions about discipleship recently. My answers were in many ways close to what Bill is shooting for. But this runs against the grain of a church shaped by life in America which is filled with standardized tests and a concept of time consumed by efficiency. Programs aren’t discipleship. They can be a means of discipleship, but aren’t necessarily discipleship. Communicating theological knowledge and understanding isn’t either (though people need to grow in their biblical and theological knowledge to grow as disciples).

Bill Clem’s premise is that disciples primarily image God to the watching world (and unseen world). We were created in God’s image. As image bearers, Adam and Eve were to reflect God’s glory, and represent Him to the rest of creation. In their sin, the image was marred.  In redemption, Christ’s work in us (sanctification) is to restore that image in us. We reveal God’s character and represent Him more clearly over time. This premise is a giant step in the right direction. It is a necessary corrective to our thinking about discipleship.

Back to my one word assessment of the book. There are some very good chapters in this book. They are filled with red ink from my pen. And there are some chapters that have little additional ink, or the red ink is expressing my confusion. There were times when I was really tracking with Bill Clem, and there were times when I was under-whelmed or just plain frustrated.

“To disciple people is not to make them like everybody else; it is to shape them into the image of Jesus.”

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Considering Redemption

Addiction is a horrible master.  It doesn’t matter what your particular addiction- food, sex, alcohol, shopping etc. There are nearly as many “methods” for freeing someone from addiction as there are addictions.  As Christians, we recognize that addiction is a form of idolatry. We are not just seeking freedom from a behavior, but freedom from a false god. Most of the methods for freedom just don’t work. Often they just transfer your devotion from one false god to another. Many AA meetings are filled with chain smokers, and all of them are filled with bad tasting coffee to satisfy a caffeine addiction.

This is a really cool cover

Christians have often adapted other treatment plans and sprinkled in some Bible verses.  On the other hand, some have looked to Exodus for a pattern.  Gerald May, in Addiction and Grace, adds the wilderness motiff to psychotherapy. An old friend of mine should have his book, The New Exodus, published soon.

A few years ago, Mars Hill Church in Seattle noticed they had a buffet of small group options for addictions.  They decided to use one curriculum to address all the various addictions people struggled with.  Mike Wilkerson put one together that walks people through Exodus.  The result is Redemption: Freed by Jesus from the Idols we Worship and the Wounds we Carry.  Not only is Mike trying to apply biblical counseling, he’s using some exegetical, narrative theology.

This is one of the strengths of the book.  He is utilizing the pattern of redemption found in Exodus (which is used elsewhere in Scripture like Ezekiel and Revelation, and Jesus refers to the “new Exodus”).  He is applying it to both our idols and our wounds.  This is significant.  The Israelites not only worshiped false gods, but they were the victims of unspeakable evil.  God does not see us a merely victims or merely victimizers.  He knows the degree to which we are both wicked and wounded.  Because of our sinfulness, our woundedness results in one form of wickedness or another.  Bad counseling focuses on only one.  Good, biblical, counseling focuses on both.

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Considering Think

When John Piper’s book Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God was originally release, I wasn’t too impressed with the subject.  “Meh” I thought.  When I found it at a deep discount, I thought “ah, I’ll give it a try.”  A few months later, as it hung out on my bookcase, I thought “now might be a good time to read it.”  And now I realize what a doofus I am.  Unlike the former CEO of Yahoo!, I won’t be sued for using that term since I am referring to myself.

“God is glorified not only by His glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in.” Jonathan Edwards

Piper wrote this short book to refute two extremes of thought among Christians and to assert the “better way” to think about thinking.  “It is a plea to see thinking as a necessary, God-ordained means to knowing God.”  One extreme are thought separated from the reality of God as Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.  This is to think independently of God.  The other extreme is to avoid intellectual exercise because such thinking is unnecessary and wrong.  Piper advocates deep, critical thinking about all things done in recognition and dependence upon God that we might treasure Him.

⁷Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. 2 Timothy 2

This is one of the primary texts Piper uses to make his case.  We see that Paul commands Timothy to think.  Without thinking there will be no understanding.  But that understanding is given by God.  We don’t just ask of it and fail to think.  We must think and God must grant understanding.  Thinking is often God’s means, His ordinary means.  So, it isn’t not thinking or praying but prayerfully thinking that Scripture advocates.

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Still Considering Modesty

Things tend to go in cycles, and modesty is back in the news after a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed piece on the subject.  I have addressed both nakedness and modesty in the past.  But this piece, and a recent commercial for a sitcom have had me pondering the subject again (I’ll spare you visuals).

The author of the piece does not address modesty from a Christian viewpoint.  Yet she can see there is something seriously wrong.  We struggle with our kids wanting to act like adults when they are not adults yet.  But we are complicit in this (she mentions buying said clothes for instance).  We have also given them a warped view of what it means to be an adult!

I have not seen the show Perfect Couples.  But they run the commercial ad nausium on On Demand (it failed, the show is getting the ax).  It is an effective commercial from a purely pragmatic point of view.  The woman catches her husband or boyfriend staring at another woman’s cleavage.  “They’re just breasts.  They don’t have any power over you.  Look at them.”  She directs his head so he’s looking at them.  The camera cuts to the other woman’s very low cut blouse and cleavage.  “You don’t own me” he mumbles.

“Just breasts.”  Our culture really doesn’t know what is going on.  The issue is not clothes or style or cultural differences.  We have to go deeper into the conversation, to a place most people don’t want to go.  This is because there is no such thing as “just breasts.”

First, we have to think in terms of creation (you could explain some of this via evolution, but I won’t).  God made humanity male and female.  They had obvious physical differences (and less obvious emotional ones).  Those differences were not merely functional, though they had functional reasons.  They were also meant to be attractive to the opposite sex.  You don’t need a C (much less a D or E) cup to produce milk.  Big breasts are not essential to nursing babies.  God made women with bigger breasts than men to be attractive to men.  The wider hips and rounder bottom are also attractive to men.  He made Adam and Eve attractive to one another (yes, she didn’t laugh at his penis).  They took delight in one another.

⁵ Your breasts are like two fawns, like twin fawns of a gazelle that browse among the lilies.  Song of Songs 4

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Considering the Motive for Justice

In the 5th chapter of his book Generous Justice, Keller takes up the topic of motivations for justice.  As those who seek to encourage others to act justly, we have to recognize that some attempts to motivate others just don’t work (I know that sounds pragmatic, but it is not the intention).  They are not satisfying and truly motivating.

Ignorance regarding our responsibility to pursue justice can happen (though I would argue that like the knowledge of God we tend to suppress it in our unrighteousness).  But people need more than information.  Motivation, like for the actor, is all-important.  He notes that appeals to reason, love and mercy just don’t provide the necessary motivation to change behavior.  Keller draws on the work of people like Authur Leff.  Sad, sentimental stories don’t really change anything.  They don’t move people to act beyond perhaps an impulsive decision to call in a donation.  It didn’t break the back of any injustice.

The Bible gives believers two basic motivations- joyful awe before the goodness of God’s creation, and the experience of God’s grace in redemption.

Some might say, “Wait a minute!  John talked about love as the motivation in his first letter.”  Yeah, but as you examine the context you also see that it is connected to God’s redemptive love for us which provided propitiation for our sins.  But back to Keller’s argument.

Apart from a belief in creation, there really is no good reason to treat anyone or anything as having dignity or purpose.  This is one of the problems of atheism and agnosticism.  They act like they have logical beliefs, but confess a world that is purely accidental and without purpose.  All meaning is therefore created meaning- created by us and therefore relativized.

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