Considering Gospel Peace

Conflict is no stranger to Christians. Or pastors.

The gospel is not only central to restoring relationships broken by conflict, but is also intended to be central to the process of expressing disagreement and debate.

There is a reason that Phillip Simpson’s biography of Jeremiah Burroughs is called A Life of Gospel Peace. His attempts to communicate the necessity of the gospel in conflict, not just after conflict, is a major theme in the book. Does the gospel matter to how you disagree with other? It should.

In 1638 Burroughs was asked to write a preface to Richard Sibbes’ A Christian’s Portion. Sibbes had died three years earlier, but was a very influential pastor, and Thomas Goodwin pushed to have this work published. Sibbes sought peace with brothers and this made a deep impression on Burroughs. Seeking peace didn’t mean holding convictions loosely.

“Factions breed factions.” Richard Sibbes

In his preface to this posthumous work, Burroughs wrote the following:

“Men run so far one from another, some to one side and others to the other side of the circumference, that while they stand diametrically opposed, they leave the truth behind them in the center. Some will give too much to this or that ordinance, because others give too little, because others give too much. It is a spirit of opposition that causes division. Two spheres will but touch in a point; and so when men are swollen with pride and anger, they gather up one from another, and resolve not to adhere so much as in one point.”

This is one of my CavCorollaries: conflict tends to drive both parties to more extreme views. He uses the image of a circle. The disputants are on opposite sides of the circumference. As a result, neither ends up possessing the center of the circles, which represents the truth. One person’s perceived departure results in the other person’s opposite departure.

We see much of this in the discussions of legalism and antinomianism. They are both departures from the truth. The presence of one drives people to the other. Rather than stand on the gospel, people tend to move toward the opposite error. The problem is that often we don’t see ourselves actually doing that. We think we are standing for the truth. We are, part of it. When we put forward part of the truth as the whole truth we deny the truth.

Pride and anger flood our minds so we don’t see, and argue, clearly. Passion turns to emotion, and “truth” becomes more important than love (instead of equally important). This factionalism is a work of the flesh according to Paul in Galatians 5. We tend to forget we have indwelling sin in conflict, while reminding our opponent of their indwelling sin.

Simpson devotes a chapter to the long-running debates on church government during the Westminster Assembly. Burroughs was a dissenter (along with his friend Thomas Goodwin among others) arguing for Independency or a congregational form of government. In the course of this chapter we see this polarization at work. Members from each side began to neglect the commonality and stressed the differences. Eventually they were misrepresenting the differences.

The mission from Parliament was unity in 4 areas: one confession of faith, one catechism, one book of worship and one form of government. The disagreement was on which form of government. There was basic agreement on the others. Yet, Independents feared that a General Assembly would function as another form of episcopacy with dictates from on high, and lording it over the local congregation. They minimized the reality of representation in the General Assembly. The Presbyterians feared that Independency would open the door for the growing number of sects to find a place within the Church of England. They seemed to ignore that the Confession and catechisms would rule out such sects.

In the Westminster Assembly this protracted debate did get hot at times. Burroughs and others were able to maintain relationships with others on the other side of the debate. Burroughs and some of the Independents did favor fraternal associations.

The Apologists, as Burroughs and his cohorts became known, wrote:

“We knew and considered that it was the second-blow that makes the quarrel, and that the beginning of strife would have been as the breaking in of waters…”

It is always the second guy who gets caught. They were trying to uphold peace but were perceived as having created the quarrel by responding to the first blow. That was their perception, so it seems. They pleaded for toleration on this matter. I’m not sure how this could have functioned in light of Parliament’s expressed wishes. But understandably, the Apologist didn’t want to flee to another country again because their views have one again been ruled illegal.

As I read this, I wondered what the Presbyterianism they so feared actually looked like. Simpson could have been clearer in this area. I wonder if they were arguing against a straw man; a form of Presbyterianism unrecognizable not only to me (an American) but to their fellow members of the Assembly.

The rift seemed beyond repair. “For Burroughs, the way godly ministers behaved toward those with whom they disagreed was as important as the issue being debated.” Oh that we would also have similar sentiments. We can be so driven by “truth” that we forget love. It comes about winning, being right, instead of preserving the bond of unity by truth and love in the Spirit.

The next chapter focuses on how this debate left the rooms and flooded the nations through a series of books. Simpson begins the chapter this way:

“There have been men in every generation of Christians, it seems, who have found it their duty to publicize the errors of godly men to discredit them. … In short, they shout in the town square that there is a speck in the eye of a faithful preacher, while oblivious to the plank in their own eye.”

This is the discernment blogger. This is what floods so many of our Facebook groups.

I‘ll use Tim Keller as an example. I have some disagreements with Tim Keller including his views on creation, and how Redeemer has handled the issue of women deacons. However, I am deeply in his debt in terms of how to communicate the gospel. He is centered on the gospel and has a great deal of wisdom. I own most of his books and find them immensely helpful. The charges of being a feminist or holding to a social gospel are utterly unfounded. They have latched on to his pleas for the social implications of the gospel as if that is the gospel he preaches. He is very clear about Christ and Him crucified. He is routinely attacked online by people who usually have many sins of their own that are ignored. We tend to magnify the sins of the other and minimize ours. Tim, like Jonathan Edwards, generally avoids responding to these barking dogs (something I could learn more from).

Back to Burroughs! Thomas Edwards was a Presbyterian who took his disagreement with Burroughs on this issue to ungodly places. In his early days, Edwards was known as a “Young Luther”, a fiery reformer who spoke against the abuse of power by the Church of England. A sermon in 1628 would change his life. “He counseled listeners not to seek carnal advice when in doubt.” He would be imprisoned by ecclesiastical authorities until he recanted his error. Thomas Goodwin was the curate of the local church that signed his certificate of public recantation. Another signer was William Bridge, also an Independent at the Assembly in later years. This was the beginning, however, of over 20 years of trouble-making by Thomas Edwards.

Edwards became one of the most noxious opponents and critics of Congregationalists. Simpson notes: “What began in Edwards as an admirable zeal for truth had, over the years, degenerated into a lack of tolerance for godly ministers who differed from him in nonessential matters.” Burroughs himself put it this way: “It may be that he is angry with me because though my practice offends him not so much as others, yet I countenance and plead for those whom he cries out against as Schismatics.” Edwards was a hedge builder! He saw Congregationalism as allowing every sort of heretic and schismatic to be allowed to worship. Burroughs believed and advocated for no such thing. Some schismatics affirmed Burroughs in the misguided notion he’d tolerate their actual heresy. This is what likely enraged Edwards.

“He was, on the whole, a nasty sort of Christian.” David Masson, John Milton’s biographer on Edwards

Edwards was no longer able to disagree agreeably. He turned smaller disagreements into hills to die on, and condemned Burroughs and those like him. Think about that for a moment: calling a man a heretic because he holds to a different form of government. Refusing to recognize him as a brother for this sounds crazy, but I see similar denunciations on line often enough. I’ve been denounced for finer points of disagreement as though this somehow unraveled the entire gospel.

In 1644 Edwards would reply to the Congregationalists’ An Apologetical Narration with Antapologia: Or, A Full Answer to the Apologetical Narration of Mr. Goodwin, Mr. Nye, Mr. Sympson, Mr. Burroughs, Mr. Bridge, Members of the Assembly of Divines. You get the idea that there may have been some envy for their place in the Assembly. And the longer the title, the more angry the author seems to be.

“I can truly speak it that this present Antapologia is so far from being written out of any malice or ill will to the Apologists, that I love their persons, and value them as brethren; and besides that love I have for them as saints, I have a personal love, and a particular friendship to some of them…” Thomas Edwards

We see the power of self-deception. It’s not personal, it’s church government. His arguments against them referred to a schism in Rotterdam between Bridge and Simpson. This church split was addressed in An Apologetical Narration to show how sister churches can intervene to bring reconciliation. But Edwards used it to his advantage through conjecture, unsubstantiated claims and poor research. In other words, he didn’t prove anything but alleged much. Simpson argues that Edwards likely rushed to print and didn’t take the time to do proper research. Simpson’s source for this controversy was Ann Hughes’ Gangraena and the Struggle for the English Revolution. It argues that Edwards often “distorted their meaning through his deletions and juxtapositions.” There were selective quotes, and at times misquotes. This is a common problem in our controversies.

It seems to be person for Edwards because while he suffered deprivation in England, they were enjoying fruitful ministry in Rotterdam.

“On the contrary, you enjoyed wives, children, estates, suitable friends, good houses and full fare; I cannot imagine fewer miseries, had you been in England.” Thomas Edwards

Burroughs and the others initially refused to respond to Edwards. Edwards attacked Burroughs’ wife in addition to him. He also attacked them for not responding. He wrote a second book, Gangraena: Or a Catalogue and Discovery of Many of the Errors, Heresies, Blasphemies and Pernicious Practices of the Sectaries of This Time, Vented and Acted in England in These Last Four Years, in part to undermine the ministries of the Apologists. He sought to make them guilty by association for the false doctrines of the sects. This is a common problem among “discernment bloggers”. If an author uses a quote from another is it falsely charged that the author affirms all the other has ever said. That is just ridiculous and false. His attacks on Burroughs became more personal. He laid the growth of sects at the feet of the Independents.

“Edwards’s intent was clear; if Parliament failed to ‘thoroughly purge’ all of the sects listed in Gangraena, he warned, that would demonstrate their lack of love for God’s truth and a lack of zeal for the truth of God and His house. … In short, Edwards played upon fears and equated inaction with a lack of love for God and His truth.”

This sounds all to familiar to me. Lack of compliance to one’s view means that you obviously don’t love God and truth. Edwards brought up a story involving a Mr. Alley (actually Mr. Alle but he repeatedly misspelled it) which was proven to be false. But he kept repeating it as proof that Burroughs was a liar.

Burroughs could finally take no more. He wrote Irenicum to the Lovers of Truth and Peace: Heart-Divisions Opened in the Causes and Evils to Them; with Cautions that We May Not be Hurt by Them, and Endeavors to Heal Them. Yes, an excruciatingly long title. Yet it was an expression of gospel peace. Richard Baxter would recommend it to those wanting to escape the sin of schism.

“Many men are of such spirits as they love to be altogether busied about their brethren’s differences. Their discourses, their pens, and all their ways are about these, and that not to heal them but rather to widen them.”

The goal of many, like Edwards, seemed to widen differences not heal relationships. This is the nature in which polemical theology was often carried out, and is often carried out now as well. These were divisions of the head and the heart. The underlying culprit was our depravity, particularly pride.

“A proud man thinks himself too great to be crossed. … A minor offense is sufficient reason that such a man as he should make men who will presume to cross him instead of yield to him, or stoop under him.”

Burroughs lamented these expressions of our depravity, seeing them as a blight upon our faith. Men in conflict often dishonored God’s name, in part of claiming His name for their cause instead of seeking unity. The “unity” they want is the other to bow to their will instead of finding the common ground and places where they can submit to one another and/or extend grace to one another. We need to pray for greater self-awareness about our weaknesses and sins.

He notes that the first dividing principle is “There can be no agreement without uniformity.” This is the idea that we must have uniformity of faith (on non-essentials or thinking all is essential) and practice. Among brothers there will not be such uniformity, nor should there be. I cannot demand that your church be exactly like my church.

In Burroughs’ day such lack of uniformity was resolved by the use of force. Men could be thrown in jail (since it was a state church). Many today have similar notions; agree with me or one of us must leave (either the congregation or the denomination). Burroughs directed against such rash separation from fellow Christians (being truly schismatic). Burroughs considered such separation to be of greater offense than many of the disagreements people used to justify such separation.

Burroughs recommended that we put the best interpretations on our brother’s actions and words unless we have just cause. This would include refusing to impute motives to people without cause. This is what charity does. So often charity is like water in a desert, sorely lacking.

“If I must err, considering what our condition is here in this world, I will rather err by too much gentleness and mildness than by too much rigor and severity.”

Such an attitude is born of humility. There is far too humility as well. The flesh is proud and prone to schism, factions and divisions. Seeing this to be true, we ought to be humbled.

This doesn’t mean being a wimp. Burroughs, after all, stood his ground on his church polity. He argued for toleration, not that all would be conformed to his will. We can have strong arguments for our position, but we should careful we are not falling into the opposite error (or falsely accusing our brother of doing that).

“In your disputes let your arguments be as hard as you will, but let your words be soft. Soft words and hard arguments will make a good dispute. Gentle language gains much upon the hearts of men.”

The goal is to win our brother, not our argument. Too often my words have not been as soft as they should. I want to be more like John Newton, Jeremiah Burroughs and Roger Nicole. They knew what they believed and stood by it, but without demonizing the other person. They did so without falsely representing the other person’s views.

“Never contend unless you are sure you understand one another as to what you contend for.”

Too often I read people putting words into my mouth that have no place being there. I’m not sure who they are arguing with, but it isn’t (simply) me. This means we should ask more questions to ascertain what their position actually is. A prime example is the question of whether SSA is sin. There has been much talking past one another on that issue.

“So far as reason and conscience will give way, yield to those whom you contend with.”

Find places you can compromise, in the best sense of the word. Concede when you can instead of making everything a Texas Death Match.

“Make up breaches as soon as possible. Address them, if possible, at the beginning … If you defer the setting a broken bone, it cannot be done without much difficulty and great pain.”

I know this first hand. Unfortunately it takes both parties. When it doesn’t happen one or both can become entrenched and it is like trying to dislodge a tick. Or to return to Burroughs’ illustration, re-breaking a bone to set it properly is very painful.

Sadly, and predictably, Thomas Edwards did not appreciate Burroughs’ book. His next book had the longest name for a book I’ve ever seen: over 100 words. Simpson calls it hard to read due to long sentences, triviality, long-windedness and a severe tone. He guessed at people’s motives often.

Burroughs initially refused to continue a public feud with an unreasonable man. He offered to meet privately, but Edwards refused. Reluctantly he wrote A Vindication of Mr. Burroughs, Against Mr. Edwards’ Foul Aspersions etc. Edwards’ works were making life and ministry miserable for Burroughs. But Edwards’ seemed more eager to print more than to sit down and settle the matter. Burrough’s thoughts were some I’ve had: “What have I done … that thus angers the man?”

This is not a story that ended well. After an accident, Burroughs would die. The men would never be reconciled. After his death, Edwards continued to complete his third volume of Gangraena. He tried to assure people it wasn’t personal. But when Cromwell came to power in 1653, Edwards left for Holland to continue he polemical attacks. He would die there.

“Let us all study peace, seek peace, follow peace, pursue peace, and the God of peace be with us.”

 

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Considering The Blessing of Humility

In our day and age humility is not seen as a blessing. We live in the age of the big ego. This is the dawning of the age of narcissism. Our social media usage seems to stroke our pride as we seek after likes.

I‘m aware of the irony. I’m writing this on a blog, part of social media, hoping people will read it. But I’m hoping they will go beyond this blog post to the book I’m writing about: The Blessing of Humility by Jerry Bridges.

Jerry Bridges has written many books that I’ve found helpful in the course of my life as a Christian and a pastor. This is one of the last books he wrote prior to his death. I was unaware of its release until seeing it in a clearance sale. Good for me, but a sad reflection on society and even American church culture. This is a book too many of us need to read.

Pride is like bad breath, everyone knows you have it before you do. The struggle against pride is one that is a daily affair, if we are paying attention. Over time I’ve read a few books on the topic including Humility: the Forgotten Virtue by Wayne Mack, and Humility by C.J. Mahaney. I used Mack’s book for our Men’s study at one point.

In Bridges’ book, he looks at the Beatitudes as a description of humility. Humility is one of the twin traits of mature Christianity. The other is love.

Bridges notes that in Jesus’ day, humility was looked down upon in Roman culture, the dominant culture of the day. Before moving into the Beatitudes, he addresses some key texts including 1 Peter 5 which joins precepts and promises.

Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” ⁶ Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,…

Humility is the metaphorical clothing we should wear as we appear in public. We are to be humble in our relationships with others and with God, in keeping with the two great commandments upon which hang the whole law. While humility seems off-putting and working against our advancement in life, God offers promises of grace and glory for those who humble themselves in this way. There is promised blessing for humility.

Bridges view of the Beatitudes is one of what a sanctified person looks like. While our failure to possess these characteristics as we should points us to Jesus who perfectly manifested them for imputed righteousness, we must not stop there. Like Mark Jones, Bridges sees this as a description of imparted righteousness in sanctification. The Beatitudes reflect whom Jesus is making us as He conforms us to His likeness. Thus we are to seek these traits and therefore humility.

“In the Beatitudes Jesus is talking about the character traits of those already in the kingdom.”

In this relatively short book, just under 150 pages, he explains teach character trait and ties it to humility. With short chapters it can be read devotionally. It contains a study guide in the back for group study or personal reflection and application of the material.

What we find is not an exhaustive book, but certainly a helpful book. It is not very technical, assuming a knowledge of the original languages or lots of theological terminology. It is written for ordinary people to study. He often connects the ideas he is exploring with hymns that express those sentiments. It is rich in Scripture and hymnody.

Humility is poor in spirit. We recognize that we are spiritually destitute and unable to please God in ourselves. Our struggle with sin is far more profound than we realize, and realizing that is half the battle. Maturity means increasing in our awareness of this ongoing struggle. Our focus shifts from our actions to our attitudes and thoughts.

It is because we are still practicing sinners that we mourn. We mourn our spiritual poverty. We aren’t simply aware of our continuing sinfulness but broken hearted about our continuing rebellion.

Meekness points us to the humility of accepting the difficult circumstances in our lives as part of God’s wise, loving providence. Following Thomas Watson (for Bridges loved the Puritans as well as hymns) he applies meekness toward other people in terms of “bearing of injuries, the forgiving of injuries, and the returning of good for evil.” We will all be subject to the sins of others against us. Humility does not retaliate but bears, forgives (!) and bestows good. This is so contrary to our prideful flesh what strikes out, bears grudges and tries to destroy the offender. Our words are often weapons we use against them.

“Meekness is a defining grace, produced by the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian, which characterizes that person’s response towards God and man.”

We also have a hunger and thirst for righteousness, to be personally righteous. Such hunger and thirst is not so we don’t need Jesus but so we are like Jesus and bring Him glory. Prideful righteousness, religiosity, is an attempt at self-salvation. It is in this section in particular that Bridges distinguishes between positional and personal (what he calls experiential) righteousness. If I am a Christian I need not hunger and thirst for positional righteousness. I have it! But I do for personal righteousness.

Jesus then moved to mercy, and so did Bridges. He develops the idea of mercy as compassion in action. It is not simply empathy but moving to relieve misery as seen in Isaiah 58 among other places. Part of mercy is remembering the sins of others no more. This is not forgetting but choosing not to bring those sins up against them anymore. This happens only as we see the fact that God no longer remembers our many and grievous sins.

Another aspect of humility is purity of heart or whole-heartedness. He ties this into the fact that we are not our own but have been bought with a price. We are property of Jesus, as Bob Dylan sang long ago. Purity of heart recognizes this and seeks to see all of life through that lens.

Conflict is regularly addressed in Scripture. When I recently preached through Philippians I was shocked to discover how much this “epistle of joy” was marked by conflict. As someone going through a prolonged conflict, I found hope as well as conviction as I struggled to preach through such a “simple” letter. Humility seeks peace, and makes peace. Peacemaking is very difficult and goes against all our basic inclinations to seek peace on our terms. In other words, there complete surrender.

“To be a peacemaker, then, means we absorb the hurtful words or actions of others without becoming resentful, retaliating, or even cutting off a relationship with the person.”

Humility is revealed in how we respond to being persecuted for righteousness’ sake. While it is appropriate for American Christians to seek protection in our earthly citizenship (Paul, as Bridges notes, appealed to his Roman citizenship at times) we should recognize that our courts system will fail us eventually. We may lose our rights as the tide rises against Christianity. While experiencing hostility, we are not to be hostile but humble. Bridges reminds to entrust ourselves to our Creator, like Jesus, and continue to do good in keeping with 1 Peter 2.

He ends with humility and the gospel. He channels his inner Jack Miller and talks about preaching the gospel to himself and yourself every day. The gospel is not simply the door we walk through to begin life as a Christian but the path we walk as Christians. Humility only grows in gospel soil.

“It is the gospel that will keep us from becoming discourage and will instead motivate us to keep pursuing humility, even when we fail so often.”

This little book is gospel-drenched. That means it is encouraging, not discouraging. Our failures are opportunities to look to Jesus, not a call to despair or simply try harder. The humble and meek Jesus is ready to pardon and help us. Humility keeps coming to Jesus as our only hope. As we do this we find ourselves no better than others, in part because we are not focused on their sins so much. Our sins, and theirs, drive us to Jesus who deals with us as a wonderful, merciful Savior.

This is a book worth the time to read and think about.

 

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Considering Caring for One Another

While at General Assembly, I spotted a book in the exhibit hall that I was curious about from online. I like to actually flip through a book. Yes, sometimes you can download a sample for a book. But like the one I just did, you just can’t flip through it. You scroll thru blank pages to get to the table on contents. You don’t flip to random pages. It’s just … different.

Anyway, that book is Caring for One Another by Edward Welch. It interested me as a small group discussion guide. It seems to be a companion to his book Side By Side: Walking with Others in Wisdom and Love. It seems to track with the second part of that book.

It has 8 lessons:

1. With All Humility
2. Move Toward Others
3. Know the Heart
4. Know the Critical Influences
5. Be Personal and Pray
6. Talk About Suffering
7. Talk About Sin
8. Remember and Reflect

The goal here is developing vibrant community among Christians. His intention is that the lesson be read, and the questions at the end of the lesson be discussed. There are not so many questions that you will feel the pressure of time constraints.

Where some will struggle is way Scripture is used. There are often references to Scripture to support a point. But it isn’t the development of a text or two in the course of the lesson. As a one off, I can live with that. As a steady diet, it would be problematic.

In thinking about my own church context, this series would likely be a hard sell though the overall subject would likely be quite helpful and what I want to develop. I want them to learn how to talk about these things with one another so they can care with one another. Like most sinners, we struggle with the superficial and the common ground: jobs, sports, hobbies etc.

One of the great needs is to connect a person’s particular needs with Scripture. It does take a growing knowledge of Scripture (it will always get back to that). Welch wants people to see that their problems are addressed by Scripture, and Scripture is one of the primary means of ministry to one another. Another is prayer, as he covers in another lesson.

He wants people to be able to understand more of their heart and begin to address the heart in their conversations- evaluating desires and longings, demands and expectations by Scripture. Ministry becomes more personal and powerful as we do.

At times Welch could utilize some important distinctions. For instance, in the lesson on sin he writes “Suffering, for example, cannot separate us from the Lord, but hard hearts and persistent sin break our relationship with God.”

I would address this in terms of the distinction between union and communion or fellowship. If we are truly united to Christ, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Not suffering and not even sin because were are fully justified in Christ. It can break our fellowship or communion with Christ. God may seem distant, and He will discipline us like a father should his son. Our relationship is strained, but not broken.

That is quite a mouthful, and he’s trying to be brief in this book. He can’t say everything, but those distinctions are of great importance. The book could use a few more of those.

This book would be helpful for training small group leaders so they can begin to model this to their people. It would also be helpful for a small group so their subsequent studies are more impactful because they know and care for each other. That is what the church should be engaged in because God has cared for us in Christ Jesus, and makes us into people who care for others.

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Considering Christian Love

I was planning for my vacation reading. I felt the need to be refreshed, renewed. I had recently purchased the Puritan Paperback Christian Love by Hugh Binning. It was short (105 pages), and on love. What could possibly go wrong?

The doctrine of concurrence indicates that two or more persons will the same event for different reasons. I chose this book because I thought it would be encouraging. God chose this book because I needed to be challenged- to wrestle more deeply with the realities of love.

If only I’d looked at the table of contents! The first chapter is “Love and Self-Love”. Binning began his treatise with the problem of self-love which inevitably exposes the selfishness of one’s own heart. At least if you are regenerate (unconverted people being more easily blinded by their self-love).

Sin is the threat to true love. It cuts thru the bonds of love that are intended to hold us together, so that we can have our own way. Sin is contrary to love which is how Jesus summarizes the law of God.

All is not lost. Binning reminds us of Jesus who is our peace. He restores the bonds of love between us and God and one another.

Binning then moves us to the “Excellence of Christian Love”. This is the key here: Christian. It is the love we experience and manifest as Christians. Having the love of God poured into our hearts, we are enable to love others better and better. Eventually we are able to love others well. This, of course, means putting our self-love to death.

“Self-love is the greatest enemy to true Christian love, and pride is the fountain of self-love. … Self-denial and true love are inseparable. Self-love makes a monopoly of all things to its own interest, and this is most opposite to Christian affection and communion …”

The next chapter is “Motives to Christian Love” since he has commended love to us as excellent. He works thru the various motives we have to manifest love. He rightly begins with God’s love for us as revealed in Christ. Christ, who had all things, became as nothing out of love. He humbled himself in order to love us, and as an act of love to us. We see as well the forgiveness and grace of God toward us, that we are now intended to extend toward others. Having knowledge of our own sinfulness, pride and tendency toward self-love, should move us with compassion toward others who also struggle.

The next logical subject is “Christian Love in Practice”, focusing on what it looks like for us to love. There is more here about forgiveness. To love is to forgive our brother 70 x 7. It is to not tell tales (gossip) concerning our brothers. These are the two aspects that draw the most of his attention, or at least caught the most of mine.

Back we go to “Humility and Meekness”. Binning resumes his gospel-centered assault on our self-love. Pride dies hard. It is like that Whack-a-Mole game. Every time we pound it down, it pops back up again in a slightly different form. He provides some positive ways to cultivate humility in us.

The book concludes with 3 sermons from Binning’s series, the Sinner’s Sanctuary. This was a 40 sermon series on Romans 8:1-15. I can’t conceive of such a long series on 15 verses of Scripture. The focus of these three sermons is the promise of God and our need to live by them; the practical aspects of the doctrine of adoption and prayer. These are largely encouraging.

While this is a short book, the sentences are long. One sentence, a whole paragraph, took up 9 lines of text. Another 7. These are long, complex sentences that moderns (post-moderns) in the age of texts and blog posts often struggle to understand. People familiar with the Puritans understand. Those who haven’t read them will have to work harder. Don’t give up for the struggle thru the complexity will yield gold. The best treasures aren’t found lying on the ground, but must be dug out of the ground.

This was difficult to read existentially. Every page, it seemed at times, was a jab to my self-love. So much for light, encouraging vacation reading. But it was important reading about an important subject. And if God is love (and he is) then there is no more important subject. This is the whole enchilada of the Christian life.

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Considering Introverts in Church Leadership

The next topic in Adam McHugh’s book, Introverts in the Church, is leadership. This was a painful one for him, I imagine, since he so often questioned his call as a result of his introversion and comparing himself to others. Lest some misunderstand, I’ll say this out front, he is saying that there are characteristics for good leadership that may be found in greater measure among introverts. He’s not saying leaders should be introverts.

I’m being self-conscious here for some have seen me as singing the praises of the introvert at the expense of the extrovert. That is not the point of McHugh’s book, not my blog posts. My point has been to better understand how introversion may affect church life. This includes how people tend to view introverts, the wounds some carry as a result, and how introverts participate in church life. I think churches have personalities, often rooted in the original formation of the church (DNA) as well as experience (nurture). Churches that are comprised of many introverts tend to be … introverted. How those churches view ministry will be different. Not better. Not worse. Different.

He begins with a story of one morning in the office. He and the Sr. Pastor came in at the same time. The Sr. Pastor was greeting all the staff, making talk small and large. He was quietly getting his horrible tasting coffee and slipping into his office where his copy of Calvin’s Institutes awaited him. Couldn’t get any more stereotypical than this, but it happens. As the pastor of a smaller church, the office is where I go to work. Were I the pastor of a larger church, I’d spend more time talking with staff as I made my way deeper into the bowls of my building to get to my office.

He then moves into a study, cited by Olsen Laney, which was repeated three times. All three times, both extroverts and introverts preferred extroverts as both their own ideal self and their ideal leader. Apparently, rather than being arrogant, introverts have serious self-esteem issues. They wish they were more extroverted (just as their extroverted friends long them to be).

At this point I wondered about our “shadow”, which is a part of Jung’s psychology but not often mentioned in discussion of personality type. This shouldn’t be taking as a sinful “shadow”, hiding in the darkness to deceive. But it is the “face” or personae we put on to function in the world for short periods of time. At least that is how I’m using it. I sometimes feel that way; that I have to be my opposite to fulfill some functions. That’s not wrong. It’s putting on your big boy pants and doing your job. It’s moving out of your comfort zone (the very thing some seem to think this series advocates against).

One of the wounds he points out is the general perception that introverts aren’t leaders and leaders aren’t introverts. For instance, he points to Richard Daft who cited numerous studies to arrive at his “Big Five personality dimensions”, one of which is …. extroversion. This can be seen as charisma, gregariousness, driven (better than dominance which he used) and “superstardom” or the person who seemingly excels at all they put their hand to.

Sadly, this has sifted down into the church. He notes the J. Oswald Sanders’ classic book Spiritual Leadership paints Paul as quite the extrovert because he had significant relationships with so many people. It shows up in expectations of congregations regarding pastors. You pretty much have to be awesome at everything (this is actually what team ministry is about whether the staff or the Session). There is little awareness that “we aren’t strong here, so we need a guy who is strong here, but we’ve got these things handled pretty well ourselves and he doesn’t need to be as strong.” This list would kill any mere mortal, and their marriages!

“Further, this model of leadership only validates the common, unbiblical expectation that pastors play the role of benefactor while everyone else in the congregation is beneficiary.”

I’ve known some great leaders who started great movements (no, I’m not dropping names). Some had great personal charisma. You wanted to be with them. Others, no so much. Or maybe they just didn’t like me or notice me. Yeah, I often wonder if people actually like me or just put up with me.

What happens when an organization, or church, depends on the personality of its central leader? Take away the leader and it falls apart. It may not cease to exist, but it shrinks and doesn’t know what to do because they’ve always just done what the “big guy” said. The church never learned to think biblically and implement biblical principles in leading. They either find another “big guy” or end up in ruins.

In Good to Great, Jim Collins explains that while charismatic leaders attract people, they tend to be “less effective at drawing people to the mission and values of the organization itself.” They are committed to the “man” not the mission. Paul’s friends were committed to the mission, not the man. They weren’t “Paul is so awesome”, but they were working with Paul to fulfill Jesus’ mission. That mission was clear. Great leaders aren’t about the short-term but the long-term.

Collins, in a book that is on my shelf but hasn’t been read yet, pushes back against the common understanding of leadership. His “Level 5” leaders are not charismatic but have “compelling modesty, are self-effacing and understated.” They are “more plow horse than show horse.” They also set up others for success.

There are people who are good at getting the job, and those who are good at doing the job. Sometimes they are one in the same. But I’ve seen too many people get hired who are ultimately lousy at doing the job, and people who are really good at the job struggle to get hired because they aren’t good at selling themselves (which is the opposite of Christian character, by the way). Humility, self-sacrifice and a commitment to something besides personal glory don’t show up well on a resume or that initial interview.

Collins isn’t alone. Drucker also notes that character matters more than charisma. Charisma creates an initial, unearned success that can make leaders inflexible and arrogant. They have figured it out, they think.

“Character in a leader is the quality that has the ability not only to draw others but also to maintain their loyalty. Character is more than personal integrity and ethical decision-making, though it certainly includes those elements. The central component of character is authenticity.”

McHugh mentions that leaders in the Scriptures were noted for character. Not perfection (they had plenty of imperfections). But they were “admirable and consistent”. This is true whether introverts or extroverts.

“True leadership is not cultivated in the limelight; it’s won in the trenches. Character is something that is built. Thus, the mark of godly leadership is not a magnetic personality; it is discipline, because discipline develops character.”

Back to business. I struggle with all the references to books on business, but I see this as revealing the glaring lack of work done in this within the church. So he draws on Peter Senge and The Fifth Discipline, which discusses the learning organization. It is one that includes “processes of reflection and evaluation into their organizational systems”. They don’t just do what they’ve always done but evaluate it. This means, McHugh notes, that people who listen and think before acting can be quite effective leaders. Introverts often have these qualities.

There is the blessing and the curse. I can tend to over-analyze. I can waste time going over conversations, meetings and decisions. I can’t just turn it off when I want to. The reason I was blogging this before 7 am is that I woke up early thinking about a few things. But decisions our Session makes are not impulsive and we are (I hope) implementing more reflection and evaluation in our processes.

Back to the Bible. He rightly notes that office is not something that is earned but rather a gift from God. The God who calls is also the God who equips. God does not call people based on personality type. He actually delights in reversing expectations. He chose Jacob, not firstborn Esau which was customary. He chose a disgraced former member of Pharaoh’s family to lead Israel out of bondage to Egypt. He chose the “runt” of the litter to displace big, handsome Saul as a king after His own heart. He put Jesus in the home of a humble carpenter in the backwoods of Galilee instead of a prominent family of Jerusalem.

So, some of the leaders God chooses and uses are introverts.

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Considering Genesis 1:26-27

Let’s go back to creation to understand women as God designed them.

Genesis 1:26-27

ESV	NASB	NIV
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.	26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.	26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

 

We notice a few things cosmetically. The NIV adds “wild animals”. Not pertinent to our point. Both the ESV and NIV have vs. 26 as prose and vs. 27 as poetry (due to the parallelism within the verse). The NASB has it all as prose.

 

One issue involving Genesis 1 is how much of it is poetry. Parallelism can be used to structure larger passages without it being poetry. I think this is what happens in much of Genesis 1. We see the repetition of phrases for regularity. But in verse 27 we seem to see poetry as the same idea is turned over and repeated for emphasis in creative ways.

 

Image (6754/1923a) image, images, likeness (resemblance) TWOT: basically refers to a representation, a likeness. In addition to referring to humanity, it refers to an idol. Selem in particular refers to the image as representation of deity.

Likeness (1823/437a) likeness, similitude, in the likeness of

TWOT: This is the only place these two words are in parallel. Here are the 4 main interpretations:

1. Roman Catholic (and some Eastern Orthodox) theology pointed to image as our “structural likeness to God” which survives the fall. Likeness refers to Adam’s moral image which is destroyed in the fall (and renewed by grace).
2. Image is the more important word but likeness is added lest we think man is a precise copy. It is less specific and more abstract.
3. There is no distinction.
4. Likeness amplifies and specifies the meaning of image. We are not simply representative but representational, the visible representative of the invisible God.

What the image of God is has been controversial and confusing: relational (God is love, and we see both man & woman), dominion (immediate context), intellectual/rational, spiritual nature, external representation/representative, dominion (the NIV clarifies with a logical connector). Meredith Kline sees it as prophet, priest and king in Images of the Spirit.

That we are in the image of God means that we can communicate with God. We maintain the Creator-creature distinction. But God created us with the capacity for advanced communication (language).

OPC Report

The Genesis account ascribes to woman an exalted standing. It spends most of its time on complementarity instead of the topic at hand. We’ll return to this topic later.

Pratt, Designed for Dignity

“They were finite, physical representations of their Creator. As astounding as this description may be, we must not miss how it discloses our humility. We are images of God, but that’s all we are- images.” (pp. 4) IOW, we aren’t gods.

This is, in part, a polemic, against the nations who believe that their leaders were gods. But everyone else was clearly not. There was no equality.

“We are images, but we are images of God. God did not make Adam and Eve to resemble rocks, trees, or animals. Nothing so common was in his design for us. Instead, God carefully shaped the first man and woman so that they were in his likeness. He determined to make us creatures of incomparable dignity.” (pp. 8-9)

 

Kidner, Genesis (TOTC)

“The words image and likeness reinforce one another: there is no ‘and’ between the phrases, and Scripture does not use them as technically distinct expressions, as some theologians have done, whereby the ‘image’ is man’s indelible constitution as a rational and morally responsible being, and the ‘likeness’ is that spiritual accord with the will of God which was lost at the Fall. … As long as we are human we are, by definition, in the image of God. … Manward, it requires us to take all human beings infinitely seriously. And our Lord implies, further, that God’s stamp on us constitutes a declaration of ownership.” (pp. 50-51)

For instance, homeless people (or any category of person people diminish) have more dignity and value than expensive show animals! They are still made in the image of God and the animals are not.

 

Calvin, Commentary Upon the Book of Genesis

“As for myself, before I define the image of God, I would deny that it differs from his likeness. For when Moses afterwards repeats the same thing, he passes over the likeness, and contents himself with mentioning the image.” (pp. 93-94)

 

Ross, Creation and Blessing

“After bringing order and fullness to the creation, God created human life to enjoy and rule the now habitable world. … God continually makes boundaries and sets limits for the self-perpetuating creation, boundaries that the law will employ in teaching the principles of holiness and cleanness. … The text shows that human life was set apart in relation to God by the divine plan (“let us make man”), by the divine pattern (“as our image”), and by the divine purpose (“let him have dominion”). … It does not signify a physical representation of corporeality, for God is a spirit. The term must therefore figuratively describe human life as a reflection of God’s spiritual nature; that is, human life has the communicated attributes that came with the inbreathing. Consequently, humans have spiritual life, ethical and moral sensitivities, conscience, and the capacity to represent God. The significance of the word “image” should be connected to the divine purpose for human life. Von Rad has made the analogy that, just as kings set up statues of themselves throughout the border of their land to show their sovereign domain, so God established his representatives on earth.” (pp. 112-113)

 

Waltke, Genesis: A Commentary

“First, the term image refers to a statue in the round, suggestion that a human being is a psychosomatic unity. Second, an image functions to express, not to depict; thus humanity is a faithful and adequate representation, though not a facsimile. It is often said that the Bible represents God anthropomorphically. More accurately, a human being is theomorphic, made like God so that God can communicate himself to people. … Third, an image possesses the life of the one represented. Fourth, an image represents the presence of the one represented. Fifth, inseparable from the notion of serving as a representative, the image functions as ruler in the place of the deity.” (pp. 65-66)

 

“In ancient Near Eastern texts only the king is in the image of God. But in the Hebrew perspective this is democratized to all humanity.” (pp. 66)

 

“The important addition of “likeness” underscores that humanity is only a facsimile of God and hence distinct from him.” (pp. 66)

 

Waltke repeats the ideas that we are like God to represent God, and to communicate with Him.

 

Leopold, Exposition of Genesis

“This feature in man’s being is a second mode of setting forth prominently the singular dignity of man: Man is not only made after the deliberate plan and purpose of God but is also very definitely patterned after Him.” (Vol. 1, pp. 88)

“So we shall have to regard the second phrase, “according to our likeness,” as merely supplementary to or explanatory of the first.” (Vol. 1, pp. 89)

He notes the repetition (3x) of create to get the point across. Man (male and female) was CREATED. Humanity is not an accident.

 

Morris, The Genesis Record

“He was not speaking to the angels, because man was not going to be made in the likeness of angels but in the likeness of God.” (pp. 72)

“And yet man was to be more than simply a very complex and highly organized animal. There was to be something in man which was not only quantitative greater, but qualitatively distinctive, something not possessed in any degree by the animals.” (pp. 73)

 

IOW: man is not simply another animal as secular humanism insists.

 

Summary:

It is easy to get lost in the potential meanings of “image of God”. This is important, but not necessarily to our current study. We will not that as made in the image we are rational, relational, spiritual, moral and volitional beings intended to reproduce, subdue and rule the rest of creation as a result of His command.

What we must affirm is that both men and women have been created in the image of God. They have an equality before God in creation. While they may have different roles in the church and home, they are equal. There is no essential hierarchy as in patriarchy. There is a complementary relationship between the sexes.

While Augustine seems to argue that Adam only needed help in procreation, we should recognize he needed help in all aspects of the vocation given to him. Women can work alongside men to subdue and rule, to till the garden. For instance, in an early date with my now-wife, we worked in my flower beds so I could see how we worked together. Women are not limited to having & raising children, but are valuable in fulfilling all aspects of the creation mandate. Therefore we should expect women to have a variety of gifts from God for the fulfillment of His calling to humanity.

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Considering The Knowledge of Man and Free Will, part 2

If our wills are in bondage to our desires, which are corrupt, if there any hope for us?

This is the question we resume with from Calvin’s Institutes, the Essentials Edition. There is no hope in ourselves. Our hope has to be with God. The remedy is grace.

“Thus the Lord begins his work in us, inspiring in our hearts a love, desire and eagerness for what is good and righteous- or, more properly, inclining, training and directing our hearts to righteousness; he completes his work by giving us strength to persevere.”

This is not the same as a general removal of our depravity that leaves us in a state of neutrality that we find in some forms of Arminianism. This is the fulfillment of the promise of the new covenant (Ez. 36:26-27). This must precede faith, or we wouldn’t believe. The “human will must be wholly remade and renewed.” He aligns himself with Augustine that ‘grace precedes every good work.’ Grace is not a response to our will, but our will works in response to grace.

Calvin shifts back to Scripture, noting Jer. 32:39-40; Ez. 11:19; 1 Kings 8:58. These all address the stubbornness of our hearts, and the grace that overcomes that stubbornness. In other words, this is no ‘philosophical’ matter but one of life & death; salvation. This is not an Old Testament idea, but we see Paul also teaching this. We see this in Phil. 2:13 and 1 Cor. 12:6; 15:10. Jesus affirms this in passages like John 6:45.

“We must indeed teach that God’s kindness is open to all, without exception, who seek it. But because no one begins to seek it until he is inspired from heaven, nothing here should be allowed to diminish God’s grace in any way.”

He goes back to Augustine. “In yet another place he states that grace does not destroy the will, but changes it from bad to good, and that once it has been made good it receives help. By this he means only that God does not push man by outward force, unfeeling, as if he were a stone, but that he is impelled in such a way that he willingly obeys.” And again, “the human will does not obtain grace through its own freedom, but that it obtains freedom through God’s grace.”

Calvin shifts to the problem of continuing sin in the believer. Calvin, following Paul (Peter, John, James …), notes that our deliverance “is never so complete that no part of us remains under sin’s yoke”. Regeneration does not end conflict in our hearts, but initiates it (Rom. 7 & Gal. 5). There is a new principle moving us toward love and righteousness, and a retention of the natural inclination toward apathy and unrighteousness.

“This produces a conflict which sorely tries the believer throughout his life, because he is raised high by the Spirit but brought low by the flesh. In the Spirit he yearns fervently for immorality; in the flesh he turns aside into the path of death. In the Spirit he purposes to live uprightly; in the flesh he is goaded to do evil. In the Spirit he is led to God; in the flesh he is beaten back. In the Spirit he despises the world; in the flesh he longs for worldly pleasures.”

Our heart and will become a battle ground. The regenerate person mourns their sin, which pains him or her. They affirm and delight in God’s law as we see in Psalm 119.

Even in his day, there were people claiming a form of Christian perfectionism. Some of the Anabaptists advocated this position. They think that regeneration is complete, and we have no more fleshly appetites.

He returns to the idea of man as sinner in bondage to Satan. He mentions Augustine’s analogy (also utilized by Luther in Bondage of the Will)of the will as a horse subject to the rider’s control. Calvin finds it sufficient in the  absence of a better analogy. “What is meant is that the will, being deceived by the devil’s tricks, must of necessity submit to his good pleasure, although it does so without compulsion.”

He then discusses the doctrine of concurrence with reference to the story of Job. In concurrence, more than one person wills the same action but for different reasons or goals. God, Satan and the Chaldeans all willed the theft of Job’s herds, but for very different reasons. We see this as well in the story of Joseph. God’s intention was very different from his brothers’ even though both willed Joseph’s servitude in Egypt.

“Accordingly, it is not improper to attribute the same deed to God, the devil and man. But the disparity in both intention and means ensures that God’s righteousness always appears blameless, while the wickedness of the devil and of man is revealed in all its shame.”

The bottom line for Calvin is fidelity to Scripture, for the Scriptures reveal the sovereignty of God over events big and small. He brings up a number of passages to illustrate his point. Satan, much like Assyria and Babylon in the prophets, is His agent to unwittingly accomplish His purpose. They serve His righteous purposes, even as they pursue their unrighteous purposes. Calvin notes God’s sovereignty over the “mundane acts of life.” He held to a meticulous providence, as God brings about “whatever he knows is needful, but also to bend men’s wills toward that same end.”

Calvin then addresses a series of common objections. First, necessary sin is no longer sin. While they “necessarily” have to do it, since God ordained it, it is still voluntarily chosen by them. He does not force them to sin, but they want to commit that particular sin at that particular time. Second, reward and punishment no longer apply. God is so kind that he rewards the graces which he bestows on people. The voluntary nature of sin makes punishment just. Third, good and bad are no longer distinguishable. If this were so, it would be so for God who does good “by necessity” or in keeping with his immutable nature. Fourth, exhortation and reproof become superfluous. They are, rather, the means God uses to help shape our choices. He not only ordains what will happen, but how and why.

“God is active in us in two way: within, by his Spirit, and without, by his word. With his Spirit enlightening the mind and training the heart to love righteousness and innocence, he makes man a new creature by regeneration. Through his word he moves and encourages man to desire and to look for this renewal.”

Calvin then notes a variety of Scriptural evidences including, the law and its commands, the command to repent, God’s promises & reproofs, his punishments and more. In many ways Calvin rightfully goes back to Philippians 2:13- For God works in us to will and work according to His righteous purpose. We are to believe that we are dependent upon God, but also that being gracious and powerful he consistently works in us to accomplish his purposes, which are good. This is an important doctrine which humbles us, and grants us confidence.

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Considering Calvin and the Knowledge of Man and Free Will

In Calvin’s Institutes, the Essentials Edition, we’ve seen how the knowledge of God gives us a truer knowledge of ourselves. While made in His image, we have fallen into sin and unrighteousness. Instead of glorifying Him, we seek to glorify ourselves (make a name for ourselves) which typically means taking advantage of others and bringing shame to ourselves.

Knowledge of ourselves should humble us. We are not what we were intended to be, but a rather tawdry sham instead. We over-estimate our abilities and good deeds, while we minimize our faults, weakness and wrong-doing.

“However, the person who carefully measures himself by God’s standard finds nothing to give him inner confidence, and the more closely he studies himself, the more dejected he becomes until, bereft of hope, he has nothing to help him lead a well-ordered life.”

We have fallen so far from our created glory as the imago dei. The great endowments of Adam and Eve testified to the “Creator’s extraordinary generosity.” They had done nothing to receive these great gifts from His hand. Their disobedience stripped them of much this glory. “The heavenly image he bore was therefore erased; being estranged from God by sin he was likewise deprived of his share in the blessings which can only be had in him.”

This brings us to total, or radical, depravity. From the womb we are prone to sin. We are not born innocent and then personally fall when we sin for the first time. Calvin argues against Pelagianism briefly. We are not “basically good” and only in need of a good example but better ourselves. Calvin affirms original sin, “a hereditary corruption and perversion of our nature which in the first place renders us guilty of God’s wrath, and in the second produces in us those works which Scripture calls ‘works of the flesh’.”

I wish Calvin added “covenantal” to the hereditary. Adam was not just our father, but our covenant head. In this sense, we are also held accountable for his disobedience.

From here, Calvin moves into his discussion of the freedom of the will. Definitions matter greatly in this discussion, and often they are not laid out appropriately. Calvin notes two dangers: indifference and excessive boldness. When we stress our depravity, people can lapse into indifference or fatalism. They see themselves as unrecoverable, even by the God of grace. When we stress the imago dei, people can have a view of themselves that is unreasonably high, a sense of entitlement.

“To avoid both of these pitfalls, we will follow a middle course. Man must learn that there is no good in him, and that misery and want are all around him. But he must also understand how he may aim at the goodness he lacks and at the freedom which is denied him.”

He then moves to some philosophic theories of the mind and will. “The role of the will is to choose and follow whatever our mind judges to be good, and conversely to reject and shun what it reproves.” So, the will works with the mind, not independently of the mind. “All we need to know, without entangling ourselves in superfluous issues, is that the mind is like the helmsman and captain of the soul, and that the will depends on its good pleasure…”

In fallen man, the mind is not fully functioning and flooded with divine light. Romans 1 shows us that the mind is darkened and futile because it has exchanged the truth for the lie. It is no longer able to distinguish between good and evil, the very thing Eve wanted when she disobeyed.

Calvin notes that the Church Fathers are uncertain guides in this matter. He saw them as capitulating to philosophy on this matter at times. Chrysostom, for instance, notes,”The wicked man can become good, if he chooses, and the good man may change into a wicked one.” Calvin sums up, “We see from these statement that the Fathers credited man with greater power than was proper…”

He interacts with the 3 A’s: Augustine, Anselm and Aquinas. He finds Aquinas’ definition sound: “Free will is an elective power which, intermediate intellect and will, inclines, however more toward will.” So, how free is the will?

Calvin wants to generally avoid the term “free will”. The Schoolmen note that “man cannot be said to have free will because he is free to choose both good and evil, but because he does what he does voluntarily and not out of compulsion.” He argues that this term has been wrenched from this definition as a “justification for self-pride.” In other words, people use it not for the voluntariness of our our decisions, but to freely choose between good and evil.

Augustine is presented as a trustworthy guide. He affirmed the enslavement of the will. It is grace, and grace alone, that frees it from bondage to our appetites. Augustine moves us toward humility by seeing our natural powers as “impaired, demolished, scattered, destroyed.”

“For the human mind, because of its ignorance, cannot follow a sure path in its search for truth, but blunders into various errors. Just as a blind man stumbles about in the darkness until he quite loses his way; so the mind, pursuing the truth, shows how ill-suited and ill-equipped it is to seek and find it…”

Calvin then differentiates between stuff of earth and stuff of heaven. The bondage of the will, the depravity of the mind does not mean we are stupid intellectually, but stupid morally. We are able to structure societies reasonably well (though the current state of American politics may indicate otherwise), and most citizens are reasonably law-abiding. People are able to master mechanical and liberal arts. We do have a capacity for rational perception. This would be an example of common grace. God gives us the ability to improve our earthly state. This is undeserved, and therefore gracious.

Calvin notes that these natural endowments are gifts of the Spirit, “who distributes them as he pleases, for the common good of humankind.” Our corrupt minds are not as corrupt as they possibly could be. Although the Spirit only dwells in Christians, He is infinite and “does not fail to fill, move and quicken by the power of that same Spirit all creatures, according to the nature with which he endowed each of them at creation.”

Heavenly things (knowing God, his will and living accordingly) are a different story. We are spiritually blind apart from grace. Part of people’s blindness is their inability or unwillingness to accept this. People fall for all kinds of superstitions and foolishness (including deviations from Christianity). This blindness is taught in Jeremiah 24, John, Ephesians, 1 Cor. 2 and Colossians as well as Romans 1.

Calvin affirms the reality of natural law, arguing that its purpose is to make us without excuse. He points us to Romans 2 for this purpose. He defines natural law as: “an operation of conscience by which it is able to tell good from bad, with sufficient clarity that man cannot plead ignorance as an excuse, being rebuked by his own testimony.” For instance, as a teenager I had the capacity to recognize certain things as wrong. But I did them anyway.

Our moral reasoning and judgments are often (always?) clouded by our self-interest and passions/desires. We can talk ourselves into almost anything. We fail to grasp how evil our appetites often are.

After about 30 pages (and there are 40 more) he gets to Paul, who is obviously more authoritative than the schoolmen. It is also very different. We see the inner conflict of Christians in Romans 7 and Galatians 5. We have the Spirit by regeneration, how much worse the condition of those outside of Christ. Believers do strive after good, but don’t do it as often as desired due to this inner struggle. It is the Spirit that leads us toward righteousness. Apart from the Spirit, apart from Christ, people do not seek good (Rom. 3). They do not experience such inner conflict (though there is often the outer conflict of consequences- fear of man).

“Now we are all sinners by nature, so it follows that we are under sin’s yoke. Furthermore, if everyone is held fast by slavery to sin, the will, which is the chief agency of sin, must be tightly restrained and shackled by sin’s bonds.”

As we see in Romans 8, the unregenerate mind is hostile to God and His law. This indicates the bondage of the will to sin. It is in bondage to its inclinations. What people want to do is wrong, but that is what they do.

Thankfully, God, in His grace, limits our capacity for evil. He restrains our sin. While our corruption is changed, and ultimately cured, in the elect, it is merely curbed in the non-elect and non-converted. People are not as bad as they could be. But people sin because they want to, not because God makes them sin. They live within the bondage to sin, so there is an element of necessity. But it is also a joyful necessity. The sinner has not been “stripped of his will but of the soundness of will.” Calvin also brings us back to the character of God, to understand freedom and necessity.

“So if nothing stops God’s will from being free when he does good, even though he does good of necessity, and if the devil always sins voluntarily, even though evil is all he can do, who will argue that man does not sin voluntarily simply because he is subject to the necessity of sinning?”

Here is how Calvin sums it up: “This, then, is the distinction we must observe: man, corrupted by his fall, sins willingly, not despite himself or by compulsion. He sins, I say again, through inclination and not because he is forcibly constrained; he sins because he is prompted by his own appetites, not by external force.”

I’ll resume Calvin’s discussion of this matter in the near future.

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Considering the Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness

Do you struggle with preoccupation with yourself? Do you find yourself caring too much about what others think about you? or what you think about you?

Perhaps this is the booklet for you. Tim Keller’s The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness is adapted from a sermon of his on 1 Corinthians 3. As a result, this is a relatively short treatment of a particular question. As such it can’t say everything there is to say about the subjects with which it deals. Someone I know raised some questions about this booklet, and I hope to address them briefly toward the end. I will also make a short application for pastors (something Keller does elsewhere).

He introduces the passage with the stark difference between traditional and modern thought about people’s problems. Traditionally, pride (hubris) has been identified as one of our problems that creates other problems. Criminals think more of themselves than others, for instance, and this justifies their crimes. Something odd happened in the Western world in the not too distant past. The prevailing notion, still prevalent in education, is that people actually suffer from low self-esteem. If only they would have a better view of themselves they wouldn’t be criminals, poor etc. We now, statistically, have students who are progressively worse but feel better and better about themselves despite failure. Thankfully, this view regarding self-esteem is finally being challenged academically.

The passage Keller is handling is addressing the divisions that have been plaguing the church of Corinth. The factions have allied themselves to particular teacher. The factions are filled with pride and boastful of their relationship or adherence to their favorite teacher (Paul, Peter, Apollos etc.). I know, we would never do anything like that. This leads us into contemplating the ego.

The natural state of the ego, Keller argues, is that it is inflated. Paul does not use hubris, but a word he uses often in the letters to the Corinthians and in Colossians 2. It isn’t used elsewhere in Scripture. It does have that idea of over-inflated or bloated. This means that the human ego is empty (just filled with hot air), painful (stretched too far), busy (looking to fill that emptiness) and fragile (not this is not a special award). He draws on (surprise!) C.S. Lewis, Soren Kierkegaard and Madonna.

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Considering the Waiting, Part 1

Tom Petty was more right than he ever knew- the waiting is the hardest part. By the time we got to our second adoption process you’d think CavWife and I would have had Ph.D.s in waiting. After all, both of us had spent most of our adult lives, then over 20 years, waiting for one thing or another.

We both waited vocationally. CavWife wanted to be a teacher, in a Christian school: a particular Christian school (mine is not to wonder why). After graduating with her degree in Elementary Education, she waited. No, she didn’t sit in a room by the phone waiting for them to call until she was covered in dust and cobwebs. She ended up working at the Bible Institute she had attended for 2 years. But her eye was always on that Christian school. For 8 years she waited, hoping, enduring long Adirondack winters.

She’d given up- the demanding anyway.  She still had the desire, but she was no longer demanding God do this for her.  She was amazed when they called. Oddly, it was difficult for her to leave upstate NY and her dearest friends that she met during that period of life.

I left the small city I grew up in just before I turned 25. I was going to seminary: over 1,000 miles away. I was escaping the cold, and a series of relational disappointments. Seminary wasn’t my plan even though it was The Plan. I thought God was crazy, but one day He turned the light bulb on and The Plan was suddenly sweet. So I wasn’t just running from things, I was also running to something. But my plan was to return to New England when I was done. Little did I know that I’d be stuck in Florida for the next 19 years. Sometimes the wait is how we move from our plan to His plan; it is a slow course correction. Our hearts need time to transition from our plan to His.

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Considering Pride in Ministry

Pride is a problem for everyone, and this includes people in ministry. Pride is “the mother of all sins”, and the third of the Mistakes Leaders Make. The chapter is “Allowing Pride to Replace Humility“. Since pride is our default mode as sinners, I think “Not replacing pride with humility” would be more accurate. Just saying.

“It often hides under the cloak of confidence and conviction.”

Kraft rightly says that pride is often in stealth mode. It does not often come out overtly, brash and in your face. It lurks under the surface, corrupting our motives and tainting our actions.

Often churches set themselves up for the problem of the prideful pastor. They hire guys based more upon gifts than character. We want competence, or exceptionalism, and realize that we have to let people go because their character sabotages their ministry.

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Considering Flight

There are times when an author or screenwriter says more than they intend to say. I wonder if Flight is one of those times. I don’t know the screenwriter (John Gatins) and his worldview. But it closely approximates a biblical worldview, and there are a number of characters who are Christians.

Flight is not an enjoyable movie to watch, unless you enjoy watching a man destroy his life. Flight is mostly about the destructive power of sin, though there is a strong theme of common grace and, at the end, a taste of redemption. As a result, it is not as depressing and nihilistic as Leaving Las Vegas. While it depicts lots of sin, it is not trying to justify or glorify it. It shows the hell of it.

The first few minutes of the movie are tough to watch if you have a sensitive conscience. Our introduction to the main character, Captain “Whip” Whitaker (Denzel Washington) is in a hotel room after a night of excess that included sex, booze and drugs. While his partner for the night wanders around the room naked (eventually, and mercifully, she gets dressed) he argues on the phone with his ex-wife and then prepares for work by snorting some coke. What we see is not a “nice” guy.

But Whip is an excellent pilot. When the flight from Orlando to Atlanta goes terribly wrong he is able to pull the plane out of an uncontrolled dive (in a very harrowing scene), and land it in a large field. He awakens in a hospital to discover that 4 passengers and 2 crew (including the woman with whom he was partying) have died. We later learn that in the simulator, no one could land the plan safely. This incredibly flawed man does something heroic.

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Considering Dangerous Calling

Books are written for a variety of reasons- some good, some bad and some neutral. They can be written because of a great love for something. They can be written to sound a warning.

Paul Tripp wrote Dangerous Calling: Confronting the Unique Challenges of Pastoral Ministry to sound a warning. As he has traveled the world and visited with many churches and their staff, he has seen some disturbing trends.

Joshua Harris compared this book to heart surgery. The main point is the gospel, which challenges the sinful status quo in our lives. God is more concerned with our holiness (and His glory) than we are. So God’s grace is often disruptive. This, reflecting that, is a disruptive book.

The initial premise is that pastoral  ministry presents some unique challenges. These challenges are destructive to ministry and ministers. The only solution is the gospel rigorously understood and applied on a consistent basis.

“You are constantly preaching to yourself some kind of gospel.”

As Tripp lays out some of the most common traps and snares, you will not recognize yourself in them all (I hope). But you should see some tendencies toward some of them. You should be able to identify with some of them (I’m always preparing, for instance). And when he ruthlessly goes after you, so to speak, it will be difficult to continue. Unless you keep sight of the gospel and recognize the goal is sanctification, and not condemnation.

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Considering Gospel-Powered Humility

I have a growing number of books on humility. I have already read Mahaney’s Humility: True Greatness, Mack’s Humility: the forgotten virtue, and Henry’s The Quest for Meekness and Quietness of Spirit. But like books on love, I feel compelled to have more books on the subject. That is probably a reflection of my weakness and sin- I struggle with pride and loving others well. They pretty much go together. Humility is no small thing, according to Jonathan Edwards.

In Charity and Its Fruits he usually points to pride as the root cause of the sin we commit that is contrary to love. Love, he says, promotes humility which moves us to love others well.

“Humility disposes men to be of a yielding spirit to others, ready, for the sake of peace, and to gratify others, to comply in many things with their inclinations, and to yield to their judgments wherein they are not inconsistent with truth and holiness. A truly humble man is inflexible in nothing but the cause of his Lord and Master, which is the cause of truth and virtue.”

So, the latest book I’ve read on humility is William Farley’s Gospel-Powered Humility. His book is different from Mack and Mahaney’s books. He notices our society’s aversion to humility. He notices the lack of humility producing messages in our churches. His conviction is that the gospel produces humility in those who hear in faith.

“When we assume the gospel and pursue its fruits, the fruits eventually displace the gospel and all that remains is ‘moralism.'”

I agree with him. We have no hope for humility apart from the gospel. He is essentially seeking to correct an imbalance in contemporary preaching which tends to avoid the ugly truth about our sinfulness and God’s judgment. These, he says, should be part of what humbles us.

“Humility is the fertilizer that nourishes our soul and makes us fruitful.”

Since it is a counter-balance it does seem to err on the opposite end. Keep in mind I’ll be preaching on Colossians 1:21-23 this Sunday which points to our utterly sinful condition which necessitated Christ’s atonement. I’m not saying we don’t preach the hard and ugly truths (though I would say that God’s justice is beautiful to a redeemed and sanctified mind). Farley focuses on those hard truths with chapters on the wrath of God, the final judgment and the sinfulness of sin. His chapter on the history of preaching also focuses on how these hard truths helped break up the hard soil of the heart so gospel seed could grow.

“Here is the great paradox: the proud man thinks he is humble, but the humble man thinks he is proud.”

I wanted to read more chapters like his chapter on faith alone. I wanted to see how the positive aspects of the gospel also humble us. That’s because I believe they do. So, what Farley presents us is not wrong. I’d just say it was a bit incomplete.

“Jesus received the humbling that our constant and unremitting self-exaltation merits.”

He does include chapters on the fear of man and the power of a humble leader. Those help round out the book, showing some of the practical results of pride and humility.

“God designed salvation to deeply humble me, to crush my pride, and to transfer my grounds for positive self-image from self to God.”

Farley is highly dependent upon the Puritans (not a bad thing). His theology is solid. I just found it hard reading at times because of the emphasis on wrath, judgement and our sinfulness. Let me explain.

While not yet a pastor, I heard a sermon on Romans 3. The pastor was seeking to “reform” the church and was making his way through Romans. I had high anticipations as he’d lay out total, or radical, depravity to the people. It was about 1/3 our sinfulness and it seemed to me like he rushed to the good news too quickly. The people needed to wrestle with the reality of the bad news. He seemed to move too quickly.

“Sin shrouds our thoughts in mental darkness, rendering true belief in God humanly impossible.”

It can sound like Farley is wanting us to move too slowly. I admit that is completely subjective. But when I see the 4 main chapters and 3 of them are on the “bad news” …. Like I said, I wish there was a greater focus on how the doctrine of sanctification, in addition to justification, continues to humble us.

But Farley is right- too often this part of the gospel is greatly neglected today. Many “pastors” on TV completely ignore this. It is the result of the fear of man, liberalism, bad theology and a host of other reasons (though Farley argues that liberal theology is the result of the fear of man). Most people don’t need more self-esteem. They need a good dose of gospel humility. As I tell my kids & congregation:

Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 1 Peter 5

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Considering Tony Jones and the UMC

Tony Jones addressed the United Methodist Church as “scholar in residence” at Aldersgate UMC in Alexandria. He was given the topic, “Why is the United Methodist Church so Screwed Up?”. Sounds like a very emergent sounding title. Jones is the pastor of Solomon’s Porch and one of the key figures with Brian McLaren in the increasingly irrelevant emergent church movement.

Despite evidence a weak grasp of church history, he made some observations as an outsider. The article summarizes the problems as follows (he may have made other, more significant observations than these):

• People seeking ordination have to “jump through hoops of burning fire”.
• Younger pastors are frustrated because the older leaders “won’t relinquish control.”
• Church bureaucracies don’t rely on the Holy Spirit and don’t value initiative.
• They are hindered by their doctrinal distinctions which many lay people do not hold to at this time.
• In light of the broken relationships they need to focus on reconciliation.
• They may need to “euthanize some things to make room for the gospel.”

An Episcopalian author, Diane Butler Bass, was present and noted that the UMC is not the only denomination in trouble. “Institutional Christianity” is in trouble.

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Considering 3 Books on Providence

"no one gets a smooth ride" The Choir

There are lots of books that deal with the providence of God. Some are good, and some are not so good. Some are just plain horrendous!

I’m beginning to preach on the life of Joseph in the latter sections of Genesis. You cannot avoid the reality of God’s sovereignty in this section of Genesis. As I prepare the sermons, there are three books I’ve pulled off my shelves (and the church library) to help me along the way, particularly as I ponder application of the doctrine. They hit different aspects, complementing them.

First, I’m going old school with Thomas Boston’s The Crook in the Lot: The Sovereignty and Wisdom of God Displayed in the Afflictions of Men. Some of the things that Boston stresses include humbling ourselves as our afflictions reveal the sin in our hearts. This is one of the things I want to address as we move along.

“But as the fire under the pot makes the scum to rise up, appear atop, and run over, so the crook in the lot rises up from the bottom and brings out such corruptions as otherwise one could hardly imagine to be within.” Thomas Boston

Second, I’m using Trusting God by Jerry Bridges. The title conveys the main point of the book, helping people to trust God in the midst of afflictions of all kinds by knowing that He is ultimately in control and His purposes for His people are good.

“It is difficult for us to appreciate the reality of God sovereignly doing as He pleases in our lives, because we do not see God doing anything.” Jerry Bridges

Third is R.C. Sproul’s Invisible Hand: Do All Things Really Work for Good?. I never bought it because I read it while I worked for Ligonier. We could use the resources, and this explains why I’m missing his books from the mid-late 90’s. This is more of a redemptive-historical approach. The seemingly disconnected events are actually the working out of the plan of salvation for God’s people. Our confidence is that God, who accomplished our salvation in Christ, will continue to accomplish His plan for us through the events of our lives and history at large.

“Because the word providence is rooted in the Latin term for seeing or vision, we may be tempted to restrict its theological application to God’s mere observance of human activity. It is not merely that God looks at human affairs. The point is that He looks after human affairs. He not only watches us, He watches over us.” R.C. Sproul

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Considering When Words Should Be Few

In case you haven’t noticed, I haven’t been blogging very much.  There are a few reason for that. Possibly more than I realize.

I’ve been really busy with other matters.  We are in the process of adopting again.  This time around we’ve needed to apply for more loans and grants than we did before. We are also home schooling our daughter, which has taken up some of my time.  And the church I now pastor is twice as large as the one in Florida, so it takes more of my time and energy.  I come home and I’m wiped (being older doesn’t help).

¹⁹ When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent. Proverbs 10

More importantly I regret things I’ve blogged on in the past.  The friend who got me into blogging admits he has been an attention whore in the past.  I’m not sure I’d go that far, but to build up readership you often have to weigh in on the controversial topics of the day.  I’ve recently removed some posts from the past because I was unfair to people, as one of them (thankfully) pointed out.

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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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Considering Addiction Part 3

In previous posts I covered our unrealistic expectations, and what the Enemy is up to in our addictions.  In this final thought on addiction, I want to consider what God is up to in our addictions (remember that I am looking at this from the perspective of a Christian who is part of the Reformed heritage).

Before I lay out the nugget, there has to be some theology.  When I first heard of this, R.C. Sproul called it the doctrine of concurrence.  It is simply the view that 2 (or more) persons can will the same thing for different reasons.  It is clearly illustrated in 3 places in Scripture (there are other, less important examples as well).

The first is in Genesis 50.  Jacob has died, and Joseph’s brothers fear retribution on the part of Joseph.  They claim their father demanded that Joseph forgive them.

²⁰ You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

God also willed Joseph’s sale into slavery.  His brothers had evil intentions, and are held accountable for those intentions.  God had good intentions (including the humbling of Joseph).  They willed the same thing, but for very different reasons.

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Considering Humility and Confidence in Sermon Preparation

Today I was working on Romans 3:21-26.  It is a fascinating text with all kinds of “glorious grammar.”  If I remember correctly, we did translate this in seminary, but that was some time ago.  So I was in awe of what Paul, under the inspiration of the Spirit, put down there.  Lots of parallelism, and many of my questions about key genitives were answered in the text.  But there are some difficult phrases. There is alot on the line, so to speak, as this passage is central to many a theological controversy.

The specifics are not important at the moment.  What is I want to focus on is my response to these difficult questions about the meaning of the text while I weigh legitimate options.  I took a walk to pray about it.  And there I wrestled with both humility and confidence.

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