Considering Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, Part 2

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

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

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

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Considering Envy in Ministry

Envy is a problem for everyone. The 10th Commandment is essentially about envy- wanting what someone else has. It is a cancer to the soul, breeding complaints against God like a whiny teenager. “If you loved me …”

Ministers are not immune. We can be tempted to envy how God is at work in other churches. At least in how we perceive it.

I had one of those experiences recently as a few fellow pastors gathered to discuss a common project. One, a church planter, noted upon being asked how their new facility is already packed. The attendance is about 50% higher than ours.

For me it turns into self-condemnation of a sort. “You stink. If you were a good pastor/preacher/leader you’d see that and more.”

Envy destroys contentment. And that is the 2nd mistake that Dave Kraft addresses in Mistakes Leaders Make.

It isn’t limited to ministry success. You can envy how much other pastors make. As a Presbyterian, I know how much new pastors in the Presbytery make. When you pastor a smaller church, that is tough. Suddenly you think about your retirement, that cruise you wish you could take and a host of other things. It can easily distract you from the task at hand.

“I think it is good to compare what is happening through me (and in me) with what could potentially happen. It is good to compare where I am with my growth and ministry effectiveness with where it is possible to be, with God’s grace. Where I get into trouble is when I compare with others who have different gifts, callings, capacities, and personalities.”

There are several important things there. First, comparing is okay if I’m wondering what God could do with me (keeping my gifts and limitations in mind). It becomes a question of faithfulness, am I being faithful? How can I be more faithful? That is a far better standard than success.

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Considering The Goodness of God

We’ve had a number of events recently that have shaken many Americans to the core. The reality of evil was pressed home in painful fashion. Sadly, most Americans aren’t prepared to face the reality of evil. If people are considered basically good, then we essentially think such things should not happen here where we are educated and prosperous. Those things only happen there, wherever there may be. But not to us, not on our shores.

There are a number of books that have tried to tackle this problem. Some good. Some bland. And some quite horrible, like the sadly popular book by Rabbi Kushner about the God who wants to help but really can’t. He also assumes there are good people.

“To come to grips with the problem of evil and suffering, you must do more than hear heart-wrenching stories about suffering people. You must hear God’s truth to help you interpret those stories.”

Randy Alcorn has released The Goodness of God: Assurance of Purpose in the Midst of Suffering for this reason. It is a shorter version (120 pages) of his book If God is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering. It makes a readable, meaningful book that you can hand out to people who are suffering, or struggling with the suffering of others. He covers lots of ground in succinct fashion, including illustrations and examples to help people understand his point. It is not dry and academic. He writes of his own suffering and how he had to make sense of it. He believes any faith that doesn’t prepare you for suffering is not a biblical faith, and our churches must do a better job teaching biblical theology to prepare people for suffering.

“The pain of suffering points to something deeply and unacceptably flawed about this world we inhabit.”

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Considering Theological Over-Reaction

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has a strange history. Many, not all, of the Founders of the SBC would have self-identified as Calvinists, or Particular Baptists. J.L. Dagg’s Systematic Theology is one example. Tom Nettles traces the history in By His Grace and For His Glory. Over the years, Arminianism took root in the SBC. There has been a resurgence of Calvinism that parallels the resurgence of Calvinism prompted, in large part, by the ministries of men like J.I. Packer and R.C. Sproul. Men like Tom Nettles and Tom Ascol formed the Founders’ Conference. Let’s just say there has been some push back from the SBC at large.

The latest has emerged in a series of Affirmations and Denials in A Statement of the Traditional Southern Baptist Understanding of God’s Plan of Salvation. As I read the document, my thought was that they gutted the gospel in an attempt, in their minds, to save the gospel from those pernicious Calvinists. The affirmations and denials, in their own words, ultimately cause problems in understanding the gospel. This is an exercise in theological over-reaction. They fulfilled one of the CavCorollaries: in theological disputation we tend to move to greater extremes.

We deny that only a select few are capable of responding to the Gospel while the rest are predestined to an eternity in hell.

I would take issue with the phrase “select few”. I believe there will be a numberless multitude according to Revelation. They don’t affirm what Scripture means when it talks about election, chosen in Christ before the creation of the world (Eph. 1). But early on, you can see they are asserting a particular view of free will. They don’t seem to realize that Calvinists hold to free will (there is a whole chapter on it in the Westminster Confession of Faith). The difference is that they don’t really see much of an effect from Adam’s sin to the will of man.

We deny that Adam’s sin resulted in the incapacitation of any person’s free will or rendered any person guilty before he has personally sinned. While no sinner is remotely capable of achieving salvation through his own effort, we deny that any sinner is saved apart from a free response to the Holy Spirit’s drawing through the Gospel.

Here is a denial of what we find in Romans 5- the imputation of Adam’s sin to all. Paul teaches that all sinned in Adam. He stresses the “one man’s trespass” in contrast to the “one man’s obedience”. You see, if you deny the imputation of Adam’s sin, you lose the basis for the imputation of Christ’s righteousness. You … gut the gospel. Paul is teaching covenant theology here as the basis for the fall of humanity and salvation in Christ.

We deny that grace negates the necessity of a free response of faith or that it cannot be resisted. We deny that the response of faith is in any way a meritorious work that earns salvation.

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Considering the What Did You Expect DVD

Some time back I did a rather brief review of Paul Tripp’s new book on marriage, What Did You Expect?”  As I mentioned there, I think this is one of the best books on marriage.  Tripp goes beneath the surface of marriage (and this is applicable to ANY relationship).

In the DVD, taken from a conference, is similar but not identical to the book.  In the DVD, he focuses on the big picture of marriage.  And that heart of a marriage is determined by worship.  What you worship will determine the quality of your marriage, and other relationships.  The more you worship someone or something instead of God, you will be in conflict because you don’t have the same desires and priorities.

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Considering the Great Work of the Gospel

A few years ago I came across The Great Work of the Gospel: How We Experience God’s Grace by John Ensor.  It intrigued me.  John works in establishing pregnancy centers worldwide.  He lives in Boston as well.  So for years I’ve been meaning to buy and read this book.  Something always seemed to be more important at the time.  Until recently.  I picked up a copy about 2 months ago and decided to read it since I was beginning a series on the atonement for Lent.

I’m sorry I waited, but the book was timely in light of the whole Rob Bell thing.  The Christian should treat grace like a scientist treats gravity: not merely accepting its reality, but want to understand its totality.  As recipients of grace, we explore grace that our hearts might be more captured by it and more grateful for it.  To adapt an old saying, unexamined grace isn’t worth having.  This is because to understand grace is to understand Christianity.  How can you be a Christian without wanting to understand it?

“The grace of God that forgives us changes us. … The grace of God wounds our pride but then increases our confidence.  When God forgives, he exposes the most shameful things only to then cleanse them all from our conscience.”

Let’s stop for a moment.  Some personal context to lay my cards on the table.  I grew up Catholic.  I have a Ph.D. in guilt: true and false.  I am a recovering Pharisee who couldn’t keep his own high standards, much less God’s.  There are MANY things I don’t want you to know about me.  There are things only a privileged (and I use that term loosely) know about me.

But I have no interest in cheap grace, or cheap forgiveness.  I’m not trying to ignore God’s standards.  Neither is Ensor following the fashion of the day.  He structures the book on the topic of the Great Work.  When we own up to our guilt, we desire forgiveness and grace.  But if we never own up to guilt, then grace seems pretty much irrelevant.  In all of the chapters, Ensor examines a variety of biblical texts and addresses numerous misconceptions.  In the chapter on desiring grace, for instance, he tackles self-esteem and the reality of the conscience.

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Considering Instruments Again

For Biblical Lay Ministry

One (all?) of the community groups here at Desert Springs is going through Paul Tripp’s Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands: People in Need of Change Helping People in Need of Change.  I guess that is one of the reasons I see this congregation as a great fit for me.  I’d have recommended this material, and they are already studying it.

It is a book I read during my transition period.  I posted some thoughts on it.  I decided to bring it home with me last night to review.  Yes, most of my books are now out of boxes.  When you go back to something you can often wonder why you liked it in the first place.  But this is one of those times you are reminded just how thoughtful and profound a book is.  Paul Tripp is one of those guys more Christians need to read.  That he has been a serious student of Scripture for a long time is evident as you read his books.  In the opening chapters I (re)discovered material suitable for my sermon Sunday and my upcoming series on Genesis.  You can read the first chapter here.

Here are some thoughts from the first few chapters, and the preface.

“For most of us, church is merely an event we attend or an organization we belong to.  We do not see it as a calling that shapes our entire lives.”

This is a great summary of what good pastors want to tell their people, often.  We are shaped by the ministry of the Word, both public and private or personal.  It is not enough to show up- but to engage with the Word by believing it and acting upon it.  One of the things I appreciate the most about this book is its call to do just that.  He has a very Word-centered view of ministry, for it is there that we meet with the Living Word- Jesus Himself.

“The King came not to make our agenda possible, but to draw us into something more amazing, glorious, and wonderful than we could ever imagine. “

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Winter 2010 Preaching Schedule

Yes, I can’t believe I had to type in 2010.  Only one more year to go, or is it 2?  I plan to be preaching for some time as God displays His patience and graciously calls people to repent and believe the Great New about His Son and Jesus’ work on the behalf of sinners.

January 17 Desert Springs Presbyterian Church Colossians 1:28-29  Messiah is the Message

January 24 Frostproof ARP Church  Colossians 1:28-29  Messiah is the Message

February 7 Morning Star Reformed Presbyterian Church, Vero Beach,  Colossians 1:28-29  Messiah is the Message

February 14 Morning Star Reformed Presbyterian Church, Vero Beach, Jonah 1  The Runaway Prophet

February 21 Morning Star Reformed Presbyterian Church, Vero Beach, Jonah 2  The Grateful Prophet

February 28 Morning Star Reformed Presbyterian Church, Vero Beach, Jonah 3 The Repentant Prophet

March 7 Desert Springs Presbyterian Church  1 John 5:21

March 14 Morning Star Reformed Presbyterian Church, Vero Beach, Jonah 4  The Angry Prophet and the Gracious God

March 21 Morning Star Reformed Presbyterian Church, Vero Beach, John 15:1-16  No Pain, No Gain

March 28 Morning Star Reformed Presbyterian Church, Vero Beach  1 Corinthians 5  Christ- the Passover Lamb

(Subject to change in accordance with the providence of God)

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Considering Jonah 4

Jonah 4 seems to be the key chapter of the book (yes, hard to say for such a short book).  Everything has been pointing to this showdown between God and Jonah.  Yet both Ferguson and Estelle cover this in far too pages.  Ferguson takes 3 (short!) chapters to address it, while Estelle takes one longer one.  What they do say is good, I just hoped for more in light of the multiple chapters written on the other chapters in Jonah.

Here we get to why Jonah didn’t want to go to Ninevah in the first place- he was afraid God would be merciful!  He didn’t want mercy for the Ninevites?  Is there some person or group of people you don’t want mercy to find?  We all struggle with that.  But Jonah 4 reveals that mystery that Paul discusses in Romans 9-11 which was earlier unveiled in Genesis and Exodus.  God is sovereign in His distribution of mercy- He has mercy upon whom He has mercy, and shall harden whom He shall harden.  Despite Jonah’s fears and misgivings, God has had mercy upon Israel’s enemy!

But it is not just about God’s sovereign mercy toward Ninevah.  It is also about God’s continuing pursuit of Jonah’s heart.  Jonah 4 contrasts God’s responses with Jonah’s.  They are at odds, but God moves toward the once again retreating Jonah.

“But God was not willing to give him up.  That was why, in all likelihood, his misery was so miserable.  Jonah was caught between the vice of his own self-will on the one hand, and and the strong hand of God on the other. … He was bound to remain miserable until either he or God let go.  He knew that God had no intention of giving up!”  Sinclair Ferguson

God illustrates the problem for Jonah.  He provides a vine to provide some needed shade from the sun and the hot east wind (which God also appointed).  It may have been his companion, much like Wilson in Castaway.  The Lord gives …. and the Lord takes away!  He appointed a worm to eat the plant.  Jonah was ticked about the demise of this plant.  The word of the Lord came to Jonah a 3rd time!  Jonah was again confronted with the need to either commit himself to God’s purposes or to disobey.

Ferguson continues with this internal struggle in Jonah, relating them to the common missionary experience.  Proper doctrine is not enough, and is not the same as love for Christ.  Jonah had orthodox doctrine, but his heart was not in line with God’s.  Like the commom missionary experience, the pressures of the task brings out the worst in them.  Ferguson quotes a missionary-

“I never knew what a heart of stone and filth I had until I went overseas.”

The key, for Ferguson, is how we react to hardship.  This is a better barometer of where we are.  How do we react to failure, rejection, affliction etc.?  He then talks about success from the life of Martin Luther.  After seeing the progress of the gospel in significant ways “the devil rode his back.”  He experienced great temptation and affliction.  Dan Allender talked about this on a visit to RTS Orlando some years ago.  Elijah experienced a deep depression after his showdown with the prophets of Baal.  Our reaction reveals how much more progress the gospel needs to make in our own hearts.

Another issue Ferguson takes up is the rise in nationalism.  Sadly, Christians (and denominations) are often more American, or British or Kenyan than they Christian.  They are shaped more by their culture and national agenda than by the gospel.  We can care more about how our country propers than about whether or not the gospel prospers around the world.  Like Jonah, we can be more concerned with our comfort than the salvation of anyone.

I was reminded of this last night and this morning.  I returned home from vacation to discover I had no phone (digital), no internet and no digital cable.  A power surge had wiped out my cable modem and DVR.  A minor inconvenience, even the DVR’d movies I’d planned on watching while the family was away.  This morning I discovered my old laptop was also knocked out by the surge.  I had not backed it up before leaving, so months worth of photos, updates to resumes, questionaires were lost.  I can’t apply for a position from home now.  I was surprisingly non-apopyletic.  I was reminded- the Lord gives, the Lord takes away…

I need to remember that many people like the Ninevites are around me.  They are trapped in sin, and don’t know how to get out.  They need people like me to instruct them in all Christ has done to save sinners like us.  We must keep in mind that Jesus Christ came to save sinners, and that He now sends us out to tell other sinners of His saving acts.

Sinclair Ferguson ends his book with a bit of a surprise.  He notes, again, that Jonah is biographical.  What we read here really happened.  But he says it operates like a parable (he calls it a parable).  What he means is that the story ends without Jonah’s response to God.  It is ambiguous precisely because Jonah represents us all.  We struggle with the same issues he did.  The point becomes, what will you do?  Will you embrace all that Christ has done for you both in His earthly ministry, and the special providences of His heavenly ministry has He pursues us?  Will we embrace His call and Commission?  Or will we  remain blinded by our selfishness and prejudices?  The ambiguous ending of Jonah puts the ball back in our court, so to speak.  Having heard, what shall we do?

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Considering Jonah 1

I’ve been working through Jonah, using Man Overboard! by Sinclair Ferguson, and Salvation Through Judgment and Mercy by Bryan Estelle.  It is a challenging book of the Bible in terms of understanding it, and then how convicting the book is when you understand it.

Sinclair Ferguson, as usual, makes some penetrating observations in his preface and introduction.

“Jonah was thus trained in the gymnasium of God’s special providences to be an obedient servant.”

As I prepare a sermon on Deuteronomy 8, we see the same thing.  God is humbling and testing Israel that they might be obedient to Him.  The same thing is in the background of Romans 8 as He works all things for our good- to be conformed to the likeness of His Son.  So, God’s work in Jonah- though it contains extraordinary events- is part of the normal pattern for Christians.

“Jonah was forced to learn in his flight from God that God is sovereign.  He rules over all things.  He also learned that the pulse beat of God’s heart has an evangelistic rhythm.  He loves men and women and he will pursue them with his love in order to bring them to repentance and faith.  … But the marvel of the biblical teaching is that God’s sovereignty and our evangelism are married in beautiful harmony- as Jonah himself discovered at the most personal level.  Few sections of Scripture emphasize so clearly that God is sovereign in all evangelism, and he is evangelistic in the exercise of his sovereignty.”

That is a gem!  It stressed God’s missionary heart, which culminated in sending the Son to lay down his life for those he’d save.  It also stressed how God works in history to accomplish this evangelistic task.  He must work in Jonah to create an evangelist.  To do this he must first pursue Jonah, that through Jonah he might pursue the Ninevites.  We run, and He catches us and redeems us to accomplish His purposes.  This is what happens in Jonah.

(I’ll address the question of the genre & historicity of Jonah in a separate post.  I had to consider this recently as a candidate to transfer into a local Presbytery raised this issue.)

In his introduction, and through the book, Estelle explains and utilizes a Christocentric method of interpretation.  He instructs, at one point, the proper use of typology.  In his chapter on orientation, he discusses the purposes of the book.  We can get lost in this question at times, or think there is simply one purpose.  Utilizing a triperspectival model we can see that it reveals God as a “sovereignly evangelistic God” (normative), that we must repent of our own covenant unfaithfulness to experience His mercy (existential), and proclaim His mercies to unbelievers (situational/circumstantial).  Israel, like Jonah, had fled God’s presence in disobedience.  Part of that disobedience was failing to be a light to the nations.  What I ponder is if Jonah acts much like part of Jeremiah does, to prepare the Northern Kingdom for their coming exile that they might seek the well-being of their new ‘home’ and bring them the message of reconciliation.

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Considering Expectations

I was communicating with a denominational leader recently.  Here’s what he said:

I am aware of forty Ministers who are seeking a change, and some of them are quite surprising. In contrast there are several churches in need of Ministers but they seem to be very hesitant to take the plunge, and so there is a weird sort of standoff as Search Committees look for the perfect man and Ministers look for the perfect church, and we still bring students under care and examine new men for the ministry. It is all very complicated.

I have heard that in the PCA, at any given time, 1/3 of the pastors are open to a change of pastorates.

What is going on with pastors?  What is going on with seach committees’ reluctance to choose a man?

In terms of pastors, I think our expectations are often askew.  We expect things to go well, and that their might be an occasional bump in the road.  We have an over-realized eschatology.  We forget our members, and we too, are depraved and struggle with sin.  We forget that just about every church we know about from the New Testament had problems, some of them very serious (Corinth & Galatia).  We forget we are called to be shepherds, and shepherding is HARD work.  It is not an easy vocation, but takes tough men whose hearts are both tough (in dealing with antagonists) and tender (when dealing with the lost and suffering).  We worship at the altar of success- looking for the greener pastures that promise us successful ministry and a life of ease.  And a big salary.  They are looking for the mythological “perfect church”.

Search Committees are formed because either their pastor unexpectedly resigned (unless he retired) or was asked to go.  In either case, they often feel rejected or burned in some sense.  They can be afraid to commit as a result.  They are paralyzed by analysis.  They forget that at some point they need to trust God.  They also worship at the altar of success- looking for a successful pastor, a track record of success etc.  People like me, with the “scarlet F” for failure, are often overlooked in favor of the discontent, but “successful” man.  They are looking for the mythological “perfect pastor.”

So … pastors with itchy feet help produce tentative search committees.  God is sovereign, but sometimes His sovereignty is disciplinary- humbling us for our stubbornness, pride and self-dependence.  Yeah, I’m looking in the mirror of the Law (James 1) to see where I need to change.  My long transition could be disciplinary, I don’t know.  I do know I need to be watchful against the deceitfulness of sin in my own heart, lest I grow bitter in this strange dance we do.  Still, it is with trepidation that I start this process all over again.

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The Bottom Line of Open Theism

(This is the 3rd in a series on Open Theism)

Review and Summary

Pardon my polemics as I sum this up.  The god that Open Theism offers you and me is a diminished deity.  Much of his power and glory have been sacrificed at the altar of human pride.  People want genuine human freedom; a freedom from God’s control.  They strip him of sovereignty so he resembles rabbi Harold Kushner’s very good but essentially powerless deity.  This is the god who can’t help you very much.  This is the god who can’t really keep his promises because he cannot control all of the factors necessary to keeping his promises.  This god might not be able to save you.  You will get a warm fuzzy because he loves you, but this is a teddy bear against the things that terrify you by night.  This god’s will is altered by prayer, but he can’t necessarily fulfill his will.  The god Open Theism offers in clearly not the God of the Bible.  Therefore he is not a God worth worshipping.

The God who presents Himself in the Bible is one who rules nature.  He rules all of creation.  He is the One who knows the end from the beginning.  He is the One who works out everything according to His purpose.  He is the One who chose who would be saved by Christ before the creation.  He possesses a freedom far greater than ours.  He involves Himself in the affairs of life to accomplish those purposes.  He is actively engaged with us, but is not at our mercy.

I hope that we don’t have to learn this the hard way, as Nebuchadnezzar did.  In his arrogance he exalted himself.  God opposed and humbled him.  When he came to his senses he declared that no one can thwart God’s will (Daniel 4:34-35).  If we continue to exalt ourselves (particularly at His expense), God will oppose and humble even His church.  To embrace this doctrine is to place ourselves under God’s curse.  Indeed, “no one can deliver us from His hand”.

 For More Study:

God at War: The Bible and Spiritual Conflict.  Gregory Boyd (IV Press)

God of the Possible.  Gregory Boyd (Baker Books)

God’s Lesser Glory: The Diminished God of Open Theism.  Bruce Ware (Crossway Books)

No Other God: A Response to Open Theism by John Frame (P&R Publishing)

The Case of Freewill Theism: A Philosophical Assessment.  David Basinger (IV Press)

The God Who Risks: A Theology of Providence.  John Sanders (IV Press)

The Openness of God: A Biblical Challenge to the Traditional Understanding of God.  Pinnock, Rice, Sanders, Hasker and Basinger (IV Press)

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