A Meditation with both Palm Sunday and Good Friday in Mind ...

 

"My thesis that the practice of nonviolence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many Christians, especially theologians in the West. To the person who is inclined to dismiss it, I suggest imagining that you are delivering a lecture in a war zone (which is where a paper that underlies this ... was originally delivered). Among your listeners are people whose cities and villages have been first plundered, then burned and leveled to the ground, whose daughters and sisters have been raped, whose fathers and brothers have had their throats slit. The topic of the lecture: a Christian attitude toward violence. The thesis: we should not retaliate since God is perfect noncoercive love. Soon you would discover that it takes the quiet of a suburban home for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence corresponds to God’s refusal to judge. In a scorched land, soaked in the blood of the innocent, it will invariably die. And as one watches it die, one will do well to reflect about many other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind."

- Miroslav Volf 

Exclusion and Embrace pgs. 303-304

Bleeding-Heart Calvinism

My friend, pastor Joost Nixon, narrating his article - my favorite of all time.  Enjoy.

Thoughts on the Nye / Ham Debate ...

I did a lot of sighing.  Of course, I am grateful for Ken Ham, his gifts and faithful ministry ... but anyone familiar with Greg Bahnsen or any Reformed debater downstream from him was sighing along with me.  [*disclaimer: because I was also watching my children, I missed 10-20% of the debate, but most of it was from the Q&A at the end.]

Don't get me wrong.  It wasn't like watching the Super bowl all over again.  It was by no means a landslide victory for Nye.  But I think it's safe to say that, in boxing terms, this one went to a decision.  And as they say, the first rule of winning is, never let it go to a decision; never give it to the judges.

Here are 2 lessons I took away from the debate.

1. Doctrine Matters.

The fact that Ham is not self-consciously Reformed was a major handicap for his position.  Presuppositional apologetics is king.  Resistance is futile.  The debate is never really the debate. The resolution always teeters precariously on top of a whole pile of assumptions and underlying presuppositions which have to be aggressively challenged.  Don't argue details the whole time.  Touch on them.  But spend the bulk of your time deeper.  It's like championship ping-pong.  You have to back several steps away from the table to really get that spin and speed to win.  You'll miss the bigger picture if you're not at least a few steps back.
Bill Nye debated for an hour with a Kentucky fossil rock sitting on top of his podium.  He was locked into the debate on the myopic level of details, individual proofs, and datum.  But as the holocaust, Margaret Sanger's eugenics, and Columbine have taught us, the most compelling problems with evolution are found on a worldview level.  It's not the rattle that concerns me so much as the dripping fangs I found attached to the head on the other end when I traced the connection.
And while we're at it, does your worldview account for the laws of logic, the uniformity of nature, the possibility of scientific advancement, not to mention the possibility of human morality, dignity, the reliability of empirical data, the existence of mind, human thought, and inquiry, etc.?  No.  As a matter of fact, your worldview directly undermines these things.

Our Indulgent Father in Heaven ... [!]

I trust I have now sufficiently shown how man’s only resource for escaping from the curse of the law, and recovering salvation, lies in faith; ... The whole may be thus summed up: 

Christ given to us by the kindness of God is apprehended and possessed by faith, by means of which we obtain in particular a twofold benefit; first, being reconciled by the righteousness of Christ, God becomes, instead of a judge, an indulgent Father; and, secondly, being sanctified by his Spirit, we aspire to integrity and purity of life.

- John Calvin

Just a Number

Recently, the sport of golf, traditionally thought of as an old man's game, has been taken over by youngbloods.  This weekend, the PGA championship was won by 1986-born, Keegan Bradley.  Just a few months ago, the best score ever recorded [by a healthy margin of 4 strokes!] at the US Open was shot by a 22 yr old.  That was a truly remarkable accomplishment for someone in any year of life.  But age is a funny thing, as we in the Church well know.  Something I've been grappling with for some time, as a 'young' man pursuing the ministry, is the [pun intended] age-old question: when is a man too young to be a pastor?  Here is a short list that might help provide some historic [and Reformed] perspective on that question:

Athenasius was 27 when he stood against the Arians at the first council of Nicaea; Ursinus and Olevianus were commissioned to produce the Heidelberg catechism at 28 and 26 resp; George Gillespie was called to the Westminster Assembly at 31; also called were John Bond [32], Peter Sterry [31], John Wallis [non-voting scribe at 28], Henry Wilkinson [34], Francis Woodcock [30], Archibald Johnston [33], and John Maitland -sent by the Scottish Covenenters to the Assembly at 28 [of course any of them may have been ordained at a younger age prior to this as well]; Joseph Caryl and William Greenhill, signers of the Savoy Declaration, were both not yet 30 when they began ministry; Jeremiah Burroughs was 31 when first appointed rector; John Whitgift, author of the Calvinistic Lambeth Articles, entered the chaplaincy at around 30; Heinrich Bullinger, primary author of the Second Helvetic Confession, began ministry at 24-25; John Calvin was ordained at 27 and within a year had published the first edition of his Institutes; Guido de Bres, author of the Belgic Confession, began his ministry at 30; Martin Bucer entered the chaplaincy at 30; Samuel Rutherford began his ministry ~ 27; Thomas Boston – licensed at 21, pastor at 23;  Francis Turretin – pastor at 25; John Owen – ordained ~ 28; John Gill served as a pastoral intern at 21 and graduated to the full pastorate a year later; John Bunyan began preaching at 27; Franciscus Gomarus, who led the stand against Arminianism at the Synod of Dort, began pastoring at 24; Stephen Charnock - minister at 22; Peter Viret, known as "The Smile of the Reformation", said to have helped Calvin and two others author the Gallic [or French] Confession of Faith 1559, was called to preach at 20 by William Farel, who was himself ~ 30 when he joined the Cercle de Meaux, to help bring reform to the French church; Jonathan Edwards - called to the pastorate at 20; Benjamin Keach [Spurgeon's predecessor and one of the original seven Baptists to call for the General Assembly that lead to the London Baptist Confession of 1689] was called as pastor when 20;  Melanchton was only 24 when he joined the Reformational fray by authoring his first two works in defense of Luther; John Willock [one of the 6 Johns responsible for authoring the Scots Confession] was about 27 when made chaplain to the Duke of Suffolk; John Row [another of the 6 Johns] was 25 when ordained as a minister; Thomas Cramner, primary author of the Book of Common Prayer, was appointed preacher at Jesus College before he turned 30; John Knox wasn't yet 30 when he famously guarded the pulpit of reformer, George Wishart, [himself within a year of the same age] with a giant two-handed sword; Richard Baxter – ordained at 23; Thomas Watson – pastor at 26; J.C. Ryle – ordained at 25; Abraham Booth was called to be a pastor while in his early 20's; Cotton Mather – full pastorate at 22; David Brainard – licensed and called at 25; George Whitefield – parish priest at 25; Asahel Nettleton – ordained at 28; Charles Wesley – ordained at 28; Henry Martyn began missions work in India at 25; AA Hodge did the same at 24; Charles G Finney began studying for the ministry at 29 [just checking to see if you’re still reading]; Andrew Fuller was a pastor at 21/22; J.L. Dagg, the first American Baptist theologian began pastoring at 31; William Carey – called at 24; Abraham Kuyper accepted a call at 27; Matthew Henry – called at 25; BB Warfield – called to the pastorate at 26 [though he refused]; Archibald Alexander - licensed at 19, ordained at 23; Charles Hodge – licensed at 23;  Andrew Bonar - minister at 28; his brother Horatio was ordained at 29; RL Dabney - missionary at 26, pastor at 27; Spurgeon – ordained at 19; McCheyne – died at 29; Martin Lloyd Jones – called at 28; RJ Rushdoony - ordained at 28;  JI Packer – ordained at 27; Francis Schaeffer – ordained at 27; In recent years, Ian Murray, entered the ministry at 24-25; R.C. Sproul – ordained as an elder at 26; and John MacArthur began the pastorate at Grace Community at 30.  How many of your heroes are on this list?

[photo: inquisitr.com]

Conversion VS Conversation

In 11 years of evaluating ministers, I am not aware of a single time that the Westminster Assembly asked for one to recount his conversion. They were rather interested in his conversation [his lifestyle]. This is one area in which we today have been influenced by the pietism of the 18th century.


- Chad van Dixhoorn [paraphrase], Senior Research Fellow of the Westminster Assembly Project

Them's Strivin' Words ...

'The human race is divided into two races, those who love holiness and those who do not. The former are having their humanity restored in Jesus Christ, and the latter are actively pursuing the gollumization of humanity. So the human race is divided by the grace of the gospel in accordance with the Bible's description of God's character. This description is something that less squeamish generations of Christians used to call God's "law."

Those who love God recoil from the things that nonbelievers both do (Eph. 5:12) and applaud doing (Rom. 1:32). They despise even the garments that are stained by the flesh (Jude 23). But a Christian might protest -- "I don't agree with the way you are approaching this. I'm a Christian and I don't have that kind of detestation." But that argument would only have weight if you really were a Christian. That's where the argument falls down.'

-Doug Wilson

You Dropped the Ball ... Again!

Steven Johnson is the now-infamous wide receiver on the Buffalo Bills who dropped what would have been the game-winning TD pass against the Steelers last week.  He then issued a statement to the world in the form of the above 'tweet' to God.  It is sad and sadly representative of the state of popular Christianity in our world today.  The God-is-my-vending-machine-in-the-sky theology is as easy to drop as it is to adopt [... or maybe I shouldn't use the word 'drop'.] Hopefully, those words were just a foolish venting that he will be quick to repent of.  True faith, living faith, ... saving faith ... perseveres - there is no other alternative [see Hebrews ... the whole book.]
For a more faithful option, consider with me the words of our spiritual forefather, Job [who, incidentally had lost a lot more than leverage for a potential future signing bonus]:
"Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him..."
May God grant us Job's heart.

A faith that can be destroyed by suffering is not faith. - Richard Wurmbrand

A Great Quote from a Great Man on His Birthday

[Adam and Eve] wanted, as we say, to ‘call their souls their own’. But that means to live a lie, for our souls are not, in fact, our own. They wanted some corner in the universe of which they could say to God, ‘This is our business, not yours.’ But there is no such corner. They wanted to be nouns, but they were, and eternally must be, mere adjectives.

-a wonderfully Kuyperian, C S Lewis, in The Problem of Pain

Preaching: what it is and what it isn't

A minister who preaches on the authority and infallibility of Scripture is often accused of being arrogant, said one pastor. Such criticism, however, is withheld from someone who sits on a stool in a cardigan and chats with the congregation, telling personal stories.

Criticizing the latter form, Doug Wilson, pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, made the case for the preacher who declares "thus saith the Lord."

"A minister should ascend into the pulpit in order to declare what would have been true had he never been born. He is there to preach what was written in the Word before all ages and is utterly disconnected from his personal dreams, hopes and aspirations," Wilson said at the Desiring God Ministries' national conference in Minneapolis on Saturday. "A minister is not up there to develop a relationship with everybody individually."

Ministers are not supposed to be extemporaneous actors trying to figure out their lines from everything other than the Bible, he noted. They may maintain that their scripts are better, their plot lines are grittier or that their shows make more money, but a minister's script is Scripture, Wilson stressed.

"He is there to declare something that is outside of his control. What God has revealed to us in the Bible is the message. That's the script."

BLINDSPOTS 101

"The most misleading assumptions are the ones you don't even know you're making."

-Douglas Adams

FV Fever

"Our motivation is pastoral: to bring the people in the pew in contact with the language God chose to use in the Bible."

-James Jordan, summing up the Federal Vision [click below to read the rest of his commentary]

What I LOVE about the Constitution

Though leery of bumperstickers, I recently tattooed my car with the one pictured above.  Once I'd done so, it occurred to me that I should probably spend some time preparing an answer for anyone who might happen to ask me why I love the Constitution.  After quite a bit of thought, here's the response.

For starters, I love that it's short, separates powers, contains the rule of Law rather than men, and that its primary aim is the limitation of the government, not its citizens.

Contrary to what most people think, the US Constitution doesn't purport to catalog the rights of citizens [or states!].  Rather, it restricts government officials and specifically defends the citizens' rights which are most often violated by tyrannical rulers.  In short, while it calls itself the 'rule of the land' it is more accurately thought of as the 'rule of our land's leaders'.  It is not the law I have to follow.  It is the law that Obama, Pelosi, and Roberts have to follow.

But my real, one-word answer is this: DEPRAVITY.  It's been said that more than anyone, America has John Calvin to thank for her gov't.  And this leads to my answer.  Ultimately, it is because the US Constitution takes the idea of human depravity seriously.  Political power inflames a man's radical depravity and corrupts him.  So the best forms of government will limit that power. Here is how James Madison, the 'father of the Constitution'and devoted Calvinist,  put it in one of his better known Federalist Papers:

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."
[photo: I heart the Constitution by Liberty Jane on zazzle.com.]

Deformed and Deforming

How many "good" Reformed congregations would invite St. James back to preach if he stood behind the pulpit and quoted his epistle as his sermon?  How many would invite Peter back if he told them in his sermon that baptism saves [like he did in his first epistle]?  So the 2 questions are: 1.  At what point are we more "Reformed" than Biblical.  and 2. How might we get back on track?

Sola Theologica?

Had our God wanted us to be systematicians first and Christians second, He would’ve given us the Bible in the form of systematic theology and told us to memorize it.  As it is, we reconstruct the material and make it systematic. Now – I’m not anti-systematic – no – I’m very much systematic, I depend on it in my argumentation and presuppose it in several critical occasions.  But I do not mistake systematics for the inspired narrative and Word of God and exposition and application of that Word.  So we must keep the distinctions in mind that lead to sanity and not insanity.  … at times when we’re opposed by unbelievers and they come up with systems, we are justified in returning a system that demolishes theirs.  But we should not then forget the narrative!  We always return to the narrative! …

-Steve Schlissel, role playing as the Apostle Paul  

In Context

As our churchplant group has been working through the concept of covenant, I’ve been struck by how easy it is to miss the parts of our faith and thought that are the most basic. I guess it shouldn’t surprise me as someone who resisted Calvinism for years. As these things are becoming more clear to me, I’ve come to understand that in order to read any Bible verse in context, you have to start reading at the first page of Scripture. The context of any given verse in Colossians is not simply the start of its paragraph – it is the entire ancient legacy, from the Edenic prophecies that were made as the fiery cherubim was descending from Heaven, and every subsequent prophecy from every millennium since.

Enmity with God

“Any system of morality that is predicated in any way upon a threat of violence is a morally bankrupt system. It may not cross the mind of many of you believers that if there actually is a Heaven and a Hell – there’s not ... and there’s no soul either – but if there were a Heaven and a Hell, some of us might proudly choose to go to Hell in order to avoid having to pretend to worship this bloodthirsty, immoral dictator of the God of the Bible. We might proudly resist ‘the Hitler’ and say, ‘Send me to the gas chamber. Fine!’ At least we will go with dignity and pride.”

- Dan Barker, atheist author and spokesman, [unintentionally] doing a great job of articulating a Reformed understanding of the radical depravity of the unregenerate human heart. The statement was from a public Q&A forum after the debate ‘Should God and Government be Separate?’ w/ Douglas Wilson.

My Default Arminianism

If you know anything about me, you know that I'm a Calvinist. I'm not one of these Arminians. Except that as a Calvinist, I believe in total depravity, which means that as a Calvinist I know that I am an Arminian. That is - even though I say with my lips that I'm justified by faith alone, in my heart I think that I can earn God's favor with my behavior. In fact, if you're a really hardcore Calvinist, you think that you can earn God's favor because of your zeal and commitment to the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Calvinists hold to the doctrine of unconditional election which holds that God didn't choose us because He peered down the corridors of time and saw that we would choose Him - that's an Arminian view. We don't believe that. No, we think God peered down the corridors and saw that we'd be a Calvinist and that's why He chose us.

So often our spiritual exercises are designed in the horrible, dark corners of our hearts as a means to win God's favor.

- R.C. Sproul, Jr. [pictured with his newly adopted son, Reilly Justice Sproul]

Book List [what I've been reading these days] ...

YOU ARE WHAT YOUR MIND EATS ...

A Firm Foundation

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,

The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;

For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,

And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

John Rippon,

excerpt from 'How Firm a Foundation',

1787