Since I’m spending so much free time reading for my Church History II class (Reformation), I thought I’d continue the quotes from the Reformers. Here is a beautiful quote from Calvin that is just as relevant today:
“Faith does not promise us length of days, riches and honors (the Lord not having been pleased that any of these should be appointed us); but is contented with the assurance, that however poor we may be in regard to present comforts, God will never fail us.”
In case anyone missed it, my most recent essay over at Unlikely Christians is up, continuing a discussion of “doctrinal devotion,” or, on how both the heart and mind must worship. Since then, Andy also wrote a very good essay on youth ministry and Mark wrote some excellent thoughts on the danger of loving good more than God. Check it out if you have a chance.
Also, I’ve joined the Baptist21 team and will have a post going up over there later in the week. More thoughts and details on that to come whenever the post goes up.
I read this the other day in Tim Keller’s commentary on The Gospel according to Mark.
Keller, who is discussing how we must absolutely submit all of our thinking and practice to the Lordship of Christ, prefaces the quote by saying,
Modern people in the West struggle with the idea of Jesus’s absolute authority, because we have abolished monarchy in our political lives. When we come to Christ, we almost always come looking for someone to help and love us, not to rule us. But we must receive him as a ruler. Democracy is good for society, but it is not the ultimate nature of spiritual reality.
He then quotes Lewis, who says this about democracy in his essay “Equality” (by the way, I found part of this particularly relevant to church leadership as well):
I [believe in democracy] because I believe in the Fall… a great deal of enthusiasm for democracy descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought humankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy on those grounds is that they’re not true. And whenever their weakness is exposed, the people who prefer tyranny make capital out of the exposure… The real reason for democracy is the reverse. We are so fallen that no person can be trusted with unchecked power over others. Aristotle said that some people were fit to be slaves… But I reject slavery because I see none fit to be masters…
But [democracy] is medicine, not food… The mind that hates all superiority is stunted… The man who cannot conceive of a joyful and loyal obedience on the one hand, nor an unembarrassed and noble acceptance of that obedience on the other, the man who has never even wanted to kneel or bow, is a prosaic barbarian. It would be wicked folly to restore these old inequalities on the legal or external plane. Their proper place is elsewhere… Where we are forbidden to honor a king we honor billionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served. Deny it food and it will gobble poison. Human nature will not permanently endure flat equality if it is extended from its proper political field into the real, concrete fields within. Let us wear equality [with each other], but let us undress every night [before God].”
I’ve been reading Luther’s Concerning Christian Liberty recently, and therefore have been thinking often about faith and works. As Luther famously summarized his position: “A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one.” Here’s his elaboration about how good works are not done in attempt to save ourselves, but instead are in response to loving, saving work of Christ:
Lo! my God, without merit on my part, of His pure and free mercy, has given to me, an unworthy, condemned, and contemptible creature, all the riches of justification and salvation in Christ, so that I no longer am in want of anything, except of faith to believe that this is so. For such a Father, then, who has overwhelmed me with these inestimable riches of His, why should I not freely, cheerfully, and with my whole heart, and from voluntary zeal, do all that I know will be pleasing to Him and acceptable in His sight? I will therefore give myself as a sort of Christ, to my neighbour, as Christ has given Himself to me; and will do nothing in this life except what I see will be needful, advantageous, and wholesome for my neighbour, since by faith I abound in all good things in Christ.
Thus from faith flow forth love and joy in the Lord, and from love a cheerful, willing, free spirit, disposed to serve our neighbour voluntarily, without taking any account of gratitude or ingratitude, praise or blame, gain or loss. Its object is not to lay men under obligations, nor does it distinguish between friends and enemies, or look to gratitude or ingratitude, but most freely and willingly spends itself and its goods, whether it loses them through ingratitude, or gains goodwill. For thus did its Father, distributing all things to all men abundantly and freely, making His sun to rise upon the just and the unjust. Thus, too, the child does and endures nothing except from the free joy with which it delights through Christ in God, the Giver of such great gifts.
I saw over at Between Two Worlds that Ligonier Ministries has put out their top 5 commentaries for every book of the Bible.
There’s a number of philosophies about how to use commentaries. Some use them to interpret the text for them since they are the “experts.” My philosophy is that we must master the text ourselves, and I think you can almost always tell when someone is regurgitating another’s information in a sermon. Having mastered the text, we then come to the commentaries to compare our conclusions with theirs just as you would talk to a friend about your thoughts on a passage if he had written a paper on the same text the week before.
If the commentaries give us our conclusions and the urgency of the main idea of the text has not grasped our hearts, we will not preach as men consumed with the revealed truth we’ve graciously discovered through study.
Why is nobody talking about this?
Something caught my eye the other night – Albert Pujols hit his 30th home runwith more than a week to go before the all-star break. If this were the mid-90s, ESPN would send Pedro Gomez to St. Louis to document every second of the chase for 61, giving us updates on what Pujols had for breakfast and the type of laundry detergent he uses. In the post-steroid era hoopla, he’s nothing more than a useful fantasy baseball commodity.
Let’s finally be honest with ourselves: the single season home record is still owned by Roger Maris. Let’s also say what everyone is thinking: despite Bonds, McGwire, and Sosa all hitting over 61 in a season, we need to remember that they were injected with enough steroids to kill a circus elephant, and we should have as much respect for their “records” as my friends did for me in elementary school when I got the high score in my Ninja Turles video game after using a cheat code that gave me unlimited lives.
Pujols, on the other hand, offers legitimacy and some opportunity for post-steroid redemption in Major League Baseball. He has consistent numbers throughout his career, has passed every drug test, and seems to be an overall good guy. I say we wipe out the past fifteen years of home run records, reclaim the magic, and acknowledge that Albert is currently pursuing Roger Maris’s single season home run record. If he hits 62, then it’s his.
What a better way to bring some healing to an era of baseball ruled by scandal? Purge the record books and let the chase begin.
We’ve been talking some over at Unlikely Christians about loving the Lord with heart and mind. Feel free to offer your thoughts if you have any on the matter. I came across this quote from C.S. Lewis (from his introduction to Athanasius’s On the Incarnation) and had to share it:
“For my own part I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that ‘nothing happens’ when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand” (8).
We got married 2 years ago today, and here are a few random reflections:
1. There’s nothing that reveals your own selfishness like marriage. The great thing about community, and especially marriage, is you don’t always get your way and you have to consider people other than yourself.
2. I’m convinced that the best way to cultivate a healthy marriage is to pursue a deep understanding of the gospel. The quickest way to kill the entitlement mentality, pride, holding grudges, delaying forgiveness, and getting worked up over dumb stuff is to look to the cross.
3. We must intentionally create a culture of discipleship in our homes. Especially for those of us who are seminarians, we’ve got to resist ministering to everyone other than our wives (and believe me, it’s easy). I love discipling my wife. If I have discipled and equipped scores of men to understand the gospel and the Bible, but Megan isn’t equipped in the same way, then I’ve failed signficantly.
4. It’s hard to believe that we’ve been married two years and Megan is only 21 years old.
5. I think we thought that this would be the craziest time of our lives, but really it’s only going to get crazier – it’s important to stop looking forward to something better and instead enjoy the time you have with one another.
6. The thing I most need to learn from Megan is compassion – she can read a news story about some tragedy and start crying right at the computer.
7. I hope we find more ways to serve in practical ways together. Some of my best memories from the past two years have been going to Mexico together, serving at our church, and meeting new people while we’re out on dates.
Love you, Meg.
Goldsworthy notes how the wisdom tradition begins in Genesis:
Sinful thinking is ’snake-think’, the kind of noetic rebellion proposed by the serpent in Eden. It is diametrically opposed to the mind renewed by the gospel [...] At this point we can say that the godless presuppositions underlying the temptation and fall in Genesis 3 include the following:
- if God is there, he does not communicate the truth.
- We do not need God to reveal the rational framework for understanding reality.
- Human reason is autonomous, and the ultimate arbiter of truth and falsity, right and wrong.
Goldworthy then turns to the New Testament’s reading of the Old’s regarding wisdom:
Two reality-views are clearly contrasted in Paul’s treatment of wisdom in 1 Corinthians 1-2. There is little doubt that Paul, along with Jesus and the Gospel writers, moves in the framework that includes the Old Testament wisdom. Christ is designated ‘the wisdom of God’ (1:24) and also ‘our wisdom’ (1:30). He is the difference between the world’s wisdom, which in reality is foolishness, and the wisdom of God, which the world perversely assesses as foolishness. The epistemological framework that corresponds with reality is the gospel itself. What Paul states in 1 Corinthians is in line with epistemology of the Old Testament wisdom, and specifically that of Proverbs 1:7 and 9:10 where the fear of the Lord as the basis of rational understanding is a faith response to God’s revelation.
from Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics by Graeme Goldsworthy (pg. 61)
