Thoughts on catholic/worldwide

2010-10-21T10:48:00.000-07:00

This is from packer's great little book
Affirming the Apostles' Creed.

In the intro he writes:
Created and animated by the Holy Spirit,
the church is the community of believers living through God
and to God, the Father and the Son, in a sustained pattern
of worship, work, and witness. (This is why the church is
called “holy,” which means set apart for God.) It is the worldwide
people of God and body of Christ, in whose faith and
fellowship social, racial, gender, age, educational, professional,
and political distinctions cease to count; all are “one
in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). (This is why the church is
called “catholic,” which means comprehensive, or inclusive,
in both extent and quality.) Knowing and uniting with the
Lord Jesus Christ according to the gospel is the dynamic basis
of the church’s inner unity and togetherness.

(to see more from Packer, go to bottom of this post)

So, here's the line of thought:
1.) To say "i believe in the holy catholic church" is confusing to some (many?) in the congregation of CCC because it may mean that we are giving a shout-out only to the ROMAN catholic church.
2.) The word catholic, when the creed started, meant something far different to the average Joe than it does today.
Insert dangerous illustration here:
Imagine the creed were written back when "gay" tended to mean "happy or joyful". And the writers said, "We believe in the gay church."
That would connote something very different to the average person in 2010.

I'm only saying something about the way words can change in their common usage. Nothing more.

So, we'll say, "I believe in the worldwide church." At least on Sunday. And hope to experience together the joy of being a part of God's worldwide mission.

More from Packer:
�IIt is by strict theological logic that the Creed confesses faith
in the Holy Spirit before proceeding to the church and that
it speaks of the church before mentioning personal salvation
(forgiveness, resurrection, everlasting life). For though Father
and Son have loved the church and the Son has redeemed it,
it is the Holy Spirit who actually creates it, by inducing faith;
and it is in the church, through its ministry and fellowship,
that personal salvation ordinarily comes to be enjoyed.
Unhappily, there is at this point a parting of the ways.
Roman Catholics and Protestants both say the Creed, yet they
are divided. Why? Basically, because of divergent understandings
of “I believe in the holy catholic church”—”one holy
catholic and apostolic church,” as the true text of the Nicene
Creed has it.

􀁓􀁐􀁎􀁂􀁏􀀡􀁗􀁆􀁓􀁔􀁖􀁔􀀡􀁑􀁓􀁐􀁕􀁆􀁔􀁕􀁂􀁏􀁕
Official Roman Catholic teaching presents the church of
Christ as the one organized body of baptized persons who
are in communion with the Pope and acknowledge the
teaching and ruling authority of the episcopal hierarchy. It is
holy because it produces saintly folk and is kept from radical
sin, catholic because in its worldwide spread it holds the full
faith in trust for everyone, and apostolic because its ministerial
orders stem from the apostles, and its faith (including
such non-biblical items as the assumption of Mary and her
immaculate conception, the Mass-sacrifice, and papal infallibility)
is a sound growth from apostolic roots. Non-Roman
bodies, however church-like, are not strictly part of the
church at all.
Protestants challenge this from the Bible. In Scripture
(they say) the church is the one worldwide fellowship of
believing people whose Head is Christ. It is holy because it
is consecrated to God (though it is capable nonetheless of
grievous sin); it is catholic because it embraces all Christians
everywhere; and it is apostolic because it seeks to maintain
the apostles’ doctrine unmixed. Pope, hierarchy, and extrabiblical
doctrines are not merely nonessential but actually
deforming; if Rome is a church (which some Reformers
doubted) she is so despite the extras, not because of them. In particular, infallibility belongs to God speaking in the Bible,
not to the church or to any of its officers, and any teaching
given in or by the church must be open to correction by
“God’s word written.”1
Some Protestants have taken the clause “the communion
of saints,” which follows “the holy catholic church,” as
the Creed’s own elucidation of what the church is; namely,
Christians in fellowship with each other—just that, without
regard for any particular hierarchical structure. But it is usual
to treat this phrase as affirming the real union in Christ of
the church “militant here on earth” with the church triumphant,
as is indicated in Hebrews 12:22–24; and it may be
that the clause was originally meant to signify communion in
holy things (Word, sacrament, worship, prayers) and to make
the true but distinct point that in the church there is a real
sharing in the life of God. The “spiritual” view of the church
as being a fellowship before it is an institution can, however,
be confirmed from Scripture without appeal to this phrase,
whatever its sense, being needed.

That the New Testament presents the Protestant view is
hardly open to dispute (the dispute is over whether the New
Testament is final!). The church appears in Trinitarian relationships as the family of God the Father, the body of Christ
the Son, and the temple (dwelling-place) of the Holy Spirit,
and so long as the dominical sacraments are administered
and ministerial oversight is exercised, no organizational
norms are insisted on at all. The church is the supernatural
society of God’s redeemed and baptized people, looking back
to Christ’s first coming with gratitude and on to his second
coming with hope. “Your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will
appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3:3–4)—such is the
church’s present state and future prospect. To this hope both
sacraments point, baptism prefiguring final resurrection, the
Lord’s Supper anticipating “the marriage supper of the Lamb”
(Revelation 19:9).

For the present, however, all churches (like those in
Corinth, Colosse, Galatia, and Thessalonica, to look no further)
are prone to err in both faith and morals and need constant correction
and re-formation at all levels (intellectual, devotional,
structural, liturgical) by the Spirit through God’s Word.
The evangelical theology of revival, first spelled out in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the present-day emergence
of “charismatic renewal” on a worldwide scale remind us
of something that Roman Catholic and Protestant disputers, in
their concentration on doctrinal truth, tended to miss—namely,
that the church must always be open to the immediacy of the
Spirit’s Lordship and that disorderly vigor in a congregation is
infinitely preferable to a correct and tidy deadness.
􀁕􀁉􀁆􀀡􀁍􀁐􀁄􀁂􀁍􀀡􀁄􀁉􀁖􀁓􀁄􀁉
The acid test of the church’s state is what happens in the
local congregation. Each congregation is a visible outcrop
of the one church universal, called to serve God and men in
humility and, perhaps, humiliation while living in prospect of
glory. Spirit-filled for worship and witness, active in love and
care for insiders and outsiders alike, self-supporting and selfpropagating,
each congregation is to be a spearhead of divine
counterattack for the recapture of a rebel world.
Here is a question for you: how is your congregation
getting on?

---Packer

From tedium to Te Deum

2010-10-21T08:33:00.000-07:00

Incredible:
From tedium to Te Deum

the tedium of slavery, to Pharoah or to ourselves/sin

Found this in a footnote on Tremper's book "How to read Exodus". (CANNOT BELIEVE it was relegated to footnote, this should be a title or subtitle to a book on exodus!!)

What is the Te Deum? Good overview here at wikipedia

Basically it is a hymn of praise, ascribing all glory and affection to our Triune God. Which, by the way, is WHY God saved Israel from Egypt and you and me from our sin!! Our lives a Te Deum of praise to God as we love Him and our neighbor.

Here is the text, from the book of common prayer
(Note: In the Book of Common Prayer, verse is written in half-lines, at which reading pauses, indicated by colons in the text.)

We praise thee, O God :
    we acknowledge thee to be the Lord.
All the earth doth worship thee :
    the Father everlasting.
To thee all Angels cry aloud :
    the Heavens, and all the Powers therein.
To thee Cherubin and Seraphin :
    continually do cry,
Holy, Holy, Holy :
    Lord God of Sabaoth;
Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty :
    of thy glory.
The glorious company of the Apostles : praise thee.
The goodly fellowship of the Prophets : praise thee.
The noble army of Martyrs : praise thee.
The holy Church throughout all the world :
    doth acknowledge thee;
The Father : of an infinite Majesty;
Thine honourable, true : and only Son;
Also the Holy Ghost : the Comforter.
Thou art the King of Glory : O Christ.
Thou art the everlasting Son : of the Father.
When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man :
    thou didst not abhor the Virgin's womb.
When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death :
    thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.
Thou sittest at the right hand of God : in the glory of the Father.
We believe that thou shalt come : to be our Judge.
We therefore pray thee, help thy servants :
    whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood.
Make them to be numbered with thy Saints : in glory everlasting.
O Lord, save thy people :
    and bless thine heritage.
Govern them : and lift them up for ever.
Day by day : we magnify thee;
And we worship thy Name : ever world without end.
Vouchsafe, O Lord : to keep us this day without sin.
O Lord, have mercy upon us : have mercy upon us.
O Lord, let thy mercy lighten upon us :
    as our trust is in thee.
O Lord, in thee have I trusted :
    let me never be confounded.

and then, i think you could go on and on that tedium from tedium to Te Deum involves the removal of "i"
you don't have to get all watchman nee-ish (and unbiblical) that I cease to exist and I'm not important et al
but you can say that sin, in many ways is pride (Lewis called this the "greatest sin", see Mere Xnity) is a focus on ourselves, a being bent in on ourselves; SELFishness; and to be free is to "lose your life"
So, from tedium to Te Deum---by a blow to the "i"

(Andrew, Olivia, Joppa---- I hope one day this kind of post is helpful to you. By the way, see Jerram Barrs and McCauley book BEING HUMAN to show the beauty of bible's teaching against Nee and idea that you cease to exist when you follow Christ)

wrong soaked all through me, take 2

2010-10-16T15:27:00.001-07:00

A scene from one of

George MacDonald's children's books — called The Princess and Curdie—

illustrates this point.

Early in the novel the young boy Curdie thoughtlessly

shoots an arrow into a white pigeon. Suddenly overcome by remorse, he

carries the wounded bird to an old, old princess to see if anything can be done

to save it. But the woman is even more concerned about the boy than she is

about the bird. Gently she tries to help Curdie recognize that his evil deed

sprang from the all-pervasive wickedness of his heart. When finally he confesses

his sinful condition, he says, "I see now that I have been doing wrong

the whole day, and such a many days besides! Indeed, I don't know when I

ever did right. . . .

When I killed your bird I did not know I was doing wrong,

just because I was always doing wrong, and the wrong had soaked all

through me."

The problem, however, is not simply that we keep committing this or

that sin; the problem is that we are sinners to the very core. Until we surrender

to Jesus Christ, our entire orientation is sinful.

--Phil Ryken

wrong soaked all through me

2010-10-16T15:23:00.001-07:00

A scene from one of

George MacDonald's children's books — called The Princess and Curdie—

illustrates this point. Early in the novel the young boy Curdie thoughtlessly

shoots an arrow into a white pigeon. Suddenly overcome by remorse, he

carries the wounded bird to an old, old princess to see if anything can be done

to save it. But the woman is even more concerned about the boy than she is

about the bird. Gently she tries to help Curdie recognize that his evil deed

sprang from the all-pervasive wickedness of his heart. When finally he confesses

his sinful condition, he says, "I see now that I have been doing wrong

the whole day, and such a many days besides! Indeed, I don't know when I

ever did right. . . . When I killed your bird I did not know I was doing wrong,

just because I was always doing wrong, and the wrong had soaked all

through me."

Egyptian Slaves

2010-10-16T15:19:00.000-07:00

They worked out in the hot Egyptian sun all day (often in temperatures over

100°), driven to optimum production by their taskmasters. They had no hats

to protect their heads and wore nothing but a brief kilt or apron on their

bodies. . . . A wealthy Egyptian father talked with his son about the condition

of their bricklayers. He observed that their “kidneys suffer because

they are out in the sun . . . with no clothes on.” Their hands are “torn to

ribbons by the cruel work.” And they have to “knead all sorts of muck.”

Certainly no one stood by to give the workers a drink every few minutes.

It does not take much imagination to conclude that the severe “rigor”

imposed on the Hebrews resulted in many of them dying of dehydration,

heat prostration, heatstroke and the like.

Howard F. Vos, Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Manners and Customs: How the People
of the Bible Really Lived (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1999), p. 61.

the 3 day festival request

2010-10-15T05:39:00.000-07:00

An ancient manuscript at the
Louvre, dating to the time of Rameses II, indicates that Egyptian slaves
were sometimes given time off to worship their gods.* There is also a limestone
tablet from the same period listing the names of slaves, together with
reasons for their absence from work, including the phrase, “has sacrificed
to the god.”*^

What this proves is that the Pharaohs sometimes honored the
kind of request that Moses and Aaron were making. Asking for three days
of religious freedom was a reasonable demand that God used to expose the
unbelief in Pharaoh’s heart.

* James K. Hoffmeier, Israel in Egypt (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1999),
p. 115.
*^J. Cerny and A. H. Gardiner, Hieratic Ostraca I (Oxford, England: Printed for the Griffith
Institute at the University Press by Charles Batey, 1957), pp. 22, 23, plates 83, 84.

Sonship of Israel, Jesus, and us

2010-10-07T07:35:00.000-07:00

Sonship has its origins in the Old Testament, where God reveals himself
as a father who desires a son to serve him. However, his son always
proved a disappointment. This was true during the exodus, when Israel grumbled
against Moses and complained about God’s fatherly care. The Old
Testament people of God never lived up to the demands of their sonship.
This is why God sent his only Son to be our Savior. The New Testament
presents Jesus Christ as God’s perfect Son, the one who served his Father
with absolute devotion. Jesus was everything God had ever wanted in a
Son, on one level accomplishing what Israel was supposed to accomplish.
The Gospels make this connection explicit by describing the life of Christ
as a new exodus. Not long after he was born, Jesus was sent down to Egypt,

where he remained until the death of King Herod. His subsequent return to
Israel reminded Matthew of the Old Testament promise: “Out of Egypt I
called my son” (Matt. 2:15, quoting Hos. 11:1). It was Matthew’s way of saying
that Jesus is the true Israel, God’s firstborn Son. This was confirmed when
Jesus was baptized, and the Father said, “This is my Son, whom I love”
(Matt. 3:17). The promise of sonship was fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
The amazing thing is that everyone who comes to Christ in faith
becomes a true child of God. The work of Christ is to bring the slaves of sin
into the liberty of sonship. Charles Spurgeon writes, “The Lord Jesus comes,
identifies himself with the enslaved family, bears the curse, fulfils the law,
and then on the ground of simple justice demands for them full and perfect
liberty, having for them fulfilled the precept, and for them endured the
penalty.”* The Bible thus calls Jesus “the firstborn among many brothers”
(Rom. 8:29) — “many brothers” because every believer is a child of God. As
the Bible also says, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus”
(Gal. 3:26). To know Jesus as Savior is to know God as Father, and the exodus
teaches us what kind of Father he is. He is not like human fathers, with
all their failings. Rather, he is a good Father, always faithful to his children.
In his tender compassion he cares for them and rescues them from every danger.

--Phil Ryken

*from Spurgeon's sermon, The Great Emancipator

God's Firstborn Son

2010-10-07T07:26:00.000-07:00

The sovereignty of God’s will is such a great mystery that it causes some people
to fear God — not simply to revere him, but actually to be afraid of
him. However, God’s people should never be afraid, because God’s sovereignty
includes our sonship. The reason God hardened Pharaoh’s heart was
to prove his love for his own children. God said to Moses, “Then say to
Pharaoh, ‘This is what the LORD says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told
you, “Let my son go, so he may worship me.” But you refused to let him
go; so I will kill your firstborn son’” (Exod. 4:22, 23).
These two verses disclose the very heart of the exodus. They explain
why God cared what happened to the Israelites, why out of all the nations
in the world he went to the trouble of rescuing them from slavery. They had
little to be proud of from a worldly point of view, and thus God seemingly
had little reason to save them. But Israel was the son of God’s choice. At
the very deepest spiritual level, the exodus is a story about sonship, about a
Father’s love for his only son. Israel’s deliverance is the true history of a
loving Father who rescued his children so they could be together as a family. Thus it is not simply a story of emancipation — the release of a slave
— but also of repatriation, the return of an only son to his father’s loving
care.4 Later, when God reminisced about the exodus, he said, “When Israel
was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son” (Hos. 11:1).
Israel’s status as God’s firstborn son explains why God had a quarrel
with Pharaoh. To Pharaoh the Hebrews were lowly slaves, but to God they
were beloved sons. Thus the problem with Pharaoh was not simply that he
was a slaveholder (although that was bad enough), but that he was preventing
God’s children from serving their Father. Instead of being free to call God
“Father,” the Israelites were forced to call Pharaoh “Master.” So in order to
reassert his claim on Israel, God said to Pharaoh, “Let my son go, so he
may worship [or serve] me” (Exod. 4:23a). God demanded that Israel be
released from Pharaoh’s bondage so that his son would be free to serve him
once again. More specifically, he wanted the worship of his firstborn son.
This is the grand theme of the exodus: God saving his sons from slavery so
that they could serve him.

Pharoah's Hard Heart

2010-10-07T07:20:00.000-07:00

from Phil Ryken's great commentary on Exodus

The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is an important theme in the book of
Exodus, and it has much to teach us about the sovereignty of God’s will.
We will encounter this theme again, because Exodus mentions Pharaoh’s
hardness of heart some twenty times, describing it in one of three different
ways. Sometimes the Bible says that Pharaoh hardened his own heart:
“When Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and would
not listen to Moses” (Exod. 8:15). Other times the Bible says that Pharaoh’s
heart was hardened, without specifying who did the hardening: “Pharaoh’s
heart became hard and he would not listen” (Exod. 7:13). There are also
instances — like the one here in Exodus 4 — where God identifies himself
as the one who hardens Pharaoh’s heart.
Taken together, what these statements show is that Pharaoh’s heart was
doubly hard. He hardened his own heart; nevertheless, God hardened his
heart for him. Both of these statements are true, and there is no contradiction
between them. Pharaoh’s will was also God’s will. God not only knew
that Pharaoh would refuse to let his people go, but he actually ordained it.
This is the paradox of divine sovereignty and human responsibility, which
is not a puzzle to be solved but a mystery to be adored. As human beings
made in the image of God, we make a real choice to accept or reject God,
but even the choice we make is governed by God’s sovereign and eternal
will. The Old Testament scholar S. R. Driver rightly observed, “The means
by which God hardens a man is not necessarily by any extraordinary intervention
on His part; it may be by the ordinary experiences of life, operating
through the principles and character of human nature, which are of His
appointment.”
The writer of Exodus understood this, which is why he
described the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart as both the will of Pharaoh and
the will of God.

From beginning to end, the entire exodus was the result of God’s sovereign
decree. The whole agonizing and then exhilarating experience of slavery
and freedom was part of his perfect will. It was God’s will to bring his
people out of Egypt. It was also his good pleasure to keep them there as
long as he did, which is proved by his hardening of Pharaoh’s heart. Peter
Enns writes, “The deliverance of Israel from Egypt is entirely God’s doing
and under his complete control. The impending Exodus is a play in which
God is author, producer, director, and principal actor.” Even when Pharaoh
took his turn on stage, God received all the applause. Like everything else
that God has ever done, the exodus was all for his glory.

2010-03-04T12:35:00.000-08:00

Psalter Hymnal 464: Father, long before creation | Hymnary.org

2010-03-04T07:39:00.000-08:00

I love this song:

This anonymous Chinese text was initially used as a theme song by Chinese Christians who kept the faith while the Cultural Revolution was in full swing. The hymn was sung in a Bible-study center in Peking during the winter of 1952-53. In 1953, Bliss Wyant, scholar of Chinese music and culture, gave the text to Francis P. Jones (b. Wisconsin [?] 1890; d. Claremont, CA, 1965 [?]), a missionary to China from 1915 to 1 1950. Jones translated the text into English and published it in the China Bulletin of the National Council of Churches (1953). After it appeared in The Hymnbook in 1955, the text was published in a number of other hymnals.

Psalter Hymnal 464: Father, long before creation | Hymnary.org

The Chief End of Animals, Part 1

2009-08-27T05:55:00.000-07:00

The Chief End of Animals, Part 1

Ron Lutjens, Issue Number 16, August 2007

In this article Ron Lutjens has looked at the need for a theology of animals. In the article here, Covenant Seminary professor Michael Williams discusses what, precisely, that theology should be.

O God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, our brothers the animals to whom thou gavest the earth as their home in common with us.

We remember with shame that in the past we have exercised the high dominion of man with ruthless cruelty so that the voice of the earth, which should have gone up to thee in song, has been a groan of travail. May we realize that they live not for us alone but for themselves and for thee, and that they love the sweetness of life.

--Basil the Great, c. 330-379 A.D.

What a wonderfully high view of animals does the ancient church father, Basil, reflect in this prayer! But just how high are animals—the “beasts,” as C.S. Lewis insisted on calling them—in God’s economy of created things? For what did their Creator make them? How were human beings originally supposed to relate to them—and how did the fall into sin affect that? And—well, what is an animal, really?

These are important questions for Christians in modern democracies, societies that are paying increased attention to the welfare of animals and whose citizens are showing themselves more and more willing to think not only in terms of the legal rights of animals, but also, in some circles at least, of their equality with people. The debate is well under way—which is why hammering out a biblical theology of animals is important in the opening decade of the 21st century.

At one end of the spectrum is the new manipulation of animals, as agribusinesses develop ever more utilitarian—and often inhumane—ways of increasing livestock productivity. At the other end is a new sensitivity to animals as our fellow creatures. Two bumper stickers I saw reflect this new sensitivity in our culture: “STOP! Eating Animals” and “I Care About Animals—And I Vote.”

The elevation of animals is widespread. In casual conversation one increasingly hears the opinion that hunting is, by definition, immoral; and vegetarianism is on the rise, especially among the young—sometimes as a health therapy but often as a moral conviction that it is wrong to kill animals for food, or as a personal protest against their inhumane treatment. Andy Rooney, commentator on the TV show 60 Minutes, reflected current mainstream misgivings when he wondered out loud on a show aired in October 2006, whether 50 years from now civilized people everywhere will regard the killing of animals for food as barbaric and morally repugnant.

WeddingChannel.com offers advice on how to incorporate pets as attendants at weddings; and animal rights organizations are growing and becoming radicalized as they take their stand against “specieism,” a label for the view that human beings are superior to animals and everything else in the order of nature.

If we are Christians steeped in a biblical worldview, we may be inclined to shrug off this view of animals as bizarre—and go on eating our steak. For us it is axiomatic that from the beginning there was a proper hierarchical order of creation in which human beings were charged to rule over creation justly and wisely under God as his vice-regents. And until recently this has been the prevailing view of man and animals in the West, a legacy of the profound Judeo-Christian influence at work for some 2,000 years. But all that has radically changed, and we had better wake up. There is now a growing rejection of this “anthropocentric” view of the world. For instance, philosopher Paul Taylor defends the doctrine of moral equality among species in “Are Humans Superior to Animals and Plants?” a 1984 article in the journal, Environmental Ethics. And feminist Jana Thompson wrote in a 1990 issue of the same journal: “There is no reason in nature why we should regard the qualities that human beings happen to have as making them more valuable than living creatures that do not have these qualities—no reason why creatures who can think or feel should be regarded as more valuable than plants and other nonsentient creatures.”

And if such a philosophical sea change touching the relationship of people to animals only makes you yawn, consider this: One of the most prestigious bioethicists of our time, Dr. Peter Singer, an Australian who teaches at Princeton University, has lent credibility to the idea that animals born healthy have more of a right to life than children born with certain kinds of diseases and deformities.

And all of this gets personal, too. I would like to think I’m not alone as a Christian who struggles to find the balance between having a high view of animals, as God does, and yet having an even higher view of human beings, as God also clearly does, if Scripture is to be taken seriously. On one side, I grew up hunting and have always found it fairly easy to justify the practice from a Judeo-Christian view of man and nature. But as I get older I am finding within myself a greater sympathy for living things and would rather enjoy the rabbit and pheasant in the field than kill and eat them. And yet sometimes that bothers me: am I just getting soft in the head in my old age? On the other side: a few years ago we didn’t hesitate to bring in our dear family pet, our young dog, Honey, for surgery when she got hit by a car. But to this day I have an uneasy conscience about how much money we paid for that operation when there are so many human beings in the world in such terrible need.

Still, for serious Christians, the shaping of a biblical theology of animals will begin with our supreme authority, written divine revelation—because that is the road map to reality, since God spoke it and through it speaks to us now. As it teaches, so we should think.
.
Patrolling the Border Between Interpretation and Speculation

A proper biblical theology of animals will keep one eye on the all-important distinction between interpretation and speculation. What is explicit or clearly implicit in the biblical text, and what conclusions are really no more than educated guesswork? When can a proposition be said to die the death not of a thousand qualifications but of a thousand inferences? Caution is in order.

Francis Schaeffer, of L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland, was heard on occasion to say that he didn’t really know what an animal was. He was heeding a warning C.S. Lewis gave in 1940 in his book The Problem of Pain. When it comes to a theology of animals, the Bible is not clear enough to warrant dogmatic confidence. As Lewis writes, “God has given us data which enable us, in some degree, to understand our own suffering: He has given us no such data about beasts. We know neither why they were made nor what they are, and everything we say about them is speculative.”

I think Lewis goes too far in saying that everything we might say about animals from Scripture is speculative, but his caution is salutary, and his chapter there, “Animal Pain,” is essential reading for anyone seriously interested in these questions.

Schaeffer and Solidarity

Schaeffer, in his 1971 book Pollution and the Death of Man, showed a profound grasp of the Bible’s theology of man and nature. Schaeffer argued that at one level, people and animals (and all nature) are on one side of a great divide and God is on the other: God alone is uncreated, infinite, and a pure spirit; people and animals are finite, flesh and blood creatures. But at another level, God and man are on one side and the rest of creation, including animals, are on the other. Only man, among living things, is personal, having been made in God’s image; all other creatures are less than that.

What was so remarkable about Schaeffer was that before it was common for orthodox Christians to show sensitivity to environmental things, he was insisting that we should practice the discipline of feeling some kind of solidarity with created things—and not just with our pets. Listen to what he said about even non-sentient things like trees: “I can say, ‘Yes, the tree is a creature like myself.’ But that is not all that is involved. There ought to be a psychological insight, too. Psychologically I ought to ‘feel’ a relationship to the tree as my fellow creature. It is not simply that we ought to feel a relationship intellectually to the tree, and then turn this into just another argument for apologetics, but that we should realize, and train people in our churches to realize, that on the side of creation and on the side of God’s infinity and our finiteness—we really are one with the tree!”

Francis Schaeffer, the first evangelical “tree hugger”! And I say, praise the Lord for that man and his insight; for his courage to say what only theological liberals and flaming pantheists were saying at the time.

It’s worth noting here that Schaeffer’s contention that human beings and animals stand in solidarity in their finiteness (and on this side of Eden in their mortality, too) is rooted in the wisdom penned by the ancient preacher in the book of Ecclesiastes (3:18-21) some 3,000 years ago: “I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity [vapor]. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth?”

So as we go to the Scriptures we also need to go back and look at how those who came before us understood what the Bible has to say about animals. We gain insight from theirs; we are not the first to whom the Word of God has come.

Outlining the Story of Animals in Scripture

Redemptive history is one grand story of God’s grace and judgment. So it’s proper to ask: in the overarching story—or, to use the phrase popular now, in the meta-narrative—of God’s redemption of the world chronicled and prophesied in the Bible, what role do animals play? And what is their part in the various acts and scenes in this great unfolding cosmic drama?

Reformed Christians have been taught to think of redemptive history as a drama in four acts: creation, fall, redemption, and restoration (sometimes called consummation). So it would be helpful for a biblical theology of animals to reflect on how these four historical movements of God’s grace and judgment affect the lives, the purpose, and the destiny of animals.

For instance, are the passages about animals in Isaiah 11 and 65 to be taken literally or figuratively? There we find beautiful descriptions of an all-pervading shalom, a harmony, in the final restoration or consummation of all things when Jesus Christ returns. Are we to look for the lion and the lamb literally to lie down together? Traditionally, commentators have thought, yes.

Listen to what the Reformation pastor and teacher John Calvin said about the apostle Paul’s great prophecy in Romans 8:18-25, touching the future glory of the animal kingdom under the rule of redeemed humanity in the life of the world to come: “Paul does not mean that all creatures will be partakers of the same glory with the sons of God, but that they will share in their own manner in the better state, because God will restore the present fallen world to perfect condition at the same time as the human race. It is neither expedient nor right for us to inquire with greater curiosity into the perfection which will be evidenced by beasts, plants, and metals, because the main part of corruption is decay. Some … commentators ask whether all kinds of animals will be immortal. If we give free rein to these speculations, where will they finally carry us? Let us, therefore, be content with this simple doctrine: Their [the animals’] constitution will be such, and their order so complete, that no appearance either of deformity or of impermanence will be seen.”

Scripture and Science

A biblical theology of animals will commend good scientific study of animals and will weave that into the larger picture of Scriptural teaching. God reveals truth about the nature of reality in His world as well as in His Word. Here’s an issue that begs further examination: Last year there was a remarkable article about what we might call “personality” in animals in the New York Times Magazine (January 22, 2006). Researchers are claiming to find predictable personality traits not only in creatures like primates, but in the giant Pacific octopus and even in lower life forms. While we should always be cautious about scientific claims and shouldn’t rush to embrace the latest one, we must also be careful not to claim more for the Bible than it intends to affirm. The great divide between man and animals, according to Scripture, is that human beings are made in the image of God, while animals—all the way up and down the scale of complexity and similarity to us—are not.

Graciousness in Disagreement

If Lewis was right and there is danger in being too dogmatic in putting together a theology of animals, then we should take great pains to be charitable and gracious to other believers if we disagree about this or that part of the total picture. One area where there is disagreement is on the question of whether animal and human predation (that is, humans killing animals and animals killing each other for food) was part of the original glory of God’s creation or whether it is the result of the intrusion of sin into God’s world. Many earlier theologians believed the latter. For instance, the effects of the catastrophe in Eden upon the world of nature is summed up sadly by Kentigern (circa 518-603 A.D.), a missionary to Scotland and the first bishop of Glasgow: “Before human beings rebelled against their Creator, not only the animals but the elements obeyed them. But now, after the fall, because everything has taken to enmity, it is usual that the lion should tear, the wolf devour, snakes bite, the water swallow up, the fire turn to ashes, the air rot, the earth—often hard as iron—starve, and—the height of everyday evil—humans not only rise up in anger against other humans but ravage themselves through sin.”

But this view that lions only learned to tear flesh after the fall into sin—which is my view as well—is not held by all. Notable commentators have rejected it, as do professors Michael Williams [see his article on a theology of animals] and Jack Collins, both at Covenant Theological Seminary, and both friends of mine. But these are the kinds of questions that need to be argued out, and we should do that disputing with humility, charity, and goodwill toward each other, anxious most of all to understand the Scriptures, zealous not to go beyond them, and sensitive to the degree of doctrinal importance they themselves attach to different matters.

So let us study with both enthusiasm and carefulness what the Word of God teaches us about animals. Then the pastors among us can expound better when they preach, our poets write better verse about nature, the vegetarians among us abstain, and the hunters hunt with more insight, and then all of God’s people can appreciate more, and exercise a wiser stewardship of, those mysterious creatures that come from His divine imagination—those creatures we call animals. And God Himself will be praised in that.

Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them. (Psalm 111:2)

Suggested Reading:

Anyone who doubts the urgency of the question about animals and the moral order should read The Unnatural Idea of Animal Rights, an excellent overview of the debate by Michael Pollan. This was the cover article in the November 10, 2002 New York Times Magazine.

Next, I would suggest reading the Bible with an eye open to the many places animals are mentioned. And to begin to see what others are thinking, you might read Westmont College theology professor Robert Wennberg’s book, God, Humans, and Animals: An Invitation to Enlarge Our Moral Universe (2003).

A caveat here: even though I have been thinking and writing on this theme since 2001, I feel like I’ve just gotten started. Through increased dialogue on this topic I hope to persuade better minds than my own to see the gaping hole of need in this area of Reformed ethics, and then start to fill it.

Ron Lutjens holds a M.A. in New Testament studies from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and a M. Div. from Covenant Seminary. In 1981 he was the founding pastor of Old Orchard Church (PCA) in St. Louis and continues to serve there.

In this article Ron Lutjens has looked at the need for a theology of animals. In the article here, Covenant Seminary professor Michael Williams discusses what, precisely, that theology should be.

2009-06-24T11:37:00.000-07:00

Zeph is a treatise on the wrath of God

2009-06-13T16:53:00.000-07:00

The prophecy of Zephaniah may fittingly be called a treatise on the wrath of God . The dominant characteristic of this Day is that it is a Day of overflowing wrath ( ym ebr ; cf . v . 18 ). From this verse apparently arose the inspiration for the thirteenth-century song written by Thomas of Celano , which may have been translated into more languages than any other hymn :

That day of wrath , that dreadful day
When heav ' n and earth shall pass away !
What pow ' r shall be the sinner ' s stay ?
How shall he meet that dreadful day ?

When , shrivelling like a parched scroll ,
The flaming heav ' ns together roll ;
When louder yet , and yet more dread ,
Swells the high trump that wakes the dead ;

O on that day , that wrathful day
When man to judgment wakes from clay ,
Be thou the trembling sinner ' s stay ,
Though heav ' n and earth shall pass away . (page 242 trinity hymnal)

Summary... Wrath

2009-06-13T16:50:00.000-07:00

The prophecy of Zephaniah may fittingly be called a treatise on the wrath of God . The dominant characteristic of this Day is that it is a Day of overflowing wrath (1:18).

Summary: The prophecy of Zephaniah clearly presents itself as a treatise on the wrath of God . The great Day of Yahweh is coming soon . On that Day , the God who has pledged himself repeatedly and in various contexts by the oath of the covenant shall devastate all who have broken the covenant . This terrible judgment is inevitable and unavoidable . The Day is coming soon .

Zephaniah ' s Day of Yahweh , in which the wrath of God was to be poured out on Judah , found expression in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians . But the " day of wrath " is yet to come ( Rom . 2 : 5 ). This " great Day of his wrath " ( Rev . 6 : 16-17 ) is as certain to come as was the devasta- tion of Jerusalem . With eschatological finality , all who are not found by faith to be united in him shall be consumed from the face of the earth ( cf . Matt . 3 : 7 ; 1 Thess . 1 : 10 ; Rev . 11 : 18 ; 14 : 10 ; 16 : 9 ; 19 : 15 ).

COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL
O. Palmer Robertson. The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (New International Commentary on the Old Testament). (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990). Pages 283, 287, 288.

Has the Day of Yahweh come yet?

2009-06-13T16:39:00.000-07:00

some quotes by OPR on this question:

By this (Matthew 13) apparent allusion to Zephaniah , Jesus transfers the coming cosmic judgment described by the prophet from the devastation associated with judgment on old covenant Israel to the devastations associated with his final return . Jesus thereby indicates that the ultimate application of the prophetic threat of Zephaniah still is outstanding . The cosmic judgment that will reverse the creation is yet to come .

The finality of cosmic overthrow associated with the coming of Yahweh ' s Day in the fullest sense never came in the context of events as- sociated with the old covenant . It is not surprising , therefore , to find in the NT both passages which suggest an arrival of the Day of Yahweh in events current in NT times as well as passages looking to a future arrival of the great Day . Both of these perspectives must be kept in mind for a proper understanding of the contemporary significance of the coming of the Day . (already & not yet)

In a certain sense , the Day of Yahweh has come . But distinctive to the Day is the characteristic of finality . In a sense the Day came in association with certain events surrounding the advent of Jesus Christ . But in another sense the Day is yet to come . And as Zephaniah prophesied , it is near.
.
Suffice it to say that the cosmic judgment associated with a dramatic theophany now may be understood in terms of the glorious return of Jesus Christ . On the day appointed he shall consummate all things .

COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL
O. Palmer Robertson. The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (New International Commentary on the Old Testament). (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990).

stretching out the hand

2009-06-13T16:31:00.000-07:00

(In Zeph 1:4 God says He'll stretch out His hand to bring judgement. Stretching out the hand means coming with more than usual power)......"The same concept appears in the NT when Christ works a miracle of healing by stretching out his hand ( Matt . 8 : 3 ; Mark 1 : 41 ; Luke 5 : 13 ). Elsewhere Jesus interprets his supernatural interventions as the work of the " finger of God " manifesting the arrival of the kingdom of God on the earth ( Luke 11 : 20 ). His interpretation of these events suggests that the " stretching forth " of his hand was probably intended not merely as a means of making physical contact but as a means of symbolizing a direct connec- tion with those ancient occasions in which God stretched out his hand in sal- vation . This gracious character of these new covenant interventions displays the extent of God ' s mercy toward the undeserving in Jesus ' day , but does not nullify the ultimate fulfillment of the judgment motif involved in this symbolism as anticipated by Zephaniah . "

COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL
O. Palmer Robertson. The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (New International Commentary on the Old Testament). (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990). Page 262.

COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL
O. Palmer Robertson. The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (New International Commentary on the Old Testament). (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990). Page 261.

John Piper's Outline of Zephaniah

2009-06-13T10:45:00.000-07:00

1:1-18 announces the coming judgment upon Judah and Jerusalem Verse 4, "I will stretch out my hand against Judah, and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem."

2:1-3 calls the nation back to God, and specifically (as it says in verse 3) to "seek righteousness and seek humility."

2:4-15 Zephaniah announces the judgment that is also coming on the lands that surround Judah: the Philistines to the east (vv. 4–7), Moab and Ammon to the west (vv. 8–11), the Ethiopians to the south (v. 12), and Assyria to the north (vv. 13–15).

3:1-7 Here Zephaniah turns his attention to Jerusalem again and lengthens the catalogue of God's accusations against her.

3:8-20 proclaims the conversion of the peoples (v. 9), the conversion and re-gathering of Israel (v. 10), and the glorious future of all the godly as God rejoices over them with gladness.

Zephaniah 1

2009-06-10T07:40:00.000-07:00

Some excerpts from O Palmer Robertson's commentary on Zephaniah, which is the 1st book i've ever purchased as digital media from amazon.

The description of Josiah ' s reforms in the book of Kings appears as something of a blitzkrieg . But even if his major policies were instituted in a relatively short period of time , he still would have needed the strong support- ing confirmation of a contemporary word from the Lord to make his policies even remotely acceptable to the public . Very possibly this supporting word came from Zephaniah the prophet . Incorporating into his message the very phrases of the recently discovered book of the covenant , he addressed the people as God ' s contemporary mouthpiece , applying God ' s ancient word to the current situation . So it may be proposed that Zephaniah prophesied in the days of Josiah , and more specifically in the days immediately following the dis- covery of the book of the covenant approximately in 622 B . C .
COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL
O. Palmer Robertson. The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (New International Commentary on the Old Testament). (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990). Page 256.

It is a sign of the persistence of God ' s grace in redeeming a people to himself to note that Amon, Josiah , and Josiah ' s son Jehoiachin are mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus Christ , the ultimate successor to the throne of David ( Matt . 1 : 10-11 ). Despite many perils and many failings on the part of God ' s people , the purposes of God could not be thwarted .
COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL
O. Palmer Robertson. The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (New International Commentary on the Old Testament). (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990). Page 257.

Beasts, birds, and fish, representative of the whole of creation, have become for humanity an occasion of stumbling. Because of his wickedness, humanity has twisted the good things of creation into a cause for sin.
COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL
O. Palmer Robertson. The Books of Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah (New International Commentary on the Old Testament). (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990). Page 259.

Sam Storms on Saving & Common Grace

2009-04-25T12:54:00.000-07:00

All Christians know that divine grace is the unmerited favor and mercy of God that saves sinners from a well-deserved eternal death, but few have given thought to the concept of common grace.

What theologians typically refer to as special grace is the favor of God that actually results in the salvation of the human soul. Special grace is the work of the Holy Spirit in calling, regenerating, justifying, and sanctifying individual sinners. Special grace is restricted to those who actually come to saving faith in Jesus Christ. Herman Bavinck defined the special or saving grace of God as "his voluntary, unrestrained, unmerited favor toward guilty sinners, granting them justification and life instead of the penalty of death, which they deserved" (208). Louis Berkhof defined it simply as "the free bestowal of kindness on one who has no claim to it" (71). J. I. Packer expressed it this way:

"The grace of God is love freely shown towards guilty sinners, contrary to their merit and indeed in defiance of their demerit. It is God showing goodness to persons who deserve only severity, and had no reason to expect anything but severity" (Knowing God, 120).

But this is not the only manifestation of God's grace to a sinful world. Even those who never come to saving faith in Jesus Christ are recipients of divine grace. Consider the fact that the apostle Paul (among others in Scripture) portrays the universal condition of humanity in extremely bleak language. Drawing upon the testimony of the Old Testament, he writes: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one" (Rom. 3:10-12). Such is the predicament of people apart from Christ. Theologians call it total depravity. But, as John Murray has observed, this apostolic assessment of human nature forces us to deal with a series of very insistent questions:

"How is it that men who still lie under the wrath and curse of God and are heirs of hell enjoy so many good gifts at the hand of God? How is it that men who are not savingly renewed by the Spirit of God nevertheless exhibit so many qualities, gifts and accomplishments that promote the preservation, temporal happiness, cultural progress, social and economic improvement of themselves and of others? How is it that races and peoples that have been apparently untouched by the redemptive and regenerative influences of the gospel contribute so much to what we call human civilization? To put the question most comprehensively: how is it that this sin-cursed world enjoys so much favour and kindness at the hand of its holy and ever-blessed Creator?" (Collected Works, II:93).

The answer to these questions is found in the distinction the Bible draws between God's common, or non-saving, grace and his special, or saving, grace. [By the way, although the Bible never uses the terms "common" or "special" when describing God's gracious activity, the latter cannot be properly understood apart from drawing this conceptual distinction.]

The common grace of God has been variously defined. According to Charles Hodge, the Bible teaches that

"the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of truth, of holiness, and of life in all its forms, is present with every human mind, enforcing truth, restraining from evil, exciting to good, and imparting wisdom or strength, when, where, and in what measure seemeth to Him good. . . . This is what in theology is called common grace" (II:667).

Abraham Kuyper defines common grace as

"'that act of God by which negatively He curbs the operations of Satan, death, and sin, and by which positively He creates an intermediate state for this cosmos, as well as for our human race, which is and continues to be deeply and radically sinful, but in which sin cannot work out its end" (279).

A simpler and more direct definition of common grace is given by John Murray, Common grace, he writes, "is every favour of whatever kind or degree, falling short of salvation, which this undeserving and sin-cursed world enjoys at the hand of God" (II:96).

really good article by Sam Storms

John Murray, Common Grace

2009-04-25T12:48:00.001-07:00

"The word 'common' in the title of the topic is not used in the sense that each particular favour is given to all without discrimination or distinction but rather in the sense that favours of varying kinds and degrees are bestowed upon this sin-cursed world, favours real in their character as expressions of the divine goodness but which are not in themselves and of themselves saving in their nature and effect. So the term 'common grace' should rather be defined as every favour of whatever kind or degree, falling short of salvation, which this undeserving and sin-cursed world enjoys at the hand of God."

Kuyper Quote, Wow

2009-04-25T12:43:00.000-07:00

. . . the unbelieving world excels in many things. Precious treasures have
come down to us from the old heathen civilization. In Plato you find
pages which you devour. Cicero fascinates you and bears you along by
his noble tone and stirs up in you holy sentiments. And if you consider
your own surroundings, that which is reported to you, and that which
you derive from the studies and literary productions of professed infidels,
how much more there is which attracts you, with which you sympathize
and which you admire. It is not exclusively the spark of genius or the
splendor of talent which excites your pleasure in the words and actions
of unbelievers, but it is often their beauty of character, their zeal, their
devotion, their love, their candor, their faithfulness and their sense of
Christianity, Culture, and Common Grace honesty.

Yea, we may not pass it over in silence, not infrequently you
entertain the desire that certain believers might have more of the
attractiveness, and who among us has not himself been put to the blush
occasionally by being confronted with what is called the “virtues of the
heathen”?

Kuyper argues that common grace accounts for this state of affairs, which
seems to go against the grain of the doctrine of total depravity.

2009-04-22T13:34:00.000-07:00

Jerram ruined me. I used to, during my early years following Jesus, LOVE LOVE to make fun of/hate/out-argue, etc people who were not followers of Christ. Come to think of it, you needed to be a "Reformed" follower of Christ for me to think you were wisely using the air God was giving you.

Anyway, I go to Covenant Seminary and Jerram Barrs makes me read the Bible and study the life of Jesus Christ and I find that EVERY HUMAN is an image-bearer of God......and therefore worthy of dignity and respect.

So, here I am years later and somehow, God shows me the beauty of his world through a dude that I probably have

Maybe because I love my son, who loves music and can actually play it

Michael Stipe, Humility, Bono, U2

this is it.
and we get to watch him zen out, confess, render his self transparent concerning what could otherwise be a big, bad, demonic case of bono envy. dude stops mimetic rivalry in its tracks (or at least renders it non-destructive).
i'm gonna learn to rock out too.

brief explanation of Mark's ending, from ESV study bible

2009-04-09T09:02:00.001-07:00

Mark 16:9–20 “Longer Ending of Mark.” Some ancient manuscripts of Mark's Gospel contain these verses and others do not, which presents a puzzle for scholars who specialize in the history of such manuscripts. This longer ending is missing from various old and reliable Greek manuscripts (esp. Sinaiticus and Vaticanus), as well as numerous early Latin, Syriac, Armenian, and Georgian manuscripts. Early church fathers (e.g., Origen and Clement of Alexandria) did not appear to know of these verses. Eusebius and Jerome state that this section is missing in most manuscripts available at their time. And some manuscripts that contain vv. 9–20 indicate that older manuscripts lack the section. On the other hand, some early and many later manuscripts (such as the manuscripts known as A, C, and D) contain vv. 9–20, and many church fathers (such as Irenaeus) evidently knew of these verses. As for the verses themselves, they contain various Greek words and expressions uncommon to Mark, and there are stylistic differences as well. Many think this shows vv. 9–20 to be a later addition. In summary, vv. 9–20 should be read with caution. As in many translations, the editors of the esv have placed the section within brackets, showing their doubts as to whether it was originally part of what Mark wrote, but also recognizing its long history of acceptance by many in the church. The content of vv. 9–20 is best explained by reference to other passages in the Gospels and the rest of the NT. (Most of its content is found elsewhere, and no point of doctrine is affected by the absence or presence of vv. 9–20.) With particular reference to v. 18, there is no command to pick up serpents or to drink deadly poison; there is merely a promise of protection as found in other parts of the NT (see Acts 28:3–4; James 5:13–16).

Why NOT Mark 16:9-20

2009-04-09T08:43:00.000-07:00

this is from Kim Riddlebarger
Before we turn to our text this morning, you have undoubtedly noticed that I am ending our study of
Mark’s Gospel at verse 8 of chapter 16. The reason for this is that the so-called “longer ending”
of Mark is very likely not canonical–that is, it is not part of the original gospel.
A sermon is not an appropriate place for a lesson in textual criticism, which is the science of determining
the original text of the various books of the New Testament, but we need to talk about this briefly. When
a gospel or epistle of the New Testament was first written, the original text of that document is called the
autograph. This is the document which we believe was given under divine inspiration. That original
autograph was then carefully copied by hand because of the need to read these letters in the churches,
scattered around the Mediterranean world and elsewhere. Professional scribes were often employed, but
over time copy errors crept in, and a later scribe who copied a manuscript already containing an error,
would quite naturally copy that error into his own manuscript. These copyist errors are called “textual
variants.” The older and better manuscripts are much more likely to be free of such errors.
While this sounds like this would undercut the authority of the New Testament–it does just the opposite.
The early church placed great emphasis upon the preaching of the biblical text, so that literally hundreds
of manuscripts were prepared and circulated everywhere Christianity spread. The problem is not a lack
of biblical manuscripts, but too many manuscripts, many of them quite early. Textual criticism seeks to
identify the earliest and best manuscripts and almost always gets us back to the original wording of the
autograph. Furthermore, in no case is any doctrine affected by these variants and in any good English
translation of the Bible, wherever there is a known textual variant it is clearly marked off as not being in
the best and earliest manuscripts. That’s the case with Mark 16:9-20.
(See the discussions in: Lane, The Gospel According to Mark, 601-605; France, The Gospel of
Mark, 685-688; Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (New York:
United Bible Societies, 1975), 122-128.)

While the longer ending of Mark first appears at some point in the fourth century, Mark’s gospel ends at
verse 8 in the best and oldest New Testament manuscripts. A number of church fathers (Clement and
Origen) who quote from Mark, never mention the longer ending and wrote as though verse 8 was the end
of the gospel. The two most famous biblical scholars of the early church (Eusebius and Jerome) were
both aware of the longer-ending, but believed that it was not in the best and earliest manuscripts available
to them. They rejected the longer-ending as a scribal addition and not part of the original text of Mark.
There are a couple of reasons why this longer ending began circulating. Mark either abruptly ended his
gospel at verse 8, or the original copy of Mark, which was written on a scroll, may have been damaged
(and the end torn off) so that the original ending was lost. Given the abrupt ending, a copyist then wrote
a summary of what happened after verse 8, and based this upon things mentioned in the other gospels.
There is also a one verse ending in some manuscripts, but it never got the support the longer ending did.
Over time, this 11 verse summary was appended to the end of the gospel, and after several hundred years
went by, it was simply included as a part of the gospel. So, our modern English versions include it, as
they should, but mark it off as not included in the best and earliest manuscripts. So it is not as though
Christian are hiding a corrupt text of the New Testament. On the contrary, textual criticism has proven
that we have at least 99% of the autographic text, and in those few places where there are any questions
(like Mark 16:9-20), the variants are included so that people can make up their own minds.
In any case, I think that the evidence is very clear that the canonical gospel ends at verse 8, and that
longer ending is highly unlikely to have been authored by Mark.

--Kim Riddlebarger

How could world-wide preaching of gospel happened in 33-70AD?

2009-03-14T14:52:00.002-07:00

This is from Sam Storms... who is looking at a parallel passage to Mark 13... Matthew 24

Preaching of gospel to whole world
8. Worldwide preaching of the gospel (v. 14)
How could this possibly have occurred in the period 33-70 a.d.' It may at first seem strange, but “fundamental principles of interpretation lead us to bear in mind contextual clues: the time indicator (‘this generation’), the audience (the disciples who ask about the temple), the specific concern (the destruction of the temple), and the harmony of the preceding signs with the first-century experience. All of these should dispose us to seek a first-century fulfillment of this verse” (Gentry, The Great Tribulation, 44). Note two important facts:
a. The words "whole world" (NASB) are a translation of the term oikoumene, which literally means an inhabited area, a standard term at that time for the Greek world, then for the Roman empire, and subsequently for the then known world. The same Greek word is used in Luke 2:1 – “Now it came about in those days that a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth” (oikoumene). In Acts 11:28 we read that “one of them, named Agabus, stood up and showed by the Spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar.” Again, in Acts 24:5, “For we have found this man (Paul) a plague, a creator of dissension among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.” As Gentry notes, “a surface reading of these texts suggests global events. Yet we know these ‘world’ events happen within the Roman empire of the first century” (44). The reference to the "nations" also indicates that the point is not that every geographical area on the globe must be covered but that all the nations, i.e., Gentiles, must be reached. Did this occur? This leads to the second point.
b. Writing before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 a.d., Paul says to the Colossians:
" . . . the word of truth, the gospel, which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth" (1:5b-6).
Again, Paul refers to the gospel
" . . . that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister" (1:23).
"First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world" (Romans 1:8; cf. 10:18).
Thus, prior to 70 a.d. the inhabited earth had indeed heard the gospel, precisely in fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecy in Matthew 24.

2009-02-14T11:25:00.000-08:00

See the discussion in Lane to the effect that this period of time may indeed be more than a
single week, perhaps a period as long as six months. Lane, The Gospel According to Mark, 390-391.
Cranfield argues that the messianic significance of this would not have been noticed by the crowds,
despite Jesus’ deliberate actions in fulfilling prophecy. I’m not convinced. (Cf. Cranfield, The Gospel
According to Mark, 352-354).

Christ's Impact on Widows

2009-01-30T09:56:00.000-08:00

Multi-culti widowhood

American feminists should take their complaints overseas | Andrée Seu

I would be marginalized at best, inhabiting the netherworld between normal existence and the grave. I would be shorn of my hair and denied permission to partake in family meals, would sleep on the ground, and be generally fenced from polite society by pollution taboos—if I were a widow in parts of India today.

Since widowhood is now my beat, I cock an ear to reports of how my counterparts are faring throughout the world: Like in Zambia, where, according to the locally based organization Women and Law in Southern Africa, the relatives of the deceased may help themselves to the property of the marriage, and the widow must be "purged" of her husband's spirit by having sex with a member of his family (this on a continent rife with AIDS!). Or in Zimbabwe, where law does not allow a widow to inherit from her dead husband, and where the custody of her children may be transferred to her husband's relatives. Or in Swaziland where widows are the poorest of the poor. Or Nigeria, where a widow may not work for a year after her husband's death, to prove that she has not killed him. Or in Tanzania, where widows, suspected as witches, have been stoned to death.

The Sanskrit sati literally means "a good woman" or "a true wife." The Rite of Sati, that is, the burning of a widow along with the dead husband (lest she reap the bad Karma to be born a woman again in her next reincarnation!) has been practiced since before Christ, and indeed had its practitioners in other ancient cultures as well. In the 17th century, the custom prevailed mostly in Bengal where, combined with polygamy, it now and then produced the spectacle of 40 or 50 women immolated with a single man.

Theoretically a voluntary act, Sati was in practice reduced to murder, as the widow was drugged, tied to her husband's lifeless body, and forced with bamboo sticks onto the burning pyre. Undergirding, always, has been the cultural mindset of the woman's single-minded desire to please her husband—and the husband's single-minded desire to lord over his wife!

"Desire for the husband." "Rule over the wife." Is this not an echo of Genesis 3, a demonic twist on the divinely ordained order, cosmic abnormality now become a grim normality, at least in the parts of this groaning creation where they did not say, "Blessed on the mountains are the feet of those that bring good news"? While the ship of civilization in Europe took a different, more salubrious, turn on the rudder of James 1:27 and Psalm 68:5, beginning the slow and steady reversal of the Edenic curse, elsewhere the nations languished for centuries in darkness, and called it light. (Syria's President Bashar al-Assad belongs to the Alawite branch of Muslims which, contrary to mainstream Islam, believes that women do not have souls.)

William Carey brought the true light to India (along with the printing press and medicine). But it was hijacked by Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833) who, admitting that biblical truth was "more conducive to moral principles ... than any other," was nevertheless loath to see Hinduism outflanked by Christianity, and started his own anti-sati reform movement. The Sati Abolition Act was implemented in British India in 1829. For all that, the practice has its spotty practitioners to this day, and a whole cottage industry of Sati has developed, complete with Sati temples that peddle picture prints of Ram Sati, as a woman on a burning pyre.

All this the modern feminists forget, as they decry Christianity while standing on its shoulders, impugning its record on the status of women while reaping its benefits. They would borrow its capital to discredit it; they would slay it with the very sword that it has tendered them. And such were many of us, who in our '60s journeys looked for light and liberation in all the wrong places. (My own brother, now a missionary himself, found Christ on the River Ganges where he sat reading the Baghavad-Gita, when an Indian man sidled up and handed him the Gospel of John. Ah! The depths of the riches of the mercy and humor of God!)

As long as our colleges today are crowding out the traditional humanities curriculum with such offerings as "Fetishim," "Queer Theory," and "Third Wave Feminism and Girl Culture" (actual titles), maybe we could sneak in one of our own and call it "Widowhood Through Two Millennia: The Difference Christ Has Made." We might even learn that wisdom did not spring fully formed in this generation, and we might see how much better off we are to be married, or single, or even widowed, in a culture sweetened by the gospel.

Copyright © 2009 WORLD Magazine
September 08, 2001, Vol. 16, No. 34

Lig Duncan pray for Pres. Obama

2009-01-21T09:58:00.000-08:00

Praying for our President, Barack Obama

As Americans, I suspect that none of us can fully appreciate the far-reaching significance of this event, though our nation and much of the rest of the world are electric with the inauguration of Barack Obama as the new President of the United States of America. To say that this is historic, is a gross understatement.

Many are rejoicing at this very visible public realization of the ideals of the Declaration of Independence at the very pinnacle of our civic life. In the ascendancy of an African-American from less-than-privileged circumstances to the leadership of the free world, we see the fruit of aspirations of the Founders: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” You don’t have to read far in the newspapers of the world to see them marveling at yet another astounding accomplishment in the great experiment that is America.

Do you realize that our republic has now enjoyed 44 peaceful transitions of power in our two-plus centuries of existence. There is no parallel for this in human history. And we need to thank God for his singular blessing in bestowing it upon us, undeserving as we are.

But I said I wanted us to think about all this Christianly (and not just as grateful or concerned Americans, much less as giddy Democrats or grumpy Republicans!). And this presents us with some challenges, doesn't it?

As much as we may feel "this is my President and I want him to succeed," as much as we may feel sympathetic joy with millions who watched President Obama's inauguration with tear-filled eyes and hope-filled hearts, feeling themselves a part of the American story in a way they've never felt before, there lingers a question as to how to think about our leader in areas where his views and policies conflict with biblical conviction.

Many Christians find themselves profoundly conflicted because of some of the moral positions and social policies that Mr. Obama espouses. So how do you pray for your President when you disagree with him?

Thankfully, the Bible is not silent about such a question. After all it commands us to pray for all in authority (1 Timothy 2:2), no matter their party, policies or religion (or lack thereof). It is vital that we think Christianly, which is to say, biblically, about this issue (and not just as Democrats or Republicans who happen to be Christian). So, back to the question. How do we pray for Mr. Obama? Here are some ideas (and I want to thank Al Mohler and Justin Taylor for many of these thoughts and words) for praying for our new President, Barack Obama.

First, it needs to be said, that we ought to commit ourselves to pray for our new President, for his wife and family, for his administration, and for the nation. We will do this, not only because of the biblical command to pray for our rulers, but because of the second greatest commandment "Love your neighbor" and what better way to love your neighbor, than to pray for his well-being. Those with the greatest moral and political differences with the President ought to ask God to engender in them, by His Spirit, genuine neighbor-love for Mr. Obama.

We will also pray for our new President because he (and we) face challenges that are not only daunting but potentially disastrous. We will pray that God will grant him wisdom. He and his family will face new challenges and the pressures of this office. May God protect them, give them joy in their family life, and hold them close together.

We will pray that God will protect this nation even as our new President settles into his role as Commander in Chief, and that God will grant peace as he leads the nation through times of trial and international conflict and tension.

We will pray that God would change President Obama's mind and heart on issues of crucial moral concern. May God change his heart and open his eyes to see abortion as the murder of the innocent unborn, to see marriage as an institution to be defended, and to see a host of issues in a new light. We must pray this from this day until the day he leaves office. God is sovereign, after all.

For those Christians who are more concerned than overjoyed about the prospects of an Obama presidency, there should be a remembrance that as our President, Barack Obama will have God-given authority to govern us, and that we should view him as a servant of God (Rom. 13:1, 4) to whom we should be subject (Rom. 13:1, 5; 1 Pet. 2:13-14). Thus, again, we are to pray for Barack Obama (1 Tim. 2:1-2). We are to thank God for Barack Obama (1 Tim. 2:1-2). We are to respect Barack Obama (Rom. 13:7). We are to honor Barack Obama (Rom. 13:7; 1 Pet. 2:17).

For those Christians who are more overjoyed than concerned about the prospects of an Obama presidency, there should be a remembrance of our ultimate allegiance: Jesus is Lord (and thus, He, not we, decides what is right and wrong), we serve God not man, and the Lord himself has promised to establish "the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him" (Malachi 3:18). Thus, where our new president opposes or undermines biblical moral standards in our society, fails to uphold justice for the unborn, undermines religious liberties or condones an ethos that is hostile to the Gospel, we will pray for God's purposes to triumph over our President's plans and policies.

Without doubt and whatever our particular views may be, we face hard days ahead. Realistically, we must all expect to be frustrated and disappointed. Some now may feel defeated and discouraged. While others may all-too-soon find their audacious hopes unfounded and unrealized. We must all keep ever in mind that it is God who raises up leaders and nations, and it is God who pulls them down, and who judges both nations and rulers. We must not act or think like unbelievers, or as those who do not trust God.

So, now, Christian. Let’s get to work. And pray.

2009-01-17T06:06:00.000-08:00

Lilian Calles Barger
SHELTERING THE BODY

Lilian Calles Barger

A couple of years ago I was invited to participate as a speaker at a Christian college’s body-awareness week. The weeklong program had been designed to address the rampant eating disorders and entrenched negative views of the body found particularly among the female students. The counseling office was overwhelmed by the need for a healthy and redeeming view of the body it saw desperately lacking among its students. Women, in unprecedented numbers, were starving themselves, engaging in bulimia, and confessing deep shame about their bodies. Some of the male students responded with the attitude that these women needed to get over their “personal sin” by repenting and straightening up. Other young men claimed that they also suffered from the “lookism” in our culture, which measures people’s worth by their appearance. How does this happen at a Christian college and among young people who have attended church all their lives? How does this happen at places that promote themselves as nurturing a Christian worldview and a certain degree of protection from the culture?

It doesn’t take much for us to see the distorted view of the body that our contemporary culture promotes. Christians are not immune. Daily we are surrounded by the message that to be a worthy human being (and an acceptable woman) we must be young, thin, flawless, and project White affluence: a message that is now globalized by mass media. Advertising is rampant with the message that to be a woman is to be a consumable object: always available “eye candy.” A look at a Victoria’s Secret window display or a Calvin Klein ad quickly proves this point.

The current obsession with the body can lead us to believe that American culture values the body above all else when, in actuality, it’s the historically low view of the body that is still prevalent today. As I explored in my book Eve’s Revenge: Women and a Spirituality of the Body (Brazos, 2003), today the body is seen as a pliable carrying case for the true self—the inner self. This inner self is frustrated by the limitations of the body, and these limitations quickly become impediments to self-actualization. Only by molding the body through a variety of means including extreme dieting, exercise, and surgical intervention can we be free to become who we wish to be. For women, this includes striving for an unattainable and narrow definition of beauty—a beauty standard that can only be reached by fashion models through vigilant control and computer enhancement. With the popularity of shows like The Swan and Extreme Makeover, we are led to believe that with enough money and determination we too can join the ranks of the young and beautiful. Young people grow up surrounded by these messages.

Within the Church and throughout much of its history, the body, particularly a woman’s body and its spiritual meaning, has been a source of tension. Are women’s bodies “the devil’s gateway,” as early Church father Tertullian claimed, or does the incarnation through Mary’s womb affirm woman’s participation in the redemptive plan? As God-bearer, Mary refutes the assumed “curse” on women and instead takes on a prophetic role (Luke 1:47-49).

Historically, the body, beauty, and virtue were tied up in a gnarly knot, which is still evident today. Even as we insist that inner beauty is what matters, a woman’s virtue is often judged by her physical beauty. It’s an idea immortalized in cultural stories; the fairy tale of the beautiful Cinderella and her wicked and ugly stepsisters, as an example, is still a powerful cultural image. Like Cinderella, women who are thin, pretty, and pulled together are judged to display more virtue. Faith-based diet books such as Help Lord, The Devil Wants Me Fat and the popular Weigh Down diet connect “overweight” too closely with “ugly sloth.” In these programs, dieting is no longer merely a health endeavor but a display of spiritual discipline and a way to control unruly flesh.

In the Christian marriage market, culturally-defined beauty can quickly come to equal purity of character and a submissive disposition. As a young teen I heard the book of Esther interpreted this way. Esther, who is biblically described as beautiful and yielded to God, replaces the insubordinate Queen Vashti. In the instruction I received, Esther’s beauty and obedience overshadowed her courage and prophetic work. More recently, in the best-selling book Captivating, John and Stasi Eldredge provide a standard for Christian womanhood. Wrapped in superficial beauty, women are encouraged to meet the essential desire of a man to rescue a beautiful woman. For many women, being loved and a narrow definition of beauty become too closely linked.

At the same time, however, young Christian women are taught that too much physical charm makes a woman dangerous and a prey for male lust. The instruction to be pretty but not too sexy can be difficult for young women, whose bodies are blooming, to navigate. When does pretty become sexy? They find it difficult to fit the mold of the “perfect Christian woman” who is both beautiful and virtuous. They may be further perplexed by sexual harassment and abuse from men in positions of authority. Growing up in the Church and in culture, it’s easy for young women to see their bodies as shameful and in need of being brought under control.

Several years ago I attended a large cosmopolitan church, which had a program for its eighth grade boys and girls designed to help them deal with their emerging sexuality. Before I was going to allow my children to participate in this program I wanted to know what would be taught, so I attended the girls’ session. I was appalled to hear the pastor’s wife tell the girls that it was their responsibility to avert male lust by instituting a narrow dress code, which included no sleeveless tops. The general tone of the instruction on sexuality was that the young women had the responsibility to set the sexual tone of romantic relationships. Young men were viewed as unable to control themselves sexually. In noting this, I am not suggesting that modesty is not valuable as a Christian discipline. When modesty is presented with the view that the female body is inherently seductive, however, it can only cause harm. Is it any wonder that young women show up on Christian college campuses with an ambivalent attitude towards their bodies?

Eating disorders, a negative body image, and a general disdain for the body are complex issues resulting from social, psychological, and spiritual factors that are too great to explore here. They touch on issues of power, the meaning of food, beauty, and one’s relationship to the community. Above all, I believe that for those who struggle with these issues it’s never purely a “personal” problem. Rather the culture’s and the Christian community’s dysfunctional attitudes regarding embodiment readily show up on the bodies of those with the least power. The college campus which I visited didn’t merely have a problem of a few women with poor body image. There was a deep-seated community-wide theological problem that caused people who have been called to freedom in Christ to succumb to the body-hating attitude of the culture at large. Because women have less social power and their bodies are viewed with suspicion, they become the ones who more often live out the lie—a lie that renders their bodies unsuitable vessels for God to use.

If we are to stand as a distinctive community, Christians must regain a full-orbed biblical understanding of embodiment and vehemently reject the objectification of the body and the devaluing of its meaning. The biblical worldview challenges the utilitarian view in which the body is at our disposal to do what we will. Our biblical basis is rooted in creation, the incarnation of God in Jesus, and the promise of the resurrection. Creation teaches that we are an intimate unity of body and soul and that our bodies are good (Genesis 2:7). Created by God, we use our bodies to work the earth, build relationships, and multiply (Genesis 1:28). In this task, the man’s and woman’s bodies are seen as “one flesh” (Genesis 2:23). Therefore, what is done to women’s bodies, and how they are viewed, affects the whole community. The incarnation further affirms the goodness of the body, and that woman is also a means by which God brings redemption into the world. The resurrection teaches us that God’s plan includes the redemption of our bodies from decay and death (Romans 8:23). These spiritual and historic truths provide a paradigm by which we can build body-affirming churches that serve as a refuge from cultural assault.

In The Rise of Christianity, religion scholar Rodney Stark notes the key body-affirming teachings that made the early Church a shelter for women who were escaping the pagan practices of female infanticide, coerced abortions, and obligatory marriages. The Christian faith freed their bodies from the enslavement of pagan culture and religion. The early Church was known for its care of the sick, rescue of babies left to die of exposure, and the burial of the dead. These practices made the Christian faith distinctive and powerful in a pagan culture. Once again, as today’s Church, we have the opportunity to reclaim our distinctiveness and challenge the body-hating practices of our day.

What’s important is not only what we claim to believe, but also the body-affirming practices that are inherent to Christianity. In Scripture we have been given baptism, the laying on of hands, and the holy meal as a way to bring our bodies into God’s redemptive plan. We can build on these foundational practices by seeking ways to share meals, tend to the physical needs of our community, and embrace people who are desperate for community. As noted by a therapist that I interviewed, people who habitually eat alone in front of the television or out of a box are more likely to have disordered eating, whether it’s eating too much or too little. People who are seldom touched have greater difficulty believing that their bodies matter. Christian practices that affirm the body serve as antidotes for a body-assaulting culture.

It is through the faith community’s transformation that our individual dysfunctional relationship to our bodies will be healed. This is a communal work of rediscovering a fresh understanding of the body’s meaning in the Christian faith and the practices that secure that meaning. This cannot be done if women’s bodies are still seen as a source of sin. It cannot be done until men and women work together as true partners in displaying God’s salvation to the world. We bear witness to God’s salvation by providing shelter from the assault on the body, and by living as those who wait eagerly, not reluctantly, for the redemption of the whole person.

Notes:
For further reading, please see my book Eve’s Revenge: Women and a Spirituality of the Body.

Lilian Calles Barger is a writer, speaker, and founder of the The Damaris Project, a program to assist women in starting spiritual conversations within their circle of friends. She is the author of Eve’s Revenge: Women and a Spirituality of the Body (Brazos, 2003) and the forthcoming Chasing Sophia: Reclaiming the Lost Wisdom of Jesus (Jossey-Bass, 2007). She lives in Dallas with her husband David and two teenage sons.

2009-01-17T06:03:00.001-08:00

SHELTERING THE BODY

Lilian Calles Barger

A couple of years ago I was invited to participate as a speaker at a Christian college’s body-awareness week. The weeklong program had been designed to address the rampant eating disorders and entrenched negative views of the body found particularly among the female students. The counseling office was overwhelmed by the need for a healthy and redeeming view of the body it saw desperately lacking among its students. Women, in unprecedented numbers, were starving themselves, engaging in bulimia, and confessing deep shame about their bodies. Some of the male students responded with the attitude that these women needed to get over their “personal sin” by repenting and straightening up. Other young men claimed that they also suffered from the “lookism” in our culture, which measures people’s worth by their appearance. How does this happen at a Christian college and among young people who have attended church all their lives? How does this happen at places that promote themselves as nurturing a Christian worldview and a certain degree of protection from the culture?

It doesn’t take much for us to see the distorted view of the body that our contemporary culture promotes. Christians are not immune. Daily we are surrounded by the message that to be a worthy human being (and an acceptable woman) we must be young, thin, flawless, and project White affluence: a message that is now globalized by mass media. Advertising is rampant with the message that to be a woman is to be a consumable object: always available “eye candy.” A look at a Victoria’s Secret window display or a Calvin Klein ad quickly proves this point.

The current obsession with the body can lead us to believe that American culture values the body above all else when, in actuality, it’s the historically low view of the body that is still prevalent today. As I explored in my book Eve’s Revenge: Women and a Spirituality of the Body (Brazos, 2003), today the body is seen as a pliable carrying case for the true self—the inner self. This inner self is frustrated by the limitations of the body, and these limitations quickly become impediments to self-actualization. Only by molding the body through a variety of means including extreme dieting, exercise, and surgical intervention can we be free to become who we wish to be. For women, this includes striving for an unattainable and narrow definition of beauty—a beauty standard that can only be reached by fashion models through vigilant control and computer enhancement. With the popularity of shows like The Swan and Extreme Makeover, we are led to believe that with enough money and determination we too can join the ranks of the young and beautiful. Young people grow up surrounded by these messages.

Within the Church and throughout much of its history, the body, particularly a woman’s body and its spiritual meaning, has been a source of tension. Are women’s bodies “the devil’s gateway,” as early Church father Tertullian claimed, or does the incarnation through Mary’s womb affirm woman’s participation in the redemptive plan? As God-bearer, Mary refutes the assumed “curse” on women and instead takes on a prophetic role (Luke 1:47-49).

Historically, the body, beauty, and virtue were tied up in a gnarly knot, which is still evident today. Even as we insist that inner beauty is what matters, a woman’s virtue is often judged by her physical beauty. It’s an idea immortalized in cultural stories; the fairy tale of the beautiful Cinderella and her wicked and ugly stepsisters, as an example, is still a powerful cultural image. Like Cinderella, women who are thin, pretty, and pulled together are judged to display more virtue. Faith-based diet books such as Help Lord, The Devil Wants Me Fat and the popular Weigh Down diet connect “overweight” too closely with “ugly sloth.” In these programs, dieting is no longer merely a health endeavor but a display of spiritual discipline and a way to control unruly flesh.

In the Christian marriage market, culturally-defined beauty can quickly come to equal purity of character and a submissive disposition. As a young teen I heard the book of Esther interpreted this way. Esther, who is biblically described as beautiful and yielded to God, replaces the insubordinate Queen Vashti. In the instruction I received, Esther’s beauty and obedience overshadowed her courage and prophetic work. More recently, in the best-selling book Captivating, John and Stasi Eldredge provide a standard for Christian womanhood. Wrapped in superficial beauty, women are encouraged to meet the essential desire of a man to rescue a beautiful woman. For many women, being loved and a narrow definition of beauty become too closely linked.

At the same time, however, young Christian women are taught that too much physical charm makes a woman dangerous and a prey for male lust. The instruction to be pretty but not too sexy can be difficult for young women, whose bodies are blooming, to navigate. When does pretty become sexy? They find it difficult to fit the mold of the “perfect Christian woman” who is both beautiful and virtuous. They may be further perplexed by sexual harassment and abuse from men in positions of authority. Growing up in the Church and in culture, it’s easy for young women to see their bodies as shameful and in need of being brought under control.

Several years ago I attended a large cosmopolitan church, which had a program for its eighth grade boys and girls designed to help them deal with their emerging sexuality. Before I was going to allow my children to participate in this program I wanted to know what would be taught, so I attended the girls’ session. I was appalled to hear the pastor’s wife tell the girls that it was their responsibility to avert male lust by instituting a narrow dress code, which included no sleeveless tops. The general tone of the instruction on sexuality was that the young women had the responsibility to set the sexual tone of romantic relationships. Young men were viewed as unable to control themselves sexually. In noting this, I am not suggesting that modesty is not valuable as a Christian discipline. When modesty is presented with the view that the female body is inherently seductive, however, it can only cause harm. Is it any wonder that young women show up on Christian college campuses with an ambivalent attitude towards their bodies?

Eating disorders, a negative body image, and a general disdain for the body are complex issues resulting from social, psychological, and spiritual factors that are too great to explore here. They touch on issues of power, the meaning of food, beauty, and one’s relationship to the community. Above all, I believe that for those who struggle with these issues it’s never purely a “personal” problem. Rather the culture’s and the Christian community’s dysfunctional attitudes regarding embodiment readily show up on the bodies of those with the least power. The college campus which I visited didn’t merely have a problem of a few women with poor body image. There was a deep-seated community-wide theological problem that caused people who have been called to freedom in Christ to succumb to the body-hating attitude of the culture at large. Because women have less social power and their bodies are viewed with suspicion, they become the ones who more often live out the lie—a lie that renders their bodies unsuitable vessels for God to use.

If we are to stand as a distinctive community, Christians must regain a full-orbed biblical understanding of embodiment and vehemently reject the objectification of the body and the devaluing of its meaning. The biblical worldview challenges the utilitarian view in which the body is at our disposal to do what we will. Our biblical basis is rooted in creation, the incarnation of God in Jesus, and the promise of the resurrection. Creation teaches that we are an intimate unity of body and soul and that our bodies are good (Genesis 2:7). Created by God, we use our bodies to work the earth, build relationships, and multiply (Genesis 1:28). In this task, the man’s and woman’s bodies are seen as “one flesh” (Genesis 2:23). Therefore, what is done to women’s bodies, and how they are viewed, affects the whole community. The incarnation further affirms the goodness of the body, and that woman is also a means by which God brings redemption into the world. The resurrection teaches us that God’s plan includes the redemption of our bodies from decay and death (Romans 8:23). These spiritual and historic truths provide a paradigm by which we can build body-affirming churches that serve as a refuge from cultural assault.

In The Rise of Christianity, religion scholar Rodney Stark notes the key body-affirming teachings that made the early Church a shelter for women who were escaping the pagan practices of female infanticide, coerced abortions, and obligatory marriages. The Christian faith freed their bodies from the enslavement of pagan culture and religion. The early Church was known for its care of the sick, rescue of babies left to die of exposure, and the burial of the dead. These practices made the Christian faith distinctive and powerful in a pagan culture. Once again, as today’s Church, we have the opportunity to reclaim our distinctiveness and challenge the body-hating practices of our day.

What’s important is not only what we claim to believe, but also the body-affirming practices that are inherent to Christianity. In Scripture we have been given baptism, the laying on of hands, and the holy meal as a way to bring our bodies into God’s redemptive plan. We can build on these foundational practices by seeking ways to share meals, tend to the physical needs of our community, and embrace people who are desperate for community. As noted by a therapist that I interviewed, people who habitually eat alone in front of the television or out of a box are more likely to have disordered eating, whether it’s eating too much or too little. People who are seldom touched have greater difficulty believing that their bodies matter. Christian practices that affirm the body serve as antidotes for a body-assaulting culture.

It is through the faith community’s transformation that our individual dysfunctional relationship to our bodies will be healed. This is a communal work of rediscovering a fresh understanding of the body’s meaning in the Christian faith and the practices that secure that meaning. This cannot be done if women’s bodies are still seen as a source of sin. It cannot be done until men and women work together as true partners in displaying God’s salvation to the world. We bear witness to God’s salvation by providing shelter from the assault on the body, and by living as those who wait eagerly, not reluctantly, for the redemption of the whole person.

Notes:
For further reading, please see my book Eve’s Revenge: Women and a Spirituality of the Body.

Lilian Calles Barger is a writer, speaker, and founder of the The Damaris Project, a program to assist women in starting spiritual conversations within their circle of friends. She is the author of Eve’s Revenge: Women and a Spirituality of the Body (Brazos, 2003) and the forthcoming Chasing Sophia: Reclaiming the Lost Wisdom of Jesus (Jossey-Bass, 2007). She lives in Dallas with her husband David and two teenage sons.

Henri Nouwen "Holy Inefficiency" article by Yancey

2008-12-22T07:48:00.000-08:00

A better symbol of the Incarnation, I can hardly imagine.

-by PHILIP YANCEY

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----

Once when I was dining with a group of writers, the conversation turned to letters we get from readers. Richard Foster and Eugene Peterson mentioned an intense young man who had been seeking spiritual direction from both of them. They responded as best they could, answering questions by mail and recommending books on spirituality. Foster had just learned that the same inquirer had also contacted Henri Nouwen. "You won't believe what Nouwen did," he said. "He invited this stranger to live with him for a month so he could mentor him in person."

Most writers jealously protect their schedules and privacy. Nouwen, who died of a heart attack this past September, broke down such barriers of professionalism. His entire life, in fact, displayed a "holy inefficiency."

Trained in Holland as a psychologist and a theologian, Nouwen spent his early years achieving. He taught at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard, averaged more than a book a year, and traveled widely as a conference speaker. He had a résumé to die for-which was the problem, exactly. The pressing schedule and relentless competition were suffocating his own spiritual life.

Nouwen went to South America for six months, scouting a new role for himself as a missionary in the Third World. A hectic speaking schedule on his return to the United States only made things worse. Finally, Nouwen fell into the arms of the L'Arche community in France, a home for the seriously disabled. He felt so nourished by them that he agreed to become priest in residence at a similar home in Toronto called Daybreak. There, Nouwen spent his last ten years, still writing and traveling to speak here and there, but always returning to the haven of Daybreak.

I once visited Nouwen, sharing lunch with him in his small room. It had a single bed, one bookshelf, and a few pieces of Shaker-style furniture. The walls were unadorned except for a print of a Van Gogh painting and a few religious symbols. A Daybreak staff person served us a bowl of Caesar salad and a loaf of bread. No fax machine, no computer, no Daytimer calendar posted on the wall-in this room, at least, Nouwen had found serenity. The church "industry" seemed very far away.

After lunch we celebrated a special Eucharist for Adam, the young man Nouwen looked after. With solemnity, but also a twinkle in his eye, Nouwen led the liturgy in honor of Adam's twenty-sixth birthday. Unable to talk, walk, or dress himself, profoundly retarded, Adam gave no sign of comprehension. He seemed to recognize, at least, that his family had come. He drooled throughout the ceremony and grunted loudly a few times.

Later Nouwen told me it took him nearly two hours to prepare Adam each day. Bathing and shaving him, brushing his teeth, combing his hair, guiding his hand as he tried to eat breakfast-these simple, repetitive acts had become for him almost like an hour of meditation.

I must admit I had a fleeting doubt as to whether this was the best use of the busy priest's time. Could not someone else take over the manual chores? When I cautiously broached the subject with Nouwen himself, he informed me that I had completely misinterpreted him. "I am not giving up anything," he insisted. "It is I, not Adam, who gets the main benefit from our friendship."

All day Nouwen kept circling back to my question, bringing up various ways he had benefitted from his relationship with Adam. It had been difficult for him at first, he said. Physical touch, affection, and the messiness of caring for an uncoordinated person did not come easily. But he had learned to love Adam, truly to love him. In the process he had learned what it must be like for God to love us--spiritually uncoordinated, retarded, able to respond with what must seem to God like inarticulate grunts and groans. Indeed, working with Adam had taught him the humility and "emptiness" achieved by desert monks only after much discipline.

Nouwen has said that all his life two voices competed inside him. One encouraged him to succeed and achieve, while the other called him simply to rest in the comfort that he was "the beloved" of God. Only in the last decade of his life did he truly listen to that second voice.

Ultimately Nouwen concluded that "the goal of education and formation for the ministry is continually to recognize the Lord's voice, his face, and his touch in every person we meet." Reading that description in his book ¡Gracias!, I understand why he did not think it a waste of time to invite a seeking stranger to live with him for a month, or to devote two hours a day to the menial care of Adam.

I will miss Henri Nouwen. For some, his legacy consists of his many books, for others his role as a bridge between Catholics and Protestants, for others his distinguished career at Ivy League universities. For me, though, a single image captures him best: the energetic priest, hair in disarray, using his restless hands as if to fashion a homily out of thin air, celebrating an eloquent birthday Eucharist for an unresponsive child-man so damaged that many parents would have had him aborted. A better symbol of the Incarnation, I can hardly imagine.

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Messiah Handel Yancey article

2008-12-17T10:56:00.000-08:00

Hallelujah!

On a memorable London night, the bright and glistening theology of Messiah broke through my jet-lagged consciousness.

By Philip Yancey

Just before Christmas of 1988 my wife, and I visited London. As the plane banked sharply over the city's center, we saw rowing crews on the Thames, and also Parliament, Whitehall Palace, and other landmark buildings lit in sepia by the slanting rays of morning sun. A fingernail moon hung low in the sky, and the morning star still shone. This was one of London's rare, perfect winter days.

Later that day, half-drunk on coffee, we were dragging along city streets, trying to wrench our biological clocks forward seven time zones by staying awake until dusk. Just before turning in, we lined up in a queue to order some theater tickets. That's when I saw the poster: "One Night Only. Handel's Messiah performed by the National Westminster Choir and National Chamber Orchestra at the Barbican Centre." The ticket seller assured me that of all Messiah performances in London, this was clearly the best. There were only two problems: the concert would begin in one hour, and it was sold out.

Twenty minutes later, following some spirited intramarital negotiations, we were in our hotel room squeezing out yet another round of Visine and dressing for a sold-out concert. This moment of serendipity we could not let pass. "Our presence is divinely ordained," I assured my wife. "We are in Handel's home town, where he wrote the piece." Surely a trifling matter like a sellout would not deter us from finding a way inside where we would enjoy an unsurpassed musical experience. Janet's arched eyebrow conveyed unmistakably what she thought of my circumstantial theology, but she indulged me.

After a pell-mell taxi ride to the concert hall, we stumbled across a civic-minded English chap who offered us his extra tickets at half price. My theology was looking better all the time. I started to relax, anticipating a soothing evening of baroque music. Seated on the back row of the main floor, we were ideally positioned for a catnap should the need arise.

I hardly anticipated what I got that evening. I had, of course, heard Handel's Messiah often. But something about this time—my sleep-starved, caffeine-buzzed state, the London setting, the performance itself—transported me back closer, much closer, to Handel's day. The event became not just a performance but a kind of epiphany, a striking revelation of Christian theology. I felt able to see beyond the music to the soul of the piece.

London, 1741
When George Frideric Handel composed Messiah, he was already the most famous musician of his time, enjoying an international reputation. In Italy he wowed audiences by dueling Domenico Scarlatti on the organ and harpsichord; while there, he also absorbed the romantic spirit and mastered the techniques of Italian composition. A subsequent trip to England earned this German-born composer such acclaim that, two years later, he returned to stay, becoming a naturalized citizen.

In the early eighteenth century, London was arguably the most vibrant city in the world. Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift led a band of iconoclastic wits and essayists. Sir Isaac Newton was spearheading what was to become a scientific revolution. In such a setting Handel had to run a gauntlet of sophisticated and snobbish music critics.

Yet composers also had to please live audiences. Spectators would play cards, wander around, crack nuts, spit freely, and loudly hiss or boo a singer they disliked. Handel thrived in this hurly-burly environment. A huge man, with an explosive temperament and expansive ego, he met the challenge by churning out a series of lively Italian operas—over 40 in all—that kept audiences enthralled for 25 years.

Eventually London's appetite for Italian opera was satiated. Soon after, Handel's company went bankrupt and he had to seek a new genre of composition. Around the same time (1737), Handel suffered a stroke, an affliction that, some biographers suggest, helped nudge him toward religious themes. He made the acquaintance of Charles Jennens, a wealthy eccentric who wrote librettos based on passages from Shakespeare, the Bible, and the Book of Common Prayer. The two began collaborating on a new art form, the biblical oratorio, an English-language religious opera.

The bishop of London scowled at the notion of presenting sacred Scripture theatrically and withheld his sanction. But Londoners flocked to Handel's presentations of Saul, Belshazzar, Esther, Deborah, Solomon, Israel in Egypt, Jephtha, and Samson—nearly 20 oratorios in all. Ever the showman, Handel scheduled himself as organ soloist at every premiere.

In the midst of this fertile period, Jennens brought Handel a script based on the life of Jesus. It was far more "conceptual" than Handel's other oratorios, and featured little stage action. Unlike the great German choral works, this one told Jesus' story indirectly, relying mostly on quotations from the Prophets and Psalms with only a sprinkling of Gospel passages. The libretto moved Handel deeply, and he set to work right away. His working speed was legendary, but this time he surpassed himself: in just 24 days, drawing on inspiration and some old material, he put together his great Messiah. The original manuscript still survives, its smudges, ink spots, and hasty corrections betraying the headlong pace of composition.

Alone of Handel's oratorios, Messiah did not debut in London. Twenty-six vocalists and a few instrumentalists, conducted by the composer himself, gave the first performance as a charity benefit in Dublin, Ireland, in April of 1742. The Passion season fit Messiah's themes perfectly (although it has since become almost exclusively a Christmas piece), and the charitable cause helped lessen the shock for an audience still nervous about hearing sacred text sung by worldly stage personalities.

In contrast to the stunning success in Dublin, London gave Messiah a cool reception the following year. Handel presented a slightly altered version in 1745, but that too met with little enthusiasm. Four years later another performance in Covent Garden went over well enough to encourage annual revivals. In Handel's last public appearance, he, then 74 and totally blind, took the baton to lead one more performance of Messiah as a benefit for his favorite charity, the Foundling Hospital.

In the last two-and-a-half centuries, not a single year has passed without a performance of Handel's Messiah.

Part 1: Bethlehem
As I leaned back in the Barbican Centre's padded seat and listened to the familiar beginning of Messiah, it was easy to understand how the oratorio came to be associated with the Advent season. Handel begins with a collection of lilting prophecies from Isaiah about a coming king who will bring peace and comfort to a disturbed and violent world. The music builds, swelling from a solo tenor ("Comfort ye my people ... ") to a full chorus joyously celebrating the day when "the glory of the Lord shall be revealed."

I had spent the morning viewing England's remnants of glory, and it occurred to me that just such images of wealth and power must have filled the minds of Isaiah's contemporaries who first heard that promise. I had seen the crown jewels, a solid-gold ruler's mace, and the gilded carriage of the Lord Mayor of London. When the Hebrews heard Isaiah's words, undoubtedly those dispossessed and landless refugees thought back with sharp nostalgia to the glory days of Solomon, when the palace and temple gleamed bright.

Yet rulers who bring a nation glory and prestige often do so by oppressing their subjects and leaching away their wealth. How many poor laborers paid taxes to gild the Lord Mayor's carriage, or King Solomon's residence? Because strong rulers thrive in a climate of fear, even the long-awaited Messiah inspired fear in the prophets. After its boisterous opening, I was surprised to hear Handel's Messiah shift so quickly to a somber, even foreboding tone, as if in recognition of this darker side of rulership. The bass warns of a Lord of Hosts who will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land.

Israelites were raised with a fear of God so profound that they would not speak or write his name, and from the Messiah they feared not the tyranny of injustice, but rather the prospect of holy justice. "But who may abide the day of his coming?" the contralto cries out in alarm, "For he is like a refiner's fire." If the Lord of Hosts paid a personal visit to corrupted Earth, would any of its inhabitants survive? Would Earth itself survive? The good news of hope hangs in limbo for a moment.

Then out of the tension in Handel's music there soon emerge gentle, familiar words that strikingly resolve the contradiction of a powerful, but comforting ruler: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel, 'God with us.'" The God who comes to Earth comes not in a raging whirlwind, nor in a devouring fire. He comes instead in the tiniest form imaginable: as an ovum, and then fetus, growing cell by cell inside a humble teenage virgin. In Jesus, God found at last a mode of approach that human beings need not fear: a helpless baby suckling at his mother's breast.

"Behold your God!" the chorus joins in, as if astonished. I wondered how many of the Londoners celebrating Christmas caught the sense of scandal. Stores outside displayed Dickensian scenes of Christmas mirth, and mangers dotted the town squares. But how many grasped the awesome implications of "Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb"? As G. K. Chesterton once marveled, "The hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle."

Messiah lapses into an orchestral interlude, as if to let listeners ponder the two-pronged mission of a Messiah sent from Almighty God. And then it leaps ahead in time, from the prophets' promises to the stirring birth announcement in a pasture bordering Bethlehem. There, angels proclaimed to quaking shepherds that the reign of fear had ended. Fear not! That very night, God was doing an entirely new thing on Earth: he was becoming one of us. "Glory to God in the highest!" Handel's chorus sings.

Thus Part I of Messiah circles back to an old word, glory, but in the process bestows on it a new meaning. The Messiah is a king, but not one who relishes gold chariots and crown jewels. Soloists describe instead a king who opens the eyes of the blind and loosens the tongues of the mute, of a king who "shall feed his flock like a shepherd" and "shall gather the lambs with his arm."

For this reason Part 1 can end with a tender, almost paradoxical invitation: "Come unto him, all ye ... that are heavy laden, and he will give you rest. ... His yoke is easy, and his burden is light." The Messiah rules, surely, but he rules with a rod of love. Who may abide the day of his coming? Anyone may abide it; all who come unto him will be welcomed.

Part 2: Calvary
During intermission we mingled with other concert goers, and downed yet another cup of coffee. The drama of Part 1 was working its effect on me, however, even as I traded pleasantries in the lobby. Suddenly it seemed very odd to be sitting so politely as we listened to this earth-shattering story. We should be jumping or clapping hands, like charismatics.

Everyone else seemed quite calm and unperturbed, though, and we found our seats again and prepared for Messiah, Part 2. Any listener, no matter how musically naive, can sense an ominous change in the opening sounds. Handel telegraphs the darkening mood with dense orchestral chords in a minor key, then has the chorus announce it with his ever-significant introductory word, "Behold the Lamb of God!" Part 2 describes the world's response to that Messiah born of a virgin, and the story is tragic beyond all telling.

Handel relies mostly on the words of Isaiah 52-53, that remarkably vivid account written centuries before Jesus' birth. All sound ceases for a moment, and after this dramatic pause the contralto, with no accompaniment, gives the disturbing news: "He was de-spis-ed ... re-ject-ed." She pronounces each syllable with great effort, as if the facts of history are too painful to recite. Violins hauntingly reiterate each phrase.

At Calvary, history hung suspended. The bright hopes that had swirled around the long-awaited deliverer of Israel collapsed in darkness that fateful night. Dangling like a scarecrow between two thieves, the Messiah provoked at worst derision, at best pity. "All they that see him laugh him to scorn," says the tenor, who then adds, in the most poignant moment of Handel's oratorio, "Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto his sorrow."

Yet all is not lost! A few measures later the same tenor introduces the first glimmer of hope: "But thou didst not leave his soul in hell." Almost immediately the whole chorus takes up the shout of joy: "Lift up your heads, O ye gates." For the defeat at Calvary was only an apparent defeat. The scarecrow corpse did not remain a corpse. He was the King of Glory after all!

Handel uses the rest of Part 2 to celebrate the triumph wrested from seeming defeat. Nations may rage together, conspiring against peace and justice, but "He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn." The word-play is intentional: he that was laughed to scorn will have the last laugh.

"Hallelujah!" the chorus cries out at last, and from there the music soars into what is unarguably the most famous portion of Handel's Messiah, and one of the most jubilant passages of music ever composed. Handel himself said that when he wrote the "Hallelujah!" chorus, "I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the Great God himself."

Part 1 ends with a scriptural invitation ("Come unto him") based on a paradox; Part 2 explains the paradox of how his yoke can indeed be easy, and his burden light. It is because of a transfer of suffering. At the cross, the pain and sorrow of humanity became the pain and sorrow of God. The chorus early on states it well: "Surely, he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows ... and with his stripes we are healed."

Furthermore, in that act death itself died. What happened next, on the day of resurrection, was a miracle deserving of all praise, deserving of the "Hallelujah!" chorus.

Part 3: Eternity
At the London premiere of Messiah, King George I stood for the singing of the "Hallelujah!" chorus. Some skeptics suggest that the king stood to his feet less out of respect for "Hallelujah!" than out of the mistaken assumption that Messiah had reached its conclusion. Even today novices in the audience make the same mistake. Who can blame them? After two hours of performance, the music seems to culminate in the rousing chorus. What more is needed?

I had never really considered the question until that night at the Barbican Centre. But as I glanced at the few paragraphs of libretto remaining, I realized what was missing from Parts 1 and 2. They supply the narrative of Jesus' life, but not the underlying meaning. Part 3 steps out from the story and, gathering quotations from Romans, 1 Corinthians, and Revelation, provides that essential layer of interpretation.

When we flew to England earlier that day, the route took us over the polar ice cap. I knew that beneath the ice cap, nuclear attack submarines prowled, each one capable of killing a hundred million human beings. We landed in London to the news that a train had crashed, killing 51 commuters. Within the week, a terrorist bombed Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270. Is this the world God had in mind at Creation? The world Jesus had in mind at Incarnation?

For reasons such as these, Handel's Messiah could not rightly end with the "Hallelujah!" chorus. The Messiah has come in "glory" (Part 1); the Messiah has died and been resurrected (Part 2). Why, then, does the world remain in such a sorry state? Part 3 attempts an answer. Beyond the images from Bethlehem and Calvary, one more messianic image is needed: the Messiah as Sovereign Lord. The Incarnation did not usher in the end of history—only the beginning of the end. Much work remains before creation is restored to God's original intent.

In a brilliant stroke, Part 3 of Messiah opens with a quotation from Job, that tragic figure who clung stubbornly to faith amid circumstances that called for bleak despair. "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth," the soprano sings out. Overwhelmed by tragedy, with scant evidence of a sovereign God, Job still managed to believe; and, Handel implies, so should we.

From that defiant opening, Part 3 shifts to the apostle Paul's theological explanation of Christ's death ("Since by man came death ... ") and then moves quickly to his lofty words about a final resurrection ("The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised").

Just as the tragedy of Good Friday was transformed into the triumph of Easter Sunday, one day all war, all violence, all injustice, all sadness will likewise be transformed. Then and only then we will be able to say, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" The soprano carries that thought forward to its logical conclusion, quoting from Romans 8: "If God be for us, who can be against us?" If we believe, truly believe, that the last enemy has been destroyed, then we indeed have nothing to fear. At long last, death is swallowed up in victory.

Handel's masterwork ends with a single scene frozen in time. To make his point about the Christ of eternity, librettist Jennens could have settled on the scene from Revelation 2, where Jesus appears with a face like the shining sun and eyes like blazing fire. Instead, his text concludes with the scene from Revelation 4-5, perhaps the most vivid image in a book of vivid imagery.

Twenty-four impressive rulers are gathered together, along with four living creatures who represent strength and wisdom and majesty—the best in all creation. These creatures and rulers kneel respectfully before a throne luminous with lightning and encircled by a rainbow. An angel asks who is worthy to break a seal that will open up the scroll of history. Neither the creatures nor the 24 rulers are worthy. The author realizes well the significance of that moment, "I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside."

Besides these creatures, impotent for the grand task, one more creature stands before the throne. Though appearance offers little to recommend him, he is nevertheless history's sole remaining hope. "Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain." A lamb! A helpless, baa-baa lamb, and a slaughtered one at that! Yet John in Revelation, and Handel in Messiah, sum up all history in this one mysterious image. The great God who became a baby, who became a lamb, who became a sacrifice—this God, who bore our stripes and died our death, this one alone is worthy. That is where Handel leaves us, with the chorus "Worthy Is the Lamb," followed by exultant amens.

We were sitting in a modern brick-and-oak auditorium in the late twentieth century in a materialistic culture light years removed from the imagery of slaughtered lambs. But Handel understood that history and civilization are not what they appear. Auditoriums, dynasties, civilizations-all rise and fall. History has proven beyond doubt that nothing fashioned by the hand of humanity will last. We need something greater than history, something outside history. We need a Lamb slain before the foundations of the world.

I confess that belief in an invisible world, a world beyond this one, does not come easily for me. Like many moderns, I sometimes wonder if reality ends with the material world around us, if life ends at death, if history ends with annihilation or solar exhaustion. But that evening I had no such doubts. Jet lag and fatigue had produced in me something akin to an out-of-body state, and for that moment the grand tapestry woven by Handel's music seemed more real by far than my everyday world. I felt I had a glimpse of the grand sweep of history. And all of it centered in the Messiah who came on a rescue mission, who died on that mission, and who wrought from that death the salvation of the world. I went away with renewed belief that he (and we) shall indeed reign forever and ever.

It was a good decision after all, attending this serendipitous concert.

Philip Yancey is a columnist and editor at large for Christianity Today. This article originally appeared on December 15, 1989.

THE SPIRIT’S WORK

2008-11-18T11:35:00.000-08:00

O God the Holy Spirit,
Thou who dost proceed from the Father and the Son,
Have mercy on me.
When thou didst first hover over chaos,
order came to birth,
beauty robed the world, fruitfulness sprang forth.
Move, I pray thee, upon my disordered heart;
Take away the infirmities of unruly desires and hateful lusts;
Lift the mists and darkness of unbelief;
Brighten my soul with the pure light of truth;
Make it fragrant as the garden of paradise,
rich with every goodly fruit
beautiful with heavenly grace,
radiant with rays of divine light.
Fulful in me the glory of thy divine offices;
Be my comforter, light, guide, sanctifier;
Take of the things of Christ and show them to my soul;
Through thee may I daily learn more of his love, grace, compassion, faithfulness, beauty;
Lead me to the cross and show me his wounds, the hateful nature of evil, the power of Satan;
May I there see my sins as
the nails that transfixed him,
the cords that bound him,
the thorns that tore him
the sword that pierced him.
Help me to find in his death the reality and immensity of his love.
Open for me the wondrous volumes of truth in his, ‘It is finished’.
Increase my faith in the clear knowledge of
atonement achieved, expiation completed,
satisfaction made, guilt done away,
my debt paid, my sins forgiven,
my person redeemed, my soul saved,
hell vanquished, heaven opened,
eternity made mine.
O Holy Spirit, deepen in me these saving lessons.
Write them upon my heart, that my walk be
sin-loathing, sin-fleeing, Christ loving;
And suffer no devil’s device to beguile or deceive me.

2008-11-17T14:19:00.001-08:00

Christianity Explored
January 2009 @ Christ Community
This could be what you’ve been praying for. An opportunity for you to bring along your friend(s) to a place where they are NOT required to pray, sing, or give. A place where they ARE allowed to ask honest questions. We are running a course that has been used effectively in London for 10 years and is beginning to help churches in the United States. Here are some FAQ’s about Christianity Explored.

Questions from potential participants
Q. Who is Christianity Explored for?
A. Christianity Explored is for anyone who wants to investigate Christianity informally with a group of other people. Whether you have previous experience of Church, Christians and the Bible, or none at all, this course is for you. Everyone is welcome - from the most sympathetic Sunday schooler to the convinced atheist. We will respect your background, culture and beliefs. Tell us as little or as much about yourself as you feel comfortable.
Q. What goes on?
A. A meal is usually provided at the start of the evening (typically 7pm), so don't worry if you have to come straight from work. The course is normally run in several groups of six to nine people, and after briefly discussing the course material from the week before, there is a talk or DVD on the theme for that week. Then the groups discuss any questions that have arisen, and the evening ends at about 9pm. Of course, if you'd like, you're welcome to stick around a bit longer for a coffee to discuss any further issues you might have. And you can ask any question you want, at any time during the course.
Q. How long does the course last?
A. The course runs for 10 weeks, including a weekend (or day) away, when you can explore other areas such as the Bible, the Holy Spirit, prayer and the church.
Q. Can I pull out if I want to?
A. Of course you can.

Q. How much does the course cost?
A. Nothing - but some courses might ask for a small contribution towards any food provided.
Q. Do I have to bring anything?
A. No, all course materials are provided.
Q. Is it 'churchy'?
A. We hope not. It's not a church service. There's no praying, singing, or clapping, and you won't be asked to read aloud.
Q. Am I going to get preached at?
A. Each evening includes a talk (or DVD) designed to explain an aspect of Christian belief and to stimulate discussion. Hopefully you'll find it challenging and amusing. The group leaders will facilitate discussion and try to answer questions.
Q. Do I have to speak in the group?
A. Not if you don't want to. You are welcome to come and just sit and listen.
Q. How is Christianity Explored different from other courses?
A. The focus on Mark's Gospel, with its emphasis on who Jesus was, what his aims were, and what it means to follow him, makes Christianity Explored quite different.
Q. Why is the course run?
A. Christians count it a real privilege to explain the truth and relevance of the Christian message. We don't have all the answers but believe that we have exciting news to share about Jesus Christ.

Key Dates:
Sunday December 7 Leaders’ Lunch Meeting (all interested welcome!)
January 2009 kickoff

To learn more:
www.christianityexplored.com

2008-10-01T11:40:00.000-07:00

Yet I Sin

Eternal Father,
Thou are good beyond all thought,
But I am vile, wretched, miserable, blind;
My lips are ready to confess, but my heart is slow to feel, and my ways reluctant to amend.
I bring my soul to thee; break it, wound it, bend it, mould it.
Unmask to me sin's deformity, that I may hate it, abhor it, flee from it.
My faculties have been a weapon of revolt against thee; as a rebel I have misused my strength, and served the foul adversary of they kingdom.
Give me grace to bewail my insensate folly,
Grant me to know that the way of transgressors is hard, that evil paths are wretched paths, that to depart from thee is to lose all good.
I have seen the purity and beauty of they perfect law, the happiness of those in whose heart it reigns, the calm dignity of the walk to which it calls, yet I daily violate and contemn its precepts.
Thy loving Spirit strives within me, brings me Scripture warnings, speaks in startling providences, allures by secret whispers, yet I choose devices and desires to my own hurt, impiously resent, grieve, and provoke him to abandon me.
All these sins I mourn, lament, and for them cry pardon.
Work in me more profound and abiding repentance;
Give me the fullness of a godly grief that trembles and fears, yet ever trusts and loves, which is ever powerful, and ever confident;
Grant that through the tears of repentance I may see more clearly the brightness and glories of the saving cross.

The Valley of Vision

2008-09-27T15:56:00.000-07:00

from Packer:
How are we to hear sermons as the Word of God land benefit from them in our ongoing relationship with God? In his Christian Directory (1673) Richard Baxter addresses this question in a way that is worth quoting at some length.

Directions for . . . Understanding the Word which you Hear.
I. Read and meditate on the holy Scriptures much in private, and then you will be the better able to understand what is preached on it in public, and to try that doctrine, whether it be of God . . .
II. Live under the clearest, [most]distinct, convincing teaching that you possibly can procure . . . . Ignorant teachers . . . are unlike[ly] to make you men of understanding; as erroneous teachers are unlike[ly] to make you orthodox and sound.
III. Come not to hear with a careless heart, . . . but come with a sense of the unspeakable weight, necessity, and consequence of the holy word which you are to hear: and when you understand how much you are concerned in it, and truly love it, as the word of life, it will greatly help your understanding of every particular truth . . . .
IV. Suffer not vain thoughts or drowsy negligence to hinder your attention . . . be as earnest and diligent in attending and learning, as you would have the preacher be in teaching . . .
VIII. Meditate on what you hear when you come home . . .
VI. Inquire, where you doubt, of those that can resolve and teach you. It showeth a careless mind, and a contempt of the word of God, in most people . . . that never come to ask the resolution of one doubt . . . though they have pastors . . . that have ability, and leisure, and willingness to help them.

Directions for Remembering what you Hear.
I. It greatly helpeth memory to have a full understanding of the matter spoken which you would remember . . . . Therefore labour most for a clear understanding according to the last directions . . . .
III. Method is a very great help to memory . . . . Ministers must not only be methodical . . . but . . . choose that method which is most easy to the hearers to understand and remember . . .
IV. Numbers are a great help to memory . . .
V. Names also and signal words are a great help to memory . . . Therefore preachers should contrive the force of every reason, use, direction, [etc.] as much as may be, into some one emphatical word. (And some do very profitably contrive each of these words to begin with the same letter, which is good for memory . . .) As if I were to direct you to the chiefest helps to your salvation, and should name, 1. Powerful preaching. 2. Prayer. 3. Prudence. 4. Piety. 5. Painfulness. 6. Patience. 7. Perseverance . . . the very names would help the hearers' memory . . .
VII. Grasp not at more than you are able to hold, lest thereby you lose all. If there be more particulars than you can possibly remember, lay hold on some which most concern you, and let go the rest . . . .
VIII. Writing is an easy help for memory . . . .
IX. Peruse what you remember, or write it down, when you come home; and fix it speedily before it is lost . . . Pray over it, and confer on it with others.
X. If you forget the very words, yet remember the main drift . . . And then you have not lost the sermon, though you have lost the words; as he hath not lost his food, that hath digested it, and turned it into flesh and blood.
Directions for Holy Resolutions and Affections in Hearing . . .
II. Remember that ministers are the messengers of Christ, and come to you on his business and in his name . . .
III. Remember that God is instructing you, and warning you, and treating

with you, about no less than the saving of your souls . . . .
VI. Make it your work with diligence to apply the word as you are hearing it . . . You have work to do as well as the preacher, and should all the while be as busy as he: as helpless as the infant is, he must suck when the mother offereth him the breast; if you must be fed, yet you must open your mouths, and digest it, for another cannot digest it for you . . . . Therefore be all the while at work, and abhor an idle heart in hearing, as well as an idle minister.
VII. Chew the cud, and call up all when you come home in secret, and by meditation preach it over to yourselves . . .
IX. Go to Christ by faith, for the quickening of his Spirit . . . Entreat him to . . . open your hearts, and speak to you by his Spirit, that you may be taught of God, and your hearts may be his epistles, and the tables where the everlasting law is written . . .
Directions to bring what we Hear into Practice.
I. Be acquainted with the failings of your hearts and lives, and come on purpose to get directions and helps against those particular failings . . . say when you go out of doors, I go to Christ for physic for my own disease . . .
IV. When you come home, let conscience in secret . . . repeat the sermon to you. Between God and yourselves, consider what there was delivered to you in the Lord's message, that your souls were most concerned in.
V. Hear the most practical preachers you can well get . . . that are still [constantly] urging you to holiness of heart and life, and driving home every truth to practice . . .
VII. Associate yourselves with the most holy, serious, practical Christians.
VIII. Keep a just account of your practice; examine yourselves in the end of every day and week . . . Call yourselves to account every hour, what you are doing and how you do it . . . and your hearts must be watched and followed like unfaithful servants, and like loitering scholars [schoolchildren], and driven on to every duty, like a dull or tired horse.
IX. Above all set your hearts to the deepest contemplations of the wonderful

love of God in Christ, and the sweetness and excellency of a holy life, and the . . . glory which it tendeth to, that your souls may be in love with your dear Redeemer, and all that is holy, and love and obedience may be as natural to you. And then the practice of holy doctrine will be easy to you, when it is your delight.⁷

It seems to me that Baxter covers the entire waterfront here, and I do not see how a single sentence that I have quoted from him can be challenged by anyone who knows that the Bible is the Word of God.

But the contrast between the hard-working, hard-thinking, purposeful way in which Baxter tells us to listen to the Word preached and the aimless, detached, passive frame of mind in which most of us today do listen to sermons could hardly be greater. Baxter's discipline of expecting, focusing, memorizing (writing notes if need be), discussing, praying and applying is at the opposite extreme from our modern habit of relaxing at sermon time, settling back in our seats to see if the preacher's performance will interest and entertain us, and if anything he says will particularly strike us — and if not, then to forget the sermon and to say if asked that we got nothing out of it. But even if the preacher is not operating in full accord with the principles that the present chapter lays down, this casual, unexpectant, prayerless, half-bored way of listening to his messages cannot be right. I remember one or two very elderly Christians in my youth who listened to sermons essentially in Baxter's way, expecting them to yield fodder for a week's meditation and soul nourishment, including applicatory reflections going beyond what the preacher actually said. But this devotional style seems nowadays to have completely died out, so that it needs to be learned all over again, starting very much from scratch. The combined efforts of homiletics professors in seminaries training tomorrow's clergy, senior ministers guiding junior members of their team and preaching pastors leveling with their congregations about what it means for them to preach and for people to hear the Word of God would seem to be needed to get the church back on track at this point. A great deal of work will have to be done if sermons are to be restored to their proper place as a means of grace in our Christian lives.

from chapter 5 of Packer's TRUTH AND POWER book

Romans 14 and the Weak and Strong and Stumbling Block

2008-09-26T10:16:00.000-07:00

this is an excerpt from a pdf online entitled Wine in the Bible and in the Church, by G.I. Williamson

Chapter Four - The Weaker Brother
"It is good" says the Apostle Paul "not to eat meat or to drink wine, or do anything
by which your brother stumbles" (Rom. 14:21). This statement is often quoted
by those who would make total abstinence a requirement for the Christian. They
argue that it is the duty of the strong to abstain out of deference to the weak. They
say, in other words, that even a careful and temperate use of wine contradicts this
apostolic principle. It is to this argument that we now direct our attention. We do so
by asking two important questions.

What does Paul mean by the weaker brother in this passage?

And what does he mean when he talks about causing this brother to stumble?

The fact is that Paul means something very different in this phrase "weaker
brother" from what the proponents of total abstinence mean. When they speak of a
weaker brother they mean someone who has a tendency to drink too much. A man
who has been an alcoholic, for example, and is now seeking to remain sober, by
practicing complete abstinence, would be a weaker brother as they use this phrase.
But the weaker brother in Paul's terminology is not a man who tends to drink too
much. To the contrary, he is a man who feels that it would be wrong to drink any
wine at all. He is a man who has a certain scruple of conscience. If certain kinds of
meat and wine were really evil per se, then it would not be necessary to speak of
such people as weaker brothers. But the fact is that there is no meat or wine that is
evil in itself. So the stronger brother is the one who recognizes that this is true. The
weaker brother is weaker because he is mistaken in his conviction. If he eats, or
drinks, he sins. The sin does not lie in the mere physical act of eating or drinking as
such. It lies in the fact that the weaker brother in eating or drinking has violated his
own conscience. For, as Paul says, "whatever is not from faith is sin" (Rom. 14:23).
Paul's definition of the weaker brother is therefore the exact opposite of that which
is propounded by the advocates of the total abstinence position. To put it precisely:
the weaker brother, in Paul's terminology, is someone who holds the total abstinence
position. His weakness is that he erroneously believes that drinking wine is a sin.
From this it can readily be seen that when Paul speaks of causing a brother to
stumble, he doesn't mean anything like the proponents of total abstinence. When
they say that we must not cause our brother to stumble, they simply mean that we
must not do anything that they do not like. We must not engage in any behavior
that is offensive to other believers. Or in other words we must never do anything
that other believers consider to be sin. Now this is not at all what Paul meant.
When he spoke of causing a brother to stumble, he meant an act on our part which
induces our brother to sin—encourages him to act against this scruple that he has
in his conscience. It may well be, of course, that what Paul is saying may—in certain
circumstances— dictate that we must not do something that is intrinsically
lawful. If a certain Christian has been an alcoholic, and now believes that any use
of wine for him would be the path of ruin, then other Christians must certainly
make this their concern. They must be careful that they do not act in such a way as
to encourage him to go against conscience. This does not mean that they must adopt
the rule of his conscience as law.
We can easily see this if we simply notice that Paul also speaks of the religious
observance of days (Rom. 14:6). It is a well-known fact that no day was observed in
the Apostolic Church, by divine commandment, except the Lord's Day (I Cor. 16:1,2;
Gal. 4:9-11). When the Judaizers attempted to impose the observance of other (additional)
days the Apostle strenuously objected (Gal. 4:9-11). Yet in this matter too
Paul had compassion for those who were weaker brothers. The weaker brother in
this instance was someone who felt obligated to observe these other days. (Think
of the Jew who still felt bound by conscience to observe the traditional Jewish feast
days!) The problem, again, was a misinformed conscience that went beyond the
law of the Lord. Does anyone think that Paul demanded that the strong conform to
the weak? No, the plain fact is that when the attempt was made to force such conformity
the Apostle severely denounced them. For it is one thing to receive the
weaker brother (Rom 14:1) and quite another to allow his weakness to be imposed
upon others as law (v. 4).
It was exactly the same with food. In Paul's day—as in ours - some people had
scruples of conscience against eating certain kinds of meat (pork, for example).
Wrong as they were in having this scruple, they were still to be received as brothers
(v. 3). The strong were not to try to induce them to eat against conviction of conscience.
Who would argue that it was the duty of the strong to conform to the
weak? Do the proponents of total abstinence themselves submit to such scruples?
No, the fact is that the very people who attempt to use this argument to force other
people to practice total abstinence, when it comes to wine, do not themselves practice
it when it comes to pork. It is small wonder! If Christians were obliged to abstain—
completely —from any food or drink that weaker brothers have, at one time
or another, and at one place or another, considered to be sinful, they would have
little to eat and drink. Why then should this passage be taken in this way with
respect to wine? The passage, after all, does not say that it is evil to eat meat or to
drink wine. It is only said that it is good not to eat meat or drink wine if it causes a
brother to stumble. The one concern of the entire passage is to teach us to avoid
anything that would induce a weaker brother to act against his own conscience.
When Paul says "it is good for a man not to touch a woman" (I Cor. 7:1) he
does not mean that sexual intercourse is inherently wrong. To the contrary, in
order to avoid sexual immorality he recommends it—by telling us that each
man is to have his own wife and each woman her own husband, if they do not
have the gift of continency. The opposite of sexual immorality is not necessarily
celibacy. To say that total (sexual) abstinence is good, is not at all the same as to
say that lawful indulgence is evil. Quite the contrary: while complete abstinence
may be best for some, a proper indulgence is better for others. Indeed, for
most people the expedient thing is not abstinence but lawful use. Yet this is the
distinction that the proponents of prohibition ignore. They condemn the use of
wine, even in moderation, on the grounds that it could cause another person to
stumble. It is interesting to observe that some people in the ancient Church did
exactly the same thing with respect to marriage. Because the Scripture says "it is
good for a man not to touch a woman" they began to require people to practice
celibacy (I Tim. 4:3). Like present-day advocates of total abstinence, they sought
to make a scruple of their own conscience binding on everyone else. But Paul,
speaking prophetically, brands their teaching as coming from deceitful spirits,
and as the devil's doctrine, not Christ's (v. 1). He does not praise their conviction
of conscience, but rather describes their consciences as having been seared
with a branding iron (v. 2). In forbidding marriage, and commanding abstinence
from certain foods, they really impugned the handiwork of God (v. 3,4).
For God has created all these things to be received with thanksgiving, by those
who believe and know the truth.
It is the same with wine. Those who seek to impose their scruple of conscience
on others usurp the authority of Christ. Paul teaches us to resist them.
"The faith which you have" he says "have as your own conviction before God"
(Rom. 14:22).

2008-09-18T10:41:00.000-07:00

Romans 8:23-27. b). The sufferings and glory of God’s children.

Verses 22-23 draw an important parallel between God’s creation and God’s children. Verse 22 speaks of the whole creation groaning. Verse 23 begins: *Not only so, but we ourselves...groan inwardly...* Even we, who are no longer in Adam but in Christ, we who no longer live according to the flesh but *have the firstfruits of the Spirit*, we in who God’s new creation has already begun (cf. 2 Cor.5:17), even we continue to groan inside ourselves *as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies* (23). This is our Christian dilemma. Caught in the tension between what God has inaugurated (by giving us his Spirit) and what he will consummate (in our final adoption and redemption), we groan with discomfort and longing. The indwelling Spirit gives us joy (E.g. Gal. 5:22; 1 Thess.1:6) and the coming glory gives us hope (e.g. 5:2), but the interim suspense gives us pain.
Paul now highlights different aspects of our half-saved condition by five affirmations.
First, *we...have the firstfruits of the Spirit* (23a). *Aparche*, the firstfruits, was both the beginning of the harvest and the pledge that the full harvest would follow in due time. Perhaps Paul had in mind that the Feast of Weeks, which celebrated the reaping of the firstfruits, was the very festival (called in Greek ‘Pentecost’) on which the Spirit had been given. Replacing this agricultural metaphor with a commercial one, Paul also described the gift of the Spirit as God’s *arrabon*, the ‘first instalment, deposit, down payment, pledge’ (BAGD), which guaranteed the future completion of the purchase (see 2 Cor.1:22; 5:5; Eph.1:4) Although we have not yet received our final adoption or redemption, we have already received the Spirit as both foretaste and promise of these blessings.
Secondly, *we ...groan inwardly* (23b). The juxtaposition of the Spirit’s indwelling and our groaning should not surprise us. For the very presence of the Spirit (being only the firstfruits) is a constant reminder of the incompleteness of our salvation, as we share with the creation in the frustration, the bondage to decay and the pain. So one reason for our groaning is our physical frailty and mortality. Paul expresses this elsewhere: ‘Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling [meaning probably our resurrection body].... For while we are in this tent [our temporary, flimsy, material body], we groan and are burdened....’ (2 Cor.5:2, 4). But it is not only our frail body (*soma*) which makes us groan; it is also our fallen nature (*sarx*), which hinders us from behaving as we should, and would altogether prevent us from it, were it not for the indwelling Spirit (7:17, 20). We long, therefore, for our *sarx* to be destroyed and for our *soma* to be transformed. Our groans express both present pain and future longing. Some Christians, however, grin too much (they seem to have no place in their theology for pain) and groan too little.
Thirdly, *we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies* (23c). Just as the groaning creation waits eagerly for God’s sons to be revealed (19), so we groaning Christians wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, even our bodily redemption. We have, of course, already been adopted by God (15), and the Spirit assures us that we are his children (16). Yet there is an even deeper and richer child-Father relationship to come when we are fully ‘revealed’ as his children (19) and ‘conformed to the likeness of his Son’ (29). Again, we have already been redeemed (cf. Eph.1:7; Col.1:14; cf. Rom.3:24; 1 Cor.1:30), but not yet our bodies. Already our spirits are alive (10), but one day the Spirit will also give life to our bodies (11). More than that, our bodies will be changed by Christ to be ‘like his glorious body’ (Phil.3:21; cf. 1 Cor.15:35ff.). ‘Bondage to decay’ will be replaced by the ‘freedom of glory’ (21).
Fourthly, *in this hope we were saved* (24a). *We were saved (esothemen*) is an aorist tense. It bears witness to our decisive past liberation from the guilt and bondage of our sins, and from the just judgment of God upon them (cf. Eph.2:8). Yet we remain only half-saved. For we have not yet been saved from the outpouring of God’s wrath in the day of judgment (5:9), nor have the final vestiges of sin in our human personality been eradicated. Not yet has our *sarx* been obliterated; not yet has our *soma* been redeemed. So we are saved *in hope* of our total liberation (24a), as the creation was subjected to frustration *in...hope* of being set free from it (20). This double hope looks to the future and to things which, being future, are so far unseen. For *hope that is seen*, having been realized in our experience, *is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?* (24b). Instead, *we hope for what we do not yet have* (25a; cf. Heb.11:1).
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2008-08-20T07:51:00.000-07:00

Romans 7:1-25. God’s law and Christian discipleship. (aug 17 email)

Romans 7 is well known to most Christian people because of the debate it has provoked about holiness. Who is the ‘wretched man’ or ‘miserable creature’ (NEB) of verse 24, who gives us a graphic account of his inner moral turmoil (15ff.), cries out for deliverance, and then immediately appears to thank God for it? (25)? Is this person regenerate or unregenerate? And if the former, is he or she normal or abnormal, mature, immature or backsliding? The different schools of holiness teaching are obliged to come to terms with this chapter.
But it is never wise to bring to a passage of Scripture our own ready-made agenda, insisting that it answers our questions and addresses our concerns. For that is to dictate to Scripture instead of listening to it. We have to lay aside our presuppositions, so that we can conscientiously think ourselves back into the historical and cultural setting of the text. Then we shall be in a better position to let the author say what he does say and not force him to say what we want him to say. It is of course legitimate to seek secondary applications to contemporary questions, but only after the primary task of ‘grammatico-historical exegesis’ has been diligently done.
If we come to Romans 7 in such a mood of meekness and receptivity, it becomes evident at once that Paul’s preoccupation is more historical than personal. He is not answering questions put to him in a Christian holiness convention, but rather struggling with the place of the law in God’s purpose. For the ‘law’ or the ‘commandment’ or the ‘written code’ is mentioned in every one of the chapter’s first fourteen verses, and some thirty-five times in the whole passage which runs from 7:1 to 8:4. What is the place of the law in Christian discipleship, now that Christ has come and inaugurated the new era?
Before coming to Romans 7, however, we need to ask what Paul has written thus far about God’s purpose in giving the law. Paul’s reply is couched in almost entirely uncomplimentary terms. To be sure, in theory the person ‘who does these things will live by them’ (Rom. 10:5, quoting Lv. 18:5). But in practice no human being has ever succeeded in obeying the law. Therefore it can never be the way of salvation (Gal.3:10f.; 21f.). Instead the law reveals sin (3:20), condemns the sinner (3:19), defines sin as transgression (4:15; 5:13; cf. Gal. 3:19), ‘brings wrath’ (4:15), and was even ‘added so that the trespass might increase’ (5:20). In consequence, God’s righteousness has been revealed in the gospel altogether ‘apart from the law’ (1:17; 3:21a), although the law helped to bear witness to it (1:2; 3:21b). And sinners are justified by God, not through obeying the law but through faith in Christ (3:27). Such faith upholds the law (3:31) by assigning to it its proper function. Abraham himself illustrated this principle, since the way he received God’s promise was ‘not through law... but through the righteousness that comes by faith’ (4:13f.). This antithesis shows that the whole gospel vocabulary of promise, grace and faith is incompatible with law.
So far then, almost all Paul’s allusions to the law have been pejorative. The law reveals sin , not salvation; it brings wrath, not grace. And these negative references culminate in what to Jewish ears must have appeared his shocking epigram that Christian believers are ‘not under law, but under grace’ (6:14f.). It is the springboard into Romans 7, which begins with similar statements that we have ‘died to the law’ (4) and so have been ‘released from the law’ (6). How dare the apostle be so dismissive of God’s law? One has only to read Psalm 19 and 119 to sense the enormous pleasure which godly Jews derived from the law. It was to them ‘more precious than gold, than much pure gold’ and ‘sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb’ (Ps.19:10). How then can the apostle denigrate it as promoting sin rather than righteousness, and death rather than life? How could he proclaim freedom from it? What did he mean that we are ‘no longer under the law’? Was he declaring it to be abrogated? His words must have sounded like a clarion call to antinomianism.
Moreover, Paul’s teaching is by no means of purely antiquarian interest today. For the advocates of the so-called ‘new morality’, which was first proclaimed in the 1960s but is still popular today, appear to be twentieth-century antinomians. They maintain that the category of ‘law’ has been abolished for Christians and that the only absolute left is the commandment of love. There are also contemporary holiness teachers who declare similarly that the law has no place in the Christian life. In support of their position they quote both ‘ Christ is the end of the law’ (10:4) and ‘you are not under law’ (6:14f,), as if these statements meant that the moral law has been annulled. What Paul writes in Romans has direct relevance to this debate.

Romans 7: 1-25. God’s law and Christian discipleship. (continued). august 18 email

Whenever we come across a negative statement, however, we cannot interpret it until we discern with what it is being contrasted. For example, if you were to say to me, ‘You’re not a man’ without adding any positive counterpart, you could be insulting me (meaning ‘but you’re a baby or a pig or a demon’), or you could be flattering me (meaning ‘but you’re an angel’). Similarly, on my return from a recent visit to the United States, I remarked to a friend. ‘I haven’t had a bath for a month.’ Before he had time to express his disgust at my lack of personal hygiene, however, I added, ‘But I have had a shower every day’.
What, then, did Paul intend when he described Christians as being ‘not under law’? He used this expression in two different letters and contexts, and so in two different senses. He also clarified the meaning of each by the contrasting phrases he added. In Romans 6:14f. he wrote that ‘you are not under law, but under grace’. Here the antithesis between law and grace indicates that he is referring to the way of *justification*, which is not by our obedience to the law, but by God’s sheer mercy alone. In Galatians 5:18, however, he wrote that ‘if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law’. Here the antithesis between law and Spirit indicates that he is referring to the way of *sanctification*, which is not by our struggling to keep the law, but by the power of the indwelling Spirit. So for justification we are not under the law but under grace; for sanctification we are not under law but led by the Spirit.
It is in these two senses that we have been ‘freed or ‘released’ from the law. But this does not mean that we have been divorced from it altogether, in the sense that it has no more claims on us of any kind, or that we have no more obligations to it. On the contrary, the moral law remains a revelation of God’s will which he still expects his people to ‘fulfil’ by living lives of righteousness and love (8:4; 13:8, 10). This is what the reformers called ‘the third use of the law’.
We are now ready to summarize three possible attitudes to the law, the first two of which Paul rejects, and the third of which he commends. We might call them ‘legalism’, ‘antinomians’ and ‘law-fulfilling freedom’. *Legalists* are ‘under the law’ and in bondage to it. They imagine that their relationship to God depends on their obedience to the law, and they are seeking to be both justified and sanctified by it. But they are crushed by the law’s inability to save them. *Antinomians* (or libertines) go to the opposite extreme. Blaming the law for their problems, they reject it altogether, and claim to be rid of all obligation to its demands. They have turned liberty into licence. *Law-fulfilling free people* preserve the balance. They rejoice both in their freedom from the law for justification and sanctification, and in their freedom to fulfil it. They delight in the law as the revelation of God’s will (7:22), but recognize that the power to fulfil it is not in the law but in the Spirit. Thus legalists fear the law and are in bondage to it. Antinomians hate the law and repudiate it. Law-abiding free people love the law and fulfil it.
Directly or indirectly Paul alludes to these three types in Romans 7. He does not portray or address them directly one by one, but their shadowy forms are discernible throughout. In verses 1-6 he asserts that the law no longer has ‘authority’ over us. By dying to it with Christ we have been released from it, and we now belong to Christ instead. This is the massage for legalists. In verses 7-13 he defends the law against the unjust criticism that it causes both sin and death. He attributes these instead to our fallen nature. The law itself is good (12-13). This is his message to antinomians. In verses 7:14-25 Paul describes the inner conflict of those who are still living under the regime of the law. If left to ourselves in our fallenness we cannot keep God’s law, even though we delight in it. Nor can the law rescue us. But God has done what the law could not do, by giving us his Spirit (8:3-4). This is the experience of those who find their freedom in fulfilling the law.
These three paragraphs of Romans 7 may appropriately be entitled ‘Release from the Law’ (1-6), in order to serve God in the Spirit, ‘A defence of the law’ (7-13), against the calumny that it causes sin and death, and ‘The Weakness of the Law’ (14-25), because it can neither justify nor sanctify sinners.

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Romans 7:1-6. 1). Release from the law: a marriage metaphor. (august 19 email)

Paul begins this paragraph by addressing his readers affectionately as *brothers* and by asking them for the third time: *Do you not know*? Having questioned their understanding both of the meaning of baptism (6:3) and of the implication of slavery (6:16), he now asks if they know the limited jurisdiction of the law. There can be no doubt that the dominant theme of the paragraph concerns ‘release from the law’, since he uses this expression three times (2, 3, 6), and refers to the law in every verse. He assumes that they do know, since he adds in parenthesis that he is *speaking to men who know the law*, the Jewish law certainly and the Roman law probably as well.

a), The legal principle (1).
Paul lays down the principle which he assumes his readers know: *the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives* (1). Or better, ‘the law is binding on a person only during his life’ (RSV). The word for ‘is binding on’ or ‘has authority over’ is *kyrieuo*, which is rendered ‘lord it over’ in Mark 10:42, RSV. It expresses the imperious authority of law over those who are subject to it. But this authority is limited to our lifetime. The one thing which invalidates it is death. Death brings release from all contractual obligations involving the dead person. If death supervenes, relationships established and protected by law are *ipso facto* terminated. So law is for life; death annuls it. Paul states this as a legal axiom, universally accepted and unchallengeable.

b). The domestic illustration (2-3).
As an example of this general principle Paul chooses marriage, and in applying it extends it. Death changes not only the obligations of the dead person (it is obvious that these are cancelled), but also the obligations of those survivors who had a contract with the dead person. *For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive* (or ‘until death parts them’), *but if her husband dies, she is released* (‘discharged’, RSV, NEB) from her marriage vows, indeed *from the law of marriage* itself (2). literally, from the law of her husband’ (AV), that is, from the law relating to him and her contract with him. The contract is clear: the law binds her, but his death frees her. Moreover, her release is complete. The strong verb used (*katargeo*) can mean to ‘annul’ or ‘destroy’. ‘The apostle is saying that the woman’s status as a wife has been abolished, completely done away. She is no longer a wife.
*So then*, Paul now draws a conclusion, *if she (sc. a married woman) marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress* (she ‘incurs the stigma of adultery’, JBP). *But if her husband dies*, and she remarries, *she is not an adulteress* (3), because she has been *released from that law* which had previously bound her. What has made the difference? How is it that one remarriage would make her an adulteress, while the other would not? The answer lies of course in her husbands death. The second marriage is morally legitimate because death has terminated the first. Only death can secure freedom from the marriage law and therefore the right to remarry. These references to death, freedom from law and remarriage already hint at the application which Paul is about to make.

2008-08-16T15:14:00.000-07:00

Hoping to make this available tomorrow:

When The Want to and the "Ought To" don't match

2008-08-16T14:43:00.000-07:00

John Owen, page 94 of Kapic/Taylor translation of "Overcoming" :

Such a person (who only can see the "fear of hell" motivation to fight sin)
has cast off, as to the particular spoken of, the conduct of
renewing grace and is kept from ruin only by restraining grace; and so far is
he fallen from grace and returned under the power of the law. And can it be
thought that this is not a great provocation to Christ, that men should cast
off his easy, gentle yoke and rule, and cast themselves under the iron yoke of
the law, merely out of indulgence unto their lusts?
Try yourself by this also: When you are by sin driven to make a stand,
so that you must either serve it and rush at the command of it into folly, like
the horse into the battle, or make head against it to suppress it, what do you
say to your soul? What do you expostulate44 with yourself? Is this all—“Hell
will be the end of this course; vengeance will meet with me and find me out”?
It is time for you to look about you; evil lies at the door [Gen. 4:7]. Paul’s
main argument to evince that sin shall not have dominion over believers is
that they “are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom. 6:14). If your contendings
against sin be all on legal accounts, from legal principles and
motives, what assurance can you attain unto that sin shall not have dominion
over you, which will be your ruin?
Yea, know that this reserve will not long hold out. If your lust has driven
you from stronger gospel forts, it will speedily prevail against this also. Do
not suppose that such considerations will deliver you, when you have voluntarily
given up to your enemy those helps and means of preservation
which have a thousand times their strength. Rest assuredly in this, that
unless you recover yourself with speed from this condition, the thing that
you fear will come upon you. What gospel principles do not, legal motives
cannot do.

Packer on Hell

2008-08-12T13:53:00.000-07:00

HELL

THE WICKED WILL BE BANISHED INTO ENDLESS MISERY Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second eath. If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. REVELATION 20:14-15 J.I. Packer

The sentimental secularism of modern Western culture, with its exalted optimism about human nature, its shrunken idea of God, and its skepticism as to whether personal morality really matters -- in other words, its decay of conscience -- makes it hard for Christians to take the reality of hell seriously. The revelation of hell in Scripture assumes a depth of insight into divine holiness and human and demonic sinfulness that most of us do not have. However, the doctrine of hell appears in the New Testament as a Christian essential, and we are called to try to understand it as Jesus and his aposdes did.

The New Testament views hell (Gehenna, as Jesus calls it, the place of incineration, Matt. 5:22; 18:9) as the final abode of those consigned to eternal punishment at the Last Judginent (Matt. 25:41-46; Rev. 20:11-15). It is thought of as a place of fire and darkness jude 7,13), of weeping and grinding of teeth (Matt. 8:12; 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30), of destruction (2 Thess. 1:7-9; 2 Pet 3:7; 1 Thess. 5:3), and of torment (Rev. 20:10; Luke 16:23) -- in other words, of total distress and misery. If, as it seems, these terms are symbolic rather than literal (fire and darkness would be mutually exclusive in literal terms), we may he sure that the reality, which is beyond our imagining, exceeds the symbol in dreadfulness. New Testament teaching about hell is meant to appall us and strike us dumb with horror, assuring us that, as heaven will be better than we could dream, so hell will be worse than we can conceive. Such are the issues of eternity, which need now to be realistically faced.

The concept of hell is of a negative relationship to God, an experience not of his absence so much as of his presence in wrath and displeasure. The experience of God's anger as a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29), his righteous condemnation for defying him and clinging to the sins he loathes, and the deprivation of all that is valuable, pleasant, and worthwhile will be the shape of the experience of hell (Rom. 2:6, 8-9,12). The concept is formed by systematically negating every element in the experience of God's goodness as believers know it through grace and as all mankind knows it through kindly providences (Acts 14:16-17; Ps. 104:10-30; Rom. 2:4). The reality, as was said above, will be more terrible than the concept; no one can imagine how bad hell will be.

Scripture envisages hell as unending (Jude 13; Rev. 20:10). Speculations about a "second chance"after death, or personal annihilation of the ungodly at some stage, have no biblical warrant.

Scripture sees hell as self-chosen; those in hell will realize that they sentenced themselves to it by loving darkness rather than light, choosing not to have their Creator as their Lord, preferring self-indulgent sin to self-denying righteousness, and (if they encountered the gospel) rejecting Jesus rather than coming to him (John 3:18-21; Rom. 1: 18,24,26,28,32;2:8; 2Thess.2: 9-11). General revelation confronts all mankind with this issue, and from this standpoint hell appears as God's gesture of respect for human choice. All receive what they actually chose, either to be with God forever, worshiping him, or without God forever, worshiping themselves. Those who are in hell will know not only that for their doings they deserve it but also that in their hearts they chose it.

The purpose of Bible teaching about hell is to make us appreciate, thankfully embrace, and rationally prefer the grace of Christ that saves us from it (Matt. 5:29-30; 13:4850). It is really a mercy to mankind that God in Scripture is so explicit about hell. We cannot now say that we have not been warned.

Concise Theology. J.I. Packer.Tyndale House Pub., Inc. Wheaton, IL. 1993. Hell. Pages 261-263.

2008-07-23T09:16:00.001-07:00

“It’s hard to remember you are a cherished spiritual being when you are burping up apple fritters and Cheetos.” from Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott

from an incredible piece by Annie about a binge she went on...

I don't like you JUST THE WAY YOU ARE, Jesus

2008-06-28T18:29:00.000-07:00

According to Jesus, Peter--in Mark 8-- "did not have in mind the things of God, but the
things of men." Unable to accept a suffering Savior as a fundamental part of
God's will he would have shaped Jesus in his own image. Of course, God's way
of dealing with the problem of sin and human rebellion fails to conform to the
niceties of human expectations. Jesus shows no inclination to justify the ways of
God to men. He simply affirms that the way of the cross is the will of God.

What are some ways that we, like Peter, distort the character of God?
Give examples of false images, pictures, and expectations that we have of
him.
We also tend towards making gods in our own image. For example when we
say "I like to think of God as...." with total disregard for what Scripture
reveals. We develop expectations to which we want God to conform. We
decide how God ought to behave in certain situations and what ought to be given
to us. We decide which circumstances given to us are fair and which are unfair
and hold him in contempt when he does not abide by our standards. We may see
God as a Santa Claus figure, an old man who doesn't really notice how we live and who gives us what we ask for. We may view him as one whose primary job
is to secure our happiness believing that our happiness is what matters most and
that he could not possibly want us to suffer.
Making God in our own image condemns us to regular frustration and potential
bitterness because our view of reality is out line with the way the world really is.
But even more dangerously, the habit of making God in one's own image may
leave one eternally condemned. Believing ourselves to be following and
worshipping the true God, we may actually be using our religious devotion to an
invented god to keep the true God at a distance. The Bible's analysis is that what
often passes for seeking God is really just a front for evading him. The only
antidote to this tendency is to allow the Scriptures alone to be that which informs
you of God's nature and ways, and to neither add nor subtract from their
testimony. We pick and choose what we like and dislike about what the Bible
tells us about God's character, ways, and plans at our own peril.

a couple of prophesies....

2008-06-28T17:15:00.000-07:00

prophesied in Psalm 118:22-23

The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone.
This is the Lord's doing;
it is marvelous in our eyes.

then....hundreds of years later.... Jesus....After telling a story making God the Landowner who sends his beloved son to speak with the tenants of his land.... they say, This is the Landowner's heir. Let's kill him." Jesus closes this story by saying:

Have you not read this Scripture:

“‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;

this was the Lord's doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?” (Mark 12:10-11)

prophecied in Zechariah 13:7

“Awake, O sword, against my shepherd,
against the man who stands next to me,”
declares the Lord of hosts.

“Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered;
I will turn my hand against the little ones.

realized in Mark 14:27

And Jesus said to them (His disciples, just before he is betrayed/arrested/killed), “You will all fall away, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’

Context of Mark 8:31 and following, the 2nd half of Mark's Gospel

2008-06-28T15:18:00.000-07:00

Most scholars regard verse 31 of Mark 8 as the second half of Mark's gospel.
Mark's primary, though not exclusive, concern in the first half was to answer the
question, "Who is Jesus?" Peter's confession, "You are the Christ" brought this
section to it's climax.
The chief concern in the second half of the Mark's gospel is to answer the
question, "What did Jesus come to do?" What is partially answered now
becomes explicit: He has come to die for our sin and be raised from the dead so
that we might experience redemption. The second half also deals more explicitly
with the question, "What does it mean to follow Jesus."
Jesus' death becomes the paradigm upon which Christian discipleship is based
("deny yourself and take up the cross"). It is the central metaphor for what it
means to follow him. This passage (8:31-9:1) is part of a fairly distinct section of
Mark's gospel that extends from 8:31-10:52. "The primary purpose of this
section is to explain what it means for Jesus to be the Messiah and what it
requires to be identified with him."
Throughout these chapters Jesus and the disciples are on their way to Jerusalem.
This destination is finally announced in Mark 10:32ff. Therefore, while Mark is
telling us what Jesus' mission is in these chapters, we are being led closer to
Jerusalem where his mission will be accomplished. Mark 8:31-9:1 is to Mark part
II what 1:14,15 was to Mark part I: a summary proclamation about Christ and
demand for a response which is then expanded on in the chapters which follow.

--from Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC, i think jeff white wrote it

Get behind me Satan

2008-06-28T13:31:00.000-07:00

When Jesus says to Peter, “get behind me, Satan,” he’s referring to
the fact that when Peter rebukes Jesus, and tells him not to go to the cross, he is taking is the same
approach that Satan had taken with Jesus during the time of temptation in the wilderness. The notion that Jesus seek to avoid the suffering and humiliation of the cross recalls Satan’s offer to Jesus in the wilderness. If Jesus were to do what Peter suggested, the entire plan of salvation would be undone. The Messiah’s mission would fail. Kim Riddlebarger

I'll (Rob) never forget in a class I took at RTS ORlando... RC Sproul reading this and saying, "Fellas, sometimes it can be the people who love you the most who tempt you to sin. Just because they don't realize doesn't mean you shouldn't realize it to."

Wow, when I think of that Sproul statement now I think of it primarily the other way round...
how often I have encouraged sin in people I care for deeply! Lord, have mercy!

....... on another note, in thinking about this text... Peter basically says the same as Satan had said in the wilderness... All of this, all of this can be yours
Just give me what I want and no-one gets hurt….

Son of Man

2008-06-28T13:07:00.000-07:00

The term “Son of Man” is a Greek
rendering of an Aramaic term which means “I” (first person singular), but which is almost always used in
connection with humiliation, suffering, impending danger, or even death. No doubt, Jesus uses the term
as a reference to his coming humiliation. It is also a term which is used in Daniel 7:13, where it is
clearly a messianic title. In any case, it is a self-designation used by Jesus (some fourteen times in theGospel of Mark), and is clearly the title that Jesus himself preferred to all others. It not only refers to his coming suffering and humiliation, it also has strong messianic implications. In using this selfdesignation,
Jesus is tying together Old Testament messianic expectations, while at the same time
stripping them of the false political expectations then popular in Israel. In using this term, Jesus also
connects himself to that which was foretold by the prophet Isaiah in the 52nd and 53rd chapters of his
prophecy, namely that the coming one would also be a suffering servant, who would lay down his life so
that God’s people could be delivered from the guilt and power of sin. We read of this remarkable
suffering servant in our Old Testament lesson, a passage widely-known in Jesus’ day. But having just
confessed that Jesus is the Messiah, the disciples have no category for seeing the Messiah and the
suffering servant as one in the same. Jesus must tie these two images together. Using the title “Son of
Man” helps Jesus do exactly that. --Kim Riddlebarger commenting on Mark 8:31

Freedom to love

2008-06-27T07:32:00.000-07:00

A joyless bondage if deeply desired is still a joyless bondage | Andrée Seu

One cannot love unless one is free. One cannot be free apart from consciousness, in the moment, of being enveloped in God's love. (Oh, for freedom!) This is the whole of the matter. The rest is details.

The freedom I mean is freedom from need. All the business in the songs of "Does he need me?" and "I need him to need me" has to go. It is abject bondage and misery. The horrifying thing is that those in this bondage don't see it as bondage. Or more inscrutably, those who see it as bondage want it anyway. Those in bondage choose it. They would kill to have it.

This curiosity of human nature (It must baffle the angels no end. The only way I can write about it is as a privy insider to the infected race, testifying personally to the truth of what would otherwise be too mad too contemplate.) is partly explained as a failure of imagination. Morally, it is a failure of faith. The offer of real joy is repeatedly extended from heaven; the creature repeatedly rejects it.

A woman loved her husband but felt he did not love her back. He had other interests besides her—like friends, or reading a book. She cooked and cleaned and worked her fingers to the bone for him, to get his attention. She had little "pep talks" with him to urge the seriousness of her plight. She interspersed these with the "silent treatment." Nothing availed.

The husband tried to reassure her. She was not reassured. He kept trying till, over the years, he became a defeated shadow of a man. Ironically, her happiest times were these, for at least she knew by his deep sighing that he was paying attention to her, that he was thinking of her. And when he was thinking of her, she knew she existed.

It's a wonder to me that anyone at all can manage to love even half badly. What but a hand grenade of grace thrown into her profound solipsism can show the woman what she is doing? Her strategies are darkness. They do not produce what she intends, but the opposite. Plead with her from the light, and paint pictures of the joy of freedom, but she will block her ears and shut her eyes, for light understands the darkness, but the darkness doesn't comprehend the light.

But let us imagine better possibilities, things pertaining to salvation (Hebrews 6:9):

The woman, after all this, receives unmerited favor from above. The light that has often tried to break in upon her, she one day sees and rather than refusing it again, seizes it. The hardest part is this first crossing of the great divide. She believes and surrenders to the love of the Trinitarian God. What she thought would kill her does not.

The idea of God's love begins to dominate her life. Out of it flow new adventures. Because she is loved, accepted, cherished, delighted in, by a Lover who will never leave her or forsake her, or be distracted from her, or too busy for her—a Lover who not only doesn't mind her barging in, but insists on it as a much desired daily rendezvous—she finds inner resources.

She is able to ask forgiveness of her mate, even in cases where the fault is not mainly hers, and even if he does not admit blame. She is able to overlook unintentionally hurtful remarks because she is confident in her status with her Lover—"The King is enthralled by your beauty" (Psalm 45:11). She is able to overlook deliberately hurtful remarks because she has behaved that way herself, and so knows the misery of its origin and is pained into praying for her mate's release. She "believes all things" about her mate and is able to visualize his future glory, when all blemishes will be removed to release the real saint.

Heaven has already begun. Already all our needs are met, and we can love because we don't need. We can also have a joy that is not hostage to another's insistence on misery. Already "the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining" (1 John 2:8). Why wait another hour? "For freedom Christ has set us free" (Galatians 5:1).

Andrée Seu

2008-06-20T08:39:00.001-07:00

2008-06-20T08:21:00.001-07:00

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Are Paul & James At Odds on Faith & Works?

2008-06-20T08:05:00.000-07:00

“FOR WE MAINTAIN THAT A MAN is justified by faith apart from observing the law” (Rom. 3:28). So writes the apostle Paul. “You foolish man,” argues James, “do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? . . . You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone. . . . As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead” (James 2:14 - 26, especially vv. 20, 24, 26).
The formal contradiction between Paul and James is so striking that it has called forth relentless discussion across the centuries. Many contemporary critics, skeptical that God has really spoken in the Bible, think the passages are irreconcilable, and that together they demonstrate that from the beginning there were disparate branches of Christianity with distinctive and even mutually contradictory interpretations. Others think that the real secret to the relationship between Paul and James lies in very different meanings of “works” or “deeds.”
Several explanatory syntheses have been offered, but they cannot be evaluated here. It may be helpful, however, to reflect on the following points:
(a) Paul and James are facing very different problems. Paul is facing those who want to say that works, whether good or bad, make a fundamental contribution to whether one becomes a Christian (see one of his responses in Rom. 9:10 - 12). His answer is that they do not and cannot: God’s grace is received by faith alone. James is facing those who argue that saving faith is found even in those who simply affirm (for instance) that there is one God (James 2:19). His answer is that such faith is inadequate; genuine faith produces good works, or else it is dead faith.
(b) Issues of sequence are thus at stake. Paul argues that works cannot help a person become a Christian; James argues that good works must be displayed by the Christian. But on this point, Paul would not disagree; see, for instance, 1 Corinthians 6:9 - 11.
(c) Paul’s dominant usage of “justification” has to do with that act of God by which, on the basis of Christ’s work on the cross, he declares guilty sinners acquitted and just in his eyes. Such justification is entirely gracious (Rom. 3:20; Gal. 2:16). James focuses rather more on “justification” before peers (James 2:18) and even on final judgment. A genuinely Christian life, says James, must be a transformed life. Again, Paul does not disagree: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10). The allotment of rewards may be of grace, for even our good deeds finally spring from God’s grace — but the deeds are not therefore less necessary.
-- by Don Carson, aka D.A. Carson

Extended Bonar Quote

2008-06-19T10:26:00.001-07:00

“The love of God to us, and our love to him, work together for producing holiness. Terror accomplishes no real obedience. Suspense brings forth no fruit unto holiness. No gloomy uncertainty as to God’s favor can subdue one lust, or correct our crookedness of will. But the free pardon of the cross uproots sin, and withers all its branches. Only the certainty of love, forgiving love, can do this.” Free and warm reception into the divine favour is the strongest of all motives in leading a man to seek conformity to Him who has thus freely forgiven him all trespasses. A cold admission into the paternal house by the father might have repelled the prodigal, and sent him back to his lusts; but the fervent kiss, the dear embrace, the best robe, the ring, the shoes, the fatted calf, the festal song,—all without one moment's suspense or delay, as well as without one upbraiding word, could not but awaken shame for the past, and true-hearted resolution to walk worthy of such a father, and of such a generous pardon. “Revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries,” come to be the abhorrence of him round whom the holy arms of renewed fatherhood have been so lovingly thrown. Sensuality, luxury, and the gaieties of the flesh have lost their relish to one who has tasted the fruit of the tree of life.

Horatius Bonar

2008-06-09T07:22:00.000-07:00

John Owen on Temptation & Watchfulness

2008-06-08T05:42:00.000-07:00

Watch the Heart
That part of watchfulness against temptation which we have considered
regards the outward means, occasions, and advantages of temptation; we
now proceed to that which respects the heart itself, which is wrought upon
and entangled by temptation. Watching or keeping of the heart, which above
all keepings we are obliged unto, comes within the compass of this duty also;
for the right performance whereof take these ensuing directions:
Let him that would not enter into temptations labor to know his own
heart, to be acquainted with his own spirit, his natural frame and temper, his
lusts and corruptions, his natural, sinful, or spiritual weaknesses, that, finding
where his weakness lies, he may be careful to keep at a distance from all
occasions of sin.

.....
Again: as men have peculiar natural tempers, which, according as they
are attended or managed, prove a great fomes (diseased material) of sin, or advantage to the
exercise of grace, so men may have peculiar lusts or corruptions, which, either
by their natural constitution or education, and other prejudices, have got deep
rooting and strength in them. This, also, is to be found out by him who would
not enter into temptation. Unless he know it, unless his eyes be always on it,
unless he observes its actings, motions, advantages, it will continually be
entangling and ensnaring of him. This, then, is our sixth direction in this kind:

Labor to know your own frame and temper;
what spirit you are of;
what associates in your heart Satan has;
where corruption is strong,
where grace is weak;
what stronghold lust has in your natural constitution,
and the like.

taken from around page 200 in Kapic & Taylor version of OWEN

Effectual Calling

2008-06-08T03:54:00.000-07:00

Original sin renders all human beings naturally dead (unresponsive) to God, but in effectual calling God quickens the dead.

Q. 31. What is effectual calling?
A. Effectual calling is the work of God's Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel.

with scripture references:
Effectual calling is the work of God's Spirit,¹ whereby, convincing us of our sin and misery,² enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ,³ and renewing our wills,⁴ he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel.⁵

2 Timothy 1:8-9. Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God; who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.
Ephesians 1:18-20. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places.

Acts 2:37. Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?

Acts 26:18. To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.

Ezekiel 11:19. And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36:26-27. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

John 6:44-45. No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day. It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.
Philippians 2:13. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
Deuteronomy 30:6. And the Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.
Ephesians 2:5. Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved).

Illumination

2008-06-08T03:47:00.000-07:00

ILLUMINATION
THE HOLY SPIRIT GIVES SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING
by J.I. Packer

The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 1 CORINTHIANS 2:14

The knowledge of divine things to which Christians are called is more than a formal acquaintance with biblical words and Christian ideas. It is a realizing of the reality and relevance of those activities of the triune God to which Scripture testifies. Such awareness is natural to none, familiar with Christian ideas though they may be (like “the man without the Spirit” in 1 Cor. 2:14 who cannot receive what Christians tell him, or the blind leaders of the blind of whom Jesus speaks so caustically in Matt. 15:14, or like Paul himself before Christ met him on the Damascus road). Only the Holy Spirit, searcher of the deep things of God (1 Cor. 2:10), can bring about this realization in our sin-darkened minds and hearts. That is why it is called “spiritual understanding” (spiritual means “Spirit-given,” Col. 1:9; cf. Luke 24:25; 1 John 5:20). Those who, along with sound verbal instruction, “have an anointing from the Holy One... know the truth” (1 John 2:20).

The work of the Spirit in imparting this knowledge is called “illumination,” or enlightening. It is not a giving of new revelation, but a work within us that enables us to grasp and to love the revelation that is there before us in the biblical text as heard and read, and as explained by teachers and writers. Sin in our mental and moral system clouds our minds and wills so that we miss and resist the force of Scripture. God seems to us remote to the point of unreality, and in the face of God’s truth we are dull and apathetic. The Spirit, however, opens and unveils our minds and attunes our hearts so that we understand (Eph. 1:17-18; 3:18-19; 2 Cor. 3:14-16; 4:6). As by inspiration he provided Scripture truth for us, so now by illumination he interprets it to us. Illumination is thus the applying of God’s revealed truth to our hearts, so that we grasp as reality for ourselves what the sacred text sets forth.

Illumination, which is a lifelong ministry of the Holy Spirit to Christians, starts before conversion with a growing grasp of the truth about Jesus and a growing sense of being measured and exposed by it. Jesus said that the Spirit would “convict the world” of the sin of not believing in him, of the fact that he was in the right with God the Father (as his welcome back to heaven proved), and of the reality of judgment both here and hereafter (John 16:8-11). This threefold conviction is still God’s means of making sin repulsive and Christ adorable in the eyes of persons who previously loved sin and cared nothing for the divine Savior.

The way to benefit fully from the Spirit’s ministry of illumination is by serious Bible study, serious prayer, and serious response in obedience to whatever truths one has been shown already. This corresponds to Luther’s dictum that three things make a theologian: oratio (prayer), meditatio (thinking in God’s presence about the text), and tentatio (trial, the struggle for biblical fidelity in the face of pressure to disregard what Scripture says).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Concise Theology: A Guide To Historic Christian Beliefs

Move, I beg You, upon my disordered heart

2008-06-02T18:24:00.001-07:00

(A Puritan Prayer)

O Holy Spirit,
Move, I beg You, upon my disordered heart.
Take away my unruly desires and hateful lusts.
Lift the mists and darkness of unbelief. Brighten
my soul with the pure light of truth. Make it . . .
fragrant as the garden of paradise,
rich with every goodly fruit,
beautiful with heavenly grace,
radiant with rays of divine light.
Be my . . .
comforter,
light,
guide,
sanctifier.

Take of the things of Christ and show them to my
soul. Through You may I daily learn more of His . . .
love,
grace,
compassion,
faithfulness,
beauty.
Lead me to the cross and show me . . .
His wounds,
the hateful nature of evil,
the power of Satan.

May I there see my sins as . . .
the nails which transfixed Him,
the cords which bound Him,
the thorns which tore Him,
the sword which pierced Him.

Help me to find in His death--the
reality and immensity of His love.

Open for me the wondrous volumes of truth in His
death. Increase my faith in the clear knowledge of . . .
atonement achieved,
redemption completed,
guilt done away,
my debt paid,
my sins forgiven,
my soul saved,
hell vanquished,
heaven opened,
eternity made mine.

O Holy Spirit, deepen in me these saving lessons.
Write them upon my heart, that my walk be . . .
sin-loathing,
sin-fleeing,
Christ-loving.

2008-06-02T07:09:00.000-07:00

After this introduction the apostle tells his Roman readers frankly of his feelings towards them. He makes four points.

1). He thanks God for them all (8).
Allowing for a degree of legitimate hyperbole, it is still true that wherever the church has spread, the news that there were Christians in the capital had spread also. And although Paul had not been responsible for bringing the gospel to them, this did not inhibit him from giving thanks that Rome had been evangelized.

2). He prays for them. (9-10).
In Paul’s apostolic ministry, preaching and praying go together. He assures them that, even though most of them are unknown to him personally, he yet intercedes for them *constantly* (9) and *at all times* (10a). This is no pious platitude. He is telling the truth, and calls on God to witness his statement. In particular, he prays that *now at last by God’s will*, that is, if it is his will, *the way may be opened* for him to come to them (10b). It is a humble, tentative petition. He presumes neither to impose his will on God, nor claim to know what God’s will may be. Instead, he submits his will to God’s. When we reach chapter 15, we will consider how his prayer was answered.

3). He longs to see them and tells them why. (11-12).
His first reason is this: *so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift (charisma) to make you strong* (11). At first sight it seems natural to interpret such a gift as one of those *charismata* which Paul listed in 1 Corinthians 12 and will list later in Romans 12 and Ephesians 4. There seems to be a fatal objection to this, however; namely that in those other passages the gifts are bestowed by the sovereign decision of God (Rom. 12:6), Christ (Eph. 4:11) or the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:11). So the apostle could hardly claim to be able to ‘impart’ a *charisma* himself. He appears therefore to be using the word in a more general sense. Perhaps he is referring to his own teaching or exhortation, which he hopes to give them when he arrives, although there is ‘an intentional indefiniteness’ about his statement, perhaps because at this stage he does not know what their main spiritual needs will be.
No sooner has he dictated these words than he seems to sense their inappropriate one-sidedness, as if he has everything to give and nothing to receive. So he immediately explains (even corrects) himself: *that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith* (12). He knows about the reciprocal blessings of Christian fellowship and, although he is an apostle, he is not too proud to acknowledge his need of it. Happy is the modern missionary who goes to another country and culture in the same spirit of receptivity, anxious to receive as well as give, to learn as well as teach, to be encouraged as well as to encourage! And happy is the congregation who have a pastor of the same humble mind!.

4). He has often planned to visit them. (13).
Exactly what has foiled him he does not say. Perhaps the most likely explanation is the one he will mention towards the end of his letter, namely that his evangelistic work in and around Greece had not yet been completed (15:22ff.). Why had he tried to visit them? He now gives a third reason: *in order that I might have (RSV ‘reap’) a harvest among you*. ‘Harvest’ is literally ‘fruit’, and John Murray rightly comments: ‘The idea expressed is that of gathering fruit, not that of bearing it.’ In other words he hopes to win some converts in Rome, *just as...among other Gentiles* (13). It would surely be appropriate that the apostle to the Gentiles should engage in evangelistic reaping in the capital city of the Gentile world.
-------------------------

Jesus Gets & Fills My Heart

2008-05-13T06:42:00.000-07:00

i had the HARDEST time getting these lyrics... had to email dude personally... so want them available to more... (buy the album, this song and couple others are worth it)

None Among
From the album All I Owe, available at www.matthewsmith.us
Words by John Berridge and Matthew S. Smith, Music by Matthew S. Smith
© 2006 Detuned Radio Music (ASCAP)

1. When by faith my Lord I see,
Bleeding on a cross for me
Quick my idols all depart,
Jesus gets and fills my heart

Chorus
None among the sons of men, none among the heavenly train
Can with Jesus then compare, none so sweet, none so fair

2. Soon my tongue would fain express
All His love and loveliness
But I lisp and falter forth
Broken words, not half His worth

Bridge
Oh I try and try again, still my efforts are in vain
And I know, despite my pride, that His truth will still remain
Idols crowd my heart and mind and demand I shed my blood
But the Lord, the risen Christ has secured me in the flood
Has secured me in the flood

2008-05-09T06:53:00.000-07:00

excerpts from Piper's amazing chapter on power of Word in our fight for joy in his book WHEN I DON"T DESIRE GOD

Oh, how precious is the Bible! Here is where we see God most clearly and most surely.

To be sure, in the fight for joy we will not kneel forever over our

Bibles. We will get up and walk with Jesus onto the Calvary road. And

there, in the risks and the afflictions of love, we will see the Jesus of the Word in the manifestations of power. This too is part of our joy.

We need the Word of God not only to see God in the Word, but to see him rightly anywhere else.

I want to stress that ultimately, in and through all its benefits,

the Bible leads us to superior and lasting joy because it leads us to Christ, especially to see his glory and enjoy his fellowship. All the varied benefits are beneficial finally because they show us and bring us more of Christ to enjoy.

the Spirit binds his faithwakening ministry to the Christ-exalting Word. Which means that when we go to the Word of Christ, we put ourselves in the path of the

Spirit’s willingness to reveal Christ to us and strengthen our faith.

If we want more of the Spirit of God, we must hear more of the Word of God with faith. We must hear his promises, see their blood-bought certainty, value their goodness, and bank on them. That is the way God supplies more of his Spirit. The command in Ephesians 5:18-19, “Be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in

psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,” is parallel with the command

in Colossians 3:16, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching

and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and

hymns and spiritual songs.” Being filled with the Word of Christ and

being filled with the Spirit of Christ are almost the same, because the

Spirit comes with joy where the Word is embraced with faith.

We may lack hope because we think we need something we do not need. It may take the Word of God to show us what we really need, and then to give us the power to get it. In the end what we really need is Christ. He is the sum of all our hopes. Paul commends the Thessalonians for their “steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ”

(1 Thess. 1:3). He says that our “blessed hope [is] the appearing of the

glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Tit. 2:13). Therefore

we are to “hope in Christ” (Eph. 1:12) and rejoice in the mystery of the

gospel, which is “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27).

Sometimes what we need from the Bible is not the fulfillment of our

dream, but the swallowing up of our failed dream in the all-satisfying

glory of Christ. We do not always know the path of deepest joy. But all

Scripture is inspired by God to take us there. Therefore Scripture is

worth more than all this world can offer.

the impurity of sin so distorts our perception that we cannot see God as desirable. Therefore sin makes the greatest joys impossible.

" . . . we bring the power of the Spirit into vigorous, sin-killing action by hearing with faith. Hearing what? The Word of God. Therefore, the way we destroy deceitful, joy-killing desires that threaten to overwhelm us with destructive cravings is to hear and believe the Word of God when it says that he and his ways are more to be desired than all that sin can offer" (105).

Oh, how many people in our world glory in their shame and relish poisonous pleasures!

the power of sin comes from its promise of pleasure and is meant to be defeated by the blood-bought promise of superior pleasure in God, not by raw human willpower.

The fight for joy is the fight to see and believe Christ as more to be desired than the promises of sin. This faith and sight come by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. We look to the Word, we ponder, and we plead with God that the eyes of our hearts would be opened to

see the superior glory and joy. This pleading is so important we will devote the whole of Chapter Nine to it. But suffice it to say for now that we are utterly dependent on the Spirit to make the promises of God more desirable to us than the promises of sin. And for that vital eye-opening,heart-changing work we pray every day.

-- all quotes not marked are from J.Piper

life of parent of teenager

2008-04-25T20:18:00.000-07:00
well... while i wait for my son to come home i had a chance to clean out some old stacked up paper... came across John Piper's lecture on John Newton.... man was I grabbed and helped by the one footnote my eyes fell upon... containing these words:

the question: "Why does the Lord permit some of his people to suffer such violent assaults from the powers of darkness" ?
--not to gratify Satan, but
-- to humble and prove His people;
-- to show His children what is in their hearts,
-- to make them truly sensible of their immediate and absolute dependence upon him and
-- to quicken them if to watchfulness and prayer"

He goes on to suggest that another design (of God) of temptation is "for the manifestation of his power, and wisdom, and grace, in supporting the soul under such pressures as are evidently beyond its own strength to sustain"

RP: I read this to mean that God uses our struggles & temptations to show how HE -- and not our wit or strength-- is our sustaining strength. He gets all the glory. I get humbled, and the opportunity to praise and worship my Savior God.

the whole footnote is here

full footnote on temptation's use in believer's life

2008-04-25T20:14:00.000-07:00
Another example of the limits of this age that make us patient with people's failings is the God-ordained necessity of temptations. He asks, "Why the Lord permits some of his people to suffer such violent assaults from the powers of darkness" (The Works of the Rev. John Newton, Vol. 1, 226). "Though the Lord sets such bounds to [Satan's] rage as he cannot pass, and limits him both as to manner and time, he is often pleased to suffer him to discover his malice to a considerable degree; not to gratify Satan, but to humble and prove them; to show them what is in their hearts, to make them truly sensible of their immediate and absolute dependence upon him [see p. 232], and to quicken them if to watchfulness and prayer" (p. 227). He goes on to suggest that another design of temptation is "for the manifestation of his power, and wisdom, and grace, in supporting the soul under such pressures as are evidently beyond its own strength to sustain" (p. 228). He gives Job as an illustration: "the experiment answered many good purposes: Job was humbled, yet approved; his friends were instructed; Satan was confuted, and disappointed; and the wisdom and mercy of the Lord, in his darkest dispensations toward his people, were gloriously illustrated" (p. 228). If the Lord has any children who are not exercised with spiritual temptations, I am sure they are but poorly qualified to 'speak a word in season to them that are weary'" (p. 231). ---taken from John Piper's incredible lecture on life of john newton

Spurgeon Morning April 25

2008-04-25T05:46:00.000-07:00
"Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away."—Song of Solomon 2:10.
LO, I hear the voice of my Beloved! He speaks to me! Fair weather is smiling upon the face of the earth, and He would not have me spiritually asleep while nature is all around me awaking from her winter's rest. He bids me "Rise up," and well He may, for I have long enough been lying among the pots of worldliness. He is risen, I am risen in Him, why then should I cleave unto the dust? From lower loves, desires, pursuits, and aspirations, I would rise towards Him. He calls me by the sweet title of "My love," and counts me fair; this is a good argument for my rising. If He has thus exalted me, and thinks me thus comely, how can I linger in the tents of Kedar and find congenial associates among the sons of men? He bids me "Come away." Further and further from everything selfish, grovelling, worldly, sinful, He calls me; yea, from the outwardly religious world which knows Him not, and has no sympathy with the mystery of the higher life, He calls me. "Come away" has no harsh sound in it to my ear, for what is there to hold me in this wilderness of vanity and sin? O my Lord, would that I could come away, but I am taken among the thorns, and cannot escape from them as I would. I would, if it were possible, have neither eyes, nor ears, nor heart for sin. Thou callest me to Thyself by saying "Come away," and this is a melodious call indeed. To come to Thee is to come home from exile, to come to land out of the raging storm, to come to rest after long labour, to come to the goal of my desires and the summit of my wishes. But Lord, how can a stone rise, how can a lump of clay come away from the horrible pit? O raise me, draw me. Thy grace can do it. Send forth Thy Holy Spirit to kindle sacred flames of love in my heart, and I will continue to rise until I leave life and time behind me, and indeed come away.

cover letter for FAQ sheet

2008-04-16T10:14:00.001-07:00

Dear Christ Community,

In 1997 God, through His Church, brought me and my wife and two year old Andrew to Gainesville. I was funded, charged, and envisioned by the North Florida Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) to establish--from the ground up and in the power of the gospel-- a new congregation in Southwest Gainesville.

During the past 10 years there have been more highs and lows, joys and sorrows, victories and defeats than I can mention here. But the overwhelming theme of our corporate song has been the faithfulness of God. He has shown us time and time again that nothing will stop Him from building His Church. It has been a wild ride to be carried by the frightening and faithful God.

Christ Community, you have taken some big steps in the past three years: hiring Frank Matthews as Associate Pastor, pledging in Journey of Faith to give 1.28 million above & beyond your regular giving, electing and ordaining elders from our midst, moving to two morning services to accommodate growth and reach more people. And these are just a sampling. I am sure most of you could provide your own verse to that song.

Well, the next big step is here! We stand, as a church family, on the brink of our next opportunity to catch our breath, gulp, pray, and fling ourselves toward our mission in faith. Your elders believe that God is calling us to borrow up to $1.8 million to build a facility and renovate our church house on Parker Road. And we are bringing it to you for a vote. Please join me in focused prayer towards the congregational meeting of April 27th. Enclosed is what we hope will be helpful & envisioning information for you.

Again, let me express what a joy it is to serve among a bunch like you... a people who know they have a great need for a Savior and who are finding out, with me, that we have a great Savior for our need.

In Christ, and for the session,

Rob

Sermon on Food, extended post

2008-04-05T13:49:00.000-07:00
AT first hearing it seems weird. You almost wonder... how will I come up with much to say. Then you start thinking about it... and thumbing through your bible... and you are at the other end of the spectrum saying, "a sermon about food??" ... shouldn't it be a sermon SERIES on food.

One day it may be, or at least a break-out class or seminar. Close parenthesis.

What about all the things that I simply CANNOT address in one brief sermon? As I've had discussions with people about food it seems that certain issues and ideas emerge. Each of them is, at least for some of us, loaded with emotion and questions.

Things like:
What i cannot talk about today:
anorexia, bulimia, binge eating or drinking, the goodness of wine, world hunger, can you pray with integrity for God to bless a fast-food meal? These and many more...

But I can't just say that I won't say ANYTHING about these things.... I got an email from a friend who wisely stated on this topic:
we have lost our way regarding food and that this shows up in many ways. I see it in everything from our vast consumption of "fast foods" and all that this says about how we live through our obsession with diets and with exercise programs and devices through various forms of disordered eating that can become very serious, through to the fact that the eating channel has now become a primetime competitor with leading cable channels. The food channel has some merits, for sure, (it is one of my personal favorites) but it is also curious to see that we now have a "food as spectacle and obsession" phenomenon.

You can get a large audience together for a striptease act--that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you come to a country where you could fill a theatre by simply bringing a covered plate on to the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let every one see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food? CS LEWIS

(What Lewis could only imagine... we have on our TV's!) All Emeril need do is mention garlic and the crowd whoops and hollers.
In other words, there are real expressions in contemporary culture of where our fallenness has taken us....encourage people to seek help for themselves and friends where the problems become overwhelming. "Don't let yourself get isolated in these struggles. These are not other people's problems, they are ours, and we need to learn better how to be there for each other and be open about these struggles, whatever form they may take."

Well said. Don't struggle alone. This week it is eating. Next week working. April 20 is sleeping. Each of these can be the source of great joy and sorrow. It is vital to look at your failures in each area in the shadow of the cross of Christ. And not just in the shadow of the cross, but with your friends in that shadow... not alone.

Enjoying Wine

2008-04-05T12:17:00.000-07:00

Enjoying Wine by Douglas Jones

Wine is quite a miracle. It's something like the birth of a child. A man and woman mix and then create a being wholly distinct from themselves, yet with deep family traits—new and yet the same. A ripe grape contains two parts, unmarried—an interior sugar juice and an exterior skin full of yeast. But if you marry and mix these parts by crushing a grape, it will start toward creating wine, a third distinct thing, new and yet the same—a "wine that maketh glad the heart of man" (Ps. 104:15). In meditating on Christ's miracle of creating wine, Augustine lamented that we accept normal wine creation as any less miraculous, for even as water "turned into wine by the doing of the Lord, so in like manner also is what the clouds pour forth changed into wine by the doing of the same Lord. It has lost its marvellousness by its constant recurrence."
From the simple miracle of fermentation, we gain all the wonderful wine varieties of the world. In broadest strokes, wine has been divided into three general groups: table wines, sparkling wines, and dessert wines. Sparkling wines start with the same process of mixing sugar and yeast, a process which produces about equal parts carbon dioxide and alcohol. If you let the carbon dioxide escape, you move down the road of creating normal wine. If you trap that gas, you get sparkling wines, such as Champagne (French) and Spumanti (Italian).
Dessert wines, on the other hand, such as Ports and Sherries, start down the normal path, but then get fortified somewhat artificially by adding other spirits, raising both the alcohol and sugar levels. Port and other dessert wines have many fans, but I don't count myself one of them (an understatement). They lack the natural beauty and mystery of normal table wines, as well as the fact that Ports only got their push as a spite to the French during an English-French war.
The broad category of table wines divides into red and white wines, a difference that does not result from the color of the actual juice of a grape. All wines start out with clear juice. The color enters from the length of time the juice is allowed to mix with the skins. If the time is longer, then you create red wines; if shorter, then white wines.
Red and white wines divide into several major groups. Both red and white wines are now more often named for the particular grape variety in question, such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay, etc. Other wines are more generic blends of several grapes, such as Chablis, Burgundy, Rose, etc. For simplicity's sake, this division between varietal (particular grape) and nonvarietal (more generic blends) is found in both red and white wines. Among red wines, the world's favorite varietal has long been Cabernet Sauvignon. The other prominent red varietals are Pinot Noir, Merlot, Zinfandel, and Gamay. Among white wines, the world's favorite varietal has proven to be Chardonnay, with Riesling, Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, and Gewurtztraminer also standing tall. Various mixes and cheats also make the rounds, including such market driven inventions as White Zinfandel, a sugary, cinderella wine invented because Americans used to only like white wines, but California had an abundance of straight Zinfandel vineyards.
Enjoying wine involves experimenting with all its varieties, and the most interesting feature of enjoying wine is combining multiple senses—sight, smell, taste, and touch. We miss out on some of the best parts of wine if we concentrate only on the taste.
Sight: When you take a glass of wine, stare at it for a while before you do anything else. We don't have to be experts to enjoy its color, though color can tell the experts much about many details of the particular harvest, age, etc. Examine the wine from all sides. Is it clear or cloudy, bright or dull? More mature red wines will appear slightly orange along the edge. You can enjoy color best against a white background. Perhaps most important for delighting in the color is to use real wine glasses—thin, clear bowls on stems. Thick or colored or clouded goblets diminish the joy and elegance of seeing wine.
Smell: Then swirl the wine in the glass to release and intensify the bouquet. Place your nose deeply into the glass and inhale deeply and meditate. Supposedly, the human nose can identify up to 10,000 different smells, good and bad. Professional tasters say they learn the most from smell, insights about character, origin, and history. But for the pure enjoyment, aromas connect powerfully with our minds and memory. Notice how much emphasis the Song of Solomon places on the delights of perfume.
Taste: Finally, you can taste the wine itself. Take a sip and let it roll around your mouth for ten seconds or so. Sense it against all parts of the tongue and cheeks. They say the tongue senses four fundamental tastes: sweet, astringency (bitterness), sour, and acidity (saltiness). Our tongue tip senses sweet and salty. The sides of our tongue senses sour and salty, and the back does bitterness, with the center actually being the least sensitive. Try them all and compare wine to wine.
Touch: This also involves the tongue. How does the wine sit? Is it heavy or light, airy or smooth? Temperature plays here as well. Red wines do best at room temperature and not cooled, whereas some whites do a little better cooled. Temperature can greatly affect taste. Some reds accidentally refrigerated can taste like vinegar. Learn to enjoy room-temperature reds.
Many books are commonly available which can provide much more depth. Christ created a high-quality wine, and so we should at least be able to tell the difference as we obey the divine command, "Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works" (Eccl. 9:7).

Grace in Trials

2008-04-01T09:56:00.001-07:00
Father of mercies,
Hear me for Jesus' sake.
I am sinful even in ....

Giver of all graces,
I look to thee for strength to maintain them in me,
for it is hard to practice what I believe.
Strengthen me against temptations.

My heart is an unexhausted fountain of sin,
a river of corruption since childhood days,
flowing on in every pattern of behavior.

Congregational Letter about March 30

2008-03-20T07:26:00.000-07:00

March 19, 2008
Dear Christ Community Church Family,

One year ago we spent 2 months as a church asking God to:
· Secure us in His love

· Guide us in our role in sacrificing to build a facility

It was a highlight time for many of us. I don’t think we have ever been tighter as a community. Our Father enabled us to trust Him and pledge to give $1.2 million during a 3-year commitment from April 2007 to April 2010. As encouraging as that was, the 78% participation rate, was my most personally encouraging number. We were all stunned and overjoyed!

During the first year of our “above tithe” giving to Journey of Faith, God and you have been faithful and we have corporately given $485,000. This has radically and positively affected the amount of money that we are in need of borrowing to begin construction. Thank you!! And praise God!

Not only has there been tremendous progress toward building from a financial standpoint but also a great deal has been accomplished in other areas during the last few months. Our building plans have received final approval from Alachua County, our general contractor has begun receiving bids from several sub-contractors, and the loan-seeking progress is reaching a conclusion. All of this is possible because of your faith and continued response.

We have much to give thanks for and celebrate. God has been good to us.

I want to make certain that you are aware of what is happening on Sunday, March 30^th.

Both the 9:00 & 10:45 worship services will include:

· Children of CCC coming forward to formally give the money they’ve been collecting all year

· Re-commitments from all who made initial commitments in 2007

· New commitments from all who are newer to Christ Community Church

Enclosed is one pledge card that will serve all of us. Some will use one side to make a re-commitment and some will use the other side to make a 1^st time commitment.

Also, during our “Live Together Time” between services, we will be enjoying a Micro Fiesta complete with cake, punch, and piñatas for the children. This is a wonderful day to bring friends along to help give them a sense of what Christ is doing in our midst. There will also be artist’s renderings and floor plans of the new facilities on display.

Grace to you,
Rob

Packer & SmartyPants notions of substitutionary atonement

2008-03-08T11:09:00.000-08:00
It is impossible to focus the atonement properly until the biblical mode of Trinitarian and incarnational thought about Jesus Christ is embraced. The Trinitarian principle is that the three distinct persons within the divine unity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, always work inseparably together, as in creation, so in providence and in every aspect of the work of redemption. The incarnational principle is that when the Son took to himself all the powers and capacities for experience that belong to human nature, and began to live through his human body, mind, and identity, his sense of being the Father’s Son was unaffected, and he knew and did his Father’s will, aided by the Spirit, at all times. It was with his own will and his own love mirroring the Father’s, therefore, that he took the place of human sinners exposed to divine judgment and laid down his life as a sacrifice for them, entering fully into the state and experience of death that was due to them. Then he rose from death to reign by the Father’s appointment in the kingdom of God. From his throne he sent the Spirit to induce faith in himself and in the saving work he had done, to communicate forgiveness and pardon, justification and adoption, to the penitent, and to unite all believers to himself to share his risen life in foretaste of the full life of heaven that is to come. Since all this was planned by the holy Three in their eternal solidarity of mutual love, and since the Father’s central purpose in it all was and is to glorify and exalt the Son as Saviour and Head of a new humanity, smartypants notions like “divine child abuse”, as a comment on the cross, are supremely silly, and as irrelevant and wrong as they could possibly be. JI PACKER

Freedom to love

2008-02-28T06:11:00.000-08:00

A joyless bondage if deeply desired is still a joyless bondage | by Andrée Seu

One cannot love unless one is free. One cannot be free apart from consciousness, in the moment, of being enveloped in God's love. (Oh, for freedom!) This is the whole of the matter. The rest is details.

The freedom I mean is freedom from need. All the business in the songs of "Does he need me?" and "I need him to need me" has to go. It is abject bondage and misery. The horrifying thing is that those in this bondage don't see it as bondage. Or more inscrutably, those who see it as bondage want it anyway. Those in bondage choose it. They would kill to have it.

This curiosity of human nature (It must baffle the angels no end. The only way I can write about it is as a privy insider to the infected race, testifying personally to the truth of what would otherwise be too mad too contemplate.) is partly explained as a failure of imagination. Morally, it is a failure of faith. The offer of real joy is repeatedly extended from heaven; the creature repeatedly rejects it.

A woman loved her husband but felt he did not love her back. He had other interests besides her—like friends, or reading a book. She cooked and cleaned and worked her fingers to the bone for him, to get his attention. She had little "pep talks" with him to urge the seriousness of her plight. She interspersed these with the "silent treatment." Nothing availed.

The husband tried to reassure her. She was not reassured. He kept trying till, over the years, he became a defeated shadow of a man. Ironically, her happiest times were these, for at least she knew by his deep sighing that he was paying attention to her, that he was thinking of her. And when he was thinking of her, she knew she existed.

It's a wonder to me that anyone at all can manage to love even half badly. What but a hand grenade of grace thrown into her profound solipsism can show the woman what she is doing? Her strategies are darkness. They do not produce what she intends, but the opposite. Plead with her from the light, and paint pictures of the joy of freedom, but she will block her ears and shut her eyes, for light understands the darkness, but the darkness doesn't comprehend the light.

But let us imagine better possibilities, things pertaining to salvation (Hebrews 6:9):

The woman, after all this, receives unmerited favor from above. The light that has often tried to break in upon her, she one day sees and rather than refusing it again, seizes it. The hardest part is this first crossing of the great divide. She believes and surrenders to the love of the Trinitarian God. What she thought would kill her does not.

The idea of God's love begins to dominate her life. Out of it flow new adventures. Because she is loved, accepted, cherished, delighted in, by a Lover who will never leave her or forsake her, or be distracted from her, or too busy for her—a Lover who not only doesn't mind her barging in, but insists on it as a much desired daily rendezvous—she finds inner resources.

She is able to ask forgiveness of her mate, even in cases where the fault is not mainly hers, and even if he does not admit blame. She is able to overlook unintentionally hurtful remarks because she is confident in her status with her Lover—"The King is enthralled by your beauty" (Psalm 45:11). She is able to overlook deliberately hurtful remarks because she has behaved that way herself, and so knows the misery of its origin and is pained into praying for her mate's release. She "believes all things" about her mate and is able to visualize his future glory, when all blemishes will be removed to release the real saint.

Heaven has already begun. Already all our needs are met, and we can love because we don't need. We can also have a joy that is not hostage to another's insistence on misery. Already "the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining" (1 John 2:8). Why wait another hour? "For freedom Christ has set us free" (Galatians 5:1).

If you have a question or comment for Andrée Seu, send it to aseu@worldmag.com

Copyright © 2008 WORLD Magazine
February 09, 2008, Vol. 23, No. 3

2008-02-21T07:57:00.001-08:00
Jesus will now perform another miracle–feeding a
multitude of people out in the wilderness. This miracle will demonstrate what has been hinted at all
along–Jesus is not only the new Moses, the consummate covenant mediator who will lead his people in a
New Exodus, but when Jesus provides the people of Israel with a miraculous provision of food in the
wilderness, this is a foreshadowing of the long-promised messianic feast and a sure sign that Jesus is
much greater than Elijah and far more than a prophet. Jesus is Israel’s Messiah who has come to lead his
people in a new Exodus. The New Israel will eat bread in the desert and be well-satisfied.

Who was St. Valentine?

2008-02-14T05:02:00.000-08:00

It would be nice to know the true story of Saint Valentine, but alas, it seems to have been lost somewhere in the mists of history. Hard facts are hard to come by. According to Catholic Online, “Valentine was a holy priest in Rome, who, with St. Marius and his family, assisted the martyrs in the persecution under Claudius II. He was apprehended, and sent by the emperor to the prefect of Rome,” where he was beaten with clubs and beheaded. This happened in the year A.D. 270 (although not necessarily on February 14, as one might have expected).

That much is probably true, but what’s love got to do with it? According to legend, Claudius had Valentine killed because he continued to marry young couples in secret even after the emperor had forbidden it, possibly because he wanted Roman soldiers to remain single. Because of his defiance to the emperor’s anti-marriage agenda, Valentine became the Patron Saint of Lovers.

This is not the only version of the story, however. Early manuscripts mention at least three different Saint Valentines, all of them martyrs. One is said to have been a third-century priest in Rome, another to have been a bishop from somewhere else, and a third to have come from somewhere in Africa.

According to one version of the story, Valentine antagonized the Roman Emperor by preaching the gospel and by giving aid to the victims of imperial persecution. He was arrested and thrown in prison. There—according to yet another legend—he fell in love with the jailor’s daughter. Some say that he cured her of her blindness. Others tell a similar story in connection with the imprisonment of Charles, Duke of Orleans, in 1415. But in any case, the story ends with the doomed lover pouring out his love to his beloved in passionate epistles, and before his execution sending one final letter, signed “From Your Valentine.”

There are also various explanations as to why Valentine’s Day should be associated with February 14. Some people say this tradition goes back to Roman times, and that it is connected to the erotic Roman festival of Lupercalia, when sexual partners would be drawn by lottery. Celebrating Valentine’s Day was the church’s attempt to sanctify this pagan revel. Others say the custom did not arise until the Middle Ages, when the middle of February was considered to be the time when songbirds began to pair off. As Geoffrey Chaucer has it in his Parliament of Fools:

For this was sent on Saint Valentine’s Day
When every fowl cometh there to choose his mate.

There is, of course, nothing sacred about celebrating Valentine’s Day. On the one hand, the day does have its virtues. Certainly it must be said that most men need every encouragement to show tangible affection to the women they love. Are you surprised to learn that of the one billion Valentine cards that are exchanged each year, 83% of them are purchased by women? Not if you’ve been paying attention, you’re not. What could be more useful, therefore, than a holiday that encourages men to show a little romance?

Since at least the Fourteenth Century, Valentine’s Day has been an occasion for sending letters, flowers, and other tokens of personal affection. In the 1840’s people started sending commercially made Valentine’s Day cards, and in more recent times, it has become common to give jewelry and chocolates. Far be it from me or anyone else who wants people to stay in love to discourage these expressions of affection.

On the other hand, Valentine’s Day can be one of the hardest holidays of the year for people who get overlooked. At the same time that it embraces some people, Valentine’s Day gives other people the cold shoulder. And when romance is in the air, it is painfully isolating to be left out. So Valentine’s Day is a mixed blessing, at best.

Yet perhaps we can still make good use of the holiday by reflecting on some of its noble virtues. Whether they are true or not, the legends about Saint Valentine have a moral purpose.

Some of these legends encourage us to defend marriage. What threatens this God-given institution today is not some imperial edict, but the open acceptance of sexual relationships—whether heterosexual or homosexual—outside the sacred bonds of marriage. Valentine’s Day is a good time to remember that marriage is a gift from God, and that it consists of one man living in a love covenant with one woman for life (see Gen. 2:24; Mal. 2:14–16).

Other Valentine legends promote sexual purity. Today sexual partners are not determined by lottery, but given the casual coupling that goes on in some communities, they might as well be. As we live in this sexually self-destructive and pornographic society, we long for the union of passion and purity that makes for the truest romance. Valentine’s Day is a good time to remember that we were not made to engage “in sexual immorality and sensuality,” but to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (see Rom. 13:13–14).

Finally, the martyrdom of Saint Valentine encourages us to live for Christ, even to the point of sacrifice. Nowhere is this more necessary than in our romantic relationships. Especially for those of us who are husbands (or preparing to be husbands), Valentine’s Day is a good time to remember that we are called to love others more than ourselves, and to give ourselves in love through daily deeds of sacrificial service.

To think about these noble virtues is to be reminded of Jesus Christ, the lover of our souls. “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). --Phil Ryken of tenth pres. in philly

2008-02-07T06:53:00.000-08:00
http://womentodaymagazine.com/family/difficult.html

Keller, preaching hell to broad-minded

2008-01-19T16:51:00.000-08:00

Preaching Hell in a Tolerant Age
Brimstone for the broad-minded.

by Tim Keller

The young man in my office was impeccably dressed and articulate. He was an Ivy League MBA, successful in the financial world, and had lived in three countries before age 30. Raised in a family with only the loosest connections to a mainline church, he had little understanding of Christianity.

I was therefore gratified to learn of his intense spiritual interest, recently piqued as he attended our church. He said he was ready to embrace the gospel. But there was a final obstacle.

"You've said that if we do not believe in Christ," he said, "we are lost and condemned. I'm sorry, I just cannot buy that. I work with some fine people who are Muslim, Jewish, or agnostic. I cannot believe they are going to hell just because they don't believe in Jesus. In fact, I cannot reconcile the very idea of hell with a loving God—even if he is holy too."

This young man expressed what may be the main objection contemporary secular people make to the Christian message. (A close second, in my experience, is the problem of suffering and evil.) Moderns reject the idea of final judgment and hell.

Thus, it's tempting to avoid such topics in our preaching. But neglecting the unpleasant doctrines of the historic faith will bring about counter-intuitive consequences. There is an ecological balance to scriptural truth that must not be disturbed.

If an area is rid of its predatory or undesirable animals, the balance of that environment may be so upset that the desirable plants and animals are lost—through overbreeding with a limited food supply. The nasty predator that was eliminated actually kept in balance the number of other animals and plants necessary to that particular ecosystem. In the same way, if we play down "bad" or harsh doctrines within the historic Christian faith, we will find, to our shock, that we have gutted all our pleasant and comfortable beliefs, too.

The loss of the doctrine of hell and judgment and the holiness of God does irreparable damage to our deepest comforts—our understanding of God's grace and love and of our human dignity and value to him. To preach the good news, we must preach the bad.

But in this age of tolerance, how?

How to preach hell to traditionalists
Before preaching on the subject of hell, I must recognize that today, a congregation is made up of two groups: traditionalists and postmoderns. The two hear the message of hell completely differently.

People from traditional cultures and mindsets tend to have (a) a belief in God, and (b) a strong sense of moral absolutes and the obligation to be good. These people tend to be older, from strong Catholic or religious Jewish backgrounds, from conservative evangelical/Pentecostal Protestant backgrounds, from the southern U.S., and first-generation immigrants from non-European countries.

The way to show traditional persons their need for the gospel is by saying, "Your sin separates you from God! You can't be righteous enough for him." Imperfection is the duty-worshiper's horror. Traditionalists are motivated toward God by the idea of punishment in hell. They sense the seriousness of sin.

But traditionalists may respond to the gospel only out of fear of hell, unless I show them Jesus experienced not only pain in general on the cross but hell in particular. This must be held up until they are attracted to Christ for the beauty of the costly love of what he did. To the traditional person, hell must be preached as the only way to know how much Christ loved you.

If we play down harsh doctrines,
we will gut our pleasant and
comfortable beliefs too.

Here is one way I have preached this:

"Unless we come to grips with this terrible doctrine, we will never even begin to understand the depths of what Jesus did for us on the cross. His body was being destroyed in the worst possible way, but that was a flea bite compared to what was happening to his soul. When he cried out that his God had forsaken him, he was experiencing hell itself.

"If a mild acquaintance denounces you and rejects you—that hurts. If a good friend does the same—the hurt's far worse. However, if your spouse walks out on you, saying, 'I never want to see you again,' that is far more devastating still. The longer, deeper, and more intimate the relationship, the more torturous is any separation.

"But the Son's relationship with the Father was beginning-less and infinitely greater than the most intimate and passionate human relationship. When Jesus was cut off from God, he went into the deepest pit and most powerful furnace, beyond all imagining. And he did it voluntarily, for us."

How to preach hell to postmoderns
In contrast to the traditionalist, the postmodern person is hostile to the very idea of hell. People with more secular and postmodern mindsets tend to have (a) only a vague belief in the divine, if at all, and (b) little sense of moral absolutes, but rather a sense they need to be true to their dreams. They tend to be younger, from nominal Catholic or non-religious Jewish backgrounds, from liberal mainline Protestant backgrounds, from the western and northeastern U. S., and Europeans.

When preaching hell to people of this mindset, I've found I must make four arguments.

1. Sin is slavery. I do not define sin as just breaking the rules, but also as "making something besides God our ultimate value and worth." These good things, which become gods, will drive us relentlessly, enslaving us mentally and spiritually, even to hell forever if we let them.

I say, "You are actually being religious, though you don't know it—you are trying to find salvation through worshiping things that end up controlling you in a destructive way." Slavery is the choice-worshiper's horror.

C. S. Lewis's depictions of hell are important for postmodern people. In The Great Divorce, Lewis describes a busload of people from hell who come to the outskirts of heaven. There they are urged to leave behind the sins that have trapped them in hell. The descriptions Lewis makes of people in hell are so striking because we recognize the denial and self-delusion of substance addictions. When addicted to alcohol, we are miserable, but we blame others and pity ourselves; we do not take responsibility for our behavior nor see the roots of our problem.

Lewis writes, "Hell … begins with a grumbling mood, and yourself still distinct from it: perhaps even criticizing it…. You can repent and come out of it again. But there may come a day when you can do that no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even enjoy it, but just the grumble itself going on forever like a machine."

Modern people struggle with the idea of God thinking up punishments to inflict on disobedient people. When sin is seen as slavery, and hell as the freely chosen, eternal skid row of the universe, hell becomes much more comprehensible.

Here is an example from a recent sermon of how I try to explain this:

"First, sin separates us from the presence of God (Isa. 59:2), which is the source of all joy (Ps. 16:11), love, wisdom, or good thing of any sort (James 1:17)….

"Second, to understand hell we must understand sin as slavery. Romans 1:21-25 tells us that we were built to live for God supremely, but instead we live for love, work, achievement, or morality to give us meaning and worth. Thus every person, religious or not, is worshiping something—idols, pseudo-saviors—to get their worth. But these things enslave us with guilt (if we fail to attain them) or anger (if someone blocks them from us) or fear (if they are threatened) or drivenness (since we must have them). Guilt, anger, and fear are like fire that destroys us. Sin is worshiping anything but Jesus—and the wages of sin is slavery."

Perhaps the greatest paradox of all is that the people on Lewis's bus from hell are enslaved because they freely choose to be. They would rather have their freedom (as they define it) than salvation. Their relentless delusion is that if they glorified God, they would lose their human greatness (Gen. 3:4-5), but their choice has really ruined their human greatness. Hell is, as Lewis says, "the greatest monument to human freedom."

2. Hell is less exclusive than so-called tolerance. Nothing is more characteristic of the modern mindset than the statement: "I think Christ is fine, but I believe a devout Muslim or Buddhist or even a good atheist will certainly find God." A slightly different version is: "I don't think God would send a person who lives a good life to hell just for holding the wrong belief." This approach is seen as more inclusive.

In preaching about hell, then, I need to counter this argument:

"The universal religion of humankind is: We develop a good record and give it to God, and then he owes us. The gospel is: God develops a good record and gives it to us, then we owe him (Rom. 1:17). In short, to say a good person, not just Christians, can find God is to say good works are enough to find God.

"You can believe that faith in Christ is not necessary or you can believe that we are saved by grace, but you cannot believe in both at once.

"So the apparently inclusive approach is really quite exclusive. It says, 'The good people can find God, and the bad people do not.'

"But what about us moral failures? We are excluded.

"The gospel says, 'The people who know they aren't good can find God, and the people who think they are good do not.'

"Then what about non-Christians, all of whom must, by definition, believe their moral efforts help them reach God? They are excluded.

"So both approaches are exclusive, but the gospel's is the more inclusive exclusivity. It says joyfully, 'It doesn't matter who you are or what you've done. It doesn't matter if you've been at the gates of hell. You can be welcomed and embraced fully and instantly through Christ.' "

3. Christianity's view of hell is more personal than the alternative view. Fairly often, I meet people who say, "I have a personal relationship with a loving God, and yet I don't believe in Jesus Christ at all."

"Why?" I ask.

They reply, "My God is too loving to pour out infinite suffering on anyone for sin."

But then a question remains: "What did it cost this kind of God to love us and embrace us? What did he endure in order to receive us? Where did this God agonize, cry out? Where were his nails and thorns?"

The only answer is: "I don't think that was necessary."

How ironic. In our effort to make God more loving, we have made God less loving. His love, in the end, needed to take no action. It was sentimentality, not love at all. The worship of a God like this will be impersonal, cognitive, ethical. There will be no joyful self-abandonment, no humble boldness, no constant sense of wonder. We would not sing to such a being, "Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all."

The postmodern "sensitive" approach to the subject of hell is actually quite impersonal. It says, "It doesn't matter if you believe in the person of Christ, as long as you follow his example."

But to say that is to say the essence of religion is intellectual and ethical, not personal. If any good person can find God, then the essential core of religion is understanding and following the rules.

When preaching about hell, I try to show how impersonal this view is:

"To say that any good person can find God is to create a religion without tears, without experience, without contact.

Hell is the freely
chosen, eternal skid
row of the universe.

"The gospel certainly is not less than the understanding of truths and principles, but it is infinitely more. The essence of salvation is knowing a Person (John 17:3). As with knowing any person, there is repenting and weeping and rejoicing and encountering. The gospel calls us to a wildly passionate, intimate love relationship with Jesus Christ, and calls that 'the core of true salvation.' "

4. There is no love without wrath. What rankles people is the idea of judgment and the wrath of God: "I can't believe in a God who sends people to suffer eternally. What kind of loving God is filled with wrath?"

So in preaching about hell, we must explain that a wrathless God cannot be a loving God. Here's how I tried to do that in one sermon:

"People ask, 'What kind of loving God is filled with wrath?' But any loving person is often filled with wrath. In Hope Has Its Reasons, Becky Pippert writes, 'Think how we feel when we see someone we love ravaged by unwise actions or relationships. Do we respond with benign tolerance as we might toward strangers? Far from it…. Anger isn't the opposite of love. Hate is, and the final form of hate is indifference.'

"Pippert then quotes E. H. Gifford, 'Human love here offers a true analogy: the more a father loves his son, the more he hates in him the drunkard, the liar, the traitor.'

"She concludes: 'If I, a flawed narcissistic sinful woman, can feel this much pain and anger over someone's condition, how much more a morally perfect God who made them? God's wrath is not a cranky explosion, but his settled opposition to the cancer of sin which is eating out the insides of the human race he loves with his whole being.' "

A God like this
Following a recent sermon on the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, the post-service question-and-answer session was packed with more than the usual number of attenders. The questions and comments focused on the subject of eternal judgment.

My heart sank when a young college student said, "I've gone to church all my life, but I don't think I can believe in a God like this." Her tone was more sad than defiant, but her willingness to stay and talk showed that her mind was open.

Usually all the questions are pitched to me, and I respond as best I can. But on this occasion people began answering one another.

An older businesswoman said, "Well, I'm not much of a churchgoer, and I'm in some shock now. I always disliked the very idea of hell, but I never thought about it as a measure of what God was willing to endure in order to love me."

Then a mature Christian made a connection with a sermon a month ago on Jesus at Lazarus' tomb in John 11. "The text tells us that Jesus wept," he said, "yet he was also extremely angry at evil. That's helped me. He is not just an angry God or a weeping, loving God—he's both. He doesn't only judge evil, but he also takes the hell and judgment himself for us on the cross."

The second woman nodded, "Yes. I always thought hell told me about how angry God was with us, but I didn't know it also told me about how much he was willing to suffer and weep for us. I never knew how much hell told me about Jesus' love. It's very moving."

It is only because of the doctrine of judgment and hell that Jesus' proclamation of grace and love are so brilliant and astounding.

Tim Keller is pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City.

http://www.dbu.edu/jeanhumphreys/DeathDying/preachinghell.htm

2008-01-19T16:33:00.000-08:00
"The Flesh" In the New Testament, however, are many places where the term "the flesh" has a darker coloring. Here it refers primarily to the whole human personality -‑ body, soul, mind and emotions as they function apart from the presence and control of the Holy Spirit. It can refer either to non‑Christians or to residual sin in believers. --Richard Lovelace

2008-01-15T06:34:00.001-08:00
“The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or the other destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations-these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit-immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But out merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously-no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner-no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him is also Christ vere latitat- the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.” --CS Lewis in The Weight of Glory

2007-12-22T12:29:00.001-08:00
Scripture Reading: Matthew 1:18-25
Many of us have read the angel’s announcement to Joseph in Matthew 1 so many times that we have lost our sense of wonder at the angel’s message. The angel quotes the prophet Isaiah and says, “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him ‘Immanuel’ - which, means, ‘God with us’” (Matthew 1:23). In announcing the coming of Immanuel, God with us, the angel is proclaiming that after years of separation from the Father, we finally, once again, have a home. Remember Adam and Eve? Remember the Garden from Genesis 3? We were created for intimacy with God. But we gave that up when we chose sin and a heart that was separated from Him. We chose an orphan existence and mentality over an existence protected and cared for by the Father.

But, despite the wickedness of the world and the disobedience of His people, the Father’s heart for intimacy and fellowship with His people didn’t change. So He provided a way for fellowship to be restored; He sent Immanuel in the womb of a woman. When we read the angel’s message carefully, we are able to hear the heartbeat of the Father as never before.

As a child, did you ever sit in a parent’s lap and actually hear his or her heartbeat? This is the invitation the angel gives to Joseph. “Joseph, the Father invites you to lean close, to become still, and to hear His heart. For a Son is to be born who will ‘save his people from their sins.’ The barrier that separates God from man is getting ready to be rent in two after centuries of waiting. Immanuel
is coming.”

Many of us never heard a parent say, “Child, I want to spend time with you. I want to be with you. I don’t want anything to separate you from me.” But the good news is that, in the coming of Immanuel, we have the deepest, most passionate display of affection from a Father to His children. This love of the Father is the essence of Advent, for Advent is about pulling up a chair and becoming quiet and still enough to personally hear the message of the Father’s heart. Through the ages, His heart is to be our God, to walk with us, to talk with us, to live inside of us, and for us to be His people. It is to change our orphan hearts into hearts that have a home with the Father.

So the invitation the Angel extended to Joseph is the same invitation the Lord gives to us today. “Do not be afraid.” Do not be afraid of the child within Mary. He is Jesus. His name is Immanuel, and He has come that the Lord might be your Father and that you might be, in garden-like intimacy, His child. This week, marvel at the message of the angel...and take time to hear the heartbeat of your Heavenly Father.

Closing Prayer
Father, thank you for sending Jesus, Your son, whose name is Immanuel, God with us. We long for the day when we will see You face to face. Give us courage to wait for that day, and help us to walk in the Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love that is ours as Your sons and daughters. We rejoice in Your birth, and we eagerly await Your Second Coming. May You find us faithful on the day that You return to take us home. In the name of Christ we pray. Amen.

2007-12-22T11:15:00.001-08:00

“The kingdom of God is the new and final age that began with the coming of Jesus. His kingdom is not part of the present age — an age where the flesh reigns; where people are divided, relationships are broken, and suspicion and competition dominate; where money, sex, and power are abused; where leaders are first and servants last; where behavior is controlled by laws, and identity is defined by race, gender, or social standing; and where gifts and resources are used for the advancement of oneself.

Rather, the kingdom of God is the new age. It is the age of the Spirit (Matt 12:28). It is the age of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom 14:17). The Kingdom of God is about the renewal, restoration, and reconciliation of all things, and God has made us a part of this great story of salvation.

This kingdom is about the restoration of relationships, justice, and equality; about freedom from every lord except Jesus; about reconciliation, forgiveness, and the defeat of Satan. It is about compassion for the poor and powerless, about helping those who are marginalized and rejected by society, and about our gifts and resources for the advancement of others. It is about new communities and the transformation of society and culture, so that race, gender, and social class no longer define identity, nor are they used to control and divide. For Paul, to preach the gospel is to preach the kingdom, is to preach the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:24-27).

The gospel sums up the whole message of good news that he brought to the nations — particularly to the downtrodden and powerless. And since it is good news, our response to the message of the kingdom is to be one of repentant faith (Mark 1:15).”

- Neil H. Williams, Gospel Transformation, 2nd Ed. (Jenkintown, Pa.: World Harvest Mission, 2006), iii.

2007-12-22T09:41:00.000-08:00

Moral balance

The second area of biblical tension is the moral sphere, or the question of holiness. Already God has put His Holy Spirit within us, and already the in-dwelling Spirit has begun to subdue our passions and to produce in our character and conduct His beautiful fruit of love, joy, peace, and the rest. Already, as the Holy Spirit fills us, He begins to turn us inside out and to make us more like Christ.

Not yet, however, has our twisted, distorted, fallen, self-centered nature been eradicated. Not yet do we love God with all our being or love our neighbor as ourselves. We are caught in this painful dialectic between assurance of victory and dismay over our continuing sinfulness; between the cry of triumph, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ," and the cry of longing, "Who will deliver me from this body of death?"

On the one hand, we have to take seriously God's command, "Be holy because I am holy," and the command of Jesus, "Go and sin no more," and the statement of John, "These things I have written to you so that you may not sin." But on the other hand, we have to face the reality of our continuing sinfulness, lest we become proud or dishonest. Let me give you a couple of quotations.

In his own understanding of sanctification, Augustine said in one of his sermons: "thither we make our way, still as pilgrims, not yet at rest; still on the road, not yet at home; still aiming at it, not yet attaining it." And John Newton, the converted slave trader, put it beautifully: "I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world, but thank God I am not what I once used to be and by the grace of God, I am what I am."

Physical balance
That brings me to my third area, which is the physical sphere or the question of health. Already the Kingdom of God has erupted into human history in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. He walked on water, He turned water into wine, He stilled the storm, He multiplied the loaves and fishes, He healed the sick, He raised the dead. In other words, He gave plenty of evidence of His own lordship over nature. The Kingdom had come in that respect.

Not yet, however, has God's Kingdom come in its fullness. Our bodies have not yet been redeemed and it is only when the body is redeemed at the resurrection that we shall be finally delivered from disease, pain, and death. Not yet have these things been destroyed. Not yet has nature become fully subservient to the rule of God.

On the one hand the Kingdom of God is at work in the world, but on the other, as we read in Romans 8, the whole creation is groaning in the pains of childbirth, and we ourselves are groaning, waiting for the new order to be born. I believe there are too many grinning Christians and not enough groaning Christians. There is an authentic groaning of the redeemed who are longing for the fullness of salvation, which will be ours one day.

So here is another tension. We have tasted the powers of the age to come, because the age to come has come, but so far it is only a taste. We experience the risen life of Jesus in our mortal flesh (2 Corinthians 4) but to proclaim perfect health for everybody now is to anticipate the resurrection of the body.

Those who are dismissive of the very possibility of the healing miracles have forgotten the already of the Kingdom, while those who describe these miracles as "the normal Christian life" have not come to terms with the not yet.

Social balance

My fifth and last example is the social sphere, or the question of social progress. Already the Kingdom of God is at work in human society like yeast in dough. Jesus appointed His people to be the salt and the light of the world. Salt and light affect, even change, the environment in which they are placed. When you rub salt into meat or fish, bacterial decay is, if not arrested, at least hindered. And if you switch on the light something happens: the darkness is dispelled.

The Church has had an enormous influence all down the ages. Think of the rising standards of health and hygiene; the greater availability of literacy and education pioneered by Christian people; the greater concern for the sick and the elderly, that they may be allowed to live and die in dignity; the equal respect for and rights of all men, women, and children; improved conditions in mine, factory, and prison; concern for the environment; the abolition of slavery and the slave trade; and we could easily go on.

We can't claim that all those things are due entirely to Christian influence, but they are very largely so. Through His followers Jesus Christ has had an enormous influence upon society throughout the world.

Not yet, however, have nations beaten their swords into plowshares, or their spears into pruning hooks. Not yet has God created the new heaven and the new earth which will be the home of righteousness and peace. So it is right to expect further progress, as Christians become increasingly the salt and the light of the world.

But Christians are not utopians. We cannot perfect society, but that does not mean that we cannot improve it. We should seek to improve it and to make it more pleasing to God.

Three types of Christians

Let me recapitulate. In five spheres —— intellectual, moral, physical, ecclesiastical, and social —— we need to preserve the tension and balance between the already and the not yet.

I want to conclude by suggesting that there are three types of Christians today according to the degree to which they maintain this Biblical balance.

First, there are the "already Christians." They are the sunny optimists. They concentrate on what God has already said, done, and given through Jesus Christ. So whether the sphere is knowledge or holiness or health or the Church or the world, they give the impression that there are really no mysteries left that we cannot solve, no sins that cannot be conquered, no diseases that cannot be healed.

Their motive is marvelous. They want to glorify Christ. And because they want to glorify Him, they don't want to admit that there is anything that He cannot do today. The danger with them is that their optimism can easily degenerate into presumption and their presumption into disillusion. These "already" Christians forget the not yet, that perfection awaits the Parousia.

Pessimists and realists

Second, there are the "not yet Christians." They are the gloomy pessimists. They concentrate on the incompleteness of the work of Christ and on human depravity. They see evil ingrained in human nature and in human society and they see little possibility of improvement. They give the impression of being exceedingly negative in all their attitudes. They are wet blankets.

Actually their motive is fine too. They want to humble sinners. But the danger of the "not yet" Christians is that their pessimism can easily degenerate into complacency and their complacency into apathy. They forget the already of what God has said, done, and given in Jesus Christ, which we need to exploit to the full.

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Third, there are the "already, not yet Christians." They are the Biblical realists. They focus equally on the two comings of Christ, on what He has done and what He is going to do, living in the tension between Kingdom come and Kingdom coming.

They want equally to glorify Christ and to humble sinners at the same time. On the one hand they are determined to explore and experience to the fullest possible extent everything that God has said, done, and given in Jesus Christ. On the other hand, they keep their feet on the ground. They acknowledge the continuing folly and weakness and sinfulness of Christian people until the second coming.

More confidence and more humility

My desire is for more Christian confidence in the already, a determination to enter fully into everything that is possible for us today, and more humility before the not yet, acknowledging that much ignorance, much sinfulness, much physical frailty, much ecclesiastical unfaithfulness, and much social decay will continue as symptoms of a fallen world until Christ comes again.

And it is this combination of the already and the not yet, of Kingdom come and Kingdom coming, of the look back to the past and the look on to the future, of Christian confidence and Christian humility that characterizes authentic BBC. (More detailed & "better" version in the book Contemporary CHristian)

"Balanced, Biblical Christianity" is taken from the "Social Witness and Action" (Spring 1995) issue of Mission & Ministry, the quarterly magazine of Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry. Subscriptions may be ordered for $16.00 a year (four issues) from: Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, 311 Eleventh Street, Ambridge, PA 15003. Inquiries may be made to the editor, David Mills, at DavidMills@tesm.edu.

2007-12-22T09:24:00.001-08:00

2007-12-22T09:09:00.000-08:00
In his response to John's disciples, Jesus was claiming that the fulfillment of the OT hope with its attendant blessings was in fact present in his person and ministry. The fulfillment, however, was not taking place along expected lines, hence John’s perplexity. The unexpected element was that fulfillment was taking place in Jesus, but without the eschatological consummation. The OT prophetic hope of the coming Messianic kingdom of God as promised to Israel is being fulfilled in the person and ministry of Jesus, but not consummated. The Jews of our Lord’s day, in keeping with what they saw in the OT, expected the consummation of the kingdom, the complete and final overthrow of Israel’s political enemies and the ushering in of the age of blessed peace and prosperity in the land. Our Lord, however, came with the message that before the kingdom would come in its eschatological consummation it has come in his own person and work in spirit and power. The kingdom, therefore, is both the present spiritual reign of God and the future realm over which He will rule in power and glory. (Taken from Sam Storms 2 part articles on the not yet & already of the kingdom... they look to be very good)

Peace On Earth... by U2

2007-12-22T08:59:00.000-08:00

i am increasingly amazed at the depth of theological insight that comes from U2... while preparing to preach on Christ our King during advent I've been thinking alot about the sad reality of the "Not Yet" part of Christ's Kingdom... songs like "Do they know it's Christmas-time at all?" and others get at the unfinished business of bringing peace on earth. So does this one from the ALL YOU CAN'T LEAVE BEHIND album. I've added it to my "Christmas" playlist on the ipod to remind me of the "not yet-ness"

Peace On Earth
Heaven on Earth
We need it now
I'm sick of all of this
Hanging around
Sick of sorrow
Sick of pain
Sick of hearing again and again
That there's gonna be
Peace on Earth

Where I grew up
There weren't many trees
Where there was we'd tear them down
And use them on our enemies
They say that what you mock
Will surely overtake you
And you become a monster
So the monster will not break you

It's already gone too far
Who said that if you go in hard
You won't get hurt

Jesus could you take the time
To throw a drowning man a line
Peace on Earth
Tell the ones who hear no sound
Whose sons are living in the ground
Peace on Earth
No whos or whys
No-one cries like a mother cries
For peace on Earth
She never got to say goodbye
To see the colour in his eyes
Now he's in the dirt
Peace on Earth

They're reading names out over the radio
All the folks the rest of us won't get to know
Sean and Julia, Gareth, Ann and Breda
Their lives are bigger, than any big idea

Jesus can you take the time
To throw a drowning man a line
Peace on Earth
To tell the ones who hear no sound
Whose sons are living in the ground
Peace on Earth

Jesus this song you wrote
The words are sticking in my throat
Peace on Earth
Hear it every Christmas time
But hope and history won't rhyme
So what's it worth?
This peace on Earth

Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth
Peace on Earth taken from U2.com

more

Thoughts on catholic/worldwide

From tedium to Te Deum

wrong soaked all through me, take 2

wrong soaked all through me

Egyptian Slaves

the 3 day festival request

Sonship of Israel, Jesus, and us

God's Firstborn Son

Pharoah's Hard Heart

Psalter Hymnal 464: Father, long before creation | Hymnary.org

The Chief End of Animals, Part 1

The Chief End of Animals, Part 1

Zeph is a treatise on the wrath of God

Summary... Wrath

Has the Day of Yahweh come yet?

stretching out the hand

John Piper's Outline of Zephaniah

1:1-18 announces the coming judgment upon Judah and Jerusalem Verse 4, "I will stretch out my hand against Judah, and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem."

2:1-3 calls the nation back to God, and specifically (as it says in verse 3) to "seek righteousness and seek humility."

2:4-15 Zephaniah announces the judgment that is also coming on the lands that surround Judah: the Philistines to the east (vv. 4–7), Moab and Ammon to the west (vv. 8–11), the Ethiopians to the south (v. 12), and Assyria to the north (vv. 13–15).

3:1-7 Here Zephaniah turns his attention to Jerusalem again and lengthens the catalogue of God's accusations against her.

3:8-20 proclaims the conversion of the peoples (v. 9), the conversion and re-gathering of Israel (v. 10), and the glorious future of all the godly as God rejoices over them with gladness.

Zephaniah 1

Sam Storms on Saving & Common Grace

John Murray, Common Grace

Kuyper Quote, Wow

brief explanation of Mark's ending, from ESV study bible

Why NOT Mark 16:9-20

How could world-wide preaching of gospel happened in 33-70AD?

Christ's Impact on Widows

Multi-culti widowhood

Copyright © 2009 WORLD Magazine September 08, 2001, Vol. 16, No. 34

Lig Duncan pray for Pres. Obama

Henri Nouwen "Holy Inefficiency" article by Yancey

Messiah Handel Yancey article

THE SPIRIT’S WORK

Romans 14 and the Weak and Strong and Stumbling Block

Packer on Hell

HELL

I don't like you JUST THE WAY YOU ARE, Jesus

a couple of prophesies....

prophesied in Psalm 118:22-23

then....hundreds of years later.... Jesus....After telling a story making God the Landowner who sends his beloved son to speak with the tenants of his land.... they say, This is the Landowner's heir. Let's kill him." Jesus closes this story by saying:

prophecied in Zechariah 13:7

realized in Mark 14:27

Context of Mark 8:31 and following, the 2nd half of Mark's Gospel

Get behind me Satan

Son of Man

Freedom to love

Copyright © 2008 WORLD Magazine February 09, 2008, Vol. 23, No. 3

Are Paul & James At Odds on Faith & Works?

Extended Bonar Quote

John Owen on Temptation & Watchfulness

Effectual Calling

Illumination

Move, I beg You, upon my disordered heart

Jesus Gets & Fills My Heart

life of parent of teenager

full footnote on temptation's use in believer's life

Spurgeon Morning April 25

cover letter for FAQ sheet

Sermon on Food, extended post

Enjoying Wine

Enjoying Wine by Douglas Jones

Grace in Trials

Congregational Letter about March 30

Packer & SmartyPants notions of substitutionary atonement

Freedom to love

Copyright © 2008 WORLD Magazine February 09, 2008, Vol. 23, No. 3

Who was St. Valentine?

Keller, preaching hell to broad-minded

Moral balance

Physical balance

Social balance

Three types of Christians

Pessimists and realists

More confidence and more humility

Peace On Earth... by U2

Copyright © 2009 WORLD Magazine
September 08, 2001, Vol. 16, No. 34

Copyright © 2008 WORLD Magazine
February 09, 2008, Vol. 23, No. 3

Copyright © 2008 WORLD Magazine
February 09, 2008, Vol. 23, No. 3