Coffee Culture Kingdom

The Power of the Gospel in the Local Church

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 05:02:00 -0800

I received an invitation to attend a conference in the PCA in January called Embers to a Flame. It is focused on church revitalization. I attended several years ago and, while I can't attend this year, I would encourage others to attend, whether you're involved in a church plant or in helping to lead a long-established church.

At first glance, church planting and church revitalization seem like entirely different disciplines. But as I've learned, church planting and church revitalization are, in fact, closely related works of the Holy Spirit. They both depend upon the power of the Gospel in the local church.

Let me explain.

Church planting involves gathering a group of believers and new believers into a new church community that didn't exist before for the purpose of becoming a gospel community on mission in the world.

This gospel community is energized by faith in the good news of Jesus: who He is and what He has done and how that makes all the difference for me and my calling.

Church revitalization involves something similar, except, in this case, the church community already exists. But, though it exists, it is not a gospel community on mission in the world--if it has a mission, it has lost sight of it due to various reasons (conflict, leadership failure, personal sin).

Plus, such a church community often has a formal knowledge of the Gospel, but functionally, it is not energized (as it should be) by the Gospel.

Church planting also involves gathering either new believers or veteran Christians into a new church family. In either case, though, there are preconceived expectations about church, ministry, leadership, and family life that must be addressed and reshaped and reformed by the Gospel.

Think of this like deconstructing people's expectations and rebuilding them around the mission of God. Interestingly, this "deconstruction" is the same work that is involved in church revitalization: reforming people's expectations with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Both church planters and men involved in church revitalization fall into trouble when they forget that the primary power of ministry is the gospel: who Jesus is, what He has done, and how that shapes the way they should live.

But nature abhors a vacuum, so when this happens, what is substituted for this gospel engine is some other program, strategy, or ideology that may be good, or better, but not best.

In 2002, when I was a pastor of a small congregation in the midwest, I attended a church revitalization conference in the PCA called Embers to a Flame. At this conference I learned about how important pastoral leadership, and prayer, is to the work of church revitalization. As a new pastor, these were new concepts for me.

While I had learned a lot about theology and church history and philosophy in graduate school, I didn't know how to help a struggling church recapture it's first love and experience that spiritual dynamic of church health mixed with church growth.

Along with eight other men from our congregation, we had a tremendous experience together and it is credit to God's grace that so many of the leaders of that church were interested in seeing God move powerfully among us.

As I think about the difficult work of pastoral ministry, whether on the side of church revitalization or on the side of church planting, I'm reminded that it is a super-human task. It involves daily death (1 Corinthians 15:31), it involves putting both hands to the plough and not looking back (Luke 9:62), and it involves the highest moral standards which are under constant spiritual attack (2 Timothy 2).

The only sufficiently strong counter-force to these challenges is God Himself. God has made Himself known in Jesus: who lived, died, and rose again to provide the foundation for His church to grow in the power of the Holy Spirit.

It is this spiritual power that ultimately must be unleashed in our churches (new or old) that is required for the church to be, as Jesus intended, a city set on a hill, and a light to the world. In order for that to happen, we need training and inspiration; we need to be called back to our first love.

Conferences, seminars, books, and retreats are all useful in this regard. So, while this is not intended as an endorsement to Embers to a Flame, it is one ministry that I think many churches could benefit from.

In some ways, it doesn't really matter what it is, as long as there is some intentional effort made toward church renewal.

I would encourage anyone interested in helping to catalyze change in their local congregation to pray for God to move: first in your own heart. If that means you attend this conference or some other, ask God to lead you and go in the expectation that your faith in Jesus will be rekindled, and your desire to make a difference in His church will grow.

One more thing: if you go, don't go alone. Bring at least one or two others with you so you can process what you learn together back in the context of your church family.

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Some Sacred Thread

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:34:00 -0800

I wrote a post here about the mystery of suffering in a world that is claimed to be made by a good and loving God of order and power and love.

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Witness Trees

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 06:26:00 -0700

I wrote a short essay about the "witness trees" my family and I saw when visiting Gettysburg National Cemetery over this past Labor Day weekend. Check it out here.

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Our Precious...

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 08:13:00 -0700

I love the Lord of the Rings slogan, "precious," made famous by Gollum:

We wants it, we needs it. Must have the precious. They stole it from us. Sneaky little hobbitses. Wicked, tricksy, false!

He had the ring taken away by Bilbo and when Frodo had it, ever tried to recapture it. But Gollum was the evil alter-ego of Smeagol, the more high minded man whose appetite for the good was slowly swallowed up by the ring.

A more profound and powerful modern example of something taking over a person's heart--and life--would be hard to find.

Few are as ugly or as grotesque about their idolatry as Gollum/Smeagol, but all people struggle and fail in this area of affections gone wild.

Everyone is tempted to call things "precious" that are in fact killing them.

What do you find precious?

Hurricane Irene is on its way up the eastern seaboard and headed toward New Jersey as I write.

I know people tend to exaggerate storm impacts. I know that there are politics involved in declaring states of emergency. I know that poverty is often caused by people's own poor choices. I know these things and many others.

But, when I heard about the more than a thousand people who had been evacuated from Atlantic City and have taken up temporary quarters at Rowan University's Esby Gym I felt I had to respond.

Spending time with these evacuees last night and this morning and seeing how short staffed the Red Cross was when they needed help serving meals, caring for people, getting supplies, I was reminded about what suburban precious often means: time and money. But especially time.

Let me explain.

Suburban people like me are people of control; and time is all about control. That's why we find our time precious.

Our time includes a number of factors: our schedules, our priorities, and our plans, to name only a few.

How do I know?

I've been there. Whenever God has used one circumstance or another to overturn or change my time and related "factors" without asking me, I am upset.

But since when was I Lord over time? or Lord over my life?

David writes and makes clear in the 139th Psalm who's master over time: "All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

How about you? Are you like me? How do you react when your precious schedule changes? Is it comfortable or is it uncomfortable? Do you welcome changes to your schedule, to your time, or are you indignant, resistant, and hesitant?

God's blessed interruptions are usually painful and unwelcome at first. But in the end, with hindsight, we can typically see the faint (or not so faint) outlines of a plan. "Now we know Who was really in charge--and it wasn't me."

I told that to someone last night at Esby gym and she nodded and said, "That's the truth!"

One reason God uses catastrophes like Hurricane Irene in our lives is to address this particular "precious" for us. But not just for people who have been displaced. Also--and perhaps especially so--for people into whose lives they have BEEN displaced.

It struck me: most of the people who were evacuated from Atlantic City had no immediate power over the order to leave.

They may have made choices yesterday, or last week, or last month, or last year, that put them in the circumstance of needing to evacuate but having no other place to go, but on Thursday afternoon, when thousands--tens of thousands--were forced to leave New Jersey's coastal areas, they had no control. And now twelve hundred of them are in Rowan's Esby Gym being reminded of what's precious to them.

One man last night was on vacation from New York City. NYC's transit system had been closed down and he had no way to get back home.

Another couple--Russian--wanted to get a hotel but didn't speak much English and didn't know where they were.

Neither family had control over their circumstances; they had to go with the flow, so to speak.

But neither did we have power over the fact that these thousand people have suddenly become our neighbors--for the weekend, at least--here in Gloucester County, Glassboro, New Jersey.

Our new neighbors for the weekend also happen to be homeless neighbors who need bathrooms, electrical outlets, pillows, games to play with their kids, updates on separated family members, someone to pray with them or hug them or sit with them or help them in some way. Fans, ice, towels, showers, shoes--I forgot my comfortable pair, he told me--and some way to stay updated on the weather.

What is precious to us becomes clear in times of crisis--not just our own crises, but the crises of those around us.

Here's a prayer: "May God have mercy on us to deliver us from the bondage of what's precious to us, into the freedom of what is precious to Him...

As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:4-5)

Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear—but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. (1 Peter 3:3-4)

Precious in the sight of God.

That's also a phrase we read in the Psalms that describes the "death of His saints."

I take that death to mean not only when God's people pass into eternity, but when, in this life, they die daily, taking up their cross--what is precious in the sight of God, and only given to His Precious People--to follow Him in a life of suffering and sacrifice.

That's a precious worth fighting for.

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The Mystery of Suffering

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 06:38:00 -0700

I learned recently that a relative of mine has been afflicted with cancer. Both my parents have battled cancer and (so far) survived. My mother-in-law is in a pitched battle with the cancer devil as I write, and in her tug-o-war match, she’s holding her own so far.

But only so far.

In writing to my uncle, I encouraged him with some basic inspiration I take from my own faith: because Jesus died and rose again, all subsequent sufferings I experience are guaranteed to be part of his mysterious but profound and guaranteed love for me IN CHRIST.

True enough.

But for some, the sadness of growing old can be almost overwhelming. Especially for those who have been successful in this life, are accustomed to the rewards of health for a body well-cared for, and for time and energy spent trying to do good work for others.

The suffering of age, in such cases, can be an outrage (“Why me?!”) or it can be a melancholy (“Life is so unfair, it is so hard.”)

Where is the justice when such intruders like cancer come barging in--during dinner, even?

This is just another version of the age-old question of “how are we to interpret the suffering of our lives?”

My Story

As to growing old, unless I want to be laughed off the stage, I won't attempt to speak with direct experience only being 41. However I must point out that at least half the people I meet do now consider me old.

But through the smaller issues of life of my experience, without this mindset I'm describing above, I'm left only with the sadness (and futility) of age. Even at 41.

But with this hope, I'm learning to find meaning in my suffering.

Why is my left achilles persistently sore to the point that I can't run regularly any more? Why do I continue to have to spend money at the doctor's office to burn warts off my legs? Why is my hairline receding?

Of course these things, by themselves, are trivial. Ridiculous, even. I mean, who really cares?

It isn’t that I can’t describe deeper sufferings. But the value of articulating trivial sufferings is that they can be used as simple emblems of the larger concept.

And of this larger concept, I can say this: I've added so much suffering to my suffering because I've demanded or required of God an explanation that He in his wisdom has seen fit to withhold.

The Mystery

I'm reminded a joke I’ve heard many times before, “If only God could have just sent me an email! It would have made things so much easier.”

This begs the question, though: what if leaving us without the email explanation of our personal crises is part of God’s plan? What if the mystery is part of His gift?

There seems to be a rush to act, to assess, and to conclude during such times of personal crisis. But in any other context, such a rush would never be countenanced.

For example, acting on partial information is deadly in the financial markets, as well as in sports. But when it comes to faith, I quickly assume that I can figure out the situation on partial information. And then I act on those assumptions.

Our Sin

There are many definitions of sin. In this connection, one that’s compelling to me is simply this: sin is acting on partial information.

Sin is taking my "part" of the story as the "whole" story.

To put it bluntly, it is making myself god: defining what is "right" and what is wrong based on the available data that I've processed--and assuming, as well, that I'm processing it correctly.

It is putting my story, and certainly my assessment of my story "before Me" (the first commandment forbids this).

If I were applying for a grant from Dow Chemical, I'd be rejected out of hand with so many presumptions and assumptions. But in the realm of faith it seems like I constantly find ways to justify such pride.

Anyhow, that's a sermon I've preached to myself a hundred times a year in various ways.

The Food of Faith

I read today the following quote which pertains: "The gospel is the food of faith and must be known to be nourishment." Herman Bavinck.

I'm not sure how this strikes you, but for me, I'm only hungry in my faith when I'm suffering. It would seem that as a creature made to glorify God, I would best glorify him when my faith is strongest.

But I live my life at every point to try to minimize the need for me to actually demonstrate in time and space the fact that my faith is in God.

Back to that quote: it is my belief that it is the hand of a loving God who actually introduces hunger into my life through various forms of suffering for the express purpose of enabling me to grow in my likeness of Him.

The Ridiculous

Is that ridiculous sounding to you? It is to me as well. But I’m learning, slowly, to see the ridiculous as actually reasonable.

As I do, I slowly begin to more faithfully reflect His glory and love and power and grace to others who are watching me. I also experience a deeper satisfaction in God (which is for my good) than I would have apart from that suffering.

This sounds counter intuitive. Even foolish. Like I said, “ridiculous.”

But St. Paul said, "the foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men."

The introduction of suffering such as this can be seen to be monstrous or kind. Certainly atheists like Hitchens and Gould and Hawking and others assert the same in no uncertain terms.

But religious people, Christians even, are practical atheists on this point, when they demand God to conform His ways to ours, by overt or covert means.

My Starting Point

How I assess my life depends (as I've said above) whether my starting point is that God's plans (and the events of this life) have to make sense by my criteria, or if I, as a fallen and finite creature must go to some Outside Source for the explanation and meaning of the circumstances of my life.

If I'm the judge, then none of this makes sense and I'm mad. But if God presides over the affairs and even the details of life, then it falls to me to trust him and wait upon the Lord.

“Be strong and take heart. and wait upon the Lord.” Ps. 27.

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David Deutsch's Explanation of Explaining

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 13:47:00 -0700

I have made a point to dip into to the dizzying array of TED lectures offered at TED.com from time to time and I’m always challenged and stimulated in my thinking; rarely do I find myself agreeing with all the assumptions of the speaker, but true to their motto, they do call to the plate discussions and dialogues that are worth having.

The latest example of this, David Deutsch’s lecture on A New Way to Explain Explanation, was no exception, both in terms of how I appreciated the push back and stimulus to my thinking, and in terms of how I disagreed with his assumptions.

Below are several observations and challenges to Deutsch’s argument. To make sense of what I write below, listen to what Deutsch has to say here.

Otherwise, you can read a partial transcript in the appendix of this essay to hear Deutsch in his own words.

At the heart of what Deutsch attempts to do (and this is only a mediocre attempt to summarize his twenty minute presentation) is explain why we have become so good at explaining the world since the scientific revolution.

His answer? It is not just because our science has gotten better. Nor is it simply because we’ve rejected our myth-makers (priests, ancient texts, etc.) It is because we have learned that the hard-to-vary assertion is the one which best explains reality.

First of all, it is the height of arrogance to assume that our knowledge today is so vastly superior to the knowledge of yesteryear, esp. that knowledge which precedes the scientific revolution.

Deutsch states: “Discoveries like fire happened so rarely that from an individual’s point of view, the world never improved, nothing new was learned. “

But let us take a more reasonable approach. Consider the following three areas of concern:

What we know today may be spoken of in similar terms in a hundred years?
What have we lost amidst what we have gained? Don’t we risk enshrining a particular kind of intelligence over another in such a perspective as this? ie., might it not be argued that our so-called superior knowledge about the physical world has led to a veritable bankrupting of our spiritual or emotional or relational knowledge?
Speaking of loss, it is only arrogance and blindness to anything like the virtue of humility that can lead someone like Deutsch to describe the forty years span of time from 1899 to 1939 without reference to characters such as Stalin and Hitler. Is it not an easy thing to vary the assertion of his (We’re making such progress because we now are committed to hard-to-vary assertions) by suggesting that what we think is progress may well not be progress at all?

I loved his assessment of the mindset of the Enlightenment; first, that it was the philosophical matrix which supported the scientific revolution (think of it like flouride in the water); and second, that it could be summarized by the motto of the Royal Society in 1660. Deutsch says, “Progress therefore depended on learning how to reject the authority of learned men, priests, traditions, and rulers.”

But in all revolutions (and I’m an advocate of Kuhn’s theory on scientific revolutions here) there are the good and the bad.

Speaking of revolutions, I’m reminded of the political parties in Holland in the late eighteenth century were either the “pro-French-revolutionary party” or the “anti-French-revolutionary party.”

Both sides had a point, as do the Democrats and Republicans today on almost any given issue there are “hard to vary” explanations for difficult problems on both sides of the aisle.

Deutsch makes some helpful critiques of unadulterated or unqualified empiricist theorizing when he suggests, “Empiricism is inadequate because scientific theories explain the seen in terms of the unseen. But the unseen doesn’t come to us in terms of the senses.” Indeed, the unseen doesn’t come to us in terms of the senses. But his alternative proposal is, contrary to his confidence in his own reasonableness, is unreasonable.

I love this statement from Deutsch: “The classic empiricist answer (to the question of how we derive answers from unseen factors) is induction: “the unseen resembles the seen.” But it doesn’t.”

But Deutsch never rescues himself from his own (nearly rock-solid) criterion. After all is said and done, he only has this to offer in the place of mere or pure induction: “bad explanations are those which can be easily changed.” But the entire history of science is a nearly unbroken string of changes made to theories and assertions that had, hitherto, been thought to be “not easily changed.”

In fact, the whole talk smacks of a perfectionistic (or Hegelian, evolutionary) theory of history that implies or even holds outright that the progress we have made is so substantial that we are ever nearing the perfect and complete knowledge of all reality.

Deutsch for Emperor.

Now I'm kidding. But, though perhaps seemingly unfair, this is a line of humor that Deutsch himself traded on in his talk when he suggested that all the debates about why the progress in the last one hundred years has been so rapid; Deutsch said,

“What had changed? What were people doing for the first time that made that difference between stagnation and open-ended rapid discovery. What made that difference seems to be the most important universal truth that is possible to know. Worryingly, there has been up till now much debate and up till this point no consensus. Well, I’ll tell you.”

And the audience chuckled at his feigned arrogance. But was it feigned?

Deutsch asserts that “Without a functional reason to prefer one of countless variants, advocating one in preference to the others is irrational.” But he hasn’t defined functional, or if he has, he has only defined it in terms that suit his theory. Thus, he trades and stands on his own assumptions as he defines what is rational and irrational. Thus, he himself becomes the measuring stick of reason. This is classic enlightenment thinking, and classic idolatry as well. I am the measure of my reality.

One might conclude that the alternative for Deutsch is utterly terrifying--this, to my thinking, at least partly explains why he so blithely and casually dismisses any cognitive and explanatory engagement of reality, history, science, knowledge, progress, etc., that is grounded on the assertion that God created Man in His Image.

Hard-to-vary assertions about reality are themselves embedded into a framework of assumptions about reality, a framework which itself makes such assertions “hard to vary.” Thus it highlights the cultural blinders that are on the eyes and hearts of our leading priests and shamans, the doctors and professors of our universities.

Speaking of hard-to-vary assertions: Deutsch was careful to make sure that his examples of theories that are hard-to-vary were of the simple variety (ie, the planet on its axis) and not of the complex variety (Eg, “What is the exact nature of light?” or “Whence cometh human consciousness?” or “What is the weight of a soul?”)

In conclusion, David Deutsch’s talk was brilliant, well-written, and compelling. It accomplished the purpose of TED’s offerings in that it created something “worth talking about.” Well-done.

But at the end of the day, his new way to explain explanation is not that new after all. It simply appeals to a human criterion of reasonableness, inducing from unseen data a (for the moment) cogent explanation which is ultimately susceptible to correction or even substitution by someone else.

The hardest to vary explanation for explanation, I still assert, is that which begins with a Triune God whose Image is imprinted upon all people enabling them to have such interesting discussions such as these.

This assertion alone accounts for all the variables before us. David would do well to examine it.

Which reminds me, and just for fun, consider this: if Jesus really did rise from the dead, the Gospel account of what happened is the hardest-to-vary assertion on what actually happened.

***

Appendix

Phil’s partial transcript from David Deutsch’s talk, “A New Way to Explain Explanation.”

from TED.com

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/lang/eng//id/666

People have always “wished to know” throughout the hundred thousand years or more of our species existence.

The prehistoric cave artists, for example, would surely have wished to know how to draw better. They wished for progress, but they failed, almost completely, to make any. They didn’t know how to.

Discoveries like fire happened so rarely that from an individual’s point of view, the world never improved, nothing new was learned.

The first clue to the origin of starlight happened, for example, in 1899. In the subsequent forty years, physicists discovered the whole explanation.

All that had been discovered in the forty years since 1899 about starlight, as well as other mysteries, had not been discovered in the previous hundred thousand. These new discoveries came about not because there had been a lack of thinking.

These (ancient peoples and thinkers) even arrived at answers--such as myths--that dominated their lives and yet bore almost no resemblance to the truth.

The tragedy of that protracted stagnation is not sufficiently recognized, I think.

These are people with brains of essentially the same design that would eventually discover all these things. But that ability to make progress remained almost unused until the event of the scientific revolution--ever since which our knowledge of the physical world and how to adapt it to our wishes has been growing relentlessly.

What had changed? What were people doing for the first time that made that difference between stagnation and open-ended rapid discovery. What made that difference seems to be the most important universal truth that is possible to know.

Worryingly, there has been up till now much debate and up till this point no consensus. Well, I’ll tell you. But first I must backtrack a bit.

Before the scientific revolution they believed that everything knowable was already known, enshrined in ancient writings, institutions, and in some genuinely useful “rules of thumb.” They believed that knowledge came from authorities that actually knew very little.

Progress therefore depended on learning how to reject the authority of learned men, priests, traditions, and rulers.

This is why the scientific revolution had to have a wider context: the Enlightenment: a revolution in how people sought knowledge, trying not to rely on authority. For example, the motto of the Royal Society in 1660 was, “Take No Man’s Word for It.”

But that can’t be what made the difference: authorities had been rejected before and that rarely if ever had produced something like the scientific revolution.

At the time what they thought distinguished science was a radical idea about things unseen known as Empiricism: “all knowledge derives from the senses.” Well, we’ve seen that that can’t be true. It did help in promoting observation and experiment but from the outset it was obvious that there was something horribly wrong with it.

Knowledge comes from the senses but in what language? Certainly not the language of mathematics which Galileo rightly said the book of nature is written.

When you look at the world, you don’t see equations carved on the mountainsides. If you did, it would be because people had carved them.

Empiricism is inadequate because scientific theories explain the seen in terms of the unseen. But the unseen doesn’t come to us in terms of the senses.

We don’t see those nuclear reactions in stars.
We don’t see the origin of the species.
We don’t see the curvature of space time, and other universes,

But we know about those things. How?

The classic empiricist answer is induction: “the unseen resembles the seen.” But it doesn’t.

The clinching evidence that space-time was curved was a photograph--not of space-time, but of an eclipse with a dot there rather than there. Evolution? Some rocks and some finches. Paralell universees? Dots here rather than there on a screen.

What we see bears no resemblances to the reality that we conclude is responsible, only a long chain of theoretical reasoning and interpretation.

Ah, say creationists. You admit that it is all interpretation. We see rocks; you have your interpretation, we have ours. Yours come from guesswork, ours from the Bible. But what creationists and empiricists ignore is that we’ve never seen a Bible either.

What the eye detects is light, which generate nerve impulses. And we don’t perceive those as what they are, namely, electrical crackles. So our connection to reality is never just perception; it is always, as Karl Popper put it, “theory laden.”

Scientific knowledge isn’t derived from anything; like all knowledge, it is conjectural or guess-work, tested by observation, not derived from it.

Were testable conjectures, then, what opened the intellectual prison gates? No. Any crank claiming the sun will go out next Tuesday has got a testable conjecture.

Consider the ancient Greek explanation on the onset of Spring related to the capture and rescue of Persephone by Hades every year.

That myth is testable. If winter is caused by Demeter’s sadness, then it would be winter everywhere in the earth at the same time. If the ancient Greeks knew that Australia was in summer when Greece was in winter, they would have known.

Here is the crucial thing: there is such a thing as a defect in a story; not just a logical defect, but a BAD EXPLANATION.

The explanation is bad because the details related to spring in the Greek myth are unrelated to seasons except via the myth itself. This indicates an “easy variability” and is the sure sign of a bad explanation.

Without a functional reason to prefer one of countless variants, advocating one in preference to the others is irrational.

So for the essence in what makes the difference to enable progress, seek good explanations that can’t be easily varied while still explaining the phenomena.

Our current theory of seasons relates to the tilt of the earth; it is a good explanation that is hard to vary; and every detail plays a crucial role.

If the ancient Greeks had found about seasons in Australia, they could have easily varied their myth to predict that. So, being proved wrong by observation and changing their theory accordingly would still have not got the Greeks one jot closer to the real explanation of seasons.

On the other hand, if the axis tilt theory had been refuted, its defenders would have had no where to go. No easily implemented change could cause that tilt to cause seasons in both hemispheres.

The search for hard to vary explanations is the origin of all progress; it is the basic regulating principle of the enlightenment.

In science, two false approaches blight progress: one is well-known: “Untestable Theories.” But the more important one is: “Explanation-less Theories.”

For example, whenever you’re told that some trend will continue but you’re not given a hard-to-vary account of what causes the trend, you’re basically being told that the Wizard will do it.

When you’re told someone that carrots have human rights because they share half our genes, but not how gene percentages confer rights, Wizard.

When someone announces that the Nature-Nurture debate is settled because there’s evidence that a certain amount of our political opinions are genetically inherited, but don’t explain how genes cause political opinions, they’re saying that our opinions are caused by Wizards.

That the truth consists of hard-to-vary assertions about reality is the most important fact about the physical world. it is a fact which is itself unseen yet impossible to vary.

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Notes from General Assembly, 5

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 18:53:00 -0700

Notes from the GA, part 5

Every day this week I have posted a summary of some of the issues that came forward to this year’s General Assembly of the PCA. Today is the last snippet and focuses on something called “judicial cases.”

The PCA is what is called a “connectional denomination.” This means that churches are essentially independent of one another in terms of their day-to-day lives, but that there are also connections between churches that become especially important when issues of doctrinal faithfulness are exposed.

VIII. Judicial Cases.

There are "judicial cases" that the GA hears every year. The report of the cases was fascinating. Here are three judicial cases that were heard at the GA and some observations of mine as well as some things I learned.

Judicial Case 1: A man has become ordained as a Ruling Elder in the PCA at a church in the Pacific Presbytery. The presbytery was charged with error in not prosecuting the session since this man did not pass for ordination as a Teaching Elder (TE) in the presbytery. But the committee who is appointed to review such things (called the Standing Judicial Commission) ruled that a) Ruling Elder (RE) ordinations are similar but different. Eg. REs are examined by the session not the presbytery and TEs are examined in church history and biblical languages (not REs).

This made me wonder about our denomination’s division or distinction between pastors (called Teaching Elders) and elders (called Ruling Elders). I'm not sure I agree with our practice and protocols in this regard.

For one, who really understands, let alone lives out, the biblical nuance between teaching and ruling elders? So many elders just go with the flow. Healthy churches have healthy leadership: men who understand their role and carry it out faithfully.

God, make Mercy Hill a faithful and healthy church with godly men as her leaders.

Judicial Case 2: Another case related to the issue of deaconesses (see above on an early day’s summary in this series).

A few years ago, the Northern California Presbytery set forth a paper in which "six different views of the diaconate" were listed--views they said were held by a variety of members of the presbytery--and this list was to be used by the presbytery for examination of candidates for ministry.

The Standing Judicial Commission determined that the NorCal Presbytery was unsound both constitutionally and pastorally in writing this document.

While it was a good impulse, the document effectively was adding to our standards (the Bible, the Confession of Faith, and the Book of Order) and no one can do that “just because they feel like it would be helpful.” There’s a process that has to be taken when changes are made to our standards.

The alternative, and the way it should be done, according to the SJC, is that when a man states his views, he is forced to defend his views from the Bible. That court (the presbytery) then determines if his exegesis and explanations are sound, and in keeping with our confession of faith.

That must be done every time a new pastor is ordained.

Here are the views expressed in the document, for your information: 1) only men ordained as deacons. 2) only men ordained but the session selects others men and/or women to assist them. 3) only men ordained as deacons but women are selected and appointed by the session to assist them. 4) only men ordained but the congregation elects women as deaconesses w approval of session to assist them. 5) only men ordained as deacons. Women commissioned as deaconesses. Both are elected by the congregation. Both are equal partners in ministry. 6) no one is ordained. Men and women are equal partners in ministry. (see P. 499 PDF and 2017 HB)

Judicial Case 3: Finally, another judicial case came from the Siouxlands Presbytery and pertained to a pastor who had unclear views related to the so-called “Federal Vision” issue. This was a huge controversy a few years ago and is still relevant today.

Here’s a short summary of the issue, written by a study committee of the PCA in 2007:

"The view that water baptism effects a covenantal union with Christ through which each baptized person receives the saving benefits of Christ's mediation including regeneration, justification, and sanctification, thus creating a parallel soteriological system to the decretal system of the Westminster Standards is false."

And also:

"The view that some can receive the saving benefits of Christ's mediation such as regeneration and justification and not persevere in them is false."

(from the study committee on federal vision, 6/14/2007)

The controversy this year related to the presbytery’s decision that this pastor has “orthodox” (correct) views along the lines of the above statements, but this pastor made other statements in other writings that showed that his views were not correct.

The debate: how do you follow Scripture’s guidelines to examine when someone is, or starts to, teach false doctrine in a church?

In my experience, these are difficult questions. It is hard to know in the moment when something of large significance hangs on your decision in such matters. We tend to think--and not always incorrectly or selfishly--that there will be another chance. And then the window of opportunity closes and things can quickly go from bad to worse.

God, help Mercy Hill be a church that resolves conflict biblically and which stands on biblical truth always.

Conclusion

My hope and prayer is that these snippets will help you see a window on some of the important work that is done on a national level for our denomination. I also hope that it gives you an appreciation for the strengths and weaknesses of denominational churches.

Finally, I hope that it helps you become more energized to the mission of Mercy Hill here in South Jersey: to “reach the lost for Jesus through authentic Christian living.”

May God help us by His grace.

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Notes from General Assembly, 4

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 18:51:00 -0700

Notes from the GA, part 4

This week I have been posting every day a set of notes and observations on my week in Virginia Beach at the PCA’s general assembly.

The General Assembly is the third court of the Presbyterian Church in America--a denomination that is composed of three courts or tiers of authority: the local church is the first tier, the regional church (called a presbytery) is the second, and the national, or “general” assembly, is the third.

In the national assembly, issues and activities that impact the local church arise. Therefore I think it is helpful for people in the local church to be made aware of some of the more important of these issues.

It is also helpful to people in churches to support their elders when they attend the GA if they know what kinds of things take place.

As I’ve said earlier, my hope and prayer is that these snippets will help you see a window on some of the important work that is done on a national level for our denomination. I also hope that it gives you an appreciation for the strengths and weaknesses of denominational churches.

It should be clear by now that some of the administrative and bureaucratic machinery of our denomination can be quite cumbersome. At the same time, there are advantages to such machinery, and doctrinal faithfulness is often helped by such careful checks and balances as we have in place in the PCA.

VII. Review of Minutes

“Minutes” are the official records of church meetings. Minutes are taken at the local church level, at the regional level (the presbytery) and at the national level (GA).

For each set of “minutes,” the higher court reviews the lower court for correctness (both in form and in substance; meaning, both the style of the minutes and whether the actions of the court are true to the Bible).

This system of review is part of how the PCA holds its churches formally accountable to the Gospel.

So, local boards of elders (and the churches they represent) have meetings whose minutes are reviewed by the presbytery. Presbyteries, likewise, have minutes (and actions) that are reviewed by the General Assembly.

When incorrect actions or statements arise in a court’s minutes, they are called "exceptions" and are either exceptions of form or those of substance.

An exception of substance was taken for the minutes of a presbytery when they examined a candidate for the ministry.

One exception that came up was to a candidate for the pastoral ministry’s views on communion. He held a view called “paedo communion.”

The disagreement however was this: was the view of paedo communion an exception (and therefore wrong according to our standards) or was it simply a different view that didn’t need to be recorded as wrong?

VIII. Seminars

In recent years, the GA has included an array of seminars, conference speakers (and topics) and studies and discussions related to things that are happening in the broader Christian world, areas of doctrinal concern, and areas in need of growth or kingdom focus.

This year I attended seminars from an organization called Christianity Explored, and one of that organization’s preachers, named Rico Tice.

These two sessions were fantastic. Christianity Explored is an excellent program that helps ordinary Christians create Gospel conversations in their neighborhoods and with their friends.

It is modeled after the Alpha program which does something similar; from what I can see, Christianity Explored has a somewhat stronger doctrinal focus and Gospel clarity.

I look forward to implementing some Christianity Explored material in our church this summer and fall. Please pray that God will use this to help Mercy Hill fulfill its mission in South Jersey.

IX. Fundraising

Because Mercy Hill still lacks its own leadership board (we have elders that are helping lead and govern us from other churches) and because our congregation’s giving base is still in development, one of my roles as a church planter is to raise funds for the work of Mercy Hill from outside sources.

I spent a great deal of time at this GA networking with people and talking about the mission and ministry of Mercy Hill.

The weekend after GA was done, I was actually presenting the work of our church family to a congregation in Virginia, who promised to support us with their missions giving for this month and next.

God’s will in His Word is that His work is supported by his people’s finances. This can be taken to an extreme by some church “fundraising” when guilt and other unholy tactics are used to compel people to give money that they don’t want to give.

On the other hand, the Bible is clear that God loves a cheerful giver and that our generosity is always rewarded by God: sometimes tangibly; often only spiritually. But faithful sharing of our time, talents, and treasure, is always noticed by God.

So please thank God with me for those who are supporting our work and who have made gifts to Mercy Hill over this past week. God’s generosity to us is amazing.

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Notes from General Assembly, 3

Wed, 22 Jun 2011 18:48:00 -0700

Notes from the GA, part 3

I’m posting a summary of some of the issues that came forward to this year’s General Assembly of the PCA. Each day this week I’m posting a different snippet of some of the work and activities of the GA.

Finally, I hope that it helps you become more energized to the mission of Mercy Hill here in South Jersey: to “reach the lost for Jesus through authentic Christian living.”

May God help us by His grace.

IV. Practical Presbyterianism

Something called "Practical Presbyterianism" comes up in several places as a part of the PCAs multi-year strategic plan. That this needs to be discussed at such length is telling.

It says that there is a need to communicate the value of being in a “denomination” to a younger generation that doesn’t fully grasp (or agree) with the assumptions of our fathers in the faith.

In general, I would say I’m a fan of presbyterianism--of a certain kind--but find papers on “practical presbyterianism” strange.

I mean, practical Christianity is good. But some of the points related to “practical Presbyterianism” strike me as overly cognitive and overly confident in our "system of government."

If we are honest, I wonder would we realize that these might only be just "Baby Boomer" wishes designed to persuade a younger generation of an older set of values? Every generation seems to go thru a crisis of asking "are denoms relevant any more?" and ours is no exception.

Here are the seven points related to Practical Presbyterianism (see PDF p 115/317 HB)

A. Annual seminar on standards, BCO, RAO, and or Roberts.

B. Ensure church plants fund denom.

C. Produce curriculum on history doctrine and foundation of Presbyterianism for use in churches.

D. Prepare and adopt proof texts for BCO.

E. Adopt dir. for worship as constitutional after a study comm. of a variety of views revises it.

F. Thoroughly revise the rules of discipline.

G. Translate Confessions Catechisms and the BCO accurately and elegantly into world languages.

V. PCA Campus Ministry

RUM (Reformed University Ministries) is the PCAs college ministry. It is unique among campus ministries in that it intentionally and strongly advocates for the local church and calls pastors as "campus ministers."

Yet the southern character of the PCA is seen here perhaps more than anywhere else: only 3 RUFs in the NE: Yale, Harvard, and Lehigh. Now 4: metro NY. None in NJ. There is however a University of Delaware RUFI chapter starting.

I would like to see a RUF ministry begin at Rowan University. This will require presbytery support.

There are other college ministries that might also be strategic for Mercy Hill to consider endorsing and supporting, and creating ourselves.

Please pray for our outreach on campus with the Gospel.

VI. Covenant Seminary

Among the “ministries” of the PCA are two educational institutions: Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, GA, and Covenant Seminary, in St. Louis, MO. Each institution reports to the assembly every year. They are also “governed” by a committee of pastors and elders across the denomination as a check and balance.

I was interested to note that Dr. Bob Yarborough is now the NT prof at Covenant Seminary (again). He was an adjunct in 1991-1996 and went to Trinity. I think this is a great add for the seminary. He was used by God in my life years ago in important ways.

Thank you Lord, for Bob.

Also, one of our members is planning on attending Covenant Seminary this summer for a 2 year program. Please pray for her as she prepares to leave our church family.

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Notes from General Assembly, 2

Tue, 21 Jun 2011 18:44:00 -0700

Notes from GA, part 2

I’m posting notes from my week away at the PCA’s annual General Assembly this week. I’ve highlighted several areas of importance and made summary notes which I’m posting here for your information, edification, and (hopefully) inspiration about our relationship with a biblical denomination like the PCA.

I also hope, however, to challenge you to see where our denomination is weak and remember that the Kingdom of God is not primarily about “denominations” but about the work of the Holy Spirit making the invisible grace of God visible in our lives.

Thank you for praying and for believing that God is doing good things in Mercy Hill’s ministry.

II. Funding Denominational Work.

There were a number of issues raised related to money and funding the PCAs administrative work. It rarely (never?) makes its budget. It is not a "sexy ministry." churches find it easy to not support it as they would other PCA ministries.

And since there is no compulsory support in the PCA (we are a grassroots denomination) some things get neglected. Because of negative experiences related to liberal theology and unholy centralizing of power in the old PCUS (the denomination the PCA left in 1972) no church in the PCA is forced to give to any missions agency or board.

But that means work we do collectively sometimes struggles to be funded. All the proposals for changing the funding structure of the AC were sent back to be studied again this year.

On a related note, I was interested to learn that the “2012 partnership shares”--what the denomination "needs" from it's churches to run the agencies and missions we have created--are $97 per communicant member.

Currently Mercy Hill doesn’t give any money toward its “partnership shares.” That is a goal for us as well as giving 10% of our budget away to church planting, and 10% to local mercy ministry needs.

Please pray for us as we seek to reach these financial goals; we are a long ways off from this yet. May God help Mercy Hill be a generous AND connectional church.

III. Deaconesses & Women Assisting in Mercy Ministry

A big debate over the past couple of years has been on the topic of the theological basis for (or against) women serving as deacons.

We all agree that women in mercy ministry is important. We disagree as to what form that takes and what they are to be called.

There is lots of good discussion on the topic in these assembly supplements.

One was an amendment that comes back to the GA having been passed by the presbyteries: Amend BCO 9-7 "these assistants to the deacons are not officers of the church..."

In general, I agree. Metro ATL and Metro Chicago voted against. Interestingly, Metro NY voted unanimously for this amendment. I don’t recall the outcome of this amendment to our Book of Church Order from the assembly this year.

As a point of reference, however, ordination in Scripture is always a conferral of authority. In this regard, to ordain a woman to this office, I believe, creates a problem with the ban on women exercising authority stated by St. Paul in 1 Timothy 2: "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority..."

The so-called Order of Widows of 1 Timothy 5 describes a way for women to function in some official capacity as ministers (servants) of mercy, without the conferral of the credentials and authority which ordination suggests.

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Notes from General Assembly, 1

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 18:41:00 -0700

I attended a denominational meeting this past week called the General Assembly. It is an annual formal gathering of Presbyterian Churches in America pastors and elder-representatives of churches.

"What happens at General Assembly?" is a question I’m often asked.

So, to answer that, here are a few of my notes that hopefully help you understand what I did, and what took place, during this year’s GA in Virginia Beach.

I’ll be posting a new area of discussion from the Assembly that I think is helpful each day this week.

As you read these summaries, my hope is that you’ll know a little better what it means to be “presbyterian,” know some of the issues our denomination wrestles with, see where our strengths (and weaknesses) are as a denomination, and better pray for me and for our church that we will honor God in our calling to reach the lost for Jesus here in south Jersey.

***

I. Overtures.

At the General Assembly, every year requests for “action” called overtures are brought before the gathering of pastors and elders. Overtures are official requests from the PCAs regional bodies called presbyteries. In some cases they can come from individuals. Because the General Assembly (GA) is somewhat analogous to a supreme court of the PCA, it "hears" hard or disputed cases that could not be resolved at the regional level.

For your information, our church is a member of the regional body called the New Jersey Presbytery, which is a region comprised of the nine southern counties of the state of New Jersey. Mercy Hill is the first church plant in this presbytery in many years and, with the addition of Santo Garofalo’s church plant in Atlantic City, and Doug Logan’s church plant in Camden, brings our presbytery’s total churches to 14.

Here are a few of the more significant overtures that came before the GA:

Overture 9 ("Faithful Witness") addresses the subject of "Insider Movements." This relates to the accurate and faithful translation of the Scriptures in cultures where there is pressure to accommodate key theological teachings. Some missionary agencies are translating the Scriptures in such a way that downplays offensive terms for God in the Bible (like “Father” or “Son”) and this overture called on the PCA to repudiate such translations and to study the matter so as to provide some theological guidelines for such missions agencies.

Overture 8 (“solemnization of marriage”) is a request to grant the section of the PCAs book of order related to marriage something called "full constitutional status."

This means that it would be more "binding" or "permanent" in the PCA than the rest of the book of order, along the lines of the confession and the books instruction on the sacraments.

While I agree that marriage in the eyes of God is only to be between one man and one woman, I don’t think we need to add this to our standards. The simple reason is that it is already there in spades. No matter where you go in the Bible, in the Westminster Confession of Faith, and in our Book of Order, you find this taught clearly. The GA agreed and defeated this overture.

Overture 12 (“NAE”) proposes that the PCA withdraw from an organization called the National Association of Evangelicals. The proposal comes from the Central Carolina presbytery.

Basically, I agree. Especially if the NAE has become a "Washington lobby" group. Organizations like these tend to decline in their significance over time and this is like spiritual entropy. Things fall apart.

At the same time the PCAs heritage is to "show courage" by separation. I don't dispute this impulse, but there are more kinds of courage than this. Separating from the NAE isn't the only way to show biblical faithfulness.

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Hope in Suffering

Sat, 23 Apr 2011 16:46:00 -0700

This is the title track from Matthew Perryman Jones's new album, Until the Dawn Appears.

I think it's a great poem for people who struggle with the hardships of a heavy emotional history.

The repeat refrain, "Oh How Long?" is davidic in its tone (see Psalm 13) and very human. But it is not a depressing poem; it is a real offer of hope, and a statement of faith: the Dawn has appeared in Jesus, Our Morningstar from on High, and He Will Come Again.

Read it and see if you agree:

I've been turning up the stones of my own discontent

And been finding out where all my hidden sorrows went.

They've been laying there for years; I've kept them out of view.

It's time I dust them off and take a good look at you.

Oh how long?

Well it's easier to clench your fists and grind your teeth,

than to look into the sadness that lives underneath.

You can kill off all those feelings, and they turn to ghosts

And they take over your house, and become the host.

Oh how long?

The man of sorrows walked the shores of Galilee

And his eyes were cast with joy toward the crystal sea

where the shadows will be gone and all these bitter tears

And my heart will hang on that until the dawn appears.

Oh how long?

May this confidence and hope help and inspire you today no matter what your circumstances may be.

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Sixteenth Century Tonic

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 08:27:00 -0700

If good wine and beer improve with time, then this draught from the sixteenth century is worth sipping and savoring. It comes from the old cask of the English Reformation and the pen of the martyr and pastor, Hugh Latimer.

Our church is hosting a Good Friday service we’re calling a Shadow Service, because we’re using candles and extinguishing them one by one as sections of Matthew’s Gospel are read. Such things as candles in worship services represent something of an innovation in certain sectors and segments of Protestantism who debate such things as the Regulative Principle.

The principle goes something like this: only what is commanded in worship may be performed in worship. This is opposed to what is it’s logical opposite: unless it is forbidden, it is permitted.

Presbyterians, and their Reformed forbears, hold to the former, and hence, historically have eschewed such special services as Good Friday.

While there are many complexities to the debate, it is helpful to remember that we live in a day with a deep loss of historical memory as it pertains to anything that conflicts with, or goes against our own preferences. Espeically among the young.

Which brings me back to Hugh Latimer.

Most men aspiring to church leadership under the age of thirty-five have no idea that people debate things considered as “innovations” in worship services. But consider, for example, this point of view of the reformer Hugh Latimer on various traditions and practices of the Roman Catholic church of his day.

(Latimer, by the way, was one of the Oxford martyrs, alongside Ridley and Cranmer, who was ordered killed by the Roman Catholic queen Mary I for his Protestant beliefs.)

And now I would ask a strange question: who is the most diligentest bishop and prelate in all England, that passeth all the rest in doing his office? I can tell, for I know him who it is; I know him well. But now I think I see you listening and hearkening that I should name him. There is one that passeth all the other, and is the most diligent prelate and preacher in all England. And will ye know who it is? I will tell you: it is the devil.

He is the most diligent preacher of all other; he is never out of his diocese; he is never from his cure; ye shall never find him unoccupied; he is ever in his parish; he keepeth residence at all times; ye shall never find him out of the way, call for him when you will he is ever at home; the diligentest preacher in all the realm; he is ever at his plough: no lording nor loitering can hinder him; he is ever applying his business, ye shall never find him idle, I warrant you. And his office is to hinder religion, to maintain superstition, to set up idolatry, to teach all kind of popery.

He is ready as he can be wished for to set forth his plough; to devise as many ways as can be to deface and obscure God's glory. Where the devil is resident, and hath his plough going, there away with books, and up with candles; away with bibles, and up with beads; away with the light of the gospel, and up with the light of candles, yea, at noon-days. Where the devil is resident, that he may prevail, up with all superstition and idolatry; tensing, painting of images, candles, palms, ashes, holy water, and new service of men's inventing; as though man could invent a better way to honour God with than God himself hath appointed.

Down with Christ's cross, up with purgatory pickpurse, up with him, the popish purgatory, I mean. Away with clothing the naked, the poor and impotent; up with decking of images, and gay garnishing of stocks and stones: up with man's traditions and his laws, down with God's traditions and his most holy word. Down with the old honour due to God, and up with the new god's honour. Let all things be done in Latin: there must be nothing but Latin, not so much as Memento, homo, quod cinis es, et in cinerem reverteris: "Remember, man, that thou art ashes, and into ashes thou shalt return:" which be the words that the minister speaketh unto the ignorant people, when he giveth them ashes upon Ash-Wednesday; but it must be spoken in Latin: God's word may in no wise be translated into English.

Oh that our prelates would be as diligent to sow the corn of good doctrine, as Satan is to sow cockle and darnel! And this is the devilish ploughing, the which worketh to have things in Latin, and letteth the fruitful edification.

If you made it through this excerpt, your eyebrows must be singed by now. Clearly Latimer isn’t writing to be published in the editorial page of the Philadelphia Inquirer or the Gloucester County Times.

Indeed, Latimer may be downplayed or discounted for archaic language, ancient insults (words like “popery” and “idolatry” and “superstition”), but there is no mistaking his zeal is singular: let the Gospel, and the Word of God, be preeminent in our lives and especially in our services.

Note, too, how Latimer connects the veneration of God’s Word and the Gospel with authentic and practical helps for the poor and needy. Could it be that as ceremony increases, our compassion decreases?

In my experience, though, I notice the opposite: it is those churches whose focus seems so exclusively on “the Word” which, in our day, lack the kind of compassion that Latimer here advocates.

All that to say, this is stout drinking as we prepare to celebrate the death of Jesus (on “Good” Friday) and his resurrection (as we do every Sunday, but especially this one, Easter Sunday) this weekend.

(Thanks to Hugh McCann for this extract from Latimer.)

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A Contradictory Jesus

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:27:00 -0700

People who struggle with the Bible tend to come in two groups. Skeptics, who seek facts, and cynics, who seek faults.(1)

It is interesting that those same people were present in Jesus' day; Jesus himself tended to show mercy and patience with the former group, and have no patience at all with the latter.

As it relates to the law, there are a few interesting apparent contradictions that I came across recently that I think are worth discussing, in the spirit of engaging a skeptic who seeks the facts and the knowledge of God in his or her life.

Jesus forbids an oath because it procedes from evil, but he himself takes an oath.
He says that a man who calls his brother a fool is in danger of hell-fire, but he himself calls the Pharisees and scribes fools.
Jesus commands the disciples to turn the other check, but he himself (acc. to John 18:23) protests when someone slaps him on the face during his trial.

These examples, which I list from a section of H. Ridderbos' Coming of the Kingdom, are proof of at least five things about Jesus' teaching. Here's the list:

Jesus consistently distinguishes between less significant and "weighter" matters of the law (compare Matthew 23:23)
Jesus consistently dismisses the inadequate interpretation of the law by the Scribes and Pharisees, both when they go beyond the law (as in the Sabbath debates), try to get around the law (as in the Corban controversy), or when they fail to live up to the law (as with their interpretation of adultery).
Where the interpretation of the law seems to be exclusively concerned with outward behavior, Jesus refers to the disposition of the heart and makes an effort to get to the root of the matter.
When the lawyers seem to be focused on only one narrow application, Jesus may give a broader application, one that fits more in line with the whole of God's commandments.
When the leaders are focused on microscopic obedience, or interpretations (or perversions) of the law, Jesus gets back to the original intent of Moses.

But in every case, with his use of the law, Jesus is always trying to place man in the presence of a Holy God, coram deo.

Such a relationship demands humility, for no law can enable us to grasp the vast and unmeasurable character of our Creator and Redeemer. The law, if anything, helps us to discover THAT fact.

So, these seeming contradictions I've listed above are in fact proof that Jesus loves the law (he's not afraid to take oaths, as allowed for in the law; he's not adverse to calling out false prophets, which the law allows for, nor is he against justice in trials, which the law also allows for).

Jesus never sets the law aside. But neither does he endorse the interpretations given to the law by the teachers of that day.

Most importantly, Jesus understands that as to the moral law, He has come to stand in the place of sinners and absorb their curse (becoming sin) on the cross that His people might become "the righteousness of God" in Christ, by faith.

Thank you Jesus for being obedient to the law.

(1) thanks to JR Briggs for this helpful distinction.

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Explaining Away

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 19:09:00 -0800

The empirical perspective holds that everything must have an explanation within the realm of accessible human knowledge. For something to be true, it must be able to be touched, tasted, seen, or smelled. It must be verifiable.

Empiricists, in other words, are all from Missouri, the Show Me state.

An Empirical reading of the Bible, then, will turn up some interesting and wacky insights.

Wacky, because the world of Scripture is securely fixed to a theological axis; and God, the creator, which its story describes, is never one to come to us on our requested empirical terms. Interesting because the lengths to which some will go to explain the non empirical events of Scripture as such are quite extravagant at times, as here with one author's explanation of the first biblical plague, turning the Nile into blood, and those thereafter.

Here's the quote:

The first plague was the result of a high inundation that made the river red with sentiment (causing it to look like blood). Concurrent excessive precipitation brought flagellates and their bacteria from mountain lakes and streams, resulting in animal death in the river. The death of the fish polluted the water habitat, a disaster which forced the frogs from the river onto dry land. The frogs died, and soon thereafter Mosquitos or lice and flies multiplied off the dead amphibians. The insects carried disease (probably anthrax) to the land animals and eventually to humans." (Greta Hort, The plagues of Egypt, ZAW 69, 1957 84-103; 70 1958 48-59. Quoted by Currid in Ancient Egypt and the Old Teatament, p 105.)

There is that view. Or, there is the story's stated alternative explanation: God was showing Pharaoh, His people, and the whole world that He was God and there is no other.

Interestingly, our choice today is the same as that which confronted Pharaoh: worshipping a god of our own imaginations, one which is under our control--or worshipping the God who created all things and before whom (He claims in Scripture) will all one day give an answer.

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The Problem of Evil & Academic "Experts" on God

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 08:48:00 -0800

In his book, Apologetics to the Glory of God, John Frame writes, "The Bible is preoccupied with the problem of evil."

Interesting, then, that a topic that the Bible is preoccupied with is never answered exhaustively or completely.

In fact, Frame says that we are "unlikely to find complete answers to all of these questions--answers which are not subject to further questions."

However, we are able to get answers in another sense: in the sense that there is reason to believe in the face of suffering, there is help for the difficulties presented to us by our doubts and fears, and there is an engagement with our struggle with unexplained evil.

But none of these helps will be "helpful" without some level of disengagement of your "Right" to an "Answer" that ends all answers.

Put another way, unless you relinquish your supposed "right" to get an answer without mystery, or an answer which has no further questions behind it, there will be no lasting comfort for those with this question.

Why is this the case? I think the answer relaes to this: taking comfort in God's care in the midst of evil requires a person to, at some basic level, to give up his or her demand that God answer all questions.

This may seem like an intellectual cop out for some of you who struggle to believe in God. And whose struggle is centered on this specific question. But if this response is unsatisfying to you, what are your alternatives?

You can take upon yourself the responsibility for exhaustively answering all questions related to evil apart from God. But this will require you to shoulder the weight of deity, and from a Christian point of view, to ignore and erase every vestige of transcendent hope in your soul.

That is supremely foolish and is partly why the bible says The Fool has said in his heart there is no god.

Another way to address the problem of evil that Frame points out is the path some liberal theologians (and I would add, those in the emerging church movement) take: evil exists because God is not fully able to prevent it."

But think about it: a god who is not totally sovereign, who differs at all from the biblical absolute personality [portrayed in Genesis 1] is not worthy of worship and in fact is an idol to be despised not worshipped.

Frame:

It would be nice to have a solution to te problem of evil but not at any price. If the price we must pay is the sovereignty of God, the faithful Christian must say the price is too high. After all it is of little importance whether any of us discovers the answer to the problem of evil. It is possible to live a long and happy and faithful life without an answer. But it is all important that we worship the true god, the God of scripture. Without him human life is worth nothing. Apologetics to the Glory of God,154.

Frame goes on to ask, rather bluntly: Who do the theologians and philosophers think they are any way? Why do they imagine they are in a position to correct the Bibles teaching concerning God? For the most part they are known for their scholarship not, to put it mildly, for their piety.

And he is right. Philosophers and debaters are not prophets or priests, nor do they claim to be. But as such, they are known for their cool, calculating logic, not for the depth of their personal relationship with God. It might be accused that I'm begging the question, but how can someone who doesn't believe in God be in any position to weigh in on the topic?

If your only credentials are your academic degrees and academic positions, how does that qualify you to be an expert on God?

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Amazing Grace and What God Knows

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 15:23:00 -0800

I'm not a serious philosopher, but I know to take philosophy seriously. Talking with a friend recently the subject of Calvinism and Arminianism came up.

I was reminded that for most believing people, the question of just "how I come to believe or have faith" is pretty simple, and can be summarized in the words of the great hymn, Amazing Grace:

Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound! That saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found. Was blind, but now I see.

These simple expressions summarize, I would guess, most people's experience with authentic Christianity: I was once blind and lost, and now I'm found and seeing. I don't necessarily know exactly how it happened, but here I am today: I find myself in a "state of faith."

Such "simple faith" is beyond certain people, such as the late George Carlin. (See his almost ten-minute rant against faith in God here. Beware: lots of profanity (no surprise) and it is I think quite sad.

Simple faith confuses philosophers, though. And philosophy is what's on my mind today; specifically, the philosophical attempt to describe how God knows what we do known as "Molinism."

Molinism engages the subject of God's foreknowledge by venturing to answer just how we believe. In short, it proposes that God sees in advance what we will do and adjusts matters accordingly.

But this falls short of the kind of knowledge we read God has in the Scriptures. On the contrary, what God Knows are those things which God Has or Will Bring About. By this I mean God's knowledge is an extension of His Word: and His Word is Constitutive. He speaks and things come into being.

(Here is a good analysis about Molinism by a former pastor and professor of mine, John Frame. Also, Wikipedia has a good article here.)

So, when you confront what God knows, and wonder how you can choose something that God already knew you would choose, there are no easy answers. Molinism is an attempt I think at an easy answer.

On the contrary, we must return to the basic proposition that confronted Adam in the Garden of Eden, and choose differently. Rather than attempting to Be God (by taking the place as the one who determines Good and Evil) we must be content as creatures, as Not-God, and trust that what the Story says throughout is true: He is the author of all that is Good, and yet even that which is evil is not beyond His control, but rather is being used as part of His perfect plan in the world.

More than that is not for the creature to know. What we do know is Amazing Grace.

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Chinese Mothers & Christian Parenting

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 14:20:00 -0800

I heard the interview the other day on NPR's Fresh Air on WHYY. I was struck with a bunch of thoughts. She says the strict work ethic imposed upon children builds a "virtuous circle," one in which the reward is shown to be worth the effort. Yet, also, she says, "the Chinese model doesn't deal well with failure."

A virtuous circle, but one that doesn't deal well with failure.

What kind of virtue circle doesn't deal well with failure? One that lacks the Gospel, that's what. Only the Gospel can deal with failure because in it, the Ultimate Failure is on Display: Jesus, the Only Perfect Success, dies an Utter Failure for the sins of those who really deserved what He got.

Gospel Parenting alone ties together the challenge to deal with failure (on the one hand) and the challenge to push our kids to do their best (on the other).

Last week I read this review and discussion of Chua's book, and was struck again by the way this book brings up such important issues. The article as posted on the Mockingbird website was, at the time of my post (waaaay down at the bottom) was almost fifty comments long.

In my post there, I expressed the following:

I have told my kids that one of the main reasons God has given them a Dad is to teach them to love Him more.
When I reflect the grace of God in their lives, or the Fatherly discipline of God in their lives, I am positively showing them a little picture of God. A picture that brings life.
Life, by the way, and spiritual health, comes in part by confining our behavior to certain norms or limits. Ideally such confinement arises out of a heart of Gospel gratitude, but in my experience, sometimes such a heart follows, rather than leads, the way.
Limits help me hear God, help me love God, help me suffer well, help me keep a kingdom mindset. They also help children.
Limits like going to bed at a certain time, being given a challenge to make a certain grade on a test, being urged to work as hard as I can on a project, or whatever.
Parents love their children when they give them such limits.
But it would be strange if I told my child to go to bed and found out that such a limit scarred him or her for life because he thought that was the "Good News."

Read the Mockingbird review, check out the NPR review, and, most importantly, read the book. We have a lot to learn as parents and this is an important issue.

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Mark Heard

Fri, 17 Dec 2010 06:55:00 -0800

When I first watched Braveheart, I conceived of the idea of the Warrior Bard. I know it's not unique to me, but it is a role that has always inspired men throughout history to great deeds. Musicians like Mark Heard do a good job at attempting to embody both sides of that coin, doing better perhaps at the bard, than at the warrior role.

I love every song on this album and wore out the "tape" through overplay and had to buy a new copy, which I had to replace more than once because I gave it to a friend.

Here's a song I'll never forget; the mandolin lead is amazing. And isn't it true: 'we end up looking like what we believe.' Read, and may God have mercy on us:

I will rise from my bed with a question again
As I work to inherit the restless wind
The view from my window is cold and obscene
I want to touch what my eyes haven't seen

But they have packaged our virtue in cellulose dreams
And sold us the remnants 'til our pockets are clean
'Til our hopes fall 'round our feet
Like the dust of dead leaves
And we end up looking like what we believe

We are soot-covered urchins running wild and unshod
We will always be remembered as the orphans of God
They will dig up these ruins and make flutes of our bones
And blow a hymn to the memory of the orphans of God

Like bees in a bottle we are flying at fate
Beating our wings against the walls of this place
Unaware that the struggle is the blood of the proof
In choosing to believe the unbelievable truth

But they have captured our siblings and rendered them mute
They've disputed our lineage and poisoned our roots
We have bought from the brokers who have broken their oaths
And we're out on the streets with a lump in our throats

We are soot-covered urchins running wild and unshod
We will always be remembered as the orphans of God
They will dig up these ruins
And make flutes of our bones
And blow a hymn to the memory of the orphans of God

The lyrics are taken from a Mark Heard tribute website that can be found here.

Thank you again to low5point for featuring this brave dude and reminding me of where I've come from, for reminding me of a few of my spiritual bard-fathers, may they rest in peace.

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The Lust, the Flesh, the Eyes, and the Pride of Life

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 11:37:00 -0800

The 77s recorded this amazing song sometime in the late 80s/early 90s, with the payoff lyric, "...drain the life right out of me."

I listened to this over and over, and now wish I could've met these guys or seen them play.

Well, I feel like I have to feel
Something good all of the time
With most of life I cannot deal

But a good feeling I can feel
Even though it may not be real
And if a person, place or thing can deliver
I will quiver with delight
But will it last me for all my life
Or just one more lonely night

The lust, the flesh, the eyes
And the pride of life
Drain the life right out of me

Well, I see something and I want it
Bam! Right now!
No questions asked
Don't worry how much it costs me now or later
I want it and I want it fast
I'll go to any length
Sacrifice all that I already have
And all that I might get
Just to get
Something more that I don't need
And Lord, please don't ask me what for

The lust, the flesh
The eyes
And the pride of life
Drain the life
Right out of me

And I love when folks
Look right at me
And what I'm doing
Or have done
And lay it on about
How groovy I am
And that I'm looking grand
And every single word
Makes me think I'll live forever
Never knowing that they probably
Won't remember what they said tomorrow
Tomorrow I could be dead

The lust, the flesh
The eyes
And the pride of life
Drain the life
Right out of me

Lyrics are from this not too spammy lyrics website. Check out the youtube video below. Thanks again to low5point for his research.

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