tohu va bohu

No Piece of Cake

2013-05-18T11:45:00-07:00

No Piece of Cake

Arguing about doctrinal details is much easier than confessing and repenting from personal sin. For example, the woman at the well was looking to get off the subject of her adulteries. Her question about the proper location for true worship was a smoke bomb with a short fuse. Jesus saw straight through the diversion.

One of the reasons it’s easier to stay with observation and interpretation discussions in small group settings is because those are, after all, less demanding. It takes less work for both question askers and answerers. For that matter, taking prayer requests is also much less awkward or provocative or offensive. Uncovering sinful attitudes, on the other hand, isn’t always straightforward and is rarely trouble-free. But the disciple-maker’s responsibility includes teaching others “to observe all that [Jesus] commanded” (Matthew 28:19). Observing the command is not the same as observing what He commanded, if you know what I mean.

It’s not that exegetical details are ignorable. May it never be. Proper application hinges on accurate, illuminated understanding. Bible observations and personal obediences are joined at the hip and Jesus always gets the ball in the socket. He did so without compromise and also with utmost compassion. He is, after all, the Master.

Staying on the surface of a passage in discussion isn’t good. The sword of the Spirit is sharp; let it out so that it can cut deep into the thoughts and intentions of the heart. At the same time, it’s not necessary to be a third-degree jerk and interrogate someone else into a confession whether they need it or not. Let’s try to work not only at better descriptions of the living water, but also, in the Spirit, helping those around us to drink it.

Victory in Jesus

2013-05-09T21:20:00-07:00

Victory in Jesus

There weren’t many Christian bands when I was in high school. Petra, Steven Curtis Chapman, and DC Talk topped the list. At my Baptist church I remember being discouraged from listening to Carmelo Domenic Licciardello, the artist better known as Carman, because he was Charismatic. I also remember telling my friends that “charismatic” meant that he got a little too excited. As Baptists, we were only supposed to be excited about conferences for foreign missions and church picnics.

Being the envelope pusher that I was, I listened to some Carman anyway. I won’t try to justify his lyrics or his style, but I did appreciate a certain perspective from his song, “Champion.”

If you know the song you know that it presents demons and angels gathered to watch a boxing match between Jesus and Satan with God the Father officiating. Each lands blows on his opponent until finally Satan knocks Jesus to the mat. The rush slows and the Rocky music quiets as Satan waits for the 10-count to begin.

Rather than “1…2…3…4,” however, the Father starts counting “10…9…8…7.” Satan objects. He protests, “You’re counting the wrong way!” The countdown gets to 1 and Jesus rises as Champion.

On one hand, the only way to make the song less serious would be turn Jesus and Satan into cartoon vegetable characters. But the point is, Jesus’ death and resurrection was–actually, really, seriously–a triumph. I include His death in the triumph because, apart from His death, we could have no forgiveness. Unless He laid down His life first, He could not give us His life later. Death had to be paid. The resurrection proved that God was satisfied with His Son’s work.

The Lord’s Table is a table of victory. It is not victory instead of death, it is victory through and, therefore, over it. He shares that victory with all of us who believe.

Not Even a Footnote

2013-05-07T11:50:00-07:00

Not Even a Footnote

One of the first, if not the first, attempts at providing a linear history of the world was written by Herodotus. He wrote in the 5th century before Christ and he wrote about events before, during, and after the Persian wars from circa 559 to 424. That means he reported stories from the time overlapping with the Old Testament book of Esther. In fact, King Ahasuerus may have been better known by his Greek name, Xerxes, making Esther the Queen of one of the key Persian kings that Herodotus narrated.

Herodotus’ Histories is broad, covering the then known world. The history is detailed, down to shoe styles and bends in specific rivers. The history is long, taking over 700 pages to tell. Yet the history says nothing about Israel. Nowhere. Nothing. God’s chosen people were not a mark on the timeline.

This continues to discourage me and convict me. It discourages me because God assigned Israel to be a “light for the nations.” Their worship was to be a signal over the peoples as Isaiah 62:10 states. The Lord’s salvation was to be proclaimed to the ends of the earth. Yes, as a nation the Jews beat a small drum but they ought to have made a huge noise. How discouraging that they weren’t even a footnote.

I’m convicted by the same because the Lord’s salvation is no less for the ends of the earth today. As Gentiles we have been called out of darkness into His marvelous light and, as God’s people, we are called to let our light shine before men. Is our worship a signal over the peoples? How is our witness to His global reign? When the next Histories is written, let it not be said of us that there was nothing to say of us.

The Cost of Commitment

2013-05-06T21:00:00-07:00

The Cost of Commitment

Jesus brought a crowd of potential disciples to a turning point in Luke 14. He asked, “What king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?” (verse 31). This precaution is so obvious it is almost assumed. What king wouldn’t calculate his resources (soldiers and supplies) and his enemy’s resources before going into battle?

Jesus follows His question with an inference for the king and a conclusion for disciples. A smart king will consider if he is able to meet the other king “and if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace” (verse 32). If he can’t afford to lose, he should play a different game. If he can’t win, perhaps he can negotiate his losses. Again, this seems to be an illustration about having enough resources.

But Jesus appears to jump the rails when He applies the analogy to discipleship. He concludes, “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (verse 33). The verses sit next to each other but how do they fit with each other? First He asks, do you have enough or don’t you? Then He asks, will you give up everything or won’t you? You’ve taken inventory of the warehouse, so therefore, you must be willing to empty it all. What line of argument is that?

The analogy and application meet on the common ground of commitment. The question a king faces when sorting out if his army can fight (and win) against another army twice its size is not really about the number of soldiers, it’s about the commitment of the soldiers. Are the 10,000 all in? Are they willing to give up everything until the fight is finished? Christ applies this to the cost to discipleship. “If anyone comes to me and does not hate…even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (verse 26). Before entering a fight, and before becoming a follower of Christ, a man must count the cost of total dedication.

The count and the cost apply no less to our school. None of us is a king, though now we have a Headmaster and a “Cheer-man” of the Board. More importantly we have one Lord, Jesus Christ, and for His sake a group of us began to consider starting a school about 20 months ago. When we began to meet and pray and study and plan, we understood that this was war. We did sit down first and deliberate whether we were able to meet the challenges of combat like this.

From the Eden Garden a battle has waged between the seed of the dragon (or “serpent” if you prefer) and the seed of the woman (Genesis 3:15), whom Paul identified as Jesus (Galatians 4:4). Everything on earth, seen and unseen, flies colors for one side of the other. Even Swiss banks can’t ride the fence in this fight. Neutrality does not exist, in government, in the media, in the marketplace, or in education.

We fly the colors of Jesus at ECS. That said, we are a ragtag army squad. We are more like militia, putting order into the ranks as we go along. As a school board and staff we barely know how to shoot the big guns of classical and Christian schooling. But we know that we must shoot. We know that if we run out of bullets, we’ll have to fix bayonets. We know that the cost of not fighting is greater than we know.

G.K. Chesterton famously said that if a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing badly. That could be our motto: Doing valuable things badly. But Chesterton’s quote doesn’t quite hit the target. His quote works for writing poetry and singing in church and planting blueberry bushes. Those are great and valuable things, but no one’s life depends on them. The quote doesn’t sound the alarm with enough desperation.

We might kick his comment up a notch. If a fight is worth fighting, it’s worth fighting to death. ECS is fighting a fight worth fighting.

No reasonable person starts a school. My wife and I recently heard Doug Wilson, granddaddy of the classical and Christian school resurgence, say at another school’s fundraising dinner that he wishes more Christians would love God with all their hearts and minds and then pray, “Geronimo!” Starting a school is a lot like jumping into the deep end, you’re going to be all wet no matter what. Mo wife likes to say that what we’re doing is a lot like drowning, but more fun.

Going back to the initial illustration, we did sit down and count the cost. We did deliberate whether we were able to meet the challenges of this battle. We looked long and hard at what and how and when and where and if. And still, no amount of coffee made us certain that we could be successful. We’re up against an enemy that doesn’t just double our resources, he makes us look like second grade school girls shooting square marbles on the playground. Or, to update the simile, he makes us look like we are sending text messages from a rotary phone.

But, in our case, sending a delegation to compromise was not an option. It isn’t merely impossible to make peace with the dragon, it is unfaithful. Coming to terms with him is coming to terms with death, ours and our kids and their kids. Fighting isn’t only worthy doing badly, it’s the only thing worth doing.

We have fought a “glorious” eight month campaign so far. By God’s grace we have been battling but we’re by no means beating a dead dragon. We’re all in because we believe that the fight is inescapable as Christians. We will spend and be spent for the sake of our students, their families, the Marysville community, and ultimately for the glory of our King.

We will continue to fight by the Word and by the Spirit and on caffeine fumes (if the coffee runs out) because we believe that the dragon doesn’t take days off. We’re working to equip a generation of happy warriors to go all in, too. If you’d be willing to pray for us, please do. If you’d like to find out more about our school, take a look over here, come visit for a couple hours, or leave a comment and let me know.

Of Course We Are a Prep School

2013-05-02T12:05:00-07:00

Of Course We Are a Prep School

A frequent knock against classical Christian schools is that they grow up into prep schools. These critics usually refer to a “prep school” as one that belabors study and grades and competition and success. A prep school defines success as high scores on standardized tests and graduates who are accepted at esteemed universities. The margin for error on these campuses is thin, just like their sense of humor.

I understand that “prep school” is a thing. But when the final bell rings, every student in every school has been prepared to do something. The question is, prepped for what? When it comes to Evangel Classical School, of course we are a prep school. We are preparing our students to worship.

We love Jesus Christ. We love Him as Lord and we love that He is Lord. His Lordship touches everything that He made and, “without Him was not anything made that was made.” In other words, nothing is not His. He controls it all, He cares about it all, and He commanded men to manage the world under His sovereignty. His wholesale Lordship is good for us since it means that everything on earth is on the table for us to examine and use and enjoy. Where do we begin as a school?

We begin with worship. We start by submitting to His Lordship. We don’t teach and test so that future graduates can take God’s place. We educate in confidence that God is in His place. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 1:8). Education built on any other than ground than glad obedience to Jesus, whether through ignorant neglect or willful denial of His Lordship, will crumble. ECS will only be as strong as we start by depending on Christ.

Then the doors to every classroom in creation open for our study. Whether we use a telescope or a microscope, all that we see serves Him. Every verse in every book of the Bible, every sound of every letter in the alphabet, every rise and fall of every nation, every meter of every Latin poem, it all belongs to Him.

Because truth depends on Christ, we can depend on truth. Because we can depend on truth, we can spread that truth to students even when they can’t yet explain how it all works. In fact, our youngest students love gathering truth-nuggets, or what is called the “grammar” of every subject. They sing events and chant facts for fun, all the while soaking up the basics in multiple subjects. This is the first stage, also known as the Grammar stage, where we stuff their brains with knowledge.

As the students mature they start to ask more questions about why things are the way they are and how such diversity survives, even thrives, within the universe. Around junior high, when the questions (and arguments) flow freely, we work through principles of logic and practice debating with the goal of discerning what is true and fitting. This second stage, referred to as the Logic or Dialectic stage, is where we train them to better understand the world.

Then, armed with an arsenal of truth and senses trained to taste what is good, the third stage involves developing the ability to put it all into practice, especially in written and spoken forms. This is called the Rhetoric stage when wisdom takes shape and puts on nice clothes before going out.

The whole process teaches students about learning and, even after thirteen years, we will only have exposed them to the tip of Christ’s created iceberg. Whether we are counting quarters or defending capitalism, practicing cursive or mocking Greek mythology, reading about the Caesars or obeying Jesus’ command to pay Caesar his money, all of it is part of education.

This is why we do what we do at ECS. Every school is a prep school. We are a prep school, but not primarily prep for college. We are a prep school for worship. We are worshiping Christ, growing up in Christ, and learning to sing about and steward all that He’s given us.

For more on the Trivium as part of classical education, read Dorthy Sayers seminal lecture, “The Lost Tools of Learning.”

And here is a longer version of our Vision of Education, or, how we want it to work at ECS.

More Worthy Folks

2013-05-01T08:25:00-07:00

More Worthy Folks

Some families in Bethany threw a blowout one Saturday night for Jesus with Lazarus at the table (John 12:1-8). They honored Jesus with liberality, to the point of excess in the eyes of some. We would put together a potluck party for a man who rescued a hometown soldier from behind enemy lines. How much more tribute would we pay to a man who raised our friend from the dead?

Every week we enjoy a banquet table with a resurrected man in our midst. By His Spirit and in His Word Jesus is with us and will be until the end of the age. This supper is for Him, but He is more than an honored guest. He did the serving and He provided the food. He even provides the blessing with an aroma that fills the room.

His blood is worth more than the most expensive perfume. It is “precious blood, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Peter 1:19). “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished upon us” (Ephesians 1:7-8). More than an heirloom, God gave His only Son so that all who believe might have life. Thankfully, the Father never asked, “Why wasn’t My Son’s blood spilled as payment for more worthy folks?”

The crucified and risen Christ invites us to join Him, together, at this table of remembrance and rejoicing.

A Good-looking Face

2013-04-30T14:35:00-07:00

A Good-looking Face

Beware those who love to point out the sins in others. I’m not talking about someone who privately confronts a brother in sin or someone else who publicly exhorts a group from God’s Word. Both of those behaviors aim to protect the purity of God’s people. I’m talking about a man (or woman) who routinely makes pious pronouncements about others who are not acting in godly ways.

Hypocrites always have a righteous side. A wrong face is only one face; it takes a wrong and a right to be two-faced. The easiest (though not the only) way to present a good-looking face is to lift up good standards for others to obey. Pointing out that someone else is behaving badly implies that you care about what’s right and has the added benefit of removing you from the repentance line.

Oftentimes–not always, but enough to make it worth mentioning–a man who has a favorite sin to whip is trying to hide the same, or similar, sin in his own closet. A man enslaved to pornography can’t stop condemning homosexuality. A woman who criticizes gluttony gluts herself on gossip. A lazy man blows the whistle on co-workers who steal other things than minutes. And the beat goes on.

Let us be those who hate sin in our own hearts first, repenting and removing the log out of our eyes, washing our mouths from deceit, especially deceit about our sin.

Talk about Our Deadstyle

2013-04-24T00:00:00-07:00

Talk about Our Deadstyle

Our Christian hope hangs on substitution. It is better for us that Jesus died because we deserved to die and we couldn’t settle our infinite obligation with finite resources. He died for us, on behalf of us, in the place of His chosen in order to make them children. The just gave His life for the unjust, otherwise all we’d have to talk about is our deadstyle rather than our lifestyle.

The Lord’s Supper reminds us of His substitution. The body–represented by the bread–was given for us. The blood–represented by the cup–was shed on our behalf. “For our sake [God the Father] made [God the Son] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:12). His substitutionary sacrifice establishes the bases for our communion with God.

His substitution also establishes the basis for our communion with one another. For one example, this table abolishes pride. Each one of us needed a stand-in. No one needed less of a substitute than another, a partial replacement. If you were already coming to Him on your own, then feel free to hold grievances against the problem people. The problem is, we were (and in some sense still are) all problem persons, and He shouldered our blame. If you’ve got a problem with a spiritual sibling, take it up with his or her Substitute.

Christ died for us to save us and to unite us, to gather His children into one. If it were easy to make His people one, it wouldn’t be glorious. Making His people one is not more difficult for Him than Him satisfying God’s wrath against us as a glorious substitute.

Eight Cups of Water

2013-04-22T16:35:00-07:00

Eight Cups of Water

Too many times I’ve heard preachers say that the only reason that God leaves Christians on earth is so that we can evangelize. Everything else, we’re told, we can do better in heaven.1

Not only does this perspective cement an erratic dualism, it also reinforces an anemic understanding of evangelism. If my entire purpose on the planet centers on telling others the gospel, my life (or at least the “godly” minutes of my life) will revolve around learning verses and outlines and apologetic defenses of the faith to share with unbelievers. I will feel a gravity of guilt for not witnessing to every neighbor, barista, and person sitting next to me on the plane. If I am not always walking the Romans Road, so to speak, then I am wasting my entire reason for remaining in the world.

This blend of purpose with evangelism is runny, like scrambling an egg white with eight cups of water. God put us here and God often makes life hard so that we will learn to hope. He desires that we hope in Him and, as we do, He often uses our hope to provoke questions from unbelievers. Peter said, “in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). We may be diligent to prepare our apologetic answers but if we don’t have hope, why do we think they’ll ask us anything? They can read Evidence That Demands a Verdict for themselves. They can’t explain our hope when they see no evidence.

We will not grow in hope in heaven; when we get there we’ll see what we’ve hoped for. God has us here for now for His glory to be known, explained, and hoped in, for our own maturation and as a platform to watching eyes. Organizing gospel presentations requires less effort than being Christians who sanctify Christ as Lord in our hearts and who live with a hope that makes others ask why.

Of course, that begs the question how the preacher justifies doing something other than evangelizing at the moment of saying that evangelism is the only meaningful thing to do. ↩

A Powerful Tandem

2013-04-17T10:45:00-07:00

A Powerful Tandem

Jesus was always giving thanks to His Father. Before He raised Lazarus from the dead He gave thanks (John 11:41). At the Last Supper before He shed His blood for the forgiveness of sins He gave thanks (Matthew 26:27). He knew current problems and gave thanks. He looked at coming pain and gave thanks.

Perhaps one of the reasons that we don’t hope as well as we could is because we don’t give thanks as often as we should. If we were in the habit of acknowledging all the grace of God given to us already, wouldn’t we anticipate more grace to be given to us going forward? If we’ve seen seeds sprout and enjoyed harvest feasts in the fall, wouldn’t we sow more freely and expectantly every spring?

It’s not that we give thanks with ulterior motives. We give thanks because we have things to be thankful for. That’s enough. If we get caught up giving thanks when the Lord returns we won’t feel cheated. And yet just as thankfulness crowns hope fulfilled, so also thankfulness compels hope anticipated. Thanks and hope are a powerful tandem. We’ll keep thanking and hoping, thanking and eating, and eating and hoping until He returns and we give thanks for that.

Low Hope Levels

2013-04-16T08:30:00-07:00

Low Hope Levels

I’ve been impressed while studying through John 11 at how much Jesus wants His people to hope in Him. He doesn’t just raise the dead, He raises our expectations that He will raise the dead. He wants, and deserves, to be believed. He regularly puts us in worst case scenarios that only He can get us out of so that we will.

It’s wrong not to hope in Him. From the least doubt to the worst despair, from those who naively forget what He can do to those who deny what He can do, failing to hope fully in Him is sin. The weight of hopelessness is worse for those who are alive in Christ because we know the offense it is to Christ.

But we must not forget, even in our mourning and repentance, that Christ died and rose again to deal sin and that includes hopelessness. His resurrection not only provides a reason for hope but made propitiation for lack of hope. If He raises the dead, and He does, then He is not limited. This means He is not limited by our sinful disbelief more than He was limited by our spiritual deadness. He died in order to forgive us and He rose to raise our faith.

When we are convicted about low hope levels, that’s good. As with all our sin, we should confess doubt and forsake disbelief. We should also remember that we have no reason to be hopeless about low hope levels. We have Christ and we can’t keep His resurrection work in us down.

Hungering for Blessing

2013-04-15T08:35:00-07:00

Hungering for Blessing

April 7th was an exciting day for some of our flock. On Easter evening 13 people were baptized and some of them came to commune with us around the Lord’s Table for their first time ever.

Based on what the ordinances communicate, baptism is the initial profession of allegiance to Christ and communion is an ongoing participation with Christ and His Body. One belongs at the beginning of discipleship and happens (ideally) only one time, the other occurs regularly and for the rest of our spiritual life until Jesus returns. While we recognize that there are situations where someone participates in communion before being baptized, the ideal order is baptism then communion.

Imagine the joy for the first-timers to the Table. Imagine the blessing that they’ve been hungering and thirsting for. Remember that the blessing not only comes from the food Christ provides for us but also by the knitting together of us Christ accomplishes. We eat and drink with each other. There is plenty of food and plenty of fellowship. This happens every week, but a day with new communicants makes a good occasion for all of us to think about it.

Sharing this meal with each other is something we should all anticipate. We do it as one body.

One Is Weak

2013-04-10T16:00:00-07:00

One Is Weak

Is it a sin not to hope? Through the Sons of Korah, God commands us to hope.

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.
(Psalm 42:11 ESV, see also 42:5 and 43:5)

God also gives us specific promises so that we will hope for specific fulfillments. He also records many of the promises He has already fulfilled in order to solidify our hope. He is the God of hope (Romans 15:13) and He calls us to hope.

That said, God understands that we do not naturally hope. He is growing our hope, even by trials for sake of endurance for sake of hope that will not disappoint.

[W]e rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:3–5 ESV)

The standard is perfect hope yet God is patient to grow our hope.

When we don’t hope it is a heart problem. When we don’t hope, we are questioning God’s trustworthiness, His faithfulness, His power, His wisdom, His care, His character. We should confess that we make Him look weak when it’s our hope that is weak.

Always a When

2013-04-05T11:05:00-07:00

Always a When

It is impossible for death to win because Jesus is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25). Death never had a chance because God the Son is, by nature, one who rises again. He cannot be knocked down and out. Death was inevitably reversible for Him. In one way, Easter was the most obvious day in the history of the world, not only because He said He would rise, but because because He is the resurrection. Jesus coming out of the tomb was always a when, never an if.

It is also impossible for hunger or thirst to win because Jesus is true food and true drink. He doesn’t only give food that endures to eternal life (John 6:27), He is bread. “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:51).

It is the nature of God the Son to satisfy the hunger of souls. His people will not starve, they cannot be famished because Jesus gave Himself as our food.

How can this food endure to eternal life? Because He is eternal, He defeated death and rose from the dead to live eternally. It’s who He is. If you believe, then you have Him as your food. It is impossible for you to die and impossible for you to go hungry forever.

His Sinners Sinful

2013-04-01T23:00:00-07:00

His Sinners Sinful

No act more unjust or wicked has ever been done by men than the murder of Jesus. Pilate at least tried to wash his hands of Jesus’ blood but the men of Israel wanted it on theirs. They said, “His blood be on us and on our children!” (Matthew 27:25) They got what they asked for. Supposing that they were honoring God, they killed the Son of God in flesh. They screamed for His death and they gladly saw Him nailed to the cross.

Peter charged the Jews in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost:

this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. (Acts 2:23, ESV)

Whose hearts could be stained more than the men in Jerusalem? Who could carry a heavier burden of guilt than they? Yet after Jesus rose again, when He commissioned His disciples to proclaim repentance and forgiveness of sins in His name, where did He tell them to start? He told them to take the gospel to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:47; see also Acts 1:8).

In a sermon titled, “The Jerusalem Sinner Saved; or, Good news for the vilest of men”, John Bunyan preached that Christ wanted the gospel proclaimed to the most guilty first.

A great sinner, when converted, seems a booty to Jesus Christ; he gets by saving such an one; why then should both Jesus lose his glory and the sinner lose his soul at once, and that for want of an invitation?

If Christ offers pardon to the most offensive sinners, then who can out-sin His sacrifice? No one! He prefers His sinners sinful.

Jesus died and rose again for liars, for thieves, for homosexuals, for adulterers, for idolaters, for drunks, for blasphemers, and for murderers, including those who murdered Him. We may be at the end of the earth from the Jerusalem starting point but the good news is that Jesus offers us forgiveness as well.