Encouragement for Christians in Distress

The Holy Spirit of the Living God dwells within your heart.

You have a glorious destiny.

You are full of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. That is your birthright as an heir to the Kingdom of God. Will you not boldly claim it, in prayer before the throne?

The Holy Spirit of the Living God is transforming you every day. He is using the hopes and fears of all to years to conform you to the image of Christ.

"Success is the progressive realization of worthwhile goals."

-Dan Miller

If you are more like Christ today than you were yesterday, then you were a success today.

Life is not but a walking shadow. Life is a vast and tattered musical brocade. You can peer through the tears to see the glory beyond, and take heart.

Linguistics

I heard an interesting paper today read by Dr. Doug Moo, a leader in the field of biblical translation and New Testament studies. I heard a term I'd never heard before- "computational linguistics."

It means the process of using search engines to see what sorts of words and phrases are in common usage, what they mean, and how those meanings have evolved over time. Search Google for a word's meaning to see an example- it'll have a chart showing the word's usage over the last two hundred years.

I was also gratified personally to hear such a distinguished scholar express a view that I've held privately for a while now- namely, that linguistics is a descriptive enterprise, rather than a prescriptive one.

My education came, primarily, at the hands of prescriptivists, who, I think, suspect any decoupling of words and meaning as leading to the postmodern morass of subjectivity that any sane person rightly fears. However, language is an ever-changing thing because it's practiced by living, breathing people, and "proper English" is always elusive. Whose English is proper?

My dad ran an inner city ministry, and as a result I grew up hearing and occasionally speaking what I've come to know as African American Vernacular English. While recognizing that it's grammar and syntax differed from the English I learned in school, sometimes significantly, I could also recognize, even as a kid, that it's grammar and syntax were internally consistent. And that seemed to me to dispel the notion that it was "bad English." Rather, it was English that played by different rules- but rules there were.

Then as I got older and studied German in college, I began to realize that the German spoken in my house by my parents was decidedly Hessian in accent and pronunciation. German speakers can place me around Frankfurt am Main pretty quickly, the way someone could identify a Texan or Jersey Shore resident here.

These two experiences have led me to take a descriptivist view of language.

Now, This sort of thing can sound downright Continental, and therefore heretical, in some precincts. After all, the last generation of intellectuals witnessed firsthand the depredations by the krauts of Scripture (Boltmann, et al) and of art and morality by the frogs (Derrida, Foucault, etc). But I hope to dispel that notion by saying that objective meaning obviously exists. It is, in my view, a priori, or as Dr. Plantinga would say, "properly basic." And that objective reality can be known and communicated.

It's my belief that our amazing ability to take the language that we receive, both formally through school and informally by swimming through this melting pot of ours, and add to it shades and layers of meaning heretofore unknown, is a reflection of the Imago Dei within us.

After all, what determines the brilliance of a diamond is its ability to reflect light. What reflects the light of our Creator better than weaving a tapestry of words that we'll continue to enjoy and offer up for all eternity?

God's Word is so comprehensive and beautiful that He exists as a person within the Holy Trinity. As bearers of the divine image, our language also possesses the quality of dynamic personhood.

As we create and discard words and phrases through the process of interacting with people and the world, we would do well to remember the words of the apostle-

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."

And of the psalmist-

"May the words of my mouth,
And the meditations of my heart,
Be acceptable in your sight, O Lord,
My strength and my redeemer."

Review of Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen

This book is simply outstanding. Please read it. 

The theological controversies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries sundered the church, in many ways irreparably. Just as it has been noted that Western Philosophy is merely a series of footnotes on Plato, it could well be said that the history of the American church in the 20th and early 21st centuries is but a series of footnotes on the Modernism/Christianity debate. 

The main question of Modernism/Liberalism is this: How can Christianity continue in the face of the destruction of its core assumptions by the discoveries of modern science? The answer it gives is by re-tooling the Christian message to exclude or render into metaphor any reference to the supernatural, and reduce Jesus of Nazareth to a faith healer and moral teacher on the level of Confucius, the Buddha, or Lao Tzu. Jesus showed us the way to live our lives in such a way as to foster more empathy, concern, and zeal for social improvement of those less fortunate, a schema he called the "Kingdom of Heaven." We don't need to believe in something as implausible as virgin birth, or vicarious atonement, or supernatural resurrection, in order to lean in to living the life that Jesus advocated. 

But, just as Pierre Bosquet, an observer of the charge of the Light Brigade, is said to have quipped: 
C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre: c'est de la folie ("It is magnificent, but it is not war: it is madness"), and Richard Bentley, referring to Alexander Pope's lyrical translation of the Iliad, told him that "it is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope; but you must not call it Homer," Modernism/Liberalism might be, to some, a brilliant compromise between the consolations of faith and the findings of science, but we mustn't be snookered into calling it Christianity. It most emphatically isn't. 

Machen makes this point definitively, and to my knowledge it hasn't been refuted in the 94 years since. Going point by point, he compares and contrasts Christianity and Liberalism and refutes the notion that they are the same. He doesn't argue against the truth of Liberalism, he just argues, successfully in my opinion, that when Liberalism claims to be Christianity it misspeaks. 

The sad part is that people who don't know the difference probably can't be bothered to read this book.

The prose of the early 20th century retained the formality that gave elegance to the writings of the 18th and 19th centuries, but remains imminently readable. 

I started seeing Liberalism behind every bush for a little while after I finished this, but there have been new developments since then, which led me to a study of Neo-Orthodoxy and the mid-20th century. I'm now exploring Barth, Tillich, Van Til, and RC Sproul, and as things approach the present day, the context and perspective I'm getting is really helping me understand the present controversies. Even the verbage that Evangelicals use is carefully crafted to avoid the heresies of the last hundred years. 

It's fun to see where we came from. As my dad always told us growing up: "The people who know, know."

Reflections on Christian Duties

The things that Christians are called to be and do in the world have a number of useful parallels in everyday life. 

The Christian evangelist is not unlike a sheriffs deputy tasked with serving a judicial summons. 

He is also, however, not unlike a postman, carrying a love letter from God to a wayward humanity. 

Just as a policeman is a relief for someone in trouble but a terror to someone in the middle of a crime, so the Christian, and the risen Lord whom he represents, is a comfort to those who soul thirsts after God, but a hateful reminder of the severe justice that faces evil to those whose hearts remain enslaved to sin.

Members of all three emergency services – ambulance, fire crews, and law-enforcement- respond to the scene of an accident. So also the Christian must carry with them at all times God's tender mercy to the sick and wounded, God's power over the raging elements both within and without, and God's justice.

In our system, EMT crews treat everyone, regardless of their guilt or innocence. 

Fire crews rescue everyone regardless of their fault in starting the fire.

It is the policeman who is tasked with proclaiming and enforcing the law, but he does not himself execute judgment – that is for a higher court.

It's the same for us. We bear witness to a higher law, even as we are engaged with the task of rescuing those in trouble and binding up their wounds.

Reflections on Advent

​As I get old enough to remember my hometown being slightly but permanently different than it is now, I find that a growing number of my memories happened in places that no longer exist. These are important, formative, and gut-wrenching memories- things that shaped who I am and how I see the world- and I can’t ever go back. A. E. Housman wrote it this way:

Into my heart an air that kills

From yon far country blows;

What are those blue remembered hills

What spires; what farms are those?

It is the land of lost content

I see it, shining plain

Those happy highways where I went

And cannot come again.

Sometimes the places I remember become other places. The classroom of an English teacher I had in high school is now a fifth grade classroom, with colorful posters of tips and tricks for math and grammar. I can technically go back, but it’s not the same. I remember how the wind would get caught in the narrow alley between the two modular buildings and sound a mournful retreat as it escaped, and if one had recently read a ghost story, it wasn’t difficult to imagine someone as trapped in loneliness as I was inhabiting the sound.

But even when the location hasn’t changed, I have. So it isn’t really the same anyway.

I find a similar feeling creeping in when I think of Christmas. It’s as though I remember walking through a pristine forest, with dark green trees and white snow and a Narnian lamppost, but when I return I find that the place has been leveled and a strip mall built.

The commercialization of Christmas is a perennial complaint. I heard it all growing up. And as amusing as it is for some of you who know that I’m only twenty-eight to hear me wistfully recall my younger days, remember that even in that short time, huge changes have taken place. Since my childhood, the internet has risen to prominence in American commerce, causing retailers to raise their advertising efforts to fever pitch. In addition, social media has provided a constant stream of images, not of strangers modeling the newest fashions, but my own friends and neighbors displaying a carefully curated exhibit of their “best life now.”

I recently heard a minister make the comment that television’s sole aim is to create discontent. Think about it: how does every commercial go? A task or state of being is described that is uncomfortable or undesirable, and a need is created. Then the product or service being advertised swoops in to fulfill that need, and all they want in return is a few dollars. Is it any wonder that we never seem to catch up? We’re constantly surrounded by discontentment propaganda. As Wordsworth said:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;-

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

we have given our hearts away. A sordid boon!”

The temptation to sin is like an advertisement. It takes a need that you feel, real or perceived, and it advertises itself as the only solution.  Over the last century or so, the most common besetting temptations known to mankind have been given a psychological and scientific backing. Lust is now psychosexual development. Self-actualization reigns supreme. And all the while, as Dave Ramsey puts it, we go deeper and deeper into debt to buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t even like, and while we shell out more and more money to endless therapy sessions and self-help literature, the real needs of our souls go unfulfilled.

Every human spirit is suffering from being disconnected from its source: the love and holiness of their Creator.

St. Athanasius put it this way:

“The presence and love of the Word had called them into being; inevitably, therefore when they lost the knowledge of God, they lost existence with it…”

That lofty sounding existential problem is brought down to earth by St. Augustine: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."

The only hope for the human soul is to be reunited, to be grafted back into the vine. A rose can survive in a vase for a little while, but it won’t grow and thrive unless it’s being nourished by the plant it sprang from. Inevitably, the petals wither and fall to the ground.

Knowing all this, God sent his one and only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, down to the earth in human form. He lived the life we should have lived, and died the death we should have died, so that by putting our trust in Him, we may gain eternal life.

Christmas, once the celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus, has descended into an orgy of “stuff.”

Now, I know that the true meaning of Christmas cannot be compromised. But as I get older, I find that my soul rejoices in the celebration, not of Christmas, but of Advent. In the season of Advent, we live in remembrance of what is past, and eager and exhausted anticipation of what is coming. The French resistance doesn’t make any sense without D-Day. The martyrs beneath the alter cry out, “How long, O Lord?”

There’s a tension in the words of our Lord while He walked among us: we are to live not only as slaves whose master’s return may be long delayed, but also as slaves whose master’s return may be imminent.

A definition of faith that’s been helpful to me is “living one’s life in the light of the promises of God.” Advent allows us to acknowledge and wrestle with the immense difficulty of living in the tension between the “already” and the “not-yet.” We can cry out “how long, O Lord?” when drugs, violence, depression, and the petty pace creeps in from day to day. We can also joyfully proclaim that the year of the Lord’s favor has come.

It’s okay to be sick and tired of being sick and tired. And it’s okay to be hurting and confused and lost. But the day is coming when every tear will be wiped away, after every knee has bowed and every tongue confessed that Jesus is Lord.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Amen.

Links:

Housman:

http://www.bartleby.com/123/40.html

Wordsworth:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/174833

Athenasius:

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/athanasius/incarnation.ii.html

Augustine:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3296/3296-h/3296-h.htm

Scriptures:

Saints beneath the altar:

http://biblehub.com/revelation/6-9.htm

Live as slaves:

http://biblehub.com/matthew/24-45.htm

The year of the Lord’s Favor:

http://biblehub.com/luke/4-18.htm

Even so, come:

http://biblehub.com/revelation/22-20.htm

How to Win at Life

Win at people, win at life. 

God is a person. Humans are people. According to the Westminster confession of faith, the purpose of life is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. Your  raison d'être is a relationship. So the better you are at relationships, the better you are at life. 

My hope for this post is that it encourages you to take your relationships more seriously. The vertical one, which is vital, and the horizontal ones, which allows the life and love you get vertically to flow out to everyone around you. 

As Christians, we are a nation set apart; a holy priesthood. What do priests do? They mediate the grace and glory of God to everyone else. 

We're the hands and feet of Christ in the world. 

We can't do our jobs properly unless we maintain a supply line to the grace and truth of our Lord through the Holy Spirit. There are certain things that act as exercises for us to keep that connection strong. 

Prayer, reading and meditating on scripture, acts of service, corporate worship, charitable giving, and other good works don't get us "in", but they are signs that an inner transformation has taken place. 

If you're sick to your stomach, you check what you've eaten. If you feel spiritually dry, you check your pipeline to the source, and you repair any leaks. 

Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you any unrepented sin in your life that's clogging the pipeline. He's faithful to forgive you and cleanse you of all unrighteousness, and restore your relationship as though it had never gone wrong. 

Recognize all the good gifts you've been given, and thank the Lord for them. 

Memorize some scriptures to act as shields from temptation. Your weapon isn't useful if it's out of ammo. Fill your magazine with truth bullets. 

Any more thoughts to add?

From Purpose to Providence

When I was in my late teens, making important decisions about my career and life goals, I remember waiting with eager anticipation for the moment when the clouds would part and I would receive a divine revelation of what my path would be. I believed that there was a God, that He had a wonderful plan for my life, and that if I sought after Him then the plan would be revealed.

I also believed, deep beneath the patina of religion, that the longings of my heart would be satisfied by a challenging, rewarding career and a perfect wife, and that any residual angst would be mopped up by a Mercedes-Benz convertible.

When my fervent prayers for guidance seemed to fall on deaf ears, I would vacillate between anger and fear. See, the deal I had with the Almighty was that if I did things He liked, then He'd do things I liked. Anger that God wasn't holding up His end of the bargain, and fear that I didn't (and couldn't) fulfill my obligations, were things that I stuffed down so that I could focus on school, work, and a social life. 

A sense of injustice is the first step on the road to victimhood. It keeps the question of one's own responsibilities on the back burner. "Hope deferred makes the heart sick," says the Proverb. My hope for stuff was deferred for a long time, and I was nauseated. The problem was, my hunger for stuff was based on a faulty premise- that stuff would satisfy. Here's a hint- it doesn't. 

Giving my longing for stuff a religious window dressing didn't help much. Not only did it conceal the problem- longing for 'purpose' was biblical, right?- but it was offensive to the One who had already freely offered the most precious gift of all: Himself. It reminds me of Tim Keller's conversation with a little girl in his congregation. When he asked, "don't you know that the king of the universe suffered, died, and rose again so that you could be together with Him forever?" And she responded with "well, yeah, but what good is that if you can't get a date?"

C.S. Lewis makes a similar point: 

"It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."


What would our lives look like if we really, truly grasped the awesome reality that we are the redeemed of the Lord? That we are ever before Him, and that our names are written on His hands?

That's why I've given up on praying for God to reveal my purpose. It's too much. I wouldn't understand it if it was revealed. And if I didn't find it to my liking, I would almost certainly work to undermine it.

What am I doing instead? I'm praying that the Lord would use my experiences, my reading, my study of scripture, my relationships, and all the other things that constitute a life, to form me into a man after His own heart. Psalm 105 says "look to the Lord and His strength; seek His face always." Our Lord Himself said "seek first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things will be added to you."

Instead of asking the Lord for the tools and resources to be my own boss, I'm asking for a change in my heart that makes me more receptive to His authority.

What does a recon marine need more: a "situation room", with maps, video screens, live intelligence, and fast access to world leaders and analysts, or his rifle and radio?

All that stuff is necessary to his success, but it's not realistic for him to carry it all with him. It's too bulky to deploy on the front line. The vital thing is his ability to defend himself and take the fight to the enemy, and his link to his HQ. That means his two most important tools are his rifle and his radio.

As believers, our offensive and defensive capability is our knowledge and application of scripture to our thoughts, words, and actions. And our radio is prayer. Do those two things better and you'll get a lot closer to "purpose" than you realize.

That's short shrift, I know. But I hope to expand on those things at a later date, Good Lord willing.

Until then, give this some thought and comment or argue if you want.

No More Raids

As I read my Bible this morning, I came across the life of Elisha in the first part of 2 Kings. The story that grabbed me was about an army that was sent up to attack Israel.

14 Then he sent horses and chariots and a strong force there. They went by night and surrounded the city.

15 When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” the servant asked.

16 “Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

17 And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

18 As the enemy came down toward him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, “Strike this army with blindness.” So he struck them with blindness, as Elisha had asked.

19 Elisha told them, “This is not the road and this is not the city. Follow me, and I will lead you to the man you are looking for.” And he led them to Samaria.

20 After they entered the city, Elisha said, “Lord, open the eyes of these men so they can see.” Then the Lord opened their eyes and they looked, and there they were, inside Samaria.

21 When the king of Israel saw them, he asked Elisha, “Shall I kill them, my father? Shall I kill them?”

22 “Do not kill them,” he answered. “Would you kill those you have captured with your own sword or bow? Set food and water before them so that they may eat and drink and then go back to their master.” 23 So he prepared a great feast for them, and after they had finished eating and drinking, he sent them away, and they returned to their master. So the bands from Aram stopped raiding Israel’s territory.


There's a pattern to be detected here, I think. Soldiers in the employ of an enemy power came to cause trouble, but they were struck blind. Then they were lead by a prophet of God to the very heart of the stronghold of their enemy, and it was revealed to them. What must that moment have been like? An "oh, crap" moment for the ages. The giddy king wants to kill them all, but the prophet chides him, and the king listens, and prepares a table for them in the presence of their enemies.

The conversation between the soldiers and their king isn't recorded, but I'd love to have been a fly on the wall. "So, those people you sent us to capture? Well, they captured us, then marched us to their capital..." at which point the king says, "Then how are you still here?" "That's the thing, boss. They took us to Golden Corral, on steak and shrimp night, and sent us home."

Isn't this the gospel in microcosm? We, enthralled to the prince of the power of the air, are lead, in our blindness, to a feast, and cease our hostility from then on?

Jesus is everywhere in the OT. It's really fun to discover him in places you didn't expect.

Musings from the "Notes" folder on my Phone

The more I learn about the moving parts that make up our souls, the more I discover that I don't know. We're all singularities, from which no light escapes. Who could plumb our depths but the one who fashioned us, and plunged headlong into Sheol to get us back?

Someone who could see us for who we really are, and know us better than we can know ourselves, and see our awful words and thoughts and actions stretched out on a noxious tapestry, and still suffer hideously so that he could destroy sin and death without destroying us, has to be a being of pure love.

Be a Life Person

Are you a “life” person?

Everyone remembers being in high school and taking a subject they just didn't get. whether it was math, science, history, or English, you hit a wall every single time. at my high school, at least, and maybe yours, too, there arose a convenient fiction to serve as an explanation: some people are just “math people.” they walked into Algebra II and everything clicked. the clouds parted, the angels sang, x was found and graphs were plotted like nobody’s business- meanwhile, the rest of us dully wandered in problem purgatory, burdened with a sinking feeling that our futures rested on a skill that some of us had and some of us didn't.

Others, like me, were history and English people. We made similes our servants, mastered our metaphors, and panned for themes and motifs in everything: books, commercials, and cereal boxes. No text was too obscure; no historical date too meaningless- while all the “math people,” starving for something concrete and more frustrated each day, finally asked: “why are we reading so much into this?! The author didn’t mean all that, or she would have just said it!” or “Who cares who invaded who? It was a thousand years ago!”

Initially, when we heard that magic phrase- “oh, she’s just a math person”- it was a great relief. We weren’t stupid, or lazy, or rebellious- we had just lost an arbitrary genetic lottery that had given some of us special powers and left the rest to fend for themselves. Our anger shifted to the authorities. “Why are ‘they’ making math people do history? Can’t ‘they’ see that ‘they’re’ wasting everyone’s time?”

Human nature is to set up categories, and decide who’s ‘in’ and who’s ‘out.’ Shrinks call it “Heuristics-” google it if you have an hour to kill- and it’s a powerful force. Sometimes this is based on natural abilities, or skin color, or whatever ‘beauty’ happens to mean this decade, but whatever the arbitrary criterion, it shifts responsibility from people, who make choices, to groups, systems, and the dreaded “they.”

Winning a genetic lottery is nice, as is being born in certain places into certain circumstances. But the temptation to throw in the towel and give in to bitterness because “they” are out to get us- no matter who “they” are- must be resisted with all of our might.

Which of us, when we were first born, were “word” people? We bubbled and gurgled and sputtered for months before we even managed syllables, much less words. But now we speak English, which is among the most difficult languages to learn. Or which of us were “walking” people? Toddlers didn’t earn their name for being steady on their feet. But now most of us hop, skip, and jump without a second thought. Eating, drinking, bathing- I could go on. But the point is that every one of us already has a rather impressive track record of overcoming obstacles and mastering difficult tasks, simply by remaining alive.

I wasn't born yet when President Kennedy made his great speech announcing the program to put a man on the moon, but thanks to the internet I got to hear something incredible: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

So to everyone who’s not a ‘health’ person, or a ‘book’ person, or a ‘rich’ person, or a ‘leadership’ person, or a ‘Jesus’ person, I say be a ‘life’ person. Do things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Remember all the hard things you've already done, and let those memories give you strength. “Do not ask what the world needs,” writes O.S. Marsden. “Ask what makes you come alive, and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”