A Shot of Encouragement

Good message from Joe Rigney, “Thou Shalt Not Do a Christendom.” His analogy about kneecaps does WORK.

He said kneecaps get deployed whenever it looks like someone is about to do a Christendom. Here are some of his examples:

• The therapeutic kneecap: “Whoa… exercising power isn’t the way of Jesus.”
• The pietistic kneecap: “Whoa… Jesus said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’”
• The heavenly-homeland kneecap: “Whoa… my citizenship is in heaven.”
• The academic kneecap: “Whoa… you can’t use the Christian tradition that way. We’re not going back.”
• The imbalanced kneecap: “Whoa… you’re emphasizing politics and culture too much.”
• The third-way kneecap: “Whoa… Jesus is neither left nor right. Not the donkey or the elephant, but the Lamb.”
• The nuance kneecap: “Whoa… we have to be nuanced. This is very complicated.”
• The contrast kneecap: “Whoa… we’re not called to win the culture; we’re called to love our neighbor.”
• The respectability kneecap: “Whoa… careful, the world is watching. We want a seat at the table.”
• The longhouse feminist kneecap: “Whoa… this sounds scary, and I’m very concerned.”
• The premillennial kneecap: “Whoa… we lose down here.”
• The postmillennial kneecap: “Whoa… Christendom only comes from the bottom up. Just sit back and ride the waves.”

I’ve spent a decent amount of time thinking about the word nerve.

It’s the key word in Edwin Friedman’s book, A Failure of Nerve.

I can’t say I’ve ever wasted any minute spent meditating on nerve, its meaning and the related network of concepts.

In discussion about high-agency, nerve connects with the idea of disagreeability. It also seems to involve some mix of hope/optimism and zeal.

I have also spent time thinking about what biblical word overlaps most onto nerve. It’s possible that it takes multiple words to color in all the meaning; think courage, think of self-control and sober-mindedness. In some ways how Friedman defines nerve as gravity seems to have a lot of overlap with love, with affections.

But thinking about it again, maybe the best word is FAITH.

It’s a kind of believing confidence that both anchors someone to hold fast when the wind is blowing against them and also a wind in the sail that compels a person in the right direction.

Even related to the subtitle of Friedman’s book, “Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix,” faith obviously is, by definition, not living on the things that are seen and immediate.

All that to say, living by FAITH is needed as much now as ever.

Prayer changes us. Prayer orients us. Prayer relieves us.

We don’t pray because we feel that it takes a little too much effort, certainly more than a scroll through any of our half dozen social network apps. Or we don’t pray because we think God doesn’t care about our particular/little concern. Or we don’t pray because we know we’re guilty of a sin that we’re not ready to give up.

But if we don’t pray, can we say we’re acknowledging Him in all our ways? If we don’t pray, isn’t the only other option to lean on our own understanding? How far, really, will that get us?

When was the last “free” moment when you chose to leave your phone in your pocket/purse and you shot an arrow prayer instead? Think of Nehemiah who made quick, urgent requests before answering the king. Do we see that more is happening than what’s in front of our eyes?

In his Lectures on Calvinism Abraham Kuyper made two short comments about how prayer holds us together and how it is a measure of our hold on God.

“In prayer lies not only our unity with God, but also the unity of our personal life.”

“[O]ur prayer remains the deepest expression of all religious life.”

Paul told the Colossians to “devote yourselves to prayer” (Colossians 4:2). What marks a devoted husband? He can’t stop thinking about his wife and would never turn away from her. What marks a devoted fan? He wears his replica jersey with pride and is frustrated out of season.

So pray. Pray for five seconds. Pray for five minutes. Write out a page of prayers. Go for a prayer walk. Pray for help to pray. Pray that the Spirit would make you a man of prayer. Pray, and remember that it is a privilege to have access to the Father through the work of the son. Pray, and remember that the burden of running the world is God’s. Pray without ceasing. Make your requests known to God with thanksgiving.

As disciples of Christ we can develop our:

1. Personal Obedience
2. Doctrinal Beliefs
3. View of the World

Mixing It Up

We could love obedience and studying the Word but still act like God didn’t say that what He made on earth was good.

We could love obedience and love all creation but still elevate a system’s authority over the Bible.

We could love the biblical Covenants and love creation but still be a jerk.

Of course we could also just have one, or none. Or have baby versions of any or all.

A Loves Trifecta

We could have and develop all three: Heart x Head x Hands, and our jealousability would be not just good and better but at its best.

Salvation is by faith in Jesus Christ. He died for our sins and was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. 

But how do you KNOW that you have eternal life?

The letter of 1 John was written so that we might KNOW. Here are some questions from the book to help:

A Christian must believe/confess the right things about Jesus Christ. (1 John 4:1-3; 5:1-5) What do you believe about who Jesus is?

A Christian is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. (1 John 3:24; 4:13) In what ways do you see the Holy Spirit living in you?

A Christian demonstrates a pattern of obvious obedience to God’s commands. (1 John 2:3-6) What commands are you clearly obeying? How would you describe your lifestyle in serving the Lord?

A Christian shows love for the brothers. (1 John 2:9-11; 3:14-18; 4:7-21) How are you showing this love, both in what you do to bless others and in what you avoid doing to sin against them?

A Christian does not deny his sins, but confesses them. (1 John 1:8-2:1) What sins have you recently confessed to the Lord, and what does that process look like?

A Christian grows in his confidence and assurance of salvation in Christ. (1 John 5:13) What would you add to the above answers that describes your confidence that you are saved by Christ?

You’re learning. You’re growing. You’re not who or where you were a year ago. That’s GOOD.

AND, especially (if not ironically) for teachers/pastors/parents, there are a couple temptations:

Temptation #1: Assume Others Know

It’s easy to forget that the point of teaching is to teach others things they don’t know yet.

We assume. We think others are thinking along with us. We’re surprised to discover that they are still ignorant.

Instead, go ahead and communicate. Remind and repeat.

This leads to growing understanding, increasing care, and shared direction.

Temptation #2: Get Irritated That Others Don’t Know

This takes our surprise in the wrong direction.

Getting irritated also sets a tone that makes us less desirable to listen to.

There are always people at Level 101. If everyone knew what we did then we could be quiet, but we wouldn’t be a blessing. Keep gladly starting over.

Why is there so much anxiety and soul-suck in the world? 

Because there is too little sober-mindedness.

The adjective in the New Testament (νηφαλίους) relates to a verb (νήφω) for not being drunk, for avoiding excess. 

The ESV uses “sober-minded” and the NASB translates it as “temperate.” It’s connected to self-control (σώφρονας), sure, but both words are found in Titus 2:2, and they are not mere synonyms. 

To be temperate is to be moderate, but moderate in two directions. The sober-minded man must not be extreme in addiction to wine but also not be extreme in anxiety about wine.

So: not addicted to or anxious about. 

Is he so fearful that he has to make up extra rules? Or is he consumed with wanting more than his share so that he loses clarity and respect, if not actually making a fool of himself? 

Does he know what things are good, and what things are good for, and how to use/enjoy them for good?

Wine/alcohol is not the only setting to consider on the table of a man’s life, so to speak, but it is actually a decent tell about how a man handles good things.

As it relates to Leadership and Differentiation, there are also two directions. He must be present to challenge and yet not co-dependent or reactive, neither aloof or entangled. He knows where he wants to go, he takes steps in that direction, and yet not so far away that none can follow.

Sober-mindedness protects a man, and those he leads, from soul-suck.

Taxonomy is an image-bearer’s prerogative.

A lot of people don’t like the label “dispensation,” and fine. I use it. In fact, I am glad for it, baggage and all.

But, what might be an alternative?

The English word dispensation comes from the Greek word oikonomia, “house-rule” and so the idea of managing a household, being a manager, a steward. “Economy” is most closely derived from it, but perhaps has too broad of baggage to be useful.

How would all this apply to reading and understanding the Bible?

What about this label: Stewardship Hermeneutics

That name emphasizes that when it comes to the priority principles of understanding Scripture:

• we receive the Master’s word as the ultimate authority
• we are accountable to the Master for making the His word known (like Paul, Colossians 1:25)
• we will also answer for how we attended to the context of the Master’s word (such as 2 Timothy 2:15), not adding or taking away from it

There’s a word that I keep running into the last couple years. As I think about the word in the following contexts, the point seems true and profitable. What is necessary in order to execute the Important Things?

The issue is that the important actions are often the uncomfortable ones. In our experience, the number-one thing that you will have to sacrifice to be great, to achieve what you are capable of, and to execute your plans, is your comfort.

—Brian Moran and Michael Lennington, The 12-Week Year

Bottom line if you want success of any kind: you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable.

—Tim Grover, Relentless

It takes many hours to make what you want to make. The hours don’t suddenly appear. You have to steal them from comfort.

—Derek Sivers, Where to Find the Hours to Make It Happen

Simply put, the drive to relieve discomfort is the root cause of all our behavior, while everything else is a proximate cause.

—Nir Eyal, Indistractable

Your growth as a conscious being is measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations you are willing to have.

—Kevin Kelly, 103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known

And in addition to fruitful productivity in general, though it doesn’t include the word uncomfortable, the point stands for sake of ministry and reformation in particular:

Well, brethren, sad experience hath showed us our frailty. We have refused the troublesome and costly part of the reformation that we prayed for.

—Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor

God has used the Scriptural teaching of three men to build the four walls of my theological house.

I have learned a LOT from the pen of saints now with the Lord, but the following are men whose hands are still at the plow.

The Lord used John MacArthur to build the first two walls, both of which are about the Bible. If I had to distinguish, I might say the first wall was about the AUTHORITY of the Bible and the second wall holds up the SUFFICIENCY of the Bible.

Then from that Bible, the Lord used John Piper (and his pointing to Jonathan Edwards) to show how truth is not complete apart from AFFECTIONS, the third wall. We must know God and LOVE God. I had gotten stuck in the doctrine without the delight, both as a Christian in my relationship with God and as a husband and pastor with my people.

And for the fourth wall the Lord used Douglas Wilson to demonstrate from the Bible that truth and affections WILL come out of our fingertips. For all that I knew about the importance of truth and love, I missed that truth and love ought to be EMBODIED. All that God says is good is GOOD, to be received with thanks (rather than avoided with suspicion) and to be stewarded with urgency and diligence (rather than excusing inactivity because “it’s all going to burn.”)

Mine is a blessed house.

---

If you read all the above and it was interesting to you (ha), you might enjoy this podcast where there’s related discussion.

Listen to the episode

“Do not start a podcast.”

This is the message of the world. Or at least it came from separate but united sources on the internet.

Not everybody needs a podcast.

ZUBY: (@ZubyMusic), November 14, 2023

You should not start a podcast

Haunts Fiene 🦬 (@HansFiene), November 14, 2023

Which is fine, because I don’t really like podcasts.

Plus I don’t want to start a podcast.

Then my friend used some (other) of my arguments against me.

So, here we are.

Listen to the episode

Sitzfleisch is the word I needed that I didn’t know I needed.

I saw it last week in a list from Ryan Holiday of keys to being a more disciplined person.

“Stay in the saddle

There’s an old German word sitzfleisch which means basically sitting your butt in the chair and not getting up until the task is complete.

Many a great conqueror in the days of horseback were called “Old Iron Ass” for their ability to stay in the saddle.”

10. Stay in the saddle

There's an old German word sitzfleisch which means basically sitting your butt in the chair and not getting up until the task is complete.

Many a great conqueror in the days of horseback were called “Old Iron Ass” for their ability to stay in the saddle.

Ryan Holiday (@RyanHoliday), November 7, 2023

It reminded me of an anecdote I’ve heard John MacArthur give a number of times about the key to being a better preacher.

“A young man said to me, ’What is the– ’ and he was kind of starry-eyed, and I’m sure he expected some spiritual esoteric answer. He said, ‘What is the real key to great preaching?’ I said, ‘Well, it’s the ability to keep your rear end in the chair till you understand the text.’”

Sitzfleisch = butt in chair

The “Golden Rule of Reading” - however you want others to read what you’ve written, so read what they’ve written. At least start by considering their claims to be true. This isn’t immature, it’s loving. Love believes all things, it doesn’t doubt all things.

This applies to all sorts of material, but maybe most to what has been written in Scripture. At least when starting out:

Read carefully, not assumingely.

Read charitably, not critically.

Read acceptingly, not suspiciously.

For even more mental marination, Joe Rigney wrote “Do Unto Authors - Four Principles for Reading Well” in which he talks about Golden Rule Interpretation.

And with confirmation from Isaac Watts in 1741:

“Lastly, remember that you treat every author, writer, or speaker, just as you yourselves would be willing to be treated by others, who are searching out the meaning of what you write or speak.”

—On the Improvement of the Mind

John Wesley wrote “A Clear and Concise Demonstration of the Divine Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures” in 1789. It’s GOOD.

“I beg leave to propose a short, clear, and strong argument to prove the divine inspiration of the holy Scripture.

The Bible must be the invention either of good men or angels, bad men or devils, or of God.

1. It could not be the invention of good men or angels; for they neither would nor could make a book, and tell lies all the time they were writing it, saying, ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ when it was their own invention.
2. It could not be the invention of bad men or devils; for they would not make a book which commands all duty, forbids all sin, and condemns their souls to hell to all eternity.
3. Therefore, I draw this conclusion, that the Bible must be given by divine inspiration.”

Based on what is in the Bible, the Bible is TRUE/right or FALSE/wrong, it can’t be just a “good” book.

Great quote on the power of Truth in the public square from John Milton’s Areopagitica in 1644:

Who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter? ... [Truth] needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensings to make her victorious; those are the shifts and the defenses that error uses against her power: give her but room, and do not bind her when she sleeps.

Today is September 28. It’s a good day to read Proverbs 28. Maybe the wise should call the 28th Recognize and Resist Wicked Rulers Day.

The wicked flee when no one pursues,
but THE RIGHTEOUS ARE BOLD AS A LION.
(Proverbs 28:1)

When a land transgresses, it has many rulers,
but with a man of understanding and knowledge,
its stability will long continue.
(Proverbs 28:2)

Those who forsake the law praise the wicked,
but THOSE WHO KEEP THE LAW STRIVE AGAINST THEM.
(Proverbs 28:4)

When the righteous triumph, there is great glory,
but when the wicked rise, people hide themselves.
(Proverbs 28:12)

Like a roaring lion or a charging bear
is a wicked ruler over a poor people.
(Proverbs 28:15)

A ruler who lacks understanding is a cruel oppressor,
but he who hates unjust gain will prolong his days.
(Proverbs 28:16)

When the wicked rise, people hide themselves,
but when they perish, the righteous increase.
(Proverbs 28:28)

I don’t always listen to podcasts, but when I do, it’s mostly from people whose thoughts I care about. The Contraratics have been at it for a few years, the Hauling Off ladies are going to keep at it, and here’s a new addition from one of the men at our church, Business 300 by Philip Kulishov. His “300” is his commitment to make his episodes 300 seconds or less, which brings him under the five minute mark. If you’re a listener, listen up.

I put a link to this in my convocation notes, but it needs its own call-out. For what it’s worth, I actually searched for an online reading of “Learning in Wartime” before my first college Greek class of the year, but wasn’t satisfied with what I found so I read the whole thing myself. Glenn posted this the next day. I’ll be sharing this link with others in the future.

Glenn does a great job reading this great address. Glenn has also read/recorded Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism and he’s made a version of Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos (with permission) as well.

It also turns out that the artwork he used for this recording is an image he made as our church studied through the Apocalypse under the theme of “Just Conquer.”

Listen to this. Bookmark it. And comb your hair.

Abraham Kuyper on the chosen and precious foundation of our churches:

Your church is then a colony of heaven living on the earth. It has its own autonomous existence, resting on its own foundation; it is constructed in its own unique style; it is built of very different stone than those offered by the mines of the world; and in its state and organization it depends not on the laws of nature, nor on the legislation of earthly lawmakers, but only on the law of life of its divine founder.

—On the Church, p. 323, emphasis added; think also of 1 Peter 2:4-5

There is a new podcast in the world.

My wife and one of her good friends had been talking about the possibility of podcasting, and then were prodded by one of the young ladies in our church/school to record their first episode at her birthday party.

These are ladies worth listening to. Along with a guest, they talk about dealing with temptations to sin as a mom, and in particular as an intellectual or at least intellectually interested mom, and then finish off with some direction for younger girls on thinking about how they invest their attention dollars as sisters in Christ.

If you’re interested then listen, subscribe, and share.

Abraham Kuyper in 1870:

I fully agree that anyone entering a house in ordinary times is not thinking about the foundation on which it rests; so also in Jesus’ church there can be times when people dwell together and labor together while hardly bothering themselves about any principles. But in times like these that we are now experiencing, now when in every area the foundations are being undermined, now when everything is pressing down to the depths and people are proceeding restlessly to pry the deepest principles loose—now in these times it would be all too naïve, all too negligent for people to sidestep the issue of principles any longer.

On the Church, 68-69

The book of Revelation urges Christians to conquer. The letters to all seven churches promise great things to the ones who conqueror. We conquer by the blood of the Lamb, we conquer by not loving our lives even unto death (Revelation 12:11). This Keep Calm and Just Conquer is the last Keep Calm you’ll need. Image credit goes to Glenn Wainwright.

I am very grateful for how John MacArthur has come out of the corner on behalf of his flock, for the sake of religious liberty, and in service to all the other churches that will benefit from his stand.

Dr. MacArthur is a truth-lover. He’s been preaching the truth longer than I’ve been alive. God has used his teaching and his example in my own life. My convictions about the Word would not be as dear to me or as deep without MacArthur’s persistence and faithfulness.

I’d also say that his defenses of the truth sometime comes across like a truth quarantine. There have been times when the attitude has been more, “Join us in our corner. Here is where the biblically faithful are.” There is a way that guarding the faith can become insular.

But as GCC has returned to normal church services, Dr. MacArthur is in his lane, but out of his corner.

I started by saying that I am thankful. This is a difficult position, not only as a target of L.A. County officials and the CA governor, but also as MacArthur is getting significant criticism from many he’s trying to help.

It reminds me of the scene in Moneyball when the owner of the Red Sox said to Billy Beane, “I know you’re taking it in the teeth out there, but the first guy through the wall, he always gets bloody. Always.” (Watch the clip here, with the quote at the 2:35 mark.)

I am grateful for Phil Johnson and his (return to writing and) explanations of the changes at the PyroManiacs site. Phil is undoubtedly a major influence to the thinking behind, and change in, the GCC position.

So here we see MacArthur, Johnson, and GCC going first rather than circling the wagons. They are using their God-given platform to take a beating on behalf of others. Again, it’s not that this is the first time they’ve been criticized, even severely. But perhaps more than ever it is clear that this is an offensive rather than defensive move, and it is a move on behalf of their own church that, Lord willing, will benefit churches in CA legally as well as churches around the world by example. I am praying that they win.

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while. The YouVersion Bible app is great and I am grateful to God for it.

I like apps. I try a lot, and buy a bunch. I’ve used half a dozen Bible apps in particular. I use Logos every week for reading commentaries and other resources, and open Olive Tree in order to look up Greek and Hebrew when I’m on my phone or iPad. YouVersion won’t replace those, but it has still earned a place in my daily rotation.

• YouVersion has a buffet of English translations (let alone other languages). I choose the ESV in YouVersion 99% of the time, but all the translations are available for free. Wow.
• Most of the translations have accompanying audio. It is amazing to have a digital servant ready to read at the tap of a button. Listening is not my favorite way to consume the Word, but there are many people (my wife included) for whom it is fantastic.
• Earlier this year YouVersion added auto-scrolling of text with audio. The “official” ESV Bible app used to be the only app I knew of with that option, but this addition brought me back and I’ve stayed.
• There are apps for iPhones/iPads, Android, and the web.
• There are umpteen reading plans to choose from, plans to read through the Bible in a year, to read for shorter sprints, to read about particular topics. I like how the app keeps track of progress, sends optional notifications, and offers to read with others.
• Social aspects of the Internet are both edifying and time-sucking. If I could only choose one app for connecting with people, I think I’d choose YouVersion. Where is a better place to encourage others to crave and to meditate on and seek to do the Word than in a Bible app?

I realize that I was late to the game with YouVersion (their counter is ticking up over 404 million app installs as I type), so this recommendation may not have told you anything new. But again, I’m thankful to the God of this Word for the team who made and maintains and updates this app. If you’re looking for a Bible reading plan or a new resource for 2020, I highly recommend giving this app a try.

I not only appreciate this Mission Statement from Fred Sanders, I am a big beneficiary of his efforts. #blessed

“I teach theology in order to increase the odds on the doctrine of the Trinity doing its proper work in the church; in particular I am a content provider for evangelical trinitarianism.”

Buy yourself a copy of The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything or buy a dozen copies and give them to your people, like a Trinitarian.

Here’s a good question for considering how to bless others: Is what I’m doing making it easier for them to give thanks to the Lord?

In A Centennial Reader, James Bratt introduces Abraham Kuyper’s inaugural address for the Free University of Amsterdam, and why opening this institution was so important for Kuyper:

“Higher education and advanced research had enormous importance for him: religiously, for exploring and enhancing God’s creation; strategically, for (re)shaping society and culture; socially, for raising the self-respect and life-chances of common people.”

On reading doctrinal books rather than devotional books for sake of deepening devotion:

“For my own part I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that ’nothing happens’ when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that their heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand.”

—C.S. Lewis, Preface to On the Incarnation

Perhaps my favorite Preface of all time is that by C. S. Lewis for On the Incarnation by Athanasius. Here’s an example, on why we should read old books:

“Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books. Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us. Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction. To be sure, the books of the future would be just as good a corrective as the books of the past, but unfortunately we cannot get at them.”

The kind of preacher to aspire to be, as Augustine confessed to the Lord about Ambrose:

“His gifted tongue never tired of dispensing the richness of your corn, the joy of your oil, and the sober intoxication of your wine.”

Because sin darkens the minds of unbelievers (Ephesians 4:18), does that mean that they can’t discover any true things in science?

“No, the real darkening of sin is found in something completely different, in our having lost the gift to comprehend the true context, the proper coherence, the systematic unity of things. We now view things just outwardly, not in core and essence; hence also, each thing individually, not things together in their connection and origin in God.”

—Abraham Kuyper, “Common Grace in Science,” A Centennial Reader

Loving our kids and teaching them to respect life has consequences.

“If you pray for Roe to be overturned, and for the issue to be returned to the states, you are praying for the eventual crack-up of the 50 state union. It may happen with a whimper or a bang, but one thing is sure and certain. Respect for life and love of death are incompossibilities. We cannot vote them into a mutual respect and acceptance any more than we can vote to have water flow uphill.”

—Douglas Wilson, The UnRoeveling of America

“The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.”

—Edwin Schlossberg

I’ve been using the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan for 2019, but am excited to add the #SamePageSummer readings through the New Testament for June-August. Mo and all four kids are also going to do it, so we’ll be same-paging as a family along with everyone else.

“What happens when Christians are coming to the Word regularly? They are being worked over, regularly, by the Spirit and by the Word.”

Rachel Jankovic

Here’s a page with links for the plans and some FB groups. Get more of the Word. Taste that the Lord is GOOD. (1 Peter 2:1-3)

Last summer my oldest daughter began spending vast amounts of her time rewriting/repurposing Monty Python and the Holy Grail with the hopes of persuading the powers that be at Evangel Classical School to allow a student performance of her adaptation.

Well, said powers approved, and Maggie has selected a cast and been directing practices for the last few months. Not only her fellow students, but a bunch of friends of the school have been working to make this fun, and there will be three performances next week!

Check out the Facebook event page here.

Remember: Then shalt thou attend to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt attend, and the number of the attending shall be three. Four shalt thou not attend, nor either attend thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out!

You can also just come once, but then you’ll owe a shrubbery.

Ni!

“The emphasis on LABOR [in 1 Corinthians 15:10] reminds us that difficulty and cost in Christian work, far from suggesting an absence of GOD’S GRACE, presupposes the gift of such grace to prosecute the work through all obstacles.”

—Anthony Thiselton

Last August while in the UK I saw this sign on a sandwich board on the sidewalk outside a restaurant.

First, Scoff & Banter is a perfect name.

Second, “a Sunday well spent” involves more than a good pot roast. Get with God’s people and worship Him.

"The pastor’s task is to guide the believer into a full and complete awareness of these infinite riches that have been bestowed on him by sheer grace, and to present that believer to God in full maturity. It is quite an ambitious spiritual mission, but it should be the mission of every pastor."

—Douglas Wilson on pastoral care

First, this ought to be a great encouragement to the church:

“Losing does not disturb us; it does not unsettle our faith. This is something the Church generally does really well. Speaking frankly, we frequently lose successfully far more often than we succeed successfully. Losing is our secret weapon.”

Same Sex Mirage, pp. 258-259

Second, this was written by a postmillennialist, but doesn’t it do a much better job of explaining how a dispensational premillennialist can be optimistic about the progress of the gospel and the “success” of the church while still thinking the world is going to hell?

On Rilian’s return home and how the Narnians recognized him, and Jill’s joyful perspective on their previous difficulties:

Pale though he was from long imprisonment in the Deep Lands, dressed in black, dusty, disheveled, and weary, there was something in his face and air which no one could mistake. That look is in the face of all true Kings of Narnia, who rule by the will of Aslan and sit at Cair Paravel on the throne of Peter the High King. Instantly every head was bared and every knee was bent; a moment later such cheering and shouting, such jumps and reels of joy, such hand-shakings and kissings and embracings of everybody by everybody else broke out that the tears came into Jill’s eyes. Their quest had been worth all the pains it cost.

—C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair

We will soon see the face of our true King, and our joy will be worth all the pains it cost.

I listened to this Art of Manliness podcast on The Leader’s Bookshelf. The host was interviewing Admiral James Stavridis, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe (that really is some title) who had surveyed a number of generals and admirals to find out their recommendations for books on leadership and then written about the top 50 results.

Earlier this year my friend Jonathan recommended the episode to some school parents since their students were assigned to read Killer Angels, a historical fiction piece about the Civil War. In the top 50 there is a surprising amount of fiction and, less surprising, a lot of history. In the interview itself there are some easy tips for reading more, such as carrying/reading Kindle copies and using small segments of time rather than waiting for big blocks. The episode isn’t groundbreaking, but it is worth a listen for the reminders/encouragement.

Two kinds of pleasing worship to God:

“in active obedience we worship God by doing what pleases God, but by passive obedience we do as well worship God by being pleased with what God does.”

—Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, 120

Thanks to this I saw this about weaponized inspiration generation. My treadmill is his bike ride, and it is the place where the majority of my ideas (good and bad) occur because I am doing something else. An hour a day on the treadmill accompanied by a half-size yellow pad is an offensive maneuver.

"Just as no one can be a scholar unless he learn his ABC, so you must learn the lesson of self-denial or you can never become a scholar in Christ's school, and be learned in this mystery of contentment."

—Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment

This is a great video produced by Classical Conversations on reasons to study Latin:

“And the truth is, I know nothing more effective for quieting a Christian soul and getting contentment than this, setting your heart to work in the duties of the immediate circumstances that you are now in, and taking heed of your thoughts about other conditions as a mere temptation.”

—Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, 52

“The Lord knows how to order things better than I. The Lord sees further than I do; I only see things at present but the Lord sees a great while from now. And how do I know but that had it not been for this affliction, I should have been undone.”

—Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, 36

My Bible class started to read through The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment the last Quarter of the year. We didn’t quite make it halfway, but I wanted to start rereading it again for myself this summer anyway. Though a repetitive Puritan (is that redundant?), Burroughs convicted me many days in class. If I can keep up the reading I’m sure I’ll have more quotes to share.

The following one made me think about a few things: social media and Matthew 15:10-20 and emotional control. It’s easy to blame our negativity and fear and irritation on external things, when in fact the problem is in our own hearts. We can, and should, learn the art of a calm heart even when the outside is neither smooth or still. (Also, we can unfollow as necessary.)

“A great man will permit common people to stand outside his doors, but he will not let them come in and make noise in his closet or bedroom while he deliberately retires from all worldly business. So a well-tempered spirit may enquire after things outside in the world, and suffer some ordinary cares and fears to break into the suburbs of the soul, so as to touch lightly upon the thoughts. Yet it will not on any account allow an intrusion into the private room, which should be wholly reserved for Jesus Christ as his inward temple.” (23)

The author of Hebrews urged his readers to run the race of faith by first laying “aside every weight, and the sin which clings so closely” (Hebrews 12:1). Jon Bloom wrote a series of articles that start with the idea of laying aside the weight of something, and I’ve had this particular post banging around my head since 2014: Lay Aside the Weight of Irritability.

He gives some examples of our selfish justification for being irritable:

• When I’m weary I want rest, but if it’s denied/delayed/disrupted I get irritated.
• When I’m sick or in pain I want relief, but if it’s denied/delayed/disrupted I get irritated.
• When I’m preoccupied I want uninterrupted focus, but if it’s denied/delayed/disrupted I get irritated.

Then he reminds us that there is always a target of our irritability:

Jesus didn’t die for our punctuality, earthly reputation, convenience, or our leisure. But he did die for souls. It is likely that the worth of the soul(s) we’re irritable with is infinitely more precious to God than the thing we desire.

The entire exhortation is worth reading, and repenting where necessary.

If you like to create things—and why wouldn’t you as an image-bearer of your Creator—then listen to this podcast by Seth Godin: No such thing (as writer’s block). It’s not that he provides the silver bullet, but he certainly hacks at the Excuse Monster that we often hide behind.

Especially for those who regard their work as precious, who hold their ideas inside too long and often squeeze the interesting juices out of the idea before it even has the chance to get out, we should try out trying out more things.

“Your problem is it that you don't have enough good ideas, your problem might be that you don't have enough bad ideas."

“Weariness pervaded every sense, including common sense.”

—Norman Borlaug, Our Daily Bread

I aim to post something at least once a week against abortion or for adoption. It’s not because I have a platform. It’s not because it’s trendy. It’s because God hates evil and loves good, and so should all His people.

Great distinction between generals and shepherds:

“Rupert Greeves was no general. Generals spend men. Generals expect sacrifice from those who stand with them. Shepherds do not lead their sheep into battle with wolves. They fight alone.”

—N. D. Wilson in Empire of Bones

Doug Wilson on The Obedience of Cancer:

“this cancer is right where it is because it is being obedient-and we don’t want to be less obedient than the cancer is being. And that means trusting the Lord who does all things well. He assigns a place to everything, and I need to be more concerned about being obedient in my assigned station than I am distraught at the inconvenience created by something else being obedient in its assigned station.”

On the subject of social media, except not really, because it was published in 1835:

“If an American were to be reduced to minding only his own business, he would be deprived of half his existence; he would experience it as a gaping void in his life and would become unbelievably unhappy.”

—Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

You might need this today. In the spirit of colossians3:16ing, here’s Psalm 94:19 (NASB):

When my anxious thoughts multiply within me,
Your consolations delight my soul.

“Anxious thoughts” translates the Hebrew word sarappim which could be defined as “the processing of information which causes distress and anxiety in one’s mind and heart” (Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semitic Domains: Hebrew - Old Testament). Synonyms abound here: disquieting thoughts, anxious doubts, fear, angst, worries, stress, unease, internal reactions to an upcoming event or an uncertain outcome. Do you ever have any of those? Are challenges to your calm approaching from more than one front? The language is emphatic, these “cares” (ESV) are “many.”

The second line of the verse uses another plural. The “anxious thoughts” are not swallowed up by a more absorbing anxiety but by more powerful ”consolations.” The Hebrew word is tanchum describing comforts, the easing or alleviating of distress. These are supports and reassurances that “delight” or “cheer” (ESV) our soul.

Ours are the internal cares, His are the soul comforts. His comforts are greater than our cares.

In the context of the song these anxieties are caused by political and cultural concerns more than just psychological or emotional concerns. It’s a big world, and there are a lot of problems. Certainly, though, there is application for whatever factor is multiplying our worries.

And what are the “consolations” that the psalmist had in mind? Just in Psalm 94 itself Yahweh is the judge who will repay the wicked, He hears and sees all, He rebukes entire nations, He teaches men knowledge, He disciplines those He loves for their blessing, He gives rest to those in trouble, He does not forsake His people, He holds up the falling. Of course these do not include any of the New Testament consolations in Christ by the Spirit, which happen to be a lot.

My meditation on this verse has come by singing a version of the Psalm that our church sings. I’d sing it for you here, but this is a blog. The words are:

When my anxious thoughts are many,
how Thy comforts cheer my soul.

Sing it for yourself. Sing it for another.

I had a particularly good time reading my Bible and praying this morning, and saw some really interesting things in Hebrews 12. In particular, the word “weary” which the author uses a couple times (verses 3 and 5), is an emphatic form of λύω which is the Greek word used in the beginning verb paradigms. For Greek students it’s sort of funny because it doesn’t seem as if you see λύω very often in actual New Testament sentences. By itself luo means “I loose,” so I wonder if this kind of “weary” could be loosely translated as “not holding it together.”

Verse 3 gives a plan for not being weary: consider Christ. And verse 5 quotes wisdom from Proverbs 3 and commands God’s children not to be weary. In other words, hold it together, son!

I also forget about the running illustration in verses 1-2. I like running. I really miss when I can’t run. The exhortation is: “with endurance, run!” And specifically we’re to run “the race that is set before us.” God is obviously the one setting the course, and with every step we should be acknowledging Him as the one who laid out route, including the interruptions and opportunities and difficulties. So, run, son!

Great and brief biography of John Calvin. We liked Calvin so much we named our son after him.

This is good:

“The approach of today’s attractional church is like the Trojan Rabbit of Monty Python‘s Arthurian nincompoops–smuggled inside the castle walls with nobody inside.”

Proverbs 24:11 and “The Patient Within” #defundpp

"[T]he old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working altogether."

—G. K. Chesterton

These sermon notes on self-control are better than a heap of Babylonian bricks. Wilson aims his admonition at the angry, but certainly there is application for all sorts of afflicting or tempting emotions. It all starts from the text: “He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls” (Proverbs 25:28, KVJ).

Notice that a man who is not self-governed is compared in the first instance to a man who is defenseless. Not having rule in his own spirit, which means he does not have rule over his own spirit, means that the walls of his “city” are little more than rubble. Now this means that self-control is a wall, a bulwark, and you should want walls like Babylon had, where four chariots could drive abreast around the top of them. Now that’s a wall. But there is more. The man who has “no rule” is a man who has no rule over his spirit. In other words, the problem is that his soul is tempestuous. He lets others live in his head rent-free. This is the man who is defenseless.

Someone who is self-controlled in his spirit is someone who is a warrior. His city is not defenseless, but this control is not just a defensive posture. Note what Proverbs tells us elsewhere. “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; And he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city” (Prov. 16:32).

A man with self-control in his spirit can defend his city, but more than this, he can take a city.

Read the rest.

I highly recommend Eve in Exile and the Restoration of Femininity by Rebekah Merkle. Here is a taste of the book where she describes the glory of a woman who gives substance and shape to an idea.

Our job as women—and it’s a phenomenal responsibility—is to enflesh the weighty truths of our faith. If our role is to make truth taste, to make holiness beautiful, then what does that look like in the details?

As a random example of this, take Christmas. Christmas is, of course, when God did ultimately what we women can only shadow. The ultimate enfleshing. At Bethlehem, God’s Word became flesh and dwelt among us, the Consolation of Israel was born of a woman–and that moment was so staggering that even the stars had to come down and see it. And then, every year, we celebrate that moment. We take one of the most difficult theological truths—the Incarnation—and attempt to show that truth through our celebrations. The men can talk about the Incarnation, church fathers can write important treatises about it, pastors can preach about it, theologians can parse and define it…but we women are the ones who make it taste like something. We make it smell good. How crazy is that?

“And for my next trick, I will take Athanasius’ De Incarnatione and I will say it with cookies and wrapping paper and cinnamon and marshmallows and colored lights and tablecloths and shopping trips and frantically-last-minute-late-night-Amazon-orders and ham–and I will do it in such a way that my four-year-old will really get it, and it will send roots deep down into his soul where it will anchor his loves and his loyalties and shape his allegiances well into his nineties.”

(175-76, one paragraph that I made into three)

Knocking down dualism is good, but not as good as never letting it be built in the first place. I’m thankful for my wife who helps me get it better, even if late.

From John Calvin’s commentary on Genesis 32:

“[T]he Lord willed that the mind of his servant (Jacob) should be oppressed by this anxiety for a time, although without any real cause, in order the more to excite the fervour of his prayer….For although he anticipates our wishes, and opposes our evils, he yet conceals his remedies until he has exercised our faith.

We, also, are to learn from him, that we must fight during the whole course of our life; lest any one, promising himself rest, should willfully deceive himself. And this admonition is very needful for us; for we see how prone we are to sloth. Whence it arises, that we shall not only be thinking of a truce in perpetual war; but also of peace in the heat of the conflict, unless the Lord rouse us.”

This book claims it’s not just okay to enjoy the things of earth, but it is our duty to do so.

—Jim Martin about The Things of Earth by Joe Rigney

Even as a woman who survived exclusively on mail-order cookie dough and who never got dressed before dinner, she still managed to aggressively judge others.

—N.D. Wilson, The Outlaws of Time: The Legend of Sam Miracle, 24-25

On God’s call to Abram (Genesis 12:1) to leave and seek what he could not see:

[I]t is not to be supposed, that God takes a cruel pleasure in the trouble of his servants; but he thus tries all their affections, that he may not leave any lurking-places undiscovered in their hearts.

—John Calvin, Commentary on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis

Where the old [way of education] initiated, the new merely ‘conditions’. The old dealt with its pupils as grown birds deal with young birds when they teach them to fly; the new deals with them more as the poultry–keeper deals with young birds–making them thus or thus for purposes of which the birds know nothing. In a word, the old was a kind of propagation–men transmitting manhood to men; the new is merely propaganda.

—C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

For every one pupil who needs to be guarded from a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity. The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defence against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head.

—C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

How do we learn what we should do on Christmas? By remembering what God did at Christmas.

Celebrate the stuff. Use fudge and eggnog and wine and roast beef. Use presents and wrapping paper…You do not prepare for a real celebration of the Incarnation through thirty days of Advent Gnosticism. At the same time, remembering your Puritan fathers, you must hate the sin while loving the stuff. Sin is not resident in the stuff. Sin is found in the human heart–in the hearts of both true gluttons and true scrooges–both those who drink much wine and those who drink much prune juice. If you are called up to the front of the class and you get the problem all wrong, it would be bad form to blame the blackboard. That is just where you registered your error. In the same way, we register our sin on the stuff. But–because Jesus was born in this material world, that is where we register our piety as well. If your godliness won’t imprint on fudge, then it is not true godliness. Some may be disturbed by this. It seems a little out of control, as though I am urging you to “go overboard.” But of course I am urging you to go overboard. Think about it–when this world was “in sin and error pining,” did God give us a teaspoon of grace to make our dungeon a tad more pleasant? No. He went overboard.

—Douglas Wilson, God Rest Ye Merry, 89-90

A fantastic footnote (#10) found in chapter 6 of The Things of Earth (paragraphs added):

Now observe that when that clever harlot, our natural reason (which the pagans followed in trying to be most clever), takes a look at married life, she turns up her nose and says, ‘Alas, must I rock the baby, wash its diapers, make its bed, smell its stench, stay up nights with it, take care of it when it cries, heal its rashes and sores, and on top of that care for my wife, provide for her, labor at my trade, take care of this and take care of that, do this and do that, endure this and endure that, and whatever else of bitterness and drudgery married life involves? What, should I make such a prisoner of myself? O you poor, wretched fellow, have you taken a wife? Fie, fie upon such wretchedness and bitterness! It is better to remain free and lead a peaceful, carefree life; I will become a priest or a nun and compel my children to do likewise.’

What then does Christian faith say to this? It opens its eyes, looks upon all these insignificant, distasteful, and despised duties in the Spirit, and is aware that they are all adorned with divine approval as with the costliest gold and jewels. It says, ‘O God, because I am certain that Thou hast created me as a man and hast from my body begotten this child, I also know for a certainty that it meets with Thy perfect pleasure. I confess to Thee that I am not worthy to rock the little babe or wash its diapers or to be entrusted with the care of the child and its mother. How is it that I, without any merit, have come to this distinction of being certain that I am serving Thy creature and Thy most precious will? O how gladly will I do so, though the duties should be even more insignificant and despised! Neither frost nor heat, neither drudgery nor labor, will distress or dissuade me, for I am certain that it is thus pleasing in Thy sight.’

A wife too should regard her duties in the same light, as she suckles the child, rocks and bathes it, and cares for it in other ways; and as she busies herself with other duties and renders help and obedience to her husband. These are truly golden and noble works….

Now you tell me, when a father goes ahead and washes diapers or performs some other mean task for his child, and someone ridicules him as an effeminate fool, though that father is acting in the spirit just described and in Christian faith, my dear fellow you tell me, which of the two is most keenly ridiculing the other? God, with all His angels and creatures, is smiling, not because that father is washing diapers, but because he is doing so in Christian faith. Those who sneer at him and see only the task but not the faith are ridiculing God with all His creatures, as the biggest fool on earth. Indeed, they are only ridiculing themselves; with all their cleverness they are nothing but devil’s fools.”

—Martin Luther, “The Estate of Marriage,” in Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, 2nd ed., ed. Timothy F. Lull (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2005), 158– 59.

Charles Spurgeon, “Holding Fast the Faith”:

Everybody admires Luther! Yes, yes; but you do not want anyone else to do the same today. When you go to the…gardens you all admire the bear; but how would you like a bear at home, or a bear wandering about loose in the street? You tell me that would be unbearable, and no doubt you are right.

So, we admire a man who was firm in the faith, say four hundred years ago; the past ages are sort of a bear-pit or iron cage for him, but such a man today is a nuisance, and must be put down. Call him a narrow-minded bigot, or give him a worse name if can think of one. Yet imagine that in those ages past, Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and their (friends) had said, “The world is out of order; but if we try to set it right we shall only make a great (racket), and get ourselves in disgrace. Let us go to our chambers, put on our night caps, and sleep over the bad times, and perhaps when we wake things will have grown better.”

Such conduct on their part would have entailed upon us a heritage of error. Age after age would have gone down into the infernal deeps, and the pestiferous bogs of error would have swallowed all. These men loved the faith and the name of Jesus too well to see them trampled on. Note what we owe them, and let us pay to our sons the debt we owe our fathers.

It is today as it was in the Reformer’s days. Decision is needed. Here is the day for the man, where is the man for the day? We who have had the gospel passed to us by martyr hands dare not trifle with it, nor sit by and hear it denied by traitors, who pretend to love it, but inwardly abhor every line of it.

Look you sirs, there are ages yet to come. If the Lord does not speedily appear, there will come another generation, and another, and all these generations will be tainted and injured if we are not faithful to God and to His truth today.

… Stand fast, my beloved, in the name of God! I, your brother in Christ, entreat you to abide in the truth. Quit yourselves like men, be strong. The Lord sustain you for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Happy Reformation Day!

When the laws regulating human society are so formed as to come into collision with the nature of things, and in particular with the fundamental realities of human nature, they will end by producing an impossible situation which, unless the laws are altered, will issue in such catastrophes as war, pestilence and famine. Catastrophes thus caused are the execution of universal law upon arbitrary enactments which contravene the facts; they are thus properly called by theologians, judgments of God.

—Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker, Kindle Locations 303-306

Glory is sacrifice, glory is exhaustion, glory is having nothing left to give. Almost. It is death by living.

—N.D. Wilson, Death by Living, 180-181

By His grace, we are the water made wine. We are the dust made flesh made dust made flesh again. We are the whores made brides and the thieves made saints and the killers made apostles. We are the dead made living.

—N.D. Wilson, Death by Living, 167

Living means writing your every word and action and thought and drool spot down in forever. It means writing your story within the Story. It means being terrible at it. It means failing and knowing that, somehow, all of our messes will still contribute, that the creative God has merely given Himself a greater challenge–drawing glory from our clumsy botching of the past. We are like factory workers in a slapstick comedy, standing at our positions beside the too-fast conveyor belt that flings the future and all of our possible actions at us. Corn syrup and food coloring everywhere (along with cheese and ceramic figurines).

—N. D. Wilson, Death by Living, 166

Drink your wine. Laugh from your gut. Burden your moments with thankfulness. Be as empty as you can be when that clock winds down. Spend your life. And if time is a river, may you leave a wake.

—N. D. Wilson, Death by Living, 117

Some people spend their days in pain with bodies that keep the yearning front and center, that keep loss always in the mind’s eye. Widows. Orphans. The sick. The damaged (by birth or by man). Know this: God has special promises for you, and He loves bringing triumphant resolutions to those who have tasted the deepest sorrows.

—N. D. Wilson, Death by Living, 109-110

Our futile struggle in time is courtesy of God’s excessive giving. Sunset after sunset make it hard to remember and hold just one. Smell after smell. Laugh after laugh. A mind still thinking, a heart still beating. Imagine sticking your fingers on your pulse and thanking God every time He gave you another blood-driving, brain-powering thump. We should. And we shouldn’t, because if we did, we would never do anything else with our living; we wouldn’t have the time to look at or savor any of the other of our impossibillions of gifts.

—N. D. Wilson, Death by Living, 107-108

You cannot throw a diva fit backstage in this production and force the understudy to take your place. You are in every scene. You are on the field for every play. And you go into the next one and the next one and the next one carrying the baggage and the wounds and the weariness of the last one and the last one and the last one.

—N. D. Wilson, Death by Living, 106

How do you tell a scribe from a prophet…? The prophets love the people they chastise….

—Marilynne Robinson, Gilead: A Novel, 162

Assumption One: Paradise was easy living. Incorrect. It was joyful and glorious, which is a very different thing. Adam and Eve were given an entire planet to tend. Every last creature to identify, name, and oversee. Or, in the case of the dragon, identify, name, and kill. All before the fall. All while the world was perfect. Adam and Eve were not in hammocks, relaxing in the light of a perma-sunset with even tans while sipping on honeysuckle bouquets proffered by miniature ponies. They were given a job so big that only Noah and the disciples who received the Great Commission saw anything like it.

—N. D. Wilson, Death by Living, 74-75

Good Story: a linked thread of occurrence, real or fictitious, in, around, and after trouble of some degree or sequence, in which the triune nature is consistently revealed with artistry either through the real actions and choices of particular characters, the author’s direct participation, or through the author’s indirect judgments latent in the choices of style and arrangement in the recounting.

—N. D. Wilson, Death by Living, 72

Nails are forged for pounding. Man is born to trouble. Man is born for trouble. Man is born to battle trouble. Man is born for the fight, to be forged and molded— under torch and hammer and chisel— into a sharper, finer, stronger image of God.

—N. D. Wilson, Death by Living, 69

Other real live souls are now depending on you. You are the creator of their childhoods. You are the influencer of their dreams and tastes and fears. You are the emcee of all reality, the one to introduce those small people to the true personality of their Maker (as imaged by your life more than your words). The choices you now make have lives riding on them. Always.

—N. D. Wilson, Death by Living, 44

Part stone slung at Goliath, part song sung at Grendel’s mom, read the whole charge from Toby Sumpter that starts with this:

We are being taunted. The giant’s name is Obergefell; he is a six-fingered descendent of the Anakim. He has come out onto the battlefield arrayed in his impressive armor. He wears the media elites like a helmet of brass, and on his chest, he wears the deep pockets of multibillion dollar corporate CEOs. On his legs and shoulders he is clad with the brass of the apathetic masses. He is the hero of the Philistines, the champion of the so-called progressives. He beats his chest and defies the Christian Church, and the Philistine armies cheer and wave their flags and mock the God of Noah, the God of Israel, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Doug Wilson writing (again, for those who haven’t read him already) about why Christians kids need a Christian education before engaging the culture.

You can’t choose sides before you can see the sides.

Abraham Kuyper stated that his aim was to equip a body

of spiritually mature, sober-living, serious people who, consciously assuming God’s promises and in the tradition of the historic Reformed church, sought to make visible in their personal lives and the life of the nation something of the kingdom of God.

-quoted in For the Healing of the Nations: Essays on Creation, Redemption, and Neo-Calvinism

God’s entire counsel may be reduced to one thought, that in the end of the ages He may have a Church which shall understand His love and return it.

--Abrahm Kuyper, The Work of the Holy Spirit, quoted in, For the Healing of the Nations: Essays on Creation, Redemption, and Neo-Calvinism

More from Saving Leonardo about the inevitable results of a man’s defective theology proper:

When artists were persuaded that nature operates by blind, undirected processes—-with no overarching purpose, order, or design—-then consciously or unconsciously they began to express that worldview by refusing to impose any order or design on their starting materials….If the universe does not have an author, if it was not created by a supreme artist, then what basis is there for humans to create works of art? (158)

The following encouragement came in a letter from Robert Cushman to the William Bradford recorded in Of Plymouth Plantation: 1620-1647 (page 108):

I pray you not be discouraged, but gather up yourself, to go through these difficulties cheerfully and with courage in that place wherein God hath set you, until the day of refreshing come.

"When shepherds have neglected the flock for so long, and the wolves are ravaging them, and the sheep come up with some kind of strategy to defend themselves, and the shepherds sit up on the ridge, laughing at the tactical inadequacy of what the sheep are attempting, what shall we call that?"

—Douglas Wilson, The Scars on Your Forearms

Regarding John 15:16,

that the greater part of teachers either languish through indolence, or utterly give way through despair, arises from nothing else than that they are sluggish in the duty of prayer.

—John Calvin, Commentary on John, 122

John Calvin remarks on the rage of the nations and the response of Yahweh in Psalm 2:4.

[W]hen God permits the reign of his Son to be troubled, he does not cease from interfering because he is employed elsewhere, or unable to afford assistance, or because he is neglectful of the honour of his Son; but he purposely delays the inflictions of his wrath to the proper time, namely, until he has exposed their infatuated rage to general derision.

—Commentary on the Book of Psalms

In other words, God has presidents and prime ministers right where He wants them to show off their ridiculous foolishness.

The image of the shepherd is an extremely important biblical picture of a “leader” (Num. 27:17) because it implies not only an intensely personal relationship between God’s people and their leaders but a style or model of leadership exemplified by Jesus (cf. Mark 6:34). The very word “leadership” is developed from the shepherd imagery, where the shepherd goes before the flock and encounters the problems of the flock first. The shepherd does not issue commands in a pyramid fashion down to subordinates who carry out his wishes like a general or admiral who stays back out of range of the conflict; nor is a shepherd a whip-carrying organizer who drives the sheep into the pen or to a particular pasture. But the shepherd knows the setting, leads the sheep, and they follow him (cf. John 10:4). Sometimes “leaders” today are like the strangers of this text, whose voices are unknown to the sheep, and they wonder why there are problems in their organizations (cf. 10:5)!

—Gerald Borchert, John 1–11, The New American Commentary, 332

If this hurts your feelings then you should reread it.

One of the most extraordinary examples of adaptation to immaturity in contemporary American society is how the word abusive has replaced the words nasty and objectionable. The latter two words suggest that a person has done something distasteful, always a matter of judgment. But the use of the word abusive suggests, instead, that the person who heard or read the objectionable, nasty, or even offensive remark was somehow victimized by dint of the word entering their mind. This confusion of being “hurt” with being damaged makes it seem as though the feelings of the listener or reader were not their own responsibility, or as though they had been helplessly violated by another person’s opinion. If our bodies responded that way to “insults,” we would not make it very far past birth.

The use of abusive rather than objectionable has enabled those who do not want to take responsibility for their own efforts to tyrannize others, especially leaders, with their “sensitivity.”

—Edwin Friedman, A Failure of Nerve, 70-71

Spills are an insight into what is inside our souls.

Amy Carmichael has a note in her little book, If. “For a cup brimful of sweet water cannot spill even one drop of bitter water, however suddenly jolted.” If it is full of sweet water and is jolted, what will come out of the cup? Sweet water. If you gave it a harder jolt, what’s going to happen? More sweet water. If someone is filled with sweet water and someone else gives him a jolt, what will come out? Sweet water. Jolts do not turn sweet water into bitter water.

—Jim Wilson, How to Be Free From Bitterness, 17

If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavourable. Favourable conditions never come.

—C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

God has made humans to reflect him, but if they do not commit themselves to him, they will not reflect him but something else in creation. At the core of our beings we are imaging creatures. It is not possible to be neutral on this issue: we either reflect the Creator or something in creation.

—G.K. Beale, We Become What We Worship, 16

Ross Douthat for The New York Times on Tim Tebow’s trade to the “Babylon-upon-the-Hudson” Jets:

Why is Tim Tebow such a fascinating and polarizing figure? Not just because he claims to be religious; that claim is commonplace among football stars and ordinary Americans alike. Rather, it’s because his conduct — kind, charitable, chaste, guileless — seems to actually vindicate his claim to be in possession of a life-altering truth.

Nothing discredits religion quite like the gap that often yawns between what believers profess and how they live….He fascinates, in part, because he behaves — at least in public, and at least for now — the way one would expect more Christians to behave if their faith were really true.

Imagine what would happen if all Christians who claimed to possess life-altering truth had truly altered lives.

(via: Challies)

Two great things go together: the great commandment and the great commission. They do not compete with each other, they compliment each other (and they do so even better than peanut butter and chocolate). Obedience to the great commandment makes obedience to the great commission a no-brainer. Obedience to the great commission requires seeing others become obedient to the great commandment.

So evangelism and worship meet in the disciple-making process. That’s why worship can have an evangelistic impact. That’s why evangelism isn’t finished unless it leads to worship.

All schools are religious schools. All schools teach worldview. All schools have a philosophy of education. All schools have creeds, liturgy, and dogma. All schools have orthodoxy and doctrine. In short, all schools—public, private, parochial, and home—are enculturation centers, and none are neutral.

—Bradley Heath, Millstones and Stumbling Blocks

I can’t recommend the whole book by any means, but this paragraph pokes grabby authority in the eye by observing that God gets more glory by glorifying His people. A true authority bestows honor, he isn’t threatened when surrounded by others with dignity.

If God alone is all glorious, then no one else is glorious at all. No exaltation may be admitted for any other creature, since this would endanger the exclusive prerogative of God. But this is to imagine a paltry court. What king surrounds himself with warped, dwarfish, worthless creatures? The more glorious the king, the more glorious the titles and honors he bestows. The plumes, cockades, coronets, diadems, mantles, and rosettes that deck his retinue testify to one thing alone, his own majesty and munificence. He is a very great king to have figures of such immense dignity in his train, or even better, to have raised them to such dignity. These great lords and ladies, mantled and crowned with the highest possible honor and rank are, precisely, his vassals. This glittering array is his court! All glory to him, and in him, glory and honor to these others.

—Thomas Howard, Evangelical Is Not Enough, 87

Do believers gather together on the Lord’s Day to give or get?

Faith will never reach that degree of maturity where it could live without receiving. A grateful reception of God’s gracious gifts will always remain the task of Christian worship, for it is impossible to evolve a church service out of the spiritual assets of believers.

—Vilmos Vajta, Luther on Worship, quoted in The Lord’s Service by Jeffrey Meyers, 94.

A couple nights ago someone asked me if I thought that believers are lazy in sharing their faith. I answered, without a doubt, yes. I don’t think, however, that believers are lazy in terms of learning the way to evangelize like the Master, giving directions down the road in Romans, or carrying tracts to leave with the tip after dinner at Denny’s. I think believers are lazy mostly by failing to cultivate their faith, hallow Christ as Lord, and grow in hope that would make others ask what’s going on (1 Peter 3:15). In other words, in our evangelical camp, most of us work harder collecting verses and arranging our apologetics outlines than we work at living with hope. I suspect that’s because organizing answers requires less effort than being Christians.

The apostle John wrote:

Everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that overcomes the world–our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John 5:4-5)

So, as Christians, we should go and overcome. If we have faith like a grain of mustard seed, we will say to a mountain, “move from here to there” and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for us. Our Lord is the Son of God. He is Lord of lords and King of kings, the beginning and the end. All things have been given into His hand. As we break the huddle on Sundays, we should follow His lead right up the middle.

Over the last month, a few bloggers I follow have posted this video of the Kimyal tribe receiving their very own copies of God’s Word for the first time, and I finally watched it. With tears.

I think about “the rhythm of desperation and deliverance” all the time.

A pastor who feels competent in himself to produce eternal fruit—which is the only kind that matters—knows neither God nor himself. A pastor who does not know the rhythm of desperation and deliverance must have his sights set only on what man can achieve.

—John Piper, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, 54

John Owen on John 3:16: “The love here intimated is absolutely the most eminent and transcendent love that ever God showed or bare towards any miserable creature.”

“So” that is, in such a degree, to such a remarkable, astonishable height: “God,” the glorious, all-sufficient God, that could have manifested his justice to eternity in the condemnation of all sinners…: “loved,” with such an earnest, intense affection, consisting in an eternal, unchangeable act and purpose of his will, for the bestowing of the chiefest good: “the world,” men in the world, of the world, subject to the iniquities and miseries of the world, lying in their blood, having nothing to render them commendable in his eyes, or before him: “that he gave,” did not, as he made all the world at first, speak the word and it was done, but proceeded higher, to the performance of a great deal more and longer work, wherein he was to do more than exercise an act of his almighty power, as before; and therefore gave “his son;” not any favourite or other well-pleasing creature; not sun, moon, or stars; not the rich treasure of his creation; but his Son: …that believers, those who he thus loved, “might not perish,” –that is, undergo the utmost misery and wrath to eternity, which they had deserved,– “but have everlasting life,” eternal glory with himself, which of themselves they could no way attain.

—The Death of Death in the Death of Christ, 211-12

A new post from Rachel Jankovic on the joy that’s possible when we differentiate principles from methods. The principle here applies to much more than mommas pushing their favorite idols techniques. It creeps into any corner where someone says something that’s “clearly outrageous.”

Do not get caught up in method camps and chisel away at the number of saints you can fellowship with every time you read a new article about that thing that has become the most important thing. Do not build for yourself an arsenal of inflammatory topics.

On Women, Divisiveness, and Hobby Horses

Greg Gilbert on the ministry of making melody:

I think we ought to encourage every member of our churches to sing every song in the service with gusto, even if they don’t particularly resonate with the song. Every Christian has a certain set of hymns and songs that deeply resonate with them—the melody, the words, an experience they had when they first heard it—and our natural tendency is to give those favorites everything we’ve got…but then sort of check out when the next song is one we don’t particularly like.

But here’s the thing: When you sing in a congregation, you’re not just singing for yourself; you’re singing for every other member of the congregation, for their edification and building up in Christ, too. In I Corinthians 14:26, Paul tells us that when we come together, everything we do—including our singing—is done for each other. Singing hymns is not just an opportunity for each of us, as individuals, to worship God in our own way. It’s an opportunity for the church, as a whole, to worship God together. That means that even if you don’t like a particular song, it’s likely that someone else in the congregation resonates with it deeply—they feel about it the same way you feel about your favorites—and so you have a responsibility to love that person by singing that song with all the heart you can muster. In other words, don’t check out on songs that aren’t your favorites; sing them! And sing them loud and heartily, not because you particularly like them, but because you may be helping to edify another brother or sister whose heart is engaged deeply with those songs. Worship isn’t finally an individual experience; it’s corporate. And everything we do—everything, Paul tells us, including our singing—should be done for the building up of the saints.

ht: Justin Taylor

There are many ways to adopt and/or care for widows and orphans. There are so many, actually, that many people who desire to do something may not know where to start. Here is one opportunity. Right now, there are approximately 130,000 kids in US foster care. There are 10,000 kids in the Washington state foster care system and between 1,000 and 1,500 of those kids have no legal parents and want to have them, meaning, they want to be adopted. There are also over 5,000 churches in Washington state. It seems as if Christians could do something. Enter the Wait No More event on September 24. From 1:00-5:00pm on Saturday, at Overlake Christian Church in Redmond, Focus on the Family is arranging information and agencies to get families in the process to adopt kids from the foster system. Here is a one minute overview video.

Washington Wait No More Promo Video

Focus on the Family has already held eight events in seven other states (two in their home state of Colorado). They only go to states with significant interest and existing infrastructure to make things happen. They are spending their own resources to build trellis, organizing placement agencies and state officials and churches, not only to make the needs known, but also to recruit families to adopt. The event is free, however they do ask that people register so they can have enough materials for all who attend. 1:00-3:00pm will be a gathered time for education and motivation. Then, from 3:00-5:00pm, there will be time to interact with many of the ministries and adoption agencies. Those who are interested will be able to sign up before they leave and will be contacted soon therefore for the next steps.

Adopting through the foster system isn’t for everyone. For that matter, adoption, whether through foster or private or international, isn’t for every family. But loving the unloved and dying to bring life is. Here is one opportunity, where other people are spending all sorts of effort to build trellis that we can utilize. Additional things you can do:

1. Read Adopted for Life by Russell Moore, a fantastic resource about adoption in general.
2. Visit 127adoptions.org and/or read Chuck Weinberg’s blog that tells their family’s story of adopting from China.
3. Talk with Esther about serving at the 127 table on Saturdays. Those of you who follow her on Facebook already know some of the updates and that info is now on the church website as well.
4. Email me with questions about adoption or about the event itself.
5. Pray for attendance and interest in the Wait No More event.
6. Register and attend, or tell others about, the event: icareaboutorphans.org

We may recognize it when we meet it, but we may not meet it very often.

Spiritual authority is hard to pin down in words, but we recognize it when we meet it.

It is a product compounded of conscientious faithfulness to the Bible; vivid perception of God’s reality and greatness; inflexible desire to honor and please him; deep self-searching and radical self-denial; adoring intimacy with Christ; generous compassion manward; and forthright simplicity, God-taught and God-wrought, adult in knowingness while childlike in its directness.

The man of God has authority as he bows to divine authority, and the pattern of God’s power in him is the baptismal pattern of being supernaturally raised from under burdens that feel like death.

—J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness, 77. (via Dane Ortland)

Though normally found writing at Femina, Rachel Jankovic’s guest post on the Desiring God blog hits home for wanna-be gospel-centered moms (and dads). I recommended her book on motherhood/parenting a few days ago and it wouldn’t surprise me to see this article making a great chapter in a future book.

Jesus calls all His disciples to die, but

The closer you get to home, the less intriguing the work of sacrifice seems.

That’s a pain, especially since we spend so much time at home. Likewise, the closer you get to actual sacrifice, the less attractive it appears.

Giving up what you cannot keep does not mean giving up your home, or your job so you can go serve somewhere else. It is giving up yourself. Lay yourself down. Sacrifice yourself here, now.

I like David Brainerd. Mostly. I feel the same about Jim Elliot (whom Rachel quotes), and others of their ilk. They spent their lives in obvious ways for heavenly purposes and are commended by evangelicals for such commitment. But we’re easily tempted to measure our heavenly mindedness according to earthly standards. If something is so obviously heavenly, how do we know that? By actual heavenly standards, or by ones that were easier to determine…by earthly standards?

Amidst all the “crazy love,” “radical” speak, the key is to actually be radical, not do what everyone thinks is radical. Daily-dying parenting is radical indeed.

God calls some families to plant their homes in foreign lands for sake of gospel fruit. Families that plant thankfulness at home, no matter the street address, will grow juicy gospel fruit as well.

You cannot have a heart for the gospel and a fussiness about your life at the same time.

No one in my (small) theological circle would say that God gets panicked. Also, no one I know would say that God doesn’t care about righteousness. So if He created us to reflect Him, then why do we freak out when things aren’t yet the way He wants? Image bearing is a big responsibility and we should watch Him to see how He handles the battle.

Attitude is a key ingredient in our reflection. Yes, we love truth and seek righteousness. God does. But we don’t fight with worldly wisdom (James 3:13-18) or worldly weapons (2 Corinthians 10:3-4). God doesn’t.

Doug Wilson, in Our New Birdfeeder, argues that:

The besetting sin of conservatives who see what is going on around us is the sin of being strident and shrill. The besetting sin of most other conservatives is to react against that shrillness by adopting a posture of cluelessness. For has not experience shown us that as soon as someone gets a clue, they move straight into Shrill Mode?

And, for my money, this is point of the post (emphasis mine):

What we need, what we desperately need, are merry warriors. What we need is for someone to establish an alternative to “Goliath is a buddy,” on the one hand, and “Goliath is an invincible foe” on the other. No, no…Goliath is our new bird feeder (1 Sam. 17:46).

Quoting Bible verses to defend the fleshiness of our fracas is too typical in the truth-lover’s camp and reflects poorly on our Commanding Officer. Instead, we need more better fighting with Spirit-produced love, joy, peace, patience, and so on. Call up the merry warriors.

Brief and pointed post on the perspective and practices of effective pastors. These two stuck out to me, as they seem particularly absent from men who fancy their authority more than their Authority.

2. Acknowledge your sins to God, and do what He says to do about them.

8. Surround yourself with men who respect you, not men who cater to you.

—Doug Wilson, 10 Things an Effective Minister Must Remember

The True Excellency of a Gospel Minister This is a sermon by Jonathan Edwards at the ordination of another minister. He took John 5:35 as his text, noting Jesus’ description of John the Baptist as a “burning and a shining light.” Edwards shows that a “burning” light is one that is fervent, zealous, energetic, with a “holy flame enkindled in the soul.” A “shining” light is one that is pure and clear, that brings truth to the souls of men.

Edwards illustrates the need for both heat and light:

It is the glory of the sun that such a bright and glorious light, and such a powerful, refreshing, vivifying heat, are both together diffused from that luminary. When there is light in a minister…without a spiritual warmth and ardor in his heart, and a holy zeal in his ministrations, his light is like the light of an ignis fatuus, and some kinds of putrefying carcasses that shine in the dark, though they are of a stinking savor.

Truly excellent ministers must burn and shine. Edwards observes that, as we pursue both,

hereby our ministry will be likely to be as beneficial as our office is honorable.

Too many men love the honor of the office and do not consider if they are actually beneficial. They do not consider if their religion remains “only in the head,” or consists in “outward morality, or forms of religion” but if it “reaches the heart” and “burns there.” Those who fail in personal, spiritual fervency not only suffer an ineffectual ministry, they are also “so much the more hurtful and pernicious” to men and “the more abominable and inexcusable” before God.

To me there is nothing more terrible for a preacher, than to be in a pulpit alone, without the conscious smile of God.

—Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Revival, 295

“Keeping a rule,” however technically correct, falls easily into the trap of abstraction and impersonalism. As a result we oppose sin with a false standard of holiness, and then are surprised at its impotence. But gratitude, thanksgiving, contentment, and joy are always personal, by definition. Jesus is there, and if you thank Him, then that gratitude fills up all the available space.

—Doug Wilson, Clean Contentment

[I]n a fight a man needs a large heart and a narrow sword. We have jumbled everything, and now have narrow hearts, and our swords are clumsily made from two by fours.

—Doug Wilson, A Primer on Worship and Reformation, 23

Sometimes a minister tends to think too highly of himself as a clergy-man. He stands before the congregation; he, as God’s spokesman, pronounces the blessing; he is the holy person facing a congregation that is on a lower level. To prevent this attitude, it is well that he counteracts his sense of self-importance by affirming that he lives among brothers as a brother, and that he loves the congregation. May all God’s servants be of such a mind. Love of the congregation, and of brothers and sisters, is the highest incentive for administering that which is holy, and from which we may expect rich fruit.

—Abraham Kuyper, Our Worship, 116-117

Preaching does not have to be an individualistic sort of activity. In fact, great preaching well understands this. The true preacher is not over against the Christian congregation but rather is an expression of the congregation. The true Christian preacher affirms the faith of the congregation, and raises up the hope of the congregation. Much of the genius of great preachers is their ability to express the faith of the people to whom they are preaching.

—Hughes Oliphant Old, The Reading and Preaching of the Scriptures, 271

John Newton on how to be humble when handling the treasures of Scripture:

To be enabled to form a clear, consistent, and comprehensive judgment of the truths revealed in the Scripture, is a great privilege; but they who possess it are exposed to the temptation of thinking too highly of themselves, and too meanly of others, especially of those who not only refuse to adopt their sentiments, but venture to oppose them. We see few controversial writings, however excellent in other respects, but are tinctured with this spirit of self-superiority . . .

I know nothing, as a means, more likely to correct this evil, than a serious consideration of the amazing difference between our acquired judgment, and our actual experience; or, in other words, how little influence our knowledge and judgment have upon our own conduct. . . .

[I]f we estimate our knowledge by its effects, and value it no farther than it is experimental and operative (which is the proper standard whereby to try it), we shall find it so faint and feeble as hardly to deserve the name.

—Works of John Newton, Vol 1, 245-246

Delivery should be the spontaneous product of the speaker’s peculiar personality, as acted on by the subject which now fills his mind and heart…it implies that one is possessed with the subject, that he is completely in sympathy with it and fully alive to its importance, that he is not repeating remembered words but setting free the thoughts shut up in his mind.

—John Broadus, On the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons, 264-265, quoted by John MacArthur in Rediscovering Expository Preaching, 330.

Being “possessed with the subject” and “fully alive to its importance” every preaching opportunity is a supernatural work that I desire and for which I must pray week by week for the Spirit’s help.

The goal is not to cripple the horse, but equip the rider.

—Rachel Jankovic, A Spirited Rider, on training girls to control their emotions.

What one thing would you change about seminary? ➔

Read answers from Al Mohler, D.A. Carson, and this one from Richard Pratt:

If I could wave a magic scepter and change seminary today, I’d turn it into a grueling physical and spiritual experience. I’d find ways to reach academic goals more quickly and effectively and then devote most of the curriculum to supervised battle simulation. I’d put students through endless hours of hands-on service to the sick and dying, physically dangerous evangelism, frequent preaching and teaching the Scriptures, and days on end of fasting and prayer. Seminary would either make them or break them.

Lloyd-Jones protested against the use of the pulpit as what he called “a coward’s castle” into which a man might retreat to vent his spleen on his enemies or simply as a place where he can express his own view.

—Tony Sargent, A Sacred Anointing, 149

A friend of mine in Canton introduced me to the hip-hop of Shai Linne last summer. Lord knows I tried not to enjoy this.

Read the lyrics in one place here, scroll down.

On laughing as responsible leadership:

For this is what it means to be a king: to be first in every desperate attack and last in every desperate retreat, and when there’s hunger in the land (as must be now and then in bad years) to wear finer clothes and laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in your land.

—King Lune in The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis

On laughing as hard humility:

[K]ings in their heavy gold and the proud in their robes of purple will all of their nature sink downwards, for pride cannot rise to levity or levitation. Pride is the downward drag of all things into an easy solemnity. One “settles down” into a sort of selfish seriousness; but one has to rise to a gay self-forgetfulness….It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one’s self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do….For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.

—G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

On laughing as Calvinist worship:

If, therefore, when thou hast fled, thou art taken, be not offended at God or man: not at God, for thou art his servant, thy life and thy all are his; not at man, for he is but God’s rod, and is ordained, in this, to do thee good. Hast thou escaped? Laugh. Art thou taken? Laugh. I mean, be pleased which way soever things shall go, for that the scales are still in God’s hand.

—John Bunyan, Seasonable Counsel

Meals that are centered on gratitude and thanksgiving—like harvest home festivals and this Eucharistic meal—are never times for grabbing and getting your own. We not allowed to pretend that the blessing we enjoy begins with us. We must not refuse the son of David if the son of David is the one who set the table in the first place. And He has, and so we come with gratitude and a willingness to imitate the attitude that blessed us, which means a willingness to share and to overflow.

—Doug Wilson, Nabals at the Supper

Why International Adoption ➔

A long time friend of mine, Dave Cleland, and his wife are well into the process for their third adoption, their first international (from Ethiopia). He recently began to offer some specific reasons for adopting beyond our domestic borders.

“Why adopt a child from a godless country so far away?” Because God our Father adopted us to be His children even though we belonged to a godless country far away from Him. Distance and sin didn’t stop God the Father from bringing me into His family. And for this I am eternally grateful.

Dave also posted Part 2.

I am not what I ought to be–ah, how imperfect and deficient! I am not what I wish to be–I abhor what is evil, and I would cleave to what is good! I am not what I hope to be–soon, soon shall I put off mortality, and with mortality all sin and imperfection. Yet, though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say, I am not what I once was; a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the apostle, and acknowledge, “By the grace of God I am what I am.”

—Newton as quoted in The Christian Pioneer (1856), edited by Joseph Foulkes Winks, 84

I appreciate Newton’s quote as I’ve taken to titling my journal entries as a “changelog.” “Journal” seemed unimaginative. I liked Edwards’ Miscellanies, but those entries are broad in type and besides, the name’s taken. A changelog is “a log or record of changes made to a project, such as a website or software project, usually including such records as bug fixes, new features, etc.” I’m a project of a different kind.

You might also say, He’s still working on me.

Disclosure: My mom had my sister and I sing this song in nursing homes when we were kids. Also, that’s not my mom in the video.

[O]ur elected representatives are not confiscating all this wealth for themselves personally–although they are doing quite well, thank you. They are more clever than that. They are taking this plunder, and distributing it to others in such a way as to create constituencies with a sense of entitlement. And if you create enough of these constituencies, and tangle them up enough, then this creates the need for pollsters, political consultants, and political experts, and the science of modern politics is born. The modern state is the broker at the great auction of stolen goods.

—Doug Wilson, Political Reform Closer to Home

Indeed, the criterion of successful churches in the future is not how much Bible knowledge their people have, [or] how strong their pastor is in the pulpit….While content and pulpit expertise aren’t to be minimized, the biblical measure of success is whether they’re making disciples.

-Aubrey Malphurs, Planting Growing Churches For The 21st Century (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2004), 30

Religio munda et inmaculata apud Deum et Patrem haec est visitare pupillos et viduas in tribulatione eorum inmaculatum se custodire ab hoc saeculo.

-James 1:27

Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome.

—Samuel Johnson, sound bites with caution

Regarding (tedious) repetition in Scripture, specifically in Numbers 7.

Efficiency is not always the highest value. Slow, long, repetitions are sometimes the best way to make an impact.

John Piper, Theological Reasons for Wordiness

Could I posses the tinker’s ability for preaching, please your majesty, I would gladly relinquish all my learning.

—John Owen about John Bunyan, as quoted by Peter Toon, God’s Statesman: Life and Work of John Owen, 162

Obedience and disobedience on the part of a husband does not make him a head or not a head. He is a head regardless, but he can be an obedient head or disobedient head. He can be a head who tells the truth about Christ in his sacrificial love, or he can be a head who lies about Him through selfishness, but silence is not an option.

~Doug Wilson, For a Glory and a Covering, 58

Hypocrisy is the oxygen of church politics.

—Rick Holland, 2010 Shepherds’ Conference message

It is of need that we are sometimes in heaviness. Good men are promised tribulation in this world, and ministers may expect a larger share than others, that they may learn sympathy with the Lord’s suffering people, and so may be fitting shepherds of an ailing flock.

—Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, 155

Continue with double earnestness to serve your Lord when no visible result is before you. Any simpleton can follow the narrow path in the light; faith’s rare wisdom enables a man to march on in the dark with infallible accuracy.

—Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, 155

It is our duty and our privilege to exhaust our lives for Jesus. We are not to be living specimens of men in fine preservation, but living sacrifices, whose lot is to be consumed.

—Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, 157

In case there was any question about Dr. MacArthur’s (current) position on the extent of the atonement, take a listen (or read the transcript) to this sermon.

God continues to give me the merciful privilege of speaking with young men who believe that God is calling them to pastoral ministry. I am one of those guys myself, though I started down the shepherd’s road over 19 years ago. The most common and critical question is, Where should I go for training?

Not only is that a ridiculously consequential question, but there are too many ingredients that defy a canned response. Even if the young man demonstrates desire, character, and aptitude for overseeing work, practical considerations such as cost and distance often eliminate certain options at once, especially if they (or their parents) listen to Dave Ramsey every afternoon.

So what are principles and determining priorities? Having gone through the process myself, and having opportunity to think about and attempt to answer the question frequently, here is my “look for this” list.[1]

The Sacred Writings

Go to a place that believes the Bible has all the answers. This belief should be a living faith, both explicit and implicit. By explicit I mean that the institution affirms the inspiration, inerrancy, and sufficiency of Scripture. If the doctrinal statement is unclear, or if teachers are allowed liberty on the ground level, don’t even enter the building. The Bible in the pastor’s soul food, his training manual, and his shepherding staff. Being educated to doubt and question the Book is no blessing. This criteria eliminates a number of options, but based on statements of belief alone, there are still a fair number of flowers in the field.

Implicit belief in the Bible throws a bunch of those flowers into the oven to be burned. Attitude and practice are as important as, and maybe even more important than, an institution’s written documents. One window is the scope and sequence of the course work, as well as the electives. Are the original languages expected? Are they even offered? Are there more elective classes such as Genesis, Psalms, Matthew, and Ephesians? Or are subjects such as church administration, psychology/counseling, and leadership given greater priority? Though the latter group of classes aren’t unimportant, they are all secondary, and should be built on the Bible. It isn’t enough to sprinkle Bible verses into the syllabus. Be schooled in a place that loves the Bible and points pastors to study the Bible itself, most of all and first of all. We’re already in a very tiny corner of the evangelical field.

Examples to the Flock

Pursue a person (or persons) that you want to be like. Every disciple when he is fully trained will be like his teacher; choose well. Even the most non-conformist student can’t help but be influenced over the course of two, three, or five years of instruction. That’s how it’s supposed to be. That’s why Bible college and seminary aren’t weekenders. So go after faculty who love God’s Word and love God’s people. Watch them. Camp on their lawns. Get in their back pockets. Find those who have practiced finding the point of paragraphs and who have persevered in patiently pastoring sheep.

There will be things you see that you won’t want to do. That, too, is expected and profitable in the process. Only Christ is the Chief Shepherd and only He is a perfect shepherd. But in general, it’s proper to follow leaders who follow Christ. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Pursue training by men whose hearts are in a better condition than their grammar. Find those worn by church discipline battles in living rooms, not only exam grading in classrooms. Pay attention to men who minister publicly and from house to house. Pastoral ministry is personal, so search out men that will train you as a person, not as a professional.

A Church to Cherish

Plan to invest in church ministry while being trained for future church ministry. Most of what I learned about being a pastor had little to do with books or papers or exams. Learning to pastor comes by learning to care more for people and less for grades. Effective Bible colleges and seminaries put tools in in the shepherd’s box, but the point is to use the tools, not gather and admire the tools indefinitely.

It makes absolutely no sense to put off heavy ministry involvement under the excuse of training for ministry. I understand the sentiment, that it might enable someone to finish school more quickly, but that approach is counterproductive. My wife would be appropriately disturbed if I abandoned her for three years in order to learn how to be a better husband.

When choosing a college or seminary, the trainee must be as certain as possible that there is a healthy local church in the area. It doesn’t have to be a perfect body; those don’t exist anyway. But the more closely associated a school for pastors is with a church, the more likely the graduate will be equipped to bless.

So go to a place with exemplary men that live and keep His Word and spend their lives for His bride. These aren’t arcane principles, but they frame a paradigm that very few places fit.[2]

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[1] The title for the post springs from Luke 6:39-40. The list sparks from 1 Timothy 3:12-4:4, 1 Peter 5:1-3, and Ephesians 5:25-32 respectively.
[2] At least that I’m aware of.

When unbelievers blow smoke, it is not our task to try to weave something out of that smoke. It is our task to set up a big industrial-sized fan to blow it all away.

—Doug Wilson, Thinks I Have Thunk

You are very hot for mercy, but I will cool you; this frame shall not last always; many have been as hot as you for a spirit, but I have quenched their zeal….What care I, saith he, though I be seven years in chilling your heart if I can do it at last? Continual rocking will lull a crying child asleep. I will ply it close, but I will have my end accomplished. Though you be burning hot at present, yet, if I can pull you from this fire, I shall have you cold before it be long.

—John Buynan, Grace Abounding, #110

A major part of pastoral ministry is preaching the doctrines of grace and managing an environment of grace. The latter is harder to accomplish than the former. It is more intuitive. It requires more humility and self-awareness.

—Ray Ortlund, Centered on one or the other

I read chapter two of The Silver Chair to the kids last night before bed (my first time through, too). Jill meets Aslan, and he explains the reason he called her away from Experiment House and reveals her mission. Before blowing her to Narnia, Aslan urges and warns Jill.

[R]emember, remember, remember the Signs. Say them to yourself when you wake in the morning and when you lie down at night, and when you wake in the middle of the night. And whatever strange things may happen to you, let nothing turn your mind form following the Signs. And secondly, I give you a warning. Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly: I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down into Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the Signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look, when you meet them there. That is why it is so important to know them by heart and pay no attention to appearances. Remember the Signs and believe the Signs. Nothing else matters.

(p. 21, emphasis added)

The parallels resonate in my head. There are times, often mountaintop type times, when our fellowship with the Lord is pronounced, when we better perceive His nearness. Also during those times His Word appears quite clear. It’s appropriate to linger with Him and rehearse our instructions, burning them into our minds for later when things may not be so obvious. The truth never changes, but we tend to forget it, and it may look different depending on where we’re standing and how much we’re entangled by seen things. We will have done well to memorize our mission and the promises He’s given.

I still have Snow Retreat on the brain. It’s been my own experience, and observation of other’s experiences, that a Bible-driven retreat can be a similar time of tasting that the Lord is good. The fact that our perception isn’t exactly the same once back down the mountain doesn’t necessarily mean that what was heard and seen was without substance. In fact, we are more accountable for, not excused from, commitments made in clearer air. We must take great care to remember the signs.

At the prayer meeting, not many people ask for prayer so that they might taper off in their adulteries, or their thefts, or all the lies they are spreading around town. But [bitterness, envy, anger, and pride] are respectable—we have a delicate way of acknowledging them without really dealing with them. And one of the reasons we get away with touching on them lightly is that the main problem is clearly … the other guy’s.

—Doug Wilson, Getting Your Eyes Off the Other Guy

If 80% of success is just showing up, 90% is showing up early.

—Jeffrey Zeldman, Free Advice: Show Up Early

[C. S. Lewis had] omnivorous attentiveness.

—Alan Jacobs on C. S. Lewis in The Narnian, quoted by Piper in Lessons from an Inconsolable Soul

Own your distractions, resist fiddly half-measures, and never for a minute allow yourself to believe that productivity systems, space pens, or a writing app that plays new age music while you stare at a blank page in full-screen mode can ever teach you anything about how to care.

—Merlin Mann, First, Care

Up to now, America has not been a good milieu for the rise of a mass movement. What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation.

—Eric Hoffer, The Temper of Our Time, quoted by Carl Trueman in “The Real Scandal of the Evangelical Mind” at 9Marks

Gossip involves saying behind a person’s back what you would never say to his or her face. Flattery means saying to a person’s face what you would never say behind his or her back.

—R. Kent Hughes, Disciplines of a Godly Man, 139

Learning to pray doesn’t offer you a less busy life; it offers you a less busy heart.

—Paul Miller, A Praying Life, 23

What would they judge of thee if they knew thy heart began to fail thee in thy journey, or thy sins began to allure thee, and to persuade thee to stop thy race? would they not call thee a thousand fools? and say, O, that he did but see what we see, feel what we feel, and taste of the dainties that we taste of! O, if he were here one quarter of an hour, to behold, to see, to feel, to taste and enjoy but the thousandth part of what we enjoy, what would he do? What would he suffer? What would he leave undone? Would he favour sin? Would he love this world below? Would he be afraid of friends, or shrink at the most fearful threatenings that the greatest tyrants could invent to give him? Nay, those who have had but a sight of these things by faith, when they have been as far off from them as heaven from earth, yet they have been able to say with a comfortable and merry heart, as the bird that sings in the spring, that this and more shall not keep them from running to heaven.

—John Bunyan, The Heavenly Footman

Bad Christian writing is usually bad because it is derivative and workmanlike. No new insights. No panache.

—Kevin DeYoung, On Writing, Pt 3

Two messages by Paul Tripp at the 2010 Desiring God Pastor’s pre-conference seminar.

The Pastor: Who Do We Think He Is Anyway?

Ministry is war. That war is not fought in programs or finances. It is fought on the turf of your heart.

The greatest danger to the church of Christ…rests in the heart of the person that stands in the pulpit.

The Pastor: Not Yet Perfect, Still Under Attack.

If you are aware that there are incongruities in your public and personal life, then seek help. You are not designed to do this thing by yourself. Your ministry is a community project.

If God doesn’t rule your mundane, then he doesn’t rule your life.

It is the part of the Church to suffer rather than to strike, but it is an anvil that has worn out a good many hammers.

—John Brown, John Bunyan—His Life, Times and Work, 196, in reference to Buynan’s submission to the state.

Persecution is a weapon that kills both at the breech and at the muzzle, that, though it may strike and wound those against whom it is directed, it yet more certainly debases and degrades those who use it.

—John Brown, John Bunyan—His Life, Times and Work, 215, regarding the failure of religious suppression by force in Bunyan’s day.

"Ministers never write or preach so well as when under the cross: the Spirit of Christ and of Glory then rests upon them."

—George Whitefield, in reference to John Bunyan’s writing of The Pilgrim’s Progress while in prison. (quoted in Horner, The Pilgrim’s Progress: An Evangelical Apologetic, iii)

[To the Puritans], communion with God was a great thing, to evangelicals today it is a comparatively small thing. The Puritans were concerned about communion with God in a way that we are not. The measure of our concern is the little that we say about it. When Christians meet, they talk to each other about their Christian work and Christian interests, their Christian acquaintances, the state of the churches, and the problems of theology—but rarely of their daily experience with God.

—J.I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness, 215

A man preacheth that sermon only well unto others which preacheth itself in his own soul. And he that doth not feed on and thrive in the digestion of the food which he provides for others will scarce make it savory unto them; yea, he knows not but the food he has provided may be poison, unless he have really tasted of it himself. If the word do not dwell with power in us, it will not pass with power from us.

—John Owen, quoted in Contending for Our All, 111

Profess men may, and make a noise, as the empty barrel maketh the biggest sound; but prove them, and they are full of air, full of emptiness, and that is all.

—John Bunyan, The Acceptable Sacrifice, 719. Regarding those who perform religious duties without a broken heart.

One out of five ideas at Pyromaniacs:

You see: what if all those lousy elders out there had an army of people like you praying for them daily, crying out to heaven, “God: you have him/them to this church full of your people, and now you have to either give him the gifts to lead them and the love to lead them and the power in your Spirit to lead them, or you need to convict him to move on. Please God: teach this man to be a shepherd and a brother to those whom you have given under his position. They are your people, and for their sake, and the sake of Christ who bought them, make him worthy.”

From Don Whitney: Ten Questions to Ask at the Start of a New Year

The beginning of a new year is an ideal time to stop, look up, and get our bearings. To that end, here are some questions to ask prayerfully in the presence of God.

1. What’s one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?

2. What’s the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?

3. What’s the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?

4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?

5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?

6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?

7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?

8. What’s the most important way you will, by God’s grace, try to make this year different from last year?

9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?

10. What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in ten years? In eternity?

Good article here:

The Bible-oriented preacher wants the congregation to know that his words, if they have any abiding worth, are in accord with God’s words. He wants this to be obvious to them. That is part of his humility and his authority. Therefore, he constantly tries to show the people that his ideas are coming from the Bible. He is hesitant to go too far toward points that are not demonstrable from the Bible.

He had studied our Authorized Version … till his whole being was saturated with Scripture; and though his writings … continually make us feel and say, ‘Why, this man is a living Bible!’ Prick him anywhere; and you will find that his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him. He cannot speak with out quoting a text, for his soul is full of the Word of God.

—In reference to John Bunyan. Charles Spurgeon, Autobiography, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1973), 159.

Put on your man pants.

[L]iving in believing community is one of the central instruments that a loving God has given to us to prepare us for that great day. Living among fellow sinners, learning how to deal with it properly, is the principal form of industrial grade sandpaper that the Holy Spirit uses on us. But many pietists, including many educational perfectionists, withdraw from that treatment, shrinking from it, and all in the name of maintaining their smooth surfaces. But hiding the rough cut lumber in an unlit shed is not the same thing as sanding.

—Doug Wilson, Holy Ghost Industrial Grade Sandpaper

Article by David Powlison on how responses to criticism reveal who we are: Does the Shoe Fit?

The “man of God”…does not give fresh revelation himself, but rather is the man who has the compilation of that completed revelation in his hands. While he is not a prophet himself, he is the heir of the prophets. In other words, he is not limited by the cessation of the prophetic gift because, as it says here, he is “competent” or equipped for every good work. There is no task the minister will be called upon to perform that he is not equipped to perform through the Scriptures.

—Doug Wilson, A Ministerial Tool Chest, commenting on 2 Timothy 3:16

We might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall island in the sea. So long as there was a wall round the cliff’s edge they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the noisiest of nurseries. But the walls were knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the centre of the island; and their song had ceased

—G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 153

In other words, doctrinal walls are good if they keep us safe and free.

It can also be wearisome to have the kids bouncing off the walls, but if the spirit is playful, it is good.

In The Preacher on Preaching, Danny Akin made the point,

What we say is more important than how we say it, but how we say has never been more important.

He used Ecclesiastes 12:9-12 (especially verse 10) to emphasize that dull words are not delightful.

Other thoughts I had while listening to this message:

• The preacher’s passion is different than the preacher’s polish.
• If the preacher is boring because he is disinterested, that preaching is sinful.

1. How faithful is he to the Word of God?
2. How much pain is he able to endure?

John MacArthur, Marks of the Faithful Preacher, Part 4, from 2 Timothy 4:1-5

Pastordude: please, before you say that word… ➔

So you’re a pastor, and you’re preaching this passage, and you want to mention some Hebrew or Greek word that is in the passage. Fine. Great, in fact. Terrific.

One request.

Say it right, or don’t say it.

Now, many would advise that you just not say it, period, because it’s not going to help your largely (linguisitically) unschooled audience, and may just look like preening. Most of the time, I think that’s good advice.

But because I know we pastordudes can be a bit thick, let me break it down and be very specific.

You’re preaching a passage. There’s a Hebrew or Greek word in it that is cool, that you think is worth commenting on. Fine.

If you do not actually know Hebrew or Greek:

1. You should learn Hebrew and Greek. (After all, you are an instructor in ancient Hebrew and Greek literature. Your Principal wrote the class textbook in those languages. Your students have the right to expect that you’re conversant with them, or working on it.)

2. Until then, you probably should not say any Hebrew or Greek word.

3. If you do, find someone who has studied, and ask him whether you’re about to say it right.

Phillips has still more to say about it here.

[O]ur task, as a generation teaching the next one, is not to get students to conform to the standard. The task before us is getting them to love the standard.

—Doug Wilson, NSA Convocation 2009

Q: What is thy only comfort in life and death?

A: That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, hath fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yeah, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth to live unto him.

The First Question and Answer of the Heidelberg Catechism, read in Mouw, Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport, 99.

Mo gifted me with my first iPod on my 30th birthday in 2004. Not only I have moved out of Music Naysayer Neighborhood since then, but more importantly, I have eaten up countless hours of solid food while legging it on my treadmill. A couple years ago I listed a few of my favorite online audio resources and, now with Grace to You making all their audio available for free, it seemed like a good time to update those links.

While searching for some Augustinian material (Google dropped me off at the Augustine of Hippo Series by Steve Lawson.) back in January, I also stumbled across a new-to-me, fantastic audio resources site with a fitting name, Faith by Hearing.

Faith by Hearing is designed to collect and categorize the ever-growing availability of great Reformed and conservative evangelical audio preaching & teaching that has a high view of God and Scripture.

You can read more about the site here. While I very much recommend subscribing, the on-site categorization is really quite useful. Browse by biblical book, by doctrine, by history, by person/preacher, by topic, or by venue. As long as you have an internet connection, not even a lion in the road (Proverbs 26:13) can keep you from feasting on this sermon smorgasbord.

Ian Lugg created a video for our snow retreat on Repentance last week. It moves my affections every time I watch it, and since many people have asked for the quotes, I’ve included those below for prolonged marination.

Quotes

In order:

Repentance stands, then, in opposition to all our former prejudices against the divine character; and in opposition to that sin-extenuating, self-justifying, law-hating, God-blaming disposition which reigns in every impenitent soul. ~ Joseph Bellamy

Though it deserves to be hated with perfect hatred, and though there be every reason why we should be horrified on account of it and abase ourselves before God, mourning it in bitterness of heart, fearing it, watching against it as the greatest of all evils, yet we shall never do so until we see sin in its real hideousness. Thus a deep sense of the infinite evil of sin is plainly essential to repentance, yea, it is from this that repentance immediately springs. ~ A.W. Pink

You may today go home and pretend to pray, you may today be serious, tomorrow honest, and the next day you may pretend to be devout; but yet, if you return—as Scripture has it, like the dog to its vomit and like the sow to its wallowing in the mire—your repentance shall but sink you deeper into hell, instead of being a proof of divine grace in your heart. ~ Charles Spurgeon

If a soul is truly converted, there will be a battle, and an awful chasm that will never be filled up but with the love of God; and therefore when we say, Repent and be converted, it is no more than saying, Repent and be happy. Indeed we shall never be completely happy till we get to heaven. O that every man could see the good of every thing of a sublunary nature drop off like leaves in autumn: God grant this may be known by every one of you. ~ George Whitefield

My friend, David W. Cleland, is now writing at and about The Savannah Project. He has moved a time zone, switched blogging platforms, and even converted blog genres (the third day of my week feels empty without Cat Tuesdays). More than that, he’s committed to planting a church in his hometown, a church he hopes will be rooted in the rich soil of God’s Word.

One’s attitude does not produce discernment, like sadness can’t diagnose disease. On the other hand, the right attitude should be one of the results of discernment, like an accurate diagnosis may cause sorrow. As always, discernment flourishes only when energized by the light of doctrine.

Discernment is not created in God’s people by brokenness, humility, reverence, and repentance. It is created by biblical truth and the application of truth by the power of the Holy Spirit to our hearts and minds. When that happens, then the brokenness, humility, reverence, and repentance will have the strong fiber of the full counsel of God in them. They will be profoundly Christian and not merely religious and emotional and psychological.

Quoted from John Piper’s post, Test Revival with Doctrine.

Ryan Hall is eager for the upcoming seminar on Bible study. We should all have this attitude and perspective toward our copies of God’s Word:

I want to become a kid in the candy store when it comes to reading through the pages of Scripture. You can never out-study the truths of the Bible.

According to 50 former pastors, faithful pastoral ministry requires initiative and discipline, with a vivid sense of divine calling, from a constantly refurbished theological commitment, and personal, growing affection for the sheep.

HT: B2W

The Everett Herald featured a great article today about Grant Weinberg as a walking miracle. (The write-up ran on the front page of the printed version). We started following this story the day it happened and praise God again for His goodness.

Here’s a BRIEFING on one-to-one ministry that compliments much of the Biblical Shepherding Bull’s-eye and prepares the way for a Practical Plan of Discipleship. For a taste:

Effective one-to-one Christian ministry is not limited to counseling, nor is it essentially about solving personal or emotional problems. What is it then? It is forming a relationship with another individual for the purpose of mutual growth in Christian understanding, obedience and service of others.

I don’t love the recommended resources near the end but the rest of the article is worth the time to read and implement.

Chuck Weinberg started a new blog to give updates on Grant’s condition and to thank God for His goodness. With his son in the Critical Care Unit hooked to a breathing machine, sitting in the waiting room unsure of what’s next, his first thought for a blog name was How good is God? This wasn’t a question for him of whether or not God is good, but a question of recognizing how good God really is. How good is that perspective?

For another first hand account, read what Micah Lugg learned from sitting at the hospital all day.

A cold “blog booger” on a paper plate collected some sentences from Calvin about God’s being due our adoration, trust, invocation, thanksgiving. I was laid low especially by my need for invocation, “the habit of the mind, whenever necessity presses us, of resorting to His faithfulness and help as our only support.”

This video of The Gospel in 6 Minutes is a terrific asset for both evangelism and edification. I benefited from it so much I added it to the one28 - About page.

The TruThseeker is back at his blog and crunched some numbers on the average life expectancy increase over three millennia. I’m using my extra 2 minutes and 53 seconds today to write this.

My dad shared the following poem with me when I was a kid and I’ve never forgotten it. It was written by Pat Williams, a former NBA General Manager. I shared it during a sermon I recently preached on “Men at Work” while illustrating the seriousness of taking responsibility. Since numerous people asked me for a copy after the message I thought it might be good for the entire void.

Winners vs. Losers

When a winner makes a mistake, he says, “I was wrong;”
When a loser makes a mistake, he says, “It wasn’t my fault.”

A winner works harder than a loser and has more time;
A loser is always “too busy” to do what is necessary.

A winner goes through a problem;
A loser goes around it, and never gets past it.

A winner makes commitments;
A loser makes promises.

A winner says, “I’m good, but not as good as I ought to be;”
A loser says, “I’m not as bad as a lot of other people.”

A winner listens;
A loser just waits until it is his turn to talk.

A winner respects those who are superior to him and tries to learn something from them;
A loser resents those who are superior to him and tries to find chinks in their armor.

A winner feels responsible for more than his job;
A loser says, “I only work here.”

There is a sinewy connection between joy and shepherding and I regret that there are still too many occasions when the two are cut asunder. It isn’t that I lament others seeing the lack, I lament the fact of the lack. I don’t wish that I could hide my joy_less_ness better, rather I want to experience and display joy_full_ness better.

The connection between joy and shepherding is consequential. Though Hebrews 13:17 is primarily a call for the sheep to follow the shepherd in such a way that he may shepherd with joy, it establishes the principle that a joyful shepherd is an advantage to the sheep. The potent consequence of the shepherds’ rejoicing is blessing and profit for the sheep, and often I must apologize that I have not been as great an advantage to my sheep as is right.

I do recognize there are still multiple things to be thankful for even in this shortcoming. First, sheep are less likely to follow me because of me; the clouded reflection of Christ in me is a constant reminder that He is the clear goal. Second, the sheep have much opportunity to serve me in prayer, that more of Christ would be formed in me. Third, we can commiserate together toward the day of glorification, when our joyful experience of completeness in Christ will equal our status.

So as we encourage one another, build up each other, and shepherd, let us do so with the joy of the Lord as our strength. Thank you for bearing with me as I progress in the same.

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Fling him into his office, tear the office sign from the door and nail up a sign, “Study.” Take him off the mailing list. Lock him up with his books and his Bible. Slam him down on his knees before texts and broken hearts and the lives of a superficial flock and a holy God. Force him to be the one man in the community who knows about God. Throw him into the ring to box with God until he learns how short his arms are. Engage him to wrestle with God all night long, and let him come out only when he’s bruised and beaten into being a blessing.

Shut his mouth forever spouting remarks. Stop his tongue forever tripping lightly over every nonessential. Require him to have something to say before he dares break the silence, and bend his knees in the lonesome valley of suffering. Burn his eyes with weary study. Wreck his emotional poise with worry over his life before God. Make him exchange his pious stance for a humble walk with God and man. Make him spend and be spent for the glory of God. Rip out his telephone, Amen. Burn up his ecclesiastical success sheets.

Put water in his gas tank. Give him a Bible, and tie him to the pulpit and make him preach the Word of the Living God. Test him. Quiz him. Examine him. Humiliate him for his ignorance of things divine. Shame him for his good comprehension of finances, game scores and politics. Laugh at his frustrated effort to play psychiatrist. Form a choir and raise a chant and haunt him with it night and day. Sir, we would see Jesus. And when, at last, he does enter the pulpit, ask him if he has a Word from God. If he doesn’t, then dismiss him.

Tell him you can read the morning paper. You can digest the television commentaries. You can think through the day’s superficial problems. You can manage the community’s weary fund drives. You can bless the sordid baked potatoes and green beans, ad infinitum, better than he can. Command him not to come back until he’s read and reread, written and rewritten, until he can stand up worn and forlorn and say, “Thus says the Lord.”

Break him across the board of his ill-gotten popularity. Smack him hard with his own prestige. Corner him with questions about God. Cover him with demands for celestial wisdom and give him no escape until he’s back against the wall of the Word. Sit down before him and listen to the only word he has left, God’s Word. Let him be totally ignorant of the down-street gossip, but give him a chapter, and order him to walk around it, camp on it, sup with it, and come at last to speak it backward and forward until all he says rings with the truth of eternity.

And when he’s burned out by the flaming Word, when he’s consumed at last by the fiery grace blazing through him, when he’s privileged to translate that truth of God to man and finally transferred from earth to Heaven, then bear him away gently, and blow a muted trumpet, and lay him down softly and place a two-edged sword on his coffin, and raise the tomb triumphant, for he was a brave soldier of the Word. And ere he died, he had become a man of God.

Floyd Doud Shafer, “And Preach As You Go!”