Tag: John Owen

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Lord's Day Liturgy

Hectic Fever

I had a moment of providential connection at our small group meeting last Friday that, I believe, has application on a few fronts, for wisdom and courage and holiness, which are distinguishable fronts but also share the same heart.

We were talking about our Christian responsibilities in a world of lies and trouble and tyrants. This is where wisdom is so necessary, for sake or recognizing our situation and knowing how to respond. It reminded me of a phrase and condition I had read about: hectic fever.

Niccolo Machiavelli described it in his book on statecraft, The Prince (AD 1532).

hectic fever…in its beginning it is easy to cure, but hard to recognize; whereas, after a time, not having been detected and treated at the first, it becomes easy to recognize but impossible to cure.

Machiavelli meant it as counsel to rulers to be wise in how they deal with disorder below them.

The same condition, however, was also referred to by Junius Brutus less than 50 years later in his Vindicia Contra Tyrannos (AD 1579).

For tyranny may be properly resembled unto a fever hectic, the which at the first is easy to be cured, but with much difficulty to be known; but after it is sufficiently known, it becomes incurable.

Machiavelli was looking down, Brutus was looking up, both ways could go bad. For leaders, and for those who would not be overrun by bad leaders, early wisdom and quick courage are advantageous.

But the image also applies regarding sin. The love of money is a root of all kinds of evils (1 Timothy 6:10), kill it quickly. There is a root of bitterness that springs up into great trouble (Hebrews 12:15), pluck it out. One too many glasses of wine? Too loose with your timecard, stealing from your employer? A small sin can grow into a devouring dragon. Be honest, be ruthless for your sake, for the body’s sake. As John Owen wrote, “Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.”

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Lord's Day Liturgy

Your Neighbor’s Slop

It is a universal law that all men seek their own advantage. It is obvious by reflecting on one’s own motives, it is obvious by looking at one’s neighbors and at the history of humanity. It is an inescapable reality that parents know, that philosophers and policy makers write about, and that advertisers depend on. Every human being thinks about himself or herself first.

The question is not if this is true, the question is if this is good. It’s hard for most of us in conservative Christian circles to consider, but if there was no god, what would be bad about self-interest and self-preservation? Or for those who grew up in a culture with a pantheon of selfish gods, knowing that we become like what we worship, a culture of self-firsters makes sense.

Worldly wise men have even attempted to build nations on the principle. Thomas Hobbes in his book Leviathan provides a perfect example. Here’s his argument (in my words, not his). Men are pigs, but they can’t help being pigs. Don’t tell them that being a pig is bad, just try to convince them that they’ll actually get more slop overall by not stealing their neighbor’s slop. If the neighbors get mad they might kill you, meaning less slop for you. Fear is a powerful motivator.

God’s Spirit says that this is fleshly. The self-principle in man produces immorality, impurity, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, and “things like these” (Galatians 5:19-20). It is natural, but it’s not good.

The alternative is to walk by the Spirit and “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24). Of course it’s natural for us to listen to our flesh, and this is why we need to meditate on the cross. As John Owen might have told Hobbes, “Be killing self or it will be killing you.”

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A Shot of Encouragement

Eminent and Transcendent Love

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

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A Shot of Encouragement

The Tinker’s Ability

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

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Every Thumb's Width

assiduous

as•sid•u•ous

adjective — [uh-sij-oo-uhs]

definition: constant in application or effort; working diligently at a task; showing great care and perseverance.

synonyms: diligent, meticulous, persevering, industrious, attentive

example usage:

I must now say, that, after all my searching and reading, prayer and assiduous meditation have been my only resort, and by far the most useful means of light and assistance. By these have my thoughts been freed from many an entanglement.

John Owen, explaining how he finished his seven-volume commentary on Hebrews, quoted in Piper, Contending for Our All, 107.

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A Shot of Encouragement

In Us and From Us

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