Scatterings

Safety with Each Other

2012-01-28T09:42:00.000-08:00

In paradise, Adam and Eve were naked and not ashamed. We have to exercise our imaginations to appreciate how blissful that would have been. I'm not talking about physical nudity. I mean having no secrets, no barriers, no defensiveness, no shame. Can you imagine everyone knowing everything about you . . . and feeling no shame? Whenever I teach Genesis 2-3 to undergrads, I open up the floor to anyone who wants to stand up and tell us everything about themselves - everything. Shockingly, no one has ever taken me up on that.

Part of the tragedy of the fall is that the simple, open, childlike trust which Adam and Eve enjoyed was lost for defensiveness, blame-shifting, accusing each other, pointing the finger, hiding, loneliness, heartbreak - all the barbed wire we have wrapped around ourselves. A deeper part of the tragedy was that it started to feel normal to accuse each other that way. There was a shift in their relational instincts, so that it felt normal to hide, to cover up, to point the finger, to be ashamed, and not even realize you were ashamed.

Our first parents' marriage is a microcosm of God's intentions for all relationships. Part of paradise was this deep relational safety God wants us to have with each other. It is the atmosphere of heaven. That's how God wants us to be with each other: utterly, entirely safe, without shame.

But what an avalanche of criticism and suspicions and finger-pointing there is inside the church, and on the Internet. And it hardly ever occurs to us that God's intention for his children were entirely otherwise. We replay that tragedy as we bite and pick at each other. But in the gospel, space can be created for a miraculously different kind of environment.

Complex Evaluation

2012-01-28T09:27:00.000-08:00

Although I'm sure my father has long since forgotten it, I remember an evening in high school, in our nice home in Libertyville, IL (a suburb which all us teenagers made a point of groaning about when we lived there, but, having since returned as an adult, is an almost idyllicly pleasant place to live). Everyone else was away, so my Dad and me sat down for dinner, and he put on one of his old records - as I remember, it was Surrealisitc Pillow by Jefferson Airplane. And he started talking about the larger cultural context of the record (the whole counter-culture movement of the '60s), the subtexts to the songs, the different ways they were talking to their audience.

The reason I'll never forget that conversation is not because of that particular album, or even because we talked about the '60s (which, to be honest, are ancient history to me). The reason I'll never forget it is the complex way my father was making evalutions: not condemning the whole thing as evil, even while keeping his guard up; trying to listen for what was really being said. He was not naive, but neither was he judgmental. And it meant the world to me that my father would try to engage with the surrounding culture in that kind of way - literally.

"Lost Centuries," by Rabih Abou-Khalil

2012-01-28T09:06:00.000-08:00

The first time I heard the music of Abou-Khalil, I laughed out loud: it sounded pretty silly to me. The next time I heard him, I just started listening. And I haven't stopped. His music is by turns intense, evocative, delightful. He is an oud player (a fretless guitar-type thing); his music is essentially a Middle Eastern version of jazz (with Middle Eastern melodies an instruments). Just listen.

Nine out of Every Ten

2012-01-26T08:35:00.000-08:00

You may have heard of the Stanford prison experiments. A psychologist who teaches at Stanford, Philip Zimbardo, randomly assigned nine people as guards and nine as prisoners (after screening them so nobody unbalanced got it). Within a couple of days, the guards were “abusing” and humiliating the “prisoners” in pretty horrific ways. The implication of the study was that, if the groups had been reversed, the same results would have happened.

I was talking about this with my colleague, psychologist Charles Hackney, and he told me about the Milgram experiments. Subjects were told to press a button which administered an electric shock to a man sitting in an adjacent room if he answered a question incorrectly. They weren’t actually doing it; the machine wasn’t rigged up, and the third person would put on an act. But the subjects thought they were. As it turns out, around 2/3 (61%-65%) of the subjects would administer increasingly intense electric shocks, to the point that the other person would die (450 volts). These people would sweat and shake, and ask to stop; and the person hooked up to the machine was instructed to scream, beg the subject to stop, claim that they had a heart condition, etc. And yet, 2/3 of the subjects continued with the shocks for no other reason than that they were told to do it.

Even worse: in a variation of the experiment, subjects would not administer the shock themselves, but only pass the order on to someone else – and the compliance rate jumped to 90%. The implication: 9 out of every 10 people will torture and kill another human being, as long as they don’t have to do it themselves, for no other reason than that someone else is telling them to do it. As I remember, this variation was tested on 1000 subjects, with a consistent “success” rate just above 90%.

I’d like to think, of course, that I’d be one of those brave souls who resisted. And there were Christians who hid Jews in Nazi Germany, at risk of their lives. But many more Christians were complicit. And we’re all hard-wired to think of ourselves are morally superior to others, aren’t we? (Anyone inclined to disagree is referred to Cordelia Fine’s book, A Mind of Its Own, which was written about on this blog.)

As I talked with Dr. Hackney about this, I said to him, “So the point seems to be that our morality and goodness is almost entirely dependent on circumstance – but once circumstances change, it’s not difficult for most people to start doing horrible things to other human beings.” And Charles agreed.

There’s been a lot about death on this blog lately. The reason for this is I want to live, as much as I can, without illusion. I don’t think anyone can live entirely without illusions; probably most of us can’t function in full view of death. But I want to live, as much as I can, knowing that I am entirely frail physically, and entirely frail morally. Part of me is certain my body will never fail, and that I’m a fine chap who would always stick up for others. But it’s not true. “Teach me to number my days . . .”

How much of our conversation is self-distraction? How much of our social events and business and energy is expended on maintaining our illusions that we aren’t going to die, that we aren’t that bad? And how much more convincing might our Christianity be if we lived, as much as one mortal can, without illusion?

Why John Owen Wrote a 350-pg. Treatise on Justification

2012-01-26T08:29:00.000-08:00

"I had rather be instrumental in the communication of light and knowledge unto the meanest believer, than to have the clearest success against prejudiced disputers." -Works 5: 41.

What Does "Arrival" Look Like To You?

2012-01-26T08:27:00.000-08:00

In a world of secrets, outward success is everyone’s goal. If we can just succeed, we won’t have to face ourselves. No wonder that doesn’t work. It can’t work. The reality of what we are will always topple this house-of-cards persona we so earnestly wish were true.

The gospel is not God’s way of giving us an even better self-improvement goal. The gospel is God’s judgment on our better selves and his replacement of it all with Jesus.

Every one of us thinks, “If only I could do __________ or be __________, then I would arrive.” So, what does“arrival” look like to you? If it isn’t Jesus, the risen Lord himself, every arrival you achieve is only another set-back.

If you make financial security your arrival, you are already trapped in anxiety. If you make a thin body your identity, you will hate yourself more. If you make a porn-free life your okayness, you are doomed to compulsion. God’s remedy for you is not more money or better looks or perfect control. God’s gift to you is Jesus. With Jesus, we are saved. Everything is going to be okay. Without Jesus, we are damned. Nothing will go right.

Forsake all fraudulent success. Make Jesus your goal, your arrival, your identity, your comfort, your okayness, and he’ll gladly give himself to you — and on terms of grace. But reach for anything else, and it will turn into its opposite and betray you.

To paraphrase the apostle Paul, “I’ve lost everything, and I don’t even care, because now I get Jesus” (Philippians 3.8).

HT: My dad.

Gracefulness

2012-01-23T12:45:00.000-08:00

When I was a in high school, I hated, hated, hated going to school parties and dances. Would have rather had a root canal. I'm not exaggerating: intense physical pain would have been preferable to my 17-year-old self than having my insecurities intensified and obvious in front of my classmates. Because that's what dances did, for me, anyway: just intensified how out of step, out of tune I was; as if there was music going on all the time, but I couldn't sing in tune, could be in tune.

Is it an accident that the English word "grace" means goodwill and pardon, and also gracefulness?

I remember being in downtown Edmonton and seeing what I was pretty sure was a drug deal go down. And I remember watching the face of the drug dealer. There was something wrong about it. I don't know how else to say it except it was broken: not physically, but there was a kind of shattering about it. He wasn't right.

God's forgiveness and pardon introduces in us a kind of normalicy, a kind of sanity. We start to sing in tune. Our very being starts to pulse in tune with his love, and, receiving grace, we become more graceful, more ourselves. We are delivered from that nightmarish unreality of never being able to get it right because we ourselves are not right. Grace upon grace, and grace unto gracefulness.

Death without God

2012-01-23T12:25:00.000-08:00

Charlie Kaufman is a very interesting, sad, funny, sad screenwriter. He is what Woody Allen is trying to be: absurdist/surreal, very funny, uninhibitedly crude; and underneath it all, profoundly sad. His first film, Being John Malkovich, was about a pupeteer who finds a portal into the head of John Malkovich. He can stay for 15 minutes until he is ejected onto the New Jersey turnpike. (No, I'm not making that up.) At one level, it's an extremely funny and inventive fantasy; but by the end, you realize it is about how we are all strangers in our skin, and we all want to be someone else - we all want to resolve our awkwardness and not-at-home-ness inside ourselves by pretending to be someone else. (The puppeteer metaphor works at several levels in the film.) But it always fails. Always.

You get only sadness in this clip:

After I saw that for the first time, I went and hugged my wife, and told her I loved her with all my heart, which I do; and then I went and hugged my kids. It's good for that, at least. But much more as well. I don't think we can really see Death for what it is; it always eludes us. But surely our lives would be better lived if we tried?

This clip helps me do this. It is about a playwright who is profoundly awkard and lonely and out of sorts. He stages an increasingly huge play in an old warehouse, even casting actors to play himself and his assistant as he organizes the play. This is his attempt at redemption: casting an actor to play himself gives him a little distance from his pain, and also lets him see the truth of his life. The best form of redemption he gets is one of the actresses who played his ex-wife telling him she is proud of him (something which never happens outside the play).

Kaufman clearly does not believe in God. "As you learn there is no-one is watching you, and there never was." A Christian's death does not mean the same thing as what death means here. But it is still death. We are and will be redeemed from death; but death still comes for us. I will lose my characteristics, one by one. The people who love me will die. The world will move on and forget me. I will realize I am not special; I am very ordinary. Eventually all the little hopes and fears I use to string myself along, all the carrots I put out in front of myself, will be taken away; and I will see them for what they were. The immense hopes I have will at best be partially realized; the worst fears, also so. I will no longer drive and yearn for the destination. I will simply drive, 7:44, 7:45.

But all my commentary is not worth much compared to the clip itself. He evokes what cannot be captured wonderfully. Now I'm going to stop writing and hug my family again, one more time, against the time when I have to say goodbye for the last time.

Simply a Sinner

2012-01-18T09:00:00.000-08:00

Charles Spurgeon once said that you come to Christ as a sinner, and as nothing else. You do not come as a repentant sinner – only a sinner. Repentance is necessary to forgiveness; without repentance, there is no forgiveness. But your repentance does not make you less hideous to God. You are only acknowledging how hideous you are. That is the sinner Christ embraces and loves. Somehow, God is the kind of person who can look on his creature, see them for the evil they are, and deeply love that creature, in their evil.

John Owen tells us to “[m]ix not foundation and building work together. . . . Our foundation in dealing with God is Christ alone, mere grace and pardon in him. Our building is in and by holiness and obedience, as the fruits of that faith by which we have received atonement. And great mistakes there are in this matter, which bring great entanglements on the souls of men. Some . . . will be bringing their obedience duties, mortification of sin, and the like, unto the foundation. These are precious stones to build with, but unmeet to be first laid, to bear upon them the whole weight of the building. The foundation is to be laid . . . in mere grace, mercy, pardon in the blood of Christ. This the soul is to accept of and to rest in merely as it is grace, without the consideration of any thing in itself, but that it is sinful . . . . This is finds a difficulty in, and would gladly have something of its own to mix with it. It cannot tell how to fix these foundation-stones without some cement of its own endeavors and duty . . . . [But i]f any thing of our own be mixed with grace in this matter, it utterly destroys the nature of grace. [Those who do mix] go on with all kinds of uncertainties, and without any kind of constant peace.” Works 6:564-65.

I am most struck by the self/Christ dichotomy here. We have an innate tendency to do it ourselves, for ourselves; or at least to help. Self, self, self; it is our inheritance from Adam, and we feel terrified to simply trust Someone else. But there is no other way. I certainly went for a long time as a Christian before being taken up out of myself, my spirituality, my longing to be “used by God” – taken out of my religious self before Jesus Christ, my righteousness.

Somnolently

2012-01-17T18:25:00.001-08:00

My daughter has a tendency to pick her lip. When we watch DVDs together, the hand goes up, somnolently, to play with her lip. It distracts me, and I ask her to stop. She does, and two seconds later, the hand goes up again. I flick it away. Two seconds later it is back.

I am no different. I find attitudes within myself which are displeasing to God, self-focused. I worry and fret in ways which are incompatible with trusting a God who loves me and has wonderful things for me. I obsess about the opinion of others, and have imaginary conversations with them in my head, either exonerating myself (or endless trying to) or saying things to them which they would approve of and basking in the imagined approval. (Sounds silly, I know, but my head is sometimes a weird echo chamber where the echoes get louder.) Then I realize what I’m doing – setting up an idol and forsaking God’s perfect acceptance of me. I repent. And somnolently, it happens again. Nobody sees it. Heck, everyone who talks to me might be thinking about how spiritual I am. (Well, probably not.) But I know better.

I’ve seen other Christians at this juncture, and the choice is pretty simple. When confronted with how deeply, persistently, “somnolently” sinful we are – you have to throw yourself on Jesus and discover profounder depths of his love for persistently, recalcitrantly sinful children. But if you can’t imagine a Savior who would love you that much, who would still want you around as one of his children, the only other choice is to ignore it. And the sense of wrongness will start to come out on others, and the Pharisee in you gets stronger.

But Jesus Christ really does love recalcitrantly obtuse children. He really loves us. And that continual repentance – having to repent so often, so often, over the deeply ingrained grooves in your soul – it destroys whatever high opinion we might have of ourselves. And we’re brought face-to-face before the staggering, disproportionate, crazy love of God. (And slowly, those grooves start to straighten, making straight paths in the desert for the revelation of God’s glory . . .)

Fatherhood and Death

2012-01-17T07:28:00.000-08:00

What a depressing way to describe it! It makes it sound like fatherhood is the end of happiness, when I feel like it was the opposite: it was the beginning of real life for me. When Kate was born, everything in my life before her faded in significance. My timeline became B.K. and A.K.: Before Kate and After Kate. And After Kate was way, way better.

And yet, there is a kind of death.

I remember being . . . 11 or 12, and riding my bike outside, and coming inside and throwing myself on my bed and crying, for no reason that I could think of. And I remember when adolescence ended, or at least began to end – the exact day, I remember. I was in my first year of seminary, washing windows as a job, which made good money, but which I found terribly anxiety-producing (always worrying I’d knock over some display inside a store, or spill water on something, or not get my route done on time). Anyway, I was finishing my route for the day, and I thought, “Gee, this has been a tough day. What will I do tonight to reward myself?” And the thought came back: “Do my Hebrew homework. And go to bed.” And I didn’t resist it; I knew that that was going to be my “reward.” And something inside of me died and grew up, at the same time.

I was never bored in college. Ever. I was severely (and, looking back, needlessly) depressed some of the time, but never bored. Life flared open. I watched international cinema, transfixed. I agonized over philosophical ideas and arguments which I’ve long since forgotten. I remember finishing Dostoyevski’s Underground Man for the first time and standing on top of my chair in the library – a real “O Captain, My Captain” moment. I took long, vigorous walks at night through campus, through the light pooling on the path, through the sensuous shadows. Opposite of bored.

Now, I wouldn’t say I’m bored, but . . . I grade and clean up a lot. I answer emails a lot. I answer my kids endless questions about the nature of reality and tell them to wipe their nose. I tell my kids not to be bossy and argue with each other. A lot. I’d never go back, of course: in many ways, I was a child in college. Erin read me a passage once from one of her counseling books, to the effect that, when men become fathers, they spend most of their time doing things they’d never do as single men (changing diapers, taking their kids to the park, etc.), but that most men would never go back to singleness. I’m with them.

But there is a death. Instead of the self-investment of adolescence, the intense growth which usually happens with a painful level of self-consciousness, fatherhood forces the father to spend lots of energy one a child he loves, but doing things which aren’t inherently interesting. The love of the child becomes the only motive. It is a kind of death – a good death, which liberates and transforms.

This is the last stage of my life. The endless possibilities, the freshness, the excitement of discovery which made my college years, is over. My memories of that time feel a little like they happened to someone else. But in many ways, the last stage is the best. There is an odd clear-sightedness, a resolute-ness, a simplicity and concentration, which comes as earlier stages are left behind. I suppose it is God’s providence that the last stage of adult life is the longest: one has the most time to contemplate one’s ending. One is brought home to oneself in the most forceful way against the horizon of death, and also brought out of oneself as the kids interrupt my reading to ask me to play a game with them. And I say yes, because I will soon not be here to do so.

In Both Achievement and Defeat

2012-01-16T08:31:00.000-08:00

I am on Sabbatical this semester. This is my sixth year of teaching. I am not a newbie any more (insert sigh of relief). Almost all my classes are repeats; except for the upper-level seminary OT seminar, which is just about an issue in OT studies, everything has been taught at least twice. And now, my first Sabbatical. I always looked forward to the Sabbatical as a time to read and write in rich leisure; but the first week has actually been more stressful than a regular semester, because I have all this time in which to produce things! Oh well.

God has given me a gift for teaching. That is not a boast: or, if it is, it is a boast in God, not in myself, because I sure didn’t create the gift, or give it to myself. It really is a gift from outside myself. But I get up in front of students and it happens. I have gotten a lot of nice emails and cards from people. I have kept every one, and I read them when I am discouraged.

I have regrets, too. I regret I didn’t perform better. I know my acceptance isn’t based on my performance, but still: I wish I had been more consistently attentive and loving to students. Not that I haven’t been; but sometimes I was so scattered and anxious, I just couldn’t focus on the person sitting opposite me. I wish I’d been a better husband, more understanding of what my wife needs in her husband. I wish I’d been more consistently patient with my kids, and I wish I had more energy for them. On the one hand, every kid is born a tyrant; and it’s not bad for a four year old to learn that they can’t be utterly obnoxious without consequence. On the other hand, when I set a tone, with my body language and voice, of acceptance and OK-ness, my kids just blossom in it. It makes a palpable difference. Over the past six years, I wish I could have done that more consistently.

It is refreshing for me, at a juncture like this, to give both failure and accomplishment back to Jesus Christ. In his love for me, my failures and sins go onto him, and he owns them as his own, giving me his own perfect righteousness to be clothed with before the presence of the Father. I also give him all my accomplishments. If anything of lasting value has come out of the last six years, it’s only because the Spirit was at work. My accomplishments are no more my own, no more on my head, than my failures. They are given back to Jesus, from whom they come; whatever accomplishments I’ve been given are dedicated as offerings to his glory, to make him look good. When I obsess about my sins or my accomplishments, a queasy kind of self-absorption takes over. It’s no fun, and I turn away from Christ when I do that. Both failure and success go to him, and so I am freed from the burden of self.

Why Preachers Should Read Movie Reviews

2012-01-11T11:22:00.000-08:00

A review of a film is a distinct genre in our culture. It is one which has fascinated me for years; in facct, I often find that watching how a critic goes about evaluating a film is more interesting than the film itself. It occurs to me that the skills displayed in an intelligent review are ones a preacher needs. To wit:

1) A film review mixes analysis and engagement in a way few other genres do. One both reflects on what one is seeing and is caught up with what one is seeing (either delightedly or disgustedly). A good review will reflect and observe, and also communicate the reviewer's reaction to a film. It will give you a little taste of what it's like to see the movie - or, at least, what is was like for the reviewer. In a positive review, the critic will enthuse over something, render it attractive, even while they are thinking deeply about it.

While preachers obviously don't evaluate the text the way a critic does, they must think deeply and reflect and observe - and also rejoice. They must be caught up in what the text is talking about. The sermon should not just point to something else; it should reify, re-present, what the text is talking about.

2) A good review does more than say whether a movie is good or bad. It deciphers the code internal to the movie. It asks, How is this film prompting me to interpret what it is showing me? (I mean this hermeneutically, not morally - although obviously it is necessary to ask about the morality of a movie in a way very similar to this question, i.e., how is the movie prompting me to respond to what it is showing me in an emotional way? Is it prompting me to enjoy things I shouldn't?) In other words, there is a kind of "semiotics" to film criticism. There is a hermeneutic internal to the film itself; a review picks on this, expresses it, and then evaluates it. Roger Ebert once said he reviews movies not according to what he thinks a movie should be, but according to what the movie itself is trying to be - that's the evaluative standard. (And so he gave the Mel Gisbon Jesus movie four stars.)

Pastors have to do something similar. There is a hermeneutic intrinsic to the text, which must be attended to, before the text can be applied to us, who are not its original audience. The question is more than, How do I make sense of this? It is, How is the biblical text prompting me to make sense of what it is telling me? If we do not ask the prior question, we will never be brought out of ourselves before the text; we will fit it into our otherwise undisturbed lives, and thus never hear it.

If you want some examples, get any book by Pauline Kael, a reviewer for the New Yorker for many years, and one of the most muscular, vivid rhetoriticians I've ever read. Ever. Or check slantmagazine.com: as intelligent and interesting writing on film as I've come across (see two excellent examples here and here).

The Last Song Soundgarden Ever Recorded

2012-01-11T09:48:00.000-08:00

I must obey the rules
I must be tame and cook
No staring at the clouds
I must stay on the ground
In clusters of the mice
The smoke is in our eyes
Like babies on display
Like angels in a cage
I must be pure and true
I must contain my views
There must be something else
There must be something good
Far away
For good

Soundgarden was one of the most interesting bands from the '90s. Although apparently they're getting back together, this is, to date, the last song they ever released. That makes it all the more poignant for me: I wish this had been their first song, and they had followed this yearning to its only true telos.

Overwhelmed with Infiniteness

2012-01-09T11:47:00.000-08:00

I had always understood Isa 55.7-9 not as a statement of general transcendence, but as the incomparable otherness of God from our expectations of him, in terms of grace: the wicked man forsaking his thoughts means that he should stop thinking of God as someone stingy and miserly and unwilling to treat with sinners. He should start thinking of God as ready and happy and willing and bending over backward to receive repentant, evil people. I don't know that Owen will ever win an award for "Greatest English Prose Stylist," but he expresses this more powerfully than I had ever thought to:

"God himself doth really separate and distinguish his forgiveness from any thing that our thoughts and imaginations can reach unto; and that because it is his, and like himself. It is an object for faith alone, which can rest in that which it cannot comprehend. It is never safer than when it is, as it were, overwhelmed with infiniteness. . . .

"For the most part, when we come to deal with God about forgiveness, we hang in every brier of disputing, quarrelsome unbelief. . . . Want of a due consideration of him with whom we have to do, measuring him by that line of our own imaginations, bringing him down unto our thoughts and ways, is the cause of all our disquietments. Because we find it hard to forgive our pence, we think he cannot forgive talents. . . .

"Were he a man, or as the sons of men, it were impossible that, upon such and so many provocations, he should turn away from the fierceness of his anger. But he is God. This gives an infiniteness and an inconceivable boundlessness to the forgiveness that is with him, and exalts it above all our thoughts and ways." -Works, 6:499-500.

"Richest One," by Rez Band

2012-01-09T07:55:00.000-08:00

If I had a penny
For every town I've known
An' if I had a nickel
For every song I've sung
If I had a quarter
For every tear I've cried
And if I had a dollar
For every hurt I felt inside
I'd be the richest
Richest one in the world

If I had a ruby
For every drop of blood You shed
And if I had an emerald
For every single debt
If I had a piece of silver
For every sin You took
And if I had a diamond for every beautiful truth in Your Book
I'd be the richest, richest man in the world

Yes I am
When I was lost
A stranger to innocence
When I was guilty
In the face of such evidence
When I was condemned
That's when the veil was rent
When I was broken
You came to my defense

This is the second-to-last song on Rez band's album "Lament," which came out in the early '90s and remains one of the most convincing mainstream Christian albums I've ever heard. The whole album is a narrative about a guy walking away from everything he knows, wandering in the wilderness and through that valley which only some of God's children know, and finally coming to Christ. They filmed a series of videos, with the same actors, as a second layer to the narrative. The last song, "Across These Fields," is a superbly yearn-full worship song which you can listen to here.

Eagleton

2012-01-06T12:11:00.000-08:00

Very interesting review of Terry Eagleton's new book on the "new" "atheism." That Eagleton is not a Christian makes his palpable sympathy to Christianity and disdain of the "arguments" of the new atheists all the more interesting.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-16T07:50:00.000-08:00

No more blogging for a while. Unless I really feel like it.

A Gentleman

2011-12-15T08:18:00.000-08:00

So I learn from my daughter the other day that two younger boys she knew had been hitting her. I was picturing them giving her hooks and uppercuts, but she hold me it was with an open hand, on her stomach and arms - the kind of thing a three-year-old would do (the age of one of the boys). The adrenaline was already boiling in my stomach as I told her she should never, ever let anyone (male or female) do that, that if it happened again, she should come right home, and that I would talk to them. When I saw the boys again, I raised the issue; they got very still and quiet, and said they hadn't hit her. I said I never wanted it to happen again, and they said OK, and we parted as friends. (I actually really like both the boys in question and really like having them around.)

As I was talking with Kate and Will about it, I made the comment that you never, ever hit a woman. Why not, my son wanted to know. I didn't think about it at the time, but I actually didn't give him an answer: I just repeated that you never, ever hit a woman, or harm her, or ever make her feel unsafe or humiliated or uncomfortable. It seemed to register with him. If I had been able, I would have tried to say: Because it is so incredibly ugly. Period. As a four year old, my son might not yet understand that; but if an older boy can't understand it, then there is simply something wrong with him.

The rape, torture, humiliation, and degradation of women continues, on a terrifyingly massive scale, at home and around the world. There is a God-given energy in men, a knife-edge, which, if not channeled and formed in the right ways, can come out in awful ones. I will do my best to teach my son both that courtesy, respect and attention which both men and women deserve - and also that fierceness which is sometimes required, perhaps more often in what you say, when someone is about to be wronged.

Of course "chivalry" can be a cover for just more abuse. And it can be expressed in ways that portray women as weak, simpering, helpless creatures. Anyone who actually takes the trouble to listen to and learn how to relate to the women around them will quickly learn how silly this is. (With most of the women close to me, I frankly fear for any man who might cross a line with them.) The development and maintenance of an environment of deep safety, of consideration and respect, is something everyone contributes to. But I feel it is especially on my shoulders, as a husband and father, to foster that kind of environment in my home. Not only on my shoulders. But in a special way, that is my privilege and joy. May my son learn the same.

Growth Without Answerable Practice

2011-12-13T11:18:00.000-08:00

"When once men have attained to this, that they can entertain and receive evangelical truths in a new and glorious light or more clear discovery than formerly, or new manifestations of truth which they knew not before, and please themselves in so doing, without dilligent endeavours to have the power of those truths and notions upon their hearts, and their souls made conformable unto them, they generally learn so to dispose of all truths formerly known, which were sometimes inlaid in their hearts with more efficacy and power. This hath proved, if not the ruin, yet the great impairing of many . . . . By this means, from humble, close walking, many have withered into an empty, barren, talking profession. All things almost have in a short season become alike unto them . . . so they might be debating of them and disputing about them, all is well. This is food for sin; it hatcheth, increaseth it, and is increased by it.... And generally this is so when men content themselves, as was said, with the notions of truth, without labouring after an experience of the power of them in their hearts, and the bringing forth the fruit of them in their lives, on which a decay must needs ensue." -John Owen, Works 6:301

Are Daily Bible Reading and Prayer Important?

2011-12-13T07:50:00.000-08:00

"All neglect of private duties is principled by a weariness of God.... God alone being the fountain and spring of spiritual life, if there be a weariness of him and withdrawing from him, it is impossible but that there will a decay in the life ensue. Indeed, what men are in these duties (I mean as to faith and love in them), that they are, and no more. Here lies the root of their obedience; and if this fail, all fruit will quickly fail." -John Owen, Works 6:300

"Duties" here means private exercises in religion.

Did you hear what Owen just said? What you are in your private duties - that is your measure as a Christian. Period. If I said that, it wouldn't carry too much weight. But when Owen does, that's different.

I am helpfully stung by Brother Owen. My prayer life is pretty terrible, often foggy and wandering, not getting past mumbling. Two things have helped: first, intent to pray. Intending to bug God, to just talk, even if it sounds stupid and boring, until it starts to feel like I'm really praying, really making contact.

The second is to read Scripture back to God in prayer. I'm not talking about anything complicated here: just read the words of Scripture back to that Divine Presence, there with you, whether you sense him or not. Talk back to your Lord what he promises you in his word. Talk through it with him, even if it's simple or straightforward. It's not magic, of course; but I find it often helps to get the gears to shift and get off the runway.

One example: I was praying back Romans 8:19 the other day, telling the Lord that the glory to be revealed in ordinary me is not worth comparing with whatever I go through here. And something inside me resisted, because, if that's true, I am stripped of any worry about the future, or any self pity for painful past experiences. How could I complain about some girl who turned me down in high school after I met my wife? Not worth comparing. And yet, something inside me resisted this, wanted to worry, wanted to hold on to some kind of calculation, some remnant of self-pity over the size of the pain we feel sometimes. And it was helpful to say to the Lord, "I'm sorry I don't trust you the way I should. I abandon myself to your incomparable promise of divine glory. Thank you."

Law in Romans

2011-12-12T11:21:00.000-08:00

It is interesting how Paul talks about the law across the trajectory of Romans. It is difficult to find positive references to the law before ch. 8, and any negative references to it after that chapter. Blessing and life conditional to obedience to Torah is clearly present in 2.12-14, for instance, but apparently nobody keeps these conditions - by v. 24, God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles over how God's people act. In 3.19-20, the law shuts every mouth and gives knowledge of sin. In 3.21 and ch. 4, the law has nothing to do with justification by faith - in fact, in 4.15, it just works wrath. In 5.20, it increases trespass. (These last two statements are kind of shocking, but who, reading the history of Israel, can disagree?) Sin won't have dominion over us in 6.14 - but the law has nothing to do with that. We've died to the law through the body of Christ (7.4 - what a fascinating thing to say!) - that law which, no matter how much we agree with, produces only new kinds of sin in us (7.7ff).

But then it changes in ch. 8. We're under a new "law," the law of the Spirit of life (v. 2), so that, as we walk by the Spirit, we live out everything Mosaic Torah was calling for (8.4). The same is said in 13.8-10, where we get the 10 commandments again, in a new covenant context.

The lesson here seems to be that, outside of grace, God's good and holy law just causes more problems. Once grace has entered the equation, however, law can take its necessary place in our covenant relationship with God, subsumed within the larger context of grace.

Justification and Reference

2011-12-09T09:17:00.000-08:00

I'm using "reference" here in a linguistic sense: to what does our language refer? What is that object that we're talking about? And I mean not just in individual sentences or conversations, in which our referents change quickly. I mean the deep undercurrent of our talk. What are we pointing to? In reference to what does our talking make sense?

I remember talking with a friend about a professor he'd had. My friend mentioned how the prof would be asked a question by a student, and the prof would answer - but he would do so less in terms of helping the student, less in terms of entering the student's world and helping them toward clarity, and more in terms of the lecture the prof was giving. He would take the question as a launching pad to get to some other part of the lecture he wanted to get to. I wasn't in the class, and I never knew the prof. But having been in the same position myself, I can't help but wonder if the referent of that lecture - if the real object and goal at which the lecture was aimed - was not the students, to serve and help them. The real referent of the lecture was the lecture - the academic subject, and the thorough investigation thereof.

I suppose it's difficult to complain about a prof really caring about his subject. But what interests me about that example is the way his language (lecture) was aimed at itself, not in love for others. I am struck by the self/Christ dichotomy in Phil 3.7-10. There's a basic choice there: self-righteousness or Christ's righteousness; self or Christ.

Without a refreshing, liberating sense of the externality of our rightness with God, it is difficult for the deep referent of our language, the thing we're pointing to in our language all the time, to be anything other than ourselves. That's certainly been true of me in the past: no matter how much I'm talking about God or the Bible or being sold out for Jesus, the real referent is me, my spiritual growth, whether or not I'm being a good Christian. But when the gospel meets us, when we get knocked out of ourselves and start to (by faith) behold Jesus Christ how is our righteousness before the Father, who obeys for us, then the referent of our language changes. We start talking about him, all the time. It's like when the moon pulls out the tide: the waves might come and go, and you might not always be able to actually see it, but there is that irresistable gravitational pull outside yourself.

The Externality of Justification

2011-12-09T09:08:00.000-08:00

I remember a line from a hymn by Bernard of Clairvaux: "Jesus, my only joy be now/As thou my prize will be/Jesus, be thou my glory now/And through eternity." That's helpful: whatever is good or praiseworthy or impressive about me is outside of me, in someone else.

Jesus Christ, reigning on high at the right hand of the Father, is your righteousness and your rightness. You don't need to turn to him less when you're having a good day. (And, really, our ability to diagnose when we're doing well spiritually shouldn't be trusted too far - God might see a hundred things in us which displease him on one of our "good" days, and a day full of struggle might show God a hundred things which please him.) You don't need Jesus "more" when you're having a hard time keeping it together. You need him all time, whether you're being well behaved or not. You can wander from him in flagrant immorality, or through excessive attention and enjoyment of your own morality: both take your eyes off of him. The whole structure of the relationship of life "in" Christ was never meant to be anything else: as created beings, being clothed in the one who made us for himself.

When you come through some triumph, you need Jesus as much as when you return after giving in to some temptation. Perhaps more.

A Love Song

2011-12-06T11:54:00.001-08:00

As with all his songs, it is a little bittersweet. But it's a great love song nonetheless.

Labor To Fill Your Hearts With the Cross of Christ

2011-12-06T09:50:00.000-08:00

"As to the object of your affections, in an especial manner, let it be the cross of Christ, which hath exceeding efficacy towards the disappointment of the whole work of indwelling sin .... If the heart be filled with the cross of Christ, it casts death and undesirableness upon them all [i.e., the things of this world]; it leaves no seeming beauty, no appearing pleasure or comeliness, in them.... It roots up corrupt lusts and affections, leaves no principle to go forth and make provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof. Labour, therefore, to fill your hearts with the cross of Christ. Consider the sorrows he underwent, the curse he bore, the blood he shed, the cries he put forth, the love that was in all this to your souls, and the mystery of the grace of God therein. Meditate on the vileness, the demerit, and punishment of sin as represented in the cross, the blood, the death of Christ. Is Christ crucified for sin, and shall not our hearts be crucified with him unto sin? Shall we give entertainment unto that, or hearken unto its dalliances, which wounded, which pierced, which slew our dear Lord Jesus? God forbid! Fill your affections with the cross of Christ, that there may be no room for sin. The world once put him out of the house into a stable, when he came to save us; let him now turn the world out of doors, when he is come to sanctify us." -John Owen, Works, 6: 250-51

Justification and Liberation

2011-11-28T08:09:00.000-08:00

In Genesis 15.6, Abraham believes God's promise about seed, and his belief is reckoned (חשׁב) as righteousness with God. This is not an idiosyncratic promise, meaningful only in a personal way to Abraham, as if we were concerned here with nothing more than an infertile couple wanting to have children. This is the seed who will crush the serpent's head, through whom God will mediate blessing (life, divine favor and presence, victory) to a creation groaning under the curse (groaning under futility, infertility, frustration, corruption, death). God, in effect, says to Abraham: From your own body will come Seed through whom I will keep all my promises to bless you. ("Bless" should be read in the most freighted, weighted way in Genesis.) And Abraham, not unaware of the visible barriers to the fulfillment of this promise, nevertheless says, "Irrespective of how impossible this seems, God says he'll do it, so I believe him." And suddenly, despite Abraham's very imperfect performance record (see ch. 16!), irrespective of his good/bad works, Abraham is in the right with God - under God's smile, enjoying that full and rich peace with God, God's friend, able to relax and enjoy intimacy with him, never having to wonder if there was distance or anger between him and his Friend. We are the same: we trust in that great Abrahamic Seed (who has already been born) by whom God will bless us cursed children of Adam.

And usually I stopped there. But the next verse is as important: "I am YHWH, who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give to you this land to possess it." Anyone who has read Deuteronomy will hear the echo: substitute "Egypt" for "Ur" and you've got a repeated refrain from that later book (it occurs, with variation, several times in ch. 4). The whole point to the phrase in Deuteronomy is: I am your God and Savior, who liberated you from slavery and death, to bring you into my own presence and blessing forever. That's what the promised land is in Deuteronomy: the place of God's own presence, and long life under his blessing.

This is helpful. Justification means not just forgiveness - not just not being charged with our sins. It means liberation from our old "place" of dwelling in sin, in the city of destruction - being brought out from that, into the special place of God's presence and favor. Even in the OT, the two are linked.

Deus Ex Machina

2011-11-18T07:50:00.000-08:00

"You are not real, then," I said.
"No. We are almost what you think us - powers from above the stage. Only not quite deities. You are an actor, I believe."
I shook my head. "Don't you know me, master? You taught me when I was a boy, and I have become a journeyman of the guild."
"Yet you are an actor too.... As an actor, Severian, you surely know the phrase I hinted at a moment ago. It refers to some supernatural force, personified and brought onto the stage in the last act in order that the play may end well. None but poor playwrights do it, they say, but those who say so forget that it is better to have a power lowered on a rope, and a play that ends well, than to have nothing, and a play that ends badly. Here is our rope - many ropes, and a stout ship too. Will you come aboard?"
-Gene Wolfe, The Book of the New Sun

Cruelty, Pain, and Rites of Passage

2011-11-17T08:05:00.000-08:00

It wasn't until I spent a lot of time reading about the Old Testament, and meeting people from other cultures (the Middle East, the Far East, and Native populations) that I realized how unusual American culture is - relative to most other cultures, anyway. All dangers of generalizations aside, most cultures, through most of the world's history, have tended to be more stratified/hierarchical, more authoritarian, and more group-focused. American valorization of independence, the individual, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, etc., is relatively rare.

You can evaluate this any number of ways. Traditional, more authoritarian societies can be oppressive and patriarchal; and many people flocked to America because of the hope of being free from their place in the old world. On the other hand, our relentless focus on the individual can have an impoverishing and pathetic-izing effect which more traditional societies don't have to worry about. Anybody remember the movie Fight Club? It wasn't exactly a great movie, and I wouldn't see again (and I'm not recommending it here by any means), but it's stuck around because it touched a nerve. For those who haven't seen it, it's about disaffected male 20- and 30-somethings, knowing there is something more to being male, but stuck pumping gas and selling insurance and waiting tables, who get together to beat each other up. Doesn't matter whether you win or lose - as long as you're bloody and injured and exhausted by the end of it, you're accepted as part of the tribe. I think the movie is actually more of a symptom of the problem than any kind of answer, but I bring it up because men in traditional societies probably wouldn't have even understood this problem. They never wondered who they were or what they were supposed to be doing with themselves.

Rites of passage highlight this in an interesting way. This article describes several rites of passage from around the world, some of which seem over-the-top cruel, and a few of which are plain bizarre . . . and yet, I can't help sympathizing. I'm not recommending a more traditional, hierarchical model over our own; it's really an open question in my mind which is best. Both have significant advantages, and both can create a lot of pain. But as painful as some of these rites might be, not having any rites of passage for young American men might be equally cruel. High school sports is the one example I can think of, but it never seems like it's enough. And then you get lost, wandering, men-children, their testosterone coming out in all the wrong ways - either pathetically, or in ways that damage others.

One example: a tribe in the Amazon requires men to stick their hand into a glove with hundreds of bullet ants inside - one sting of which produces intense pain which lasts for 24 hours. The men are expected to remain silent while hundreds of ants sting them for about 10 minutes. And they undergo the rites several times in their lives. It's essentially a form of torture.

I know, I know - its cruel. And I'm not going to try anything like this anytime soon. But once you've stood that down, wouldn't anything be difficult again? Would hunting an animal that could kill you for two days without eating so you can feed your family be difficult? You could laugh at it. And I have to admit, something inside me admires that. If your training is more difficult than the thing you're training for, you have a significant advantage. I remember seeing a documentary about the Marines, showing how they deliberately train their soldiers in difficult conditions (half underwater, or in 100 degree heat), so that actual fighting is easier.

One example I really like: the Masai of Kenya. The circumcise their male teenagers, which is very painful - but after, the boys dress differently and are accepted as men and treated as such. It makes me wonder, without necessarily simply imitating other cultures, what rites of passage should there be for men as Christian disciples? Or, rather, how can we better understand baptism, communion, catechism, etc., as rites passage - a passage from the old world of death into Christ? We've lost that huge mythic structure of the cosmos - to my mind, a significant loss. How can we most fully and richly express discipleship as a rite of passage in a way which satisfies and shapes the male urge for adventure and risk and pain, and the dignity and maturity which comes with that?

Two Great Posts

2011-11-16T13:13:00.000-08:00

A superb series of posts here, here, here, here, and . . . well, there's a lot of them. Designed to change the world and lift the atmosphere of negative scrutiny. And they will. Love it!

And a superb quote from Tolkein about fantasy, and about that brief vision of impossible joy, coming to us from another world.

Very Little Multiplication of Bloggifying Ahead...

2011-11-14T15:59:00.000-08:00

...for the next few weeks.

Reasons:

1) Sometimes you just can't put it into words.
2) Most of those moments are sublime, or at least overwhelming. However, this is not one of those moments. I can't put it into words right now because I seem to have a blanket wrapped around my head and chest which is (1) invisible and (2) made of germs. It renders coherent thought somewhat difficult blagmorwash.
3) Teaching Pentateuch next week. Goal: get out of the way and let the Bible do the talking. No blogging then.

So, those three of you waiting for blathering about grace and martial arts will have to wait until the end of November. Apologies. See you then. Stay frosty.

How Does Jesus Fulfill the Ten Commandments?

2011-11-08T12:40:00.000-08:00

#1: Jesus was both unswerving in his devotion to his Father, and reveals the only true God to us, making a relationship with him possible
#2: Far from being a man-made idol, Jesus nevertheless perfectly represents God to us in physical form, without letting us manipulate him
#3: Jesus never trivializes God's name/honor/reputation, "lifting up God's name" always in a way proportionate to the person he was speaking of
#4: He not only rested during his ministry, but set aside a new day of rest which anticipates eternal life and blessing
#5: Jesus shows us what honoring our Father really looks like!
#6: So far from executing us guilty sinners, he dies so we can live
#7: Jesus was entirely sinless sexually, and joins the church in spiritual union to a new Husband
#8: So far from hoarding the riches of his grace or trying to take anything from us, he spends his grace on us liberally, so that we can simply receive
#9: Although we've given him good cause to speak evil of us, he always intercedes for us, speaking the best about us, as we are in him
#10: So far from being jealous or covetous, he gave up everything in order to give to us, so that we might be freed from the misery of coveting another person's life

Behind the Beginning of All Thought

2011-11-07T07:59:00.000-08:00

There's something inside Homo Sapiens that worries about what is true and will argue about it with others. (Quite bizarre, really; it has nothing to do with our existence as biological creatures.) Some of us even devote their lives to this--which I understand. Being gripped by a theory of everything, or the possibility of one, is a feeling like no other. We not only want to know what's out there, we'll worry endlessly about whether we're right or not.

But "being right" can mean different things--it can mean making factually correct statements about the reality outside our heads. Or it can mean being "in" the right--being vindicated when you outwit someone in an argument, when they grow silent, without anything to say back. It's super easy for these two senses to blur.

I used to argue about things all the time, and not in mean ways (necessarily, anyway). I had atheist friends in college, who were genuinely friends. I find myself much less inclined to now--to try to be right in the first sense listed above, being factually correct about the state of things. That's because the arguments so easily stop being about the nature of things and start becoming about who's right. And when that happens, whatever conclusions are drawn about the nature of things, something much worse has happened. Whether you decide 2+2=4 or 5, once it's slipped into the other sense of being right, even if you draw the right conclusion, you've become far more deeply lost once the argument becomes about you being right.

He Caught on Fire

2011-11-03T09:32:00.000-07:00

I almost stopped this halfway through because I thought it was going to be cheesy. It isn't. It's wonderful.

Quick Question

2011-11-02T08:14:00.000-07:00

If anyone cares, does the black background/white font make it difficult to read the blog? I'm happy to change, if it would make it easier for others to read. Let me know.

Whether You Give In Or Not

2011-11-02T07:54:00.000-07:00

I was talking with a brother struggling with sin once. He told me he had managed to resist temptation the night before. "Good!" I said. "But whether you gave in or not, are you still able, looking beyond yourself, to rejoice in Christ's perfect obedience on your behalf?" He hung his head. That was a more difficult question - even more difficult than resisting temptation.

If a Christian resists temptation and then focuses on their victory, is pleased with it, and the joy of it carries them onward--that may be a defeat at a deeper level.

Simply Gorgeous

2011-11-01T08:02:00.001-07:00

Non/Explanation

2011-10-31T10:03:00.000-07:00

It's a commonplace in our culture that people used to explain things by religion and myth, but that scientific explanations have replaced these. The "debate" (read: shouting match) between "science" and "religion" (which aren't necessarily stable entities, and which can sometimes bear strange resemblances to each other) has reached a level of incoherence that it hardly seems worth entering, but since one reason for this blog is to give me a chance to blow off steam, I can't help but point out, first, that the relationship between scientists and religious people is historically much more tangled than most people know. There are plenty of examples of Christians driving scientific paradigms because they were Christians (Isaac Newton being only the most prominent example).

But more importantly, I don't hear too much about the bigger questions it raises. However much the theory of evolution might explain similar genetic material in relatively close species, etc., if that's all you factor into the equation, you turn human beings into freaks - the "explanation" becomes a non-explanation. Out of millions of species of the planet, which have all found ways to pass on their genes, there is one - one - which, although formed in the same environment, somehow became conscious, and conscious that it was conscious. It somehow developed language, a phenomenon qualitatively different from the signals some other species use: no other species on the planet constructs the world around them in a symbolically rich way, most of which has nothing to do with physical survival. (The very debate between Dawkins and Christians has nothing to do with physical survival--so why does homo sapiens engage in these debates?) Somehow, one species has developed these ridiculously complex mental and verbal appendages which we don't need for physical flourishing. Modern scientific theories explain certain sets of data helpfully; but ask them to make philosophical pronouncements, and they name us freaks. We become inexplicable. But you don't hear much about that in current "debate."

The Release of Ecclesiastes

2011-10-28T08:33:00.000-07:00

Why is Qohelet (= Ecclesiastes; it's the Hebrew name for the book, and the one I'm used to) in the canon? What do we learn there that we don't elsewhere?

We naturally tie worth and results - i.e., the worth of our work (and, by extension, ourselves) with visible results. We like to tell ourselves we're making a difference, making the world a better place - that's why we keep going.

It ain't true. We're building sandcastles by the ocean, and the tide is coming in. It's a matter of time until the effect of our work and lives is wiped away, and any evidence that we were alive at all is gone. Does it matter any more that the Hittites had a flourishing empire? That Alexander the Great conquered the world? I suppose there are a few men (a handful, out of millions) from the last century whose actions are still affecting us. But it's a matter of time until the sea washes over the lines they drew in the sand.

"Vanity" is Qohelet's word for this disconnect between cause and effect: we work and expect certain results from our work. Qohelet will never tell us not to expect anything; he's not cynical. But he will attack our idea that these results always obtain. There's a screwiness, an out-of-whack-ness, to life under the sun. In fact, Qohelet will say God subjected creation to frustration in order to drive us to himself (3.11, 14; "fearing God" = having a relationship with him).

You are working for one of two things: results or God. I mean "working for" literally, like you would work for a boss. Let's be honest, we tend to work for the results we can see. You head back in for another week as a pastor because you expect in five years the church will be flourishing. That's what you're working for. But Qohelet means to puncture the illusion of certainty about cause and effect: there's just no guarantee solid pastoral work always achieves the results you (legitimately) expect. That's is under God's hand, not yours: you don't know what God will prosper and what he won't (11.5-6).

But here's the freedom Qohelet gives us: if you release the results of your work to God, labor in ignorant hope, and just take it day by day, working hard, but keeping your eyes on what you're doing and not on what you expect will happen because of what you're doing - two good things happen. First, you won't drive yourself crazy and come to hate life when the expected results don't obtain (the way Qohelet did in ch. 2). After all, each one of us is touched by this disproportion/"vanity." Being stripped of our illusions is the way to really start enjoying life (paradoxically).

Second, you'll be delivered into a face-to-face relationship with God. Instead of results you can achieve dominating the horizon, each day becomes a gift from God, to be received directly. You start working for God, who will evaluate everything at the end of time, positively and negatively (ch. 12). How much better that, than being wrapped up in what I can control, only to be frustrated.

Admiration and Pity

2011-10-27T08:24:00.000-07:00

If ever a Judo club opens in Caronport, or if one opens in Moose Jaw with hours I can make, I'll be the first in line. It is not brutal - there are enough rules that you won't get hurt - but it is rough enough to be satisfying. You can do it even if you're a mediocre athlete (like me), even if you won't be as good as the next guy. And judo understands the physics of the human body - its very satisfying to feel your opponent's balance give way. And, as usual, there's something spiritual going on here, at least by analogy:

What if church was more like this? Your pastor, whom you trust, says, "Here's what were going to do" - and something inside you says, "Oh, man, I don't think I can do that" - but you do it anyway. How would church culture change?

This judoka talks about the unreasonable amount of training he undergoes, and yet he does it - it pushes him "to another place." God requires nothing of us which his Son, in his life of earthly obedience, already accomplished; and anything he asks of us is worked into us by the Spirit. But, boy, will he push us out beyond any kind of reasonableness. There's a sense in which he just doesn't recognize our limitations. Even if we can't ever accuse God of being unfair, it doesn't take a Christian long to have that eerie sense of being far, far away from the shallow end of the pool, way out of your depth. And God is there with you, but the water is miles deep, and you're going to drown, eventually. It's the only way to survive.

At the same time, as the judoka says (judoka = practioner of Judo), Judo isn't mystical. It's a matter of concentration and hard work. I used to mystify the Christians I admired; without articulating it, I thought there was just something different about them. But it's not true. It's a matter of putting one foot in front of the other, accepting God's grace for your always-flawed performance, surrendering all things, dying to self and loving your neighbor - one foot in front of the other, one swim-stroke after another, until (by God's grace) your quivering legs and arms become iron. Nothing mystical. Just walking with God.

At the same time, I feel really sorry for this guy. He's trapped. (Can you hear the resignation in his voice?) "In fact, I have to win." No grace. No acceptance, irrespective of your win record. You must. How sad! And how strange, how uncomfortable, to be embraced and welcomed back to the team, even after you run and hide. But that's God's way.

A New Recording

2011-10-26T08:09:00.000-07:00

Really, really enjoying this recording by Laura Welker on her harp. Having had the privilege of listening to Laura play live, I'm very excited to have this! Laura is an extremely fine musician; the effect of her recordings is deeply peaceful and nourishing. You can tell she lives near Glacier National Park - although many influences come through the music (some of the pieces sound delightful ancient), I think this is one of them. Not many records can evoke what that lovely place is like, but this is one of them.

Well done, Laura!

Why Does the Book of Job Matter?

2011-10-25T10:34:00.000-07:00

What does it help us to see that no other text in the canon does? In no particular order, with apologies for length:

1) We naturally tend toward the friend's theology: putting God in a box, in a position where all he does is reward our good behavior and punish the baddies (who are never us). We naturally tend toward this, but it dishonors God. It un-Gods him, demoting him to a business partner. God is in the business of shattering our boxes in the assertion of his own deity - of proving that he is GOD, not a religious Santa Claus. He must do this, for his own glory as God, and in order to save us. (As you read the speeches of the friends, God becomes increasingly remote - they just don't talk that much about him.)

2) Ultimately, God does not promise you anything but himself. Most of us will not have children die, go bankrupt, and stand at death's door, all in one week. (Some will, but this is unusual.) But God does not promise us this will never happen. We are not promised unbroken health and a "good" life. The one promise God makes to us is to give us Himself. When you enter a relationship with God, what you get out of that relationship is an eternal and infinite Friend and divine Husband and Lover and Shepherd and Glory.

When God runs a train through your life, it is easy to feel betrayed: "Is this how you treat people who love you? What kind of person are you?" But, in that situation, we need to ask ourselves, Why did I become a Christian in the first place? To have a blessed life? Or to enjoy the all-surpassing worth of knowing Christ, to the loss of all else?

In a sense, God has to destroy our lives and prove his own Deity. Only as we start to lose everything - everything - can we truly say, You are worth infinitely more than anything else. For some of us, this will happen before we die; but on our deathbeds, all of us will lose everything except God, even our bodies. It is a matter of time before we are all in Job's position.

In other words: if a human being killed my children, stole all my money and ruined my health, and didn't get in touch or apologize, I'd cut off my relationship with him (I'd "curse" him). I would have no reason to continue a relationship with him. But God can still legitimately take everything from us and ask for continued loyalty - because he is God, and not a human. And when we remain loyal to God, to the loss of all else, we see him in a whole new way - we see him as God, not a business partner. And it is only when that happens that we can be saved from our idols.

3) Suffering somtimes comes because of our own stupidity (Psalm 38), sometimes because God is growing us up (Romans 5.3-5, James 1.2-4). But there is another category of suffering which is disproportionate to our sin, and which doesn't seem to grow us spiritually. This is Job's kind of suffering. (Now my eyes see you.) As we talk with each other, we need to discern what category of suffering this person is going through. How you talk to that Christian will vary greatly according to the cause of their suffering, and it is a hugely destructive mistake to put a modern Job in the wrong category.

4) When you hurt, it is very easy to pull into yourself; part of the suffering is being intensely away of how much you are suffering. God means to broaden our horizon when we suffer: we are being caught up in a huge battle, only the very edge of which we perceive (ch. 26). God is about proving his own all-surpassing worth and deity, in heaven and in earth. Satan aims to disprove it. The battleground is our hearts and mouths. When you suffer without benefit or explanation, and you say stupid things, and groan a lot, and wonder about God, but don't curse him, you are participating in the redemption of all things. Revelation 21-22 comes one step closer. God gives you that privilege.

Now my eyes see you.

Two Superb Links

2011-10-15T09:39:00.000-07:00

One of the most important posts I've read at the best blog I read here.

And Freud and Paul in (amicable) conversation here. (The clip at the end seals this one in.)

No Bloggification . . .

2011-10-11T10:56:00.001-07:00

. . . for two weeks: prep and then teach Proverbs-Job-Qohelet. (Exciting, exciting.)

Prayers seriously appreciated. I mean it.

My Platform as King and Tyrant

2011-10-09T20:59:00.000-07:00

When I am King and Tyrant, my first week in office will be spent in the following activities.

1) Everyone will read Gene Wolfe. Everyone. And they will like it, or you will HAVE TO DO THE ASSIGNMENT AGAIN, YOU SOULLESS CRETINS. The world will be a lot better off, not the least because people will be able to spot evil more easily, and understand why heroism is so needed, and so beautiful. (I will not decree that everyone read Neil Gaiman, because everyone does already. [Not that I’m complaining – yeah, he’s that good. He deserves it.])

2) Everyone will listen to the Mountain Goats. Then I will realize this makes them slightly less cool – they always play to small audiences, that’s what makes them great – and I will ban listening to the Mountain Goats except for those true fans. I have reliable ways to test for true fans. Oh yes. I do.

3) I will hire masters in Judo, Hapkido, Karate, and Sanshou. They will teach me. I will learn.

4) My ankle will stop hurting.

5) I will not need glasses any more.

6) I will never forget anyone’s name again.

7) I will never be at a loss for words again.

8) I will never be grouchy again.

9) Nobody will talk during my Monday Night classes again. When I say I don’t want them to talk, it will be burned onto their psyches, so deeply it becomes an unconscious neurosis. When a desk creaks, they will all glare at it.

10) My wife will think baldness is attractive, instead of a psychotic-homeless look (what she diplomatically labels “rugged”).

11) My daughter will not interrupt me anymore. I will tell her one more time not to talk when I’m talking, that I will listen to everything she has to say, only don’t talk when I’m talking, and the whole subconscious neurosis thing I instituted earlier will kick in. Also, she will break her habit of telling me that she thinks her brother pooped his pants, while he insists the smell is to be attributed to a fart.

12) Al-Bashir will be asked to step down. And he will do it, and go someplace where nobody can take the revenge on him he so richly deserves, and the unimaginable suffering in Sudan will stop.

13) Human beings will stop being judgmental and self-righteous. You guessed it: neurosis in the sub-c region.

14) I will become fluent in French, German, Arabic, Mandarin, and Japanese. Not instantly. I like learning things. I’ll just never forget anything.

15) I will have a very large forest in my back yard. The kind of forest you get at higher altitudes, with fir trees, moss on rocks, the smell of pine needles everywhere, a lovely shadows dappling the path in front of me, which will be different every time. The kind of forest that just must have elves in it, it just must, even though you just never see them. But they’re there. Also, my backyard will have a trampoline, a basketball hoop, and a large swimming pool, and racquetball courts. You’re welcome any time. Just come on over. Unless you annoy me, or call me too much.

16) I will have dinner with Gene Wolfe, and he will have to do it and be uber-nice, because I am the aforementioned King and Tyrant. And I will be super nervous, unnecessarily, because I am K & T and can execute anyone I want, but also because Mr. Wolfe will be so genuinely warm and kind and magnanimous, as he always is, that I will be put at ease, and realize I need to let him get back to his life, especially caring for his elderly wife, which he does cheerfully, and whom he obviously loves. But not before telling him how much I loved The Sorcerer’s House, so much that it woke me all the way up at 10:30 Saturday night when I finished it, so much that I had to start writing this, getting the joy out of my fingers onto the page.

That should take me to about Thursday of my first week. After that, I'll take requests. Unless they're stupid.

"I Don't Want Me Any More"

2011-10-08T10:18:00.001-07:00

But God does.

Hat tip: Charles Grebe.

The Scandalous God

2011-10-07T08:57:00.000-07:00

The way God reaches out to his rebellious and hostile creation in the different covenants of the OT and in his Son shows a staggering, over-the-top kind of love. We talk a lot about that on this blog. But that's certainly not all that's involved in the gospel. Unconditional surrender to the God pursuing you is essential: you can't receive God's grace piecemeal, retaining some parts of yourself for yourself. Only that unconditional surrender delivers you into the kind of state YHWH intended for Adam. Anything else is still (to some extent) living under the curse.

Another dimension against which the gospel must be understood is God the judge. The deep offense - the scandal - of the witness of the Bible is that God actually has the gall to act like God. If any other human being said to another, "You must love and serve and fear and trust and delight yourself in me, on pain of the most staggering loss, the most profound damage to your own person, risking my anger and my curse" - well, that person would be psychotic. You'd lock them up. But that's the point: God isn't just one more human being. He's God, and he actually has the gall to act like it, and demand that we do, too.

This provokes in the unregenerate heart the most bitter and spiteful reactions. In some quarters, no insult is too low when it comes to the kind of God you find in the Bible. But that is precisely the point: the unregenerate heart, in love with itself, trying to play God for itself and live independently, cannot tolerate even the suggestion of a real God.

Martin Luther once said that when God brings a man into Christ, he first damns him. He meant that when you come into Christ, God first makes you feel the full weight and horror of your condemnation as a necessary precursor to his astounding grace and peace. When God enfolds you in his over-the-top love, it's the best thing in the world - but when it is the God who could have judged you, who could have pointed the finger at you, and who would have been right to, but who instead killed his Son in your place . . . Who can express what it is to be loved so terribly, so dramatically?

Looking for October

2011-10-05T07:52:00.000-07:00

The trees are turning. Everyone has stopped wearing shorts, and sometimes I wear a jacket. The fallen leaves whisper cinnamon when stepped on. The sun sets earlier and earlier in deep orange. In the summer here, you hardly ever see darkness, and although something inside me opens up and drinks in the heat of summer, I miss walking by night.

I was chopping firewood a few days ago during one of those sunsets. The setting sun wasn't blood-red, but it wasn't yellow, either; it was as orange as the fallen leaves, hinting of the coming darkness and winter, but doing so warmly and richly. The wood split under my hands in satisfying thumps in the orange light, and I thought about the orange flames that would lick around the firewood when I burned it.

I finally saw "The Social Network" last night with Erin, about the maker of Facebook. The title is highly ironic, because, in the movie, Facebook is about warping and inhibiting connection - there's nothing social, and only a certain kind of emaciated networking, that goes on. (I'm sure the real story was less dramatic and less pointed, but the movie was fascinating.) It turns out that the main character is creating the billion-dollar business idea all to win a girl's admiration; Erin pointed out to me that some theorists claim that all male ambition and work amounts to a kind of chest-thumping to attract a mate. Erin wasn't necessarily agreeing with this, just pointing out how all our varied work can have a simple motive behind it.

I'll take another walk tonight, if I can. The moon is waxing. I will look at it as much as I can as I walk, and at the night, too, which is not the opposite of day, but a whole other quality. Always, always I am looking for it; in all my work, that same yearning, the yearning that Narnia opened in me, that Scotland did, that Tolkein did, pulsing beneath everything. Sometimes I see October in Saskatchewan, and it's lovely, almost too lovely for the earth to contain; but then it slips away from me, and I have to watch the setting sun again, or take another walk, to find it again.

Information about the New MABLE Program

2011-10-03T07:45:00.000-07:00

Official information, including graduation requirements and the exact classes students take, for the Master of Arts in Biblical Languages and Exegesis - or, MABLE (cute, huh? Too bad we couldn't come up with something more imposing and sinister - oh well!) is now available here and here. Please check it out, pass this along.

A Description of Strength in Weakness

2011-10-03T07:39:00.000-07:00

From my deeply esteemed father, Ray Ortlund. I have wondered about this passage, and I suppose I conceptually understand it. But I cannot describe it from the inside, as he does:

"If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. . . . For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 11:30; 12:10)

"I am a pastor. And I am weak. I value strength, because God wired us men for strength. And His grace imparts real strength (2 Timothy 2:1). But for me, one of the surprises in Christ is strength-in-weakness.

"In a way, I wish I could be a formidable, always successful, always smart, always witty, always energetic, always cool, always positive Super Pastor. Then people would admire my astonishing wonderfulness, and then I could always feel good about myself. I would love that. It’s one thing Jesus is saving me from.

"How does He save me? He reduces me to weakness and need, and He allows me to see it for myself time after time. Then, and only then, do I humble myself and ask Him for His grace. Then, and only then, is He is exalted as my Super Savior.

"I am weak. I am boring. I get cranky. I fumble my words in interviews. I get into ruts. I forget people’s names. I don’t have all the answers. I could go on and on with my remarkable inadequacies. But I have come to believe that the power of Christ resting on a weak man makes more impact for Him than my fantasy Self batting a thousand ever could. In fact, I have come to like the current arrangement. Yes, I want to be strong in the right ways. No one has ever accused me of being a wimp. But my own carnal strength need no longer apply.

"When the power of Christ rests on me in all my weakness, everything gets better."

Things I Have Learned From Watching "Community"

2011-09-29T12:13:00.000-07:00

"Community" is a sitcom about six friends who form a study group at a local community college. While it does have, like most TV, occasional mild (and unnecessary and not-funny) crudity (actually, less than many other shows), I love it because it is genuinely funny, because it is so tender-hearted to its messed up characters, and because of its hermeneutical sophistication. Never thought I'd say that about a TV show, did you? Well, it's true. It's the most endearing combination of really smart with intentional, over-the-top stupid I've ever come across. Things I have learned:

1) People want desperately to be accepted.
2) At some level, people know they do not deserve to be accepted. As a result, they try to pass themselves off as being better than they really are.
3) They always fail in this attempt.
4) Maybe the sweetest, hardest thing in life is accepting someone (and being accepted) anyway, regardless of what you deserve.

Usually I'd put clips under each one of these; but since this pattern repeats in almost every episode, we'll have to go by example. In the first season's "Investigative Journalism," the group comes together after Christmas break:

Jeff, the guy with the glasses, is demonstrating #1-2. In about fifteen minutes, he will demonstrate #3, realizing that "I'm still the same uptight jerk I was last semester." But the group accepts him regardless.

In the same episode, Jack Black plays a student wanting to get into their study group: see #1. In fact, see #1-3:

The joke here is that the group eventually decides to accept him - but in the middle of telling him this, the "cool group" shows up and tells him he's been accepted with them, and Jack Black runs off happily. The episode ends with the characters trying to cover their hurt feelings.

Or again: the study group is given a few simple phrases for partners to say to each other in front of the class. Jeff and Pierce (Chevy Chase) are paired together, the latter turning their assignment into an hour-long avant-garde play. Jeff gets frustrated and leaves, but later learns that Pierce paid someone so he could be Jeff's partner because he wants Jeff's respect. Jeff decides to do Pierce's version of the assignment, even though it means he looks like a fool in front of the class:

Another example: see this clip from the pilot, and the way it ends here (guess what: even though Jeff lied to hide his selfishness, they let him into the group).

Another thing I've learned:

5) We use TV and movies to make sense out of our lives. This is stupid and has a narrowing effect, but less so if you realize what you're doing.

"Community" has the most loopy sense of self-referentiality (in one episode, a character talks about how people say things in the group that nobody would ever say on TV). Different episodes will be filmed in the style and plot of a western, a musical, a war movie, a spy thriller, with each character easily slipping into the roles required for that genre, and even calling each other by different names. This is more than cleverness for its own sake: the show is showing us what we tend to do with TV by having the characters do it. It's never presented as a terribly enlivening strategy; in fact, Abed, a character who constantly announces what element of a sitcom is happening as it happens in the sitcom "Community," has his own inability to connect emotionally with other people pointed out to him more than once. And yet, oddly, inexplicably, I find it heartwarming to watch TV characters playing TV characters to try to make sense out of their past (and perhaps forget who they are for a while). For one of the most touching and hermeneutically involved examples of this, see the confession starting at 4:30 of this clip, and the confession at 1:35 here (warning: mild crudity, but a stunning example of this insecure character's attempt to receive grace).

Oh, and did I mention it's really, really funny?

So Funny . . .

2011-09-29T08:06:00.001-07:00

The Glory of the Grace

2011-09-28T07:38:00.000-07:00

The OT doesn't portray YHWH in a philosophically ordered way, beginning with his aseity and simplicity, and then moving on to his perfections, with mercy being maybe eighth on a long list of otherwise unrelated attributes. Quite the contrary, the OT frequently puts YHWH's relational/covenant faithfulness and mercy and righteousness (that he always does right by his covenant partners) at the heart of its proclamation of YHWH; right at the heart of YHWH, when you dig down, you get steadfast love and mercy and compassion. That's YHWH's self-revelation in Exodus 34 - and it's sparked by Israel's adultery on their honeymoon with YHWH. (The faithlessness of his bride provokes a deeper revelation of mercy!) It's not that the OT denies omniscience and omnipotence and divine infinitude, etc.; Isaiah 40.12-31 clearly teaches these things. But all these are, in that passage, enlisted in support of his undefeatable faithfulness to Israel. YHWH's un-limited-ness is presented not by itself - omniscience and omnipotence are engines by which he can be faithful and loving to Israel and the nations.

In other words, grace is what orders the rest of God's revelation of himself. It is a covenantal, not a logical, ordering. And it is what God makes the biggest deal about: "he exalts himself to show mercy" (Isaiah 30). "To the praise of the glory of his grace," Paul says in Ephesians 1 - "glory" being that impossible, terrifying, otherwordly divine beauty and purity. By itself, it provokes fearful praise from frail mortal flesh; but Paul points us to the glory of his grace. God's grace is what is otherwordly and beautiful about God.

A nice example of this is found in Numbers 14. Israel deliberately resists God and tries to defeat God's purpose to establish them in his presence in the new Eden (the promised land). As part of his intercession in vv. 17-19, Moses says, "Now, Lord, please exalt ('make great') your strength, just as you have said." This prompts one to expect that in Moses' quotation of YHWH, "greatness" and "strength" will figure prominently. But they don't - Moses quotes YHWH's own self-revelation as long of anger and great in hesed. "Greatness" and "strength" aren't referred to. Only at the beginning of v. 19 does Moses draw the two together, asking for forgiveness for Israel's sin "according to the greatness of your hesed." That's how YHWH shows his great power: by forgiving, in his vast love, Israel's rejection of YHWH.

The Imputation of Righteousness in the OT

2011-09-27T07:44:00.000-07:00

When God brings a sinner into Christ, when he joins and unites them to Christ, everything bad about them is owned by Christ as his own, and all the good things Christ has to give to sinners become theirs: not the least, every sin becomes Christ's, and the very righteousness with which the second member of the Trinity is righteous before the Father is counted/reckoned as ours before the sight of God. Not just declared innocent, the sinner is really righteous with God's own righteousness, in God's sight.

While you obviously don't see this taught with clarity in the OT, two things point in this direction. The first is pretty straightforward: Isaiah 53.4-6 repeatedly uses "our" - this Servant was bearing our sins and diseases, and suffering as if they were his own. V. 11 shows the other side of the equation: "My righteous servant will cause the many to be righteous." Semitic languages have a causative stem: you say the word a little differently, and the meaning of the verb changes from doing an action to causing that action to be done. Here, the "righteous" root is repeated as an adjective and causative verb: that Righteous One causes the many to be righteous, i.e., to be just like him, clean and free.

The second factor here, related to the first but a little more obscure, is that that the same words are used for covenant righteousness of YHWH and of his human covenant partners elsewhere in the OT. This is really rather striking: you'd think divine righteousness would be described as in a totally different category from piddly human righteousness. But the same word (tsedaqah, as in Isa 53.11) is used for both kinds of righteousness, and both divine and human covenant righteousness are even sometimes described in the same kind of way (Psalms 111-112). I'm sure the OT authors had a healthy sense of the high and holy mystery of YHWH's person, who is hidden from human eyes. I take this surprising overlap to be a prophetic hint of a much greater gift, a much greater taking-up of God's people into YHWH's own righteousness. I take it as a hint of that perfectly obedient Jew who would come one day to fulfill all righteousness from both the divine and human side, perfectly fulfilling all of YHWH's covenant obligations to Israel, and all of Israel's to YHWH. And we are joined to him, who obeys for us, whom we mimic as we obey.

Ahoy!

2011-09-26T08:32:00.000-07:00

Grace and Surrender

2011-09-26T08:27:00.000-07:00

If I had to briefly answer what being a Christian means moment by moment, I would of course have to talk about the Trinity and the long story found in the Bible. But as for the moment-by-moment, baby-step experience of going through the day, two words summarize it: grace and surrender. On the one hand, God's children are entirely on the receiving end of an unending, tender, warm, delighted smile from their Father, as, in Christ, their sins are continually expunged, and otherwise impossible obedience is made possible. On the other hand, Christians unconditionally surrender to God. We do not negotiate terms; we do not draw lines in the sand. We let God set terms for us, without complaint or question. Walking through the day as a Christian means enjoying and believing in this continual grace, and also being unguardedly responsive to whatever God has for us; and, in turn, surrendering to Him whatever good or bad things happen to us, or are done by us.

But it is not enough to say "and also." Grace and surrender intertwine. When God graces us, it requires a kind of surrender. To be loved so nakedly is quite unnerving. For God to shove aside everything we like about ourselves, the parts of ourselves we parade in front of others (and the mirror) to recommend ourselves to others and make us acceptable - for God to ignore that and say, "I love you no more because of that" - that's freaky. And for God to shove aside everything ugly about us, the things we try not to think about and perhaps mostly manage to avoid seeing - for God to brush it aside and say, "I love you no less for those reasons" - that's most unnerving. Something inside us resists, and wants to adjust the love of God according to what is intrinsic to us. But we miss out when we do that. To receive this grace, we have to throw up our hands and surrender, accepting a love which we cannot control, one which we can neither heighten according to our virtues or quench according to our evil. Receiving grace is an act of surrender.

And vice-versa: that continual surrender to God, where the energy and momentum of our being is drawn out of ourselves and caught up in Christ, so that we no longer live for ourselves, but there is a mutuality in willing and thinking and feeling according to the One in whom we live - who can produce that on their own? We can only thank God for giving us this kind of surrender as a gift. It is something God works in us. And besides, the whole point of grace is surrender: to deliver you from Adamic self-worship, and the death which always results from that. If you are not living in surrender to God, you have received his grace in vain, i.e., to no purpose.

Grace and surrender, each infecting the other.

Even (and especially) in Children

2011-09-23T08:27:00.000-07:00

"All children, especially younger children, when left to their own devices, show frequent and deep ritualistic behavior. . . . [T]he ritualistic behavior--most clearly among boys but more covertly among girls--included a constant sorting of themselves into heirarchies of acceptance and inclusion, with the losers being miserable and longely as outsiders." -Dan Simmons, in the introduction to the twentieth anniversary edition of Carrion Comfort

The Value of an Ordinary Pastor

2011-09-21T07:50:00.000-07:00

Finished D. A. Carson's Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor late last night. Read it in one sitting; just couldn't put it down. The burden of the book is to celebrate and highlight the value of an ordinary ministry - decades spent preaching and studying and praying and evangelizing and visiting and writing checks, which, for a long time, saw relatively little fruit. Many entries record less than 30 people on a Sunday morning (at a time in French Canada when there was practically zero evangelical witness). Tom Carson never once recorded any feelings of jealousy for bigger ministries, but he did go through an extended stretch of darkness over a perceived sense of failure and laziness when the ministry seemed to stall (a perception which Don Carson gently but cogently challenges as incorrect). The book is superb - an especially poignant memoir because the ministry wasn't flashy or personality driven. It wasn't the kind of thing that would attract your attention, or strike you as impressive, if you saw it. It was entirely ordinary. And it was so, so important and beautiful, and so crucial for the gospel in that part of the world, at that time.

Two parts stand out to me. The first is in the context of a crisis under an extremely difficult leader within Tom's denominational context - money had been raised to buy a building for a church in Quebec, but the funds were suddenly diverted for a trivial reason. It was crushing to that young church planter, who struggled to buy groceries every week. But Don Carson didn't find out about the controversy until much later. When he asked his father why he never talked about it, the answer was, first, that Don and his wife didn't want to expose their young children to such ugliness; and second, to prevent any bitterness on their part, they took a vow never to say anything unkind about the man who had wronged them and hurt the cause of the gospel. It was a vow they kept (pgs. 59-60).

Second, although Tom Carson worked extremely hard (too hard - it affected his health in later years), and although he was doing the same kinds of things in the 1970's as he had in the 50's, the Spirit took those efforts in the 70s, and the church exploded in Quebec in a wonderful way (Tom wasn't the only pastor involved, but he was a prominent one). In one decade, Quebec went from 40 to 400 evangelical churches. Don, his son, remembers one Wednesday evening service which began at 7:30 and was still going strong at 1:00 in the morning: an hour-and-a-half sermon was followed by three hours of prayer for conversions and the growth of those already converted. "The pastor assured me that this was a fairly normal Wednesday evening." (114) It was the kind of thing Tom had hoped for and worked for all his life; within his ordinary labors, God accomplished it.

Don's final assessment: "Tom Carson never rose very far in denominational structures, but hundreds of people in the Outaouais and beyond testify how much he loved them. He never wrote a book, but he loved the Book. He was never wealthy or powerful, but he kept growing as a Christian: yesterday's grace was never enough. He was not a far-sighted visionary, but he looked forward to eternity. He was not a gifted administrator, but there is no text that says, 'By this shall all men know you are my disciples, if you are good administrators.' His journals have many, many entries bathed in tears of contrition, but his children and grandchildren remember his laughter. . . . He much preferred to avoid controversy than to stir things up, but his own commitments to historic confessionalism were unyielding . . . . His own ecclesiastical circles were rather small and narrow, but his reading was correspondingly large and expansive. He was not very good at putting people down, except on his prayer lists." (147-48)

How To Feel More Spiritual

2011-09-16T08:39:00.000-07:00

Struggling with your spiritual life? Feeling like a mere beginner of a Christian after spending time with the giants of the faith? Well, after watching these videos, you'll feel incredibly deep and spiritual.

The Unsayable

2011-09-15T17:13:00.000-07:00

The novelist Jonathan Franzen, in a recent interview, after quoting Nietzche that "everything that is deep loves the mask:" "[T]he long term ambition for all my work has been to find better and better masks--to find the means to make visible and feelable the unsayable."

I am a different person, depending on who I'm talking to. The Eric you get in front of class is different from the Eric talking to his wife, and those two are quite different from the Eric who watches kung fu movies with his friends. None is fake; they are all me. But each connection evokes a different version of me. But it doesn't make any sense to talk about the "real" me behind all of them, as if I were a stable, rock-hard entity, doling out different parts of myself in different situations. Quite the contrary, those different parts of me lie inert, painfully stillborn, without others. That's why I need friends so much; I am mute without them.

A simple imperative to "be authentic" is impossible to obey: as soon as I'm told to do that, I freeze. But let me really start talking with someone, and that authenticity, that Eric-ness, will start to appear. And with someone else, you get Eric-ness in a different key.

When I'm troubled by something, I find someone I respect to talk to about it, but not because I think they have the answer which they can just give me. I do it because they will help to evoke in me a satisfying resolution, or at least the satisfaction of seeing the problem clearly. They will evoke in me a resolution I cannot create for myself. And I uncannily go to different people for different sorts of resolution with different problems.

It is the space between the words, the pause, the silence, the blank space, which gives the words meaning. It is the nothing in between words which allows them to be discrete, meaningful words. When the words starttoruntogethertheylosetheirmeaning. The emptiness, the non-meaning, attends the meaning. The word cannot exist without it.

There is so much complexity, so much un-sayable-ness about me and everything, one dimension of which can come out in a particular situation or relationship - but only one part. But there is always more that could be said. There is always a remainder, something more left un-evoked, which is too meaningful and beautiful for me to put into words. It is precisely this unspoken remainder which makes the conclusions I draw with a friend meaningful. But these mini-conclusions (so soon left aside, as new need arises for deeper truth) always exist against the larger blank slate of what I don't understand.

It is blustery and fall-feeling today - you practically expect the leaves to start turning golden orange. It is getting dark earlier, and everyone can feel winter coming. But who can say exactly what Fall means? What it means to me - a kind of not-unpleasant mini-death - might be totally different to what it means to my friend.

And yet, for all the yearning I have for the unsayable in me to be pronounced, for all the ways I try to find relationships which will help to evoke these things, it doesn't follow that all this complexity needs to be brought into the light of day and catalogued and reviewed and organized. All the potential complexities can fall away before the simplest of truths: I am a traitor who has done wrong, but I'm still loved by God. God takes me to the very root.

Good Links

2011-09-13T07:43:00.000-07:00

First, a superbly funny article from the Onion (an unintentionally but often theologically significant publication) about how affirmation from other humans is never enough.

Second, and a bit late, the most profound reflection on 9/11 I've come across, presented as a responsive reading.

Finally, why the gospel is not just the gateway but the pathway, and a wonderfully helpful parsing of what that actually looks like.

Look for the Glory

2011-09-12T08:32:00.000-07:00

Paul Magnus, my colleague in the seminary and former president of Briercrest, passed on the following gem from Francis Schaeffer. It was one of the last times he ever spoke. His cancer was taking him, and he had to sit the entire time, and in a low voice, he said:

"Look for the glory of God in the other person, and you will look at them differently."

Be Superficial!

2011-09-09T08:54:00.000-07:00

This is just too good not to pass along. You think it can't get any worse/better, and then it does. (Hat tip: Josh Knowles.)

I suppose we should remind ourselves of the difference between happiness and joy here, and how easy it is to trivialize yourself if you only aim at happiness; but how much more difficult it is to experience joy, how one must mournfully ask God to give you the heart of wisdom which numbers your (few, very few) days, how one must truly come to say that's its better to go to the house of mourning than a party, how one must pass through the eye of the needle and lose everything before one can start to value things aright, and have joy in them, and joy in their Maker most of all.

How the Gospel Provokes Enmity

2011-09-09T08:42:00.000-07:00

John Owen, describing the power of indwelling sin in believers, and especially the enmity of the flesh against God (Romans 8.10) - against God himself does our flesh set itself as an enemy:

"A man would think it not very strange that sin should maintain an enmity against God in his law, which comes to judge it, to condemn it; but it rasieth a greater enmity against him in his gospel, wherein he tenders mercy and pardon as a deliverance from it; and that merely because more of that glorious properties of God's nature, more of his excellencies and condescension, is manifested therein than in the other." -Works, 6:181.

How To Have a Very Long 15 Minutes

2011-09-08T15:53:00.000-07:00

New exercise: the super burpee. (Stupid name, I know, but "burpee" is stupid enough to begin with.)
Directions:
-One pull up
-While still hanging, touch knees to elbows
-2 pushups

That's one.

Notes: you can switch your grip (front or back) on the pullups. Good form calls for keeping your hands as close together on the pushups as possible (no wider than shoulder width). To fatigue the legs, when you take a break, crouch for one breath before jumping up to the pull up bar.

I did 28 in ten minutes; at 15 minutes, I was at 38 and starting to fail at the knees-to-elbows part. So, the record to beat - not in a boastful way, but in an iron-sharpening-iron way - is 38 in fifteen minutes. I know some of you out there can beat that! Go ahead and post. And if you can't, go ahead and post whatever you did, with my hearty congratulations to you.

That Liberating Law

2011-09-08T08:34:00.000-07:00

The two great commandments in Mark 10 - to love God undividedly and to love our neighbors as ourselves - do not only meet us as obligations. They are invitations to come out of ourselves into that fullness of life and joy which our Creator means for us to have.

Every sin involves a turning inward, away from God and my neighbor. Even if "turning inward" doesn't entirely describe that sin, an essential part of every sin is the elevation of Self to the diminishment of God and neighbor. When I steal, if I hate, if I covet, or break any other commandment, that is part of what is going on.

The next time you have a conversation, try an experiment: as much as you can, put aside what you want to say, how you might be tempted to interrupt, and your own projects for today. Rivet your attention on the person opposite you. There stands before you, potentially, a god or a monster, one who will be glorified with the Lord's own glory such that you'd be tempted to worship them if you saw it; or someone which, if Self gets the upper hand, will become so shriveled and ugly your skin would crawl if you could see it. You know how when you're listening to someone and you check your watch to see what time it is? The direction and momentum of your attention shifts. Do the opposite of that: keep the direction of your attention straight toward them, and upward to God. Pray silently (even if the other is blathering about something completely trivial) that whatever this person needs or wants might arise in the conversation.

There are a thousand non-verbal clues we give off about the complexity of fears and hopes inside. We do it unconsciously; it comes off us like a scent. Look for the clues. Listen for the subtext. There's always another layer of meaning beneath any statement. Wait on God to bring to light that satisfying and liberating word or verse from Scripture which that other needs to hear, and which will bless you too.

It sounds exhausting to do this, but it's actually deeply exciting and invigorating. What other personal accomplishment could match the unflowering, the revelation, of the inner meaning and beauty of your conversation partner - the revelation which can only happen in the context of connecting with you? Anyway, when I think, "It's too tiring to focus on others that way," that's the old self talking - the weary, weak, sinful self. Gene Wolfe once said that too often we speak only to the image of the other person we have in our heads, not the real person. Love your neighbor as yourself, and come out of your own preoccupations and little joys and defeats, into the reality and sharpness of that love. Your neighbor will be helped, and you will find deep stores and provisions by which to resist sin; turning inward, in all the ways we do, will lose its appeal.

Jonathan Edwards said of heaven that there will be infinite nuance in every detail; just as every note of a symphony can harmonize in complex beauty, so "there shall be external beauties and harmonies altogether of another kind from what we perceive here . . . . Our animal spirits will also be capable of immensely more fine and exquisite proportions in their motions, than now they are, being so gross; but how much more ravishing will the exquisite spiritual proportions be that shall be seen in minds, in their acts between one spiritual act and another . . . . Then also our capacities will be exceedingly enlarged, and we shall be able to apprehend, and to take in more extended and compounded proportions." And that heavenly, lovely, symphonically complex nuance - it can start now, in the next conversation you have.

This Needs No Explaining

2011-09-06T10:46:00.000-07:00

"Gossip," by G. Witherspoon.

You Shall Be As Gods

2011-09-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

OK, let's learn some Hebrew together. Repeat after me: hay-yata key-lohim. You actually know most of this already. The first word is "you will be;" hayah, "to be," is related to "Yahweh." And "Elohim" you probably know already; ke means "like or as." The promise of the serpent is not that you can be a little like a god; it is that you can fit in the "divine" category instead of the human. You can play God for yourself. You need no other God - no other source of commands, no-one else to trust and delight in - than yourself.

I am increasingly struck by the profundity of this diagnosis of the human problem. We were put together essentially to look outside ourselves to fill those needs; we're never more human and humane and sane and normal than when we turn to our true God to do so. But our inheritance from Adam is to turn inward. And this spiritual instinct shows up everywhere - I mean, like, everywhere.

Quick example: last week I posted about how you don't have to clean yourself up, make yourself presentable, before you come to God. You don't come as a reformed sinner, but simply, only as a sinner. Now, why is that so refreshing for us? So surprising? Such a welcome reminder of something we know but easily forget? Because our instinct is to fix ourselves up, to turn inward, to save ourselves a little, or make ourselves more save-able. In other words, to try to fill the role of Savior and God for ourselves. And it never works.

Surely this is the root of the human condition? In all the many (valid) ways our problem might be defined - existentially or morally or socially or psychologically, all valid in their sphere - surely the root of it all is that we look to ourselves to be God for ourselves? It's salvation by works - what we do for ourselves. Even as regenerate people, we instinctually replay the hayata keylohim.

The image of Adam and Eve hiding with fig leaves (a student pointed out to me how small fig leaves are - a pathetic note; Adam and Eve aren't any good at hiding) has remained with me as a piercing and prophetic revelation of my condition. These two Hebrew words reach just as deep.

God Obeying For Us

2011-09-05T15:08:00.000-07:00

At the end of creation, God not only decrees that one day in seven is spent enjoying God's victorious, blessed peace. He actually rests himself. He doesn't only command us to do it, he keeps the command himself before commanding Israel. God himself is the first person on record to keep Sabbath: it wasn't revealed to us until Moses.

In Matthew 3, Jesus asks to be baptized "to fulfill all righteousness." John needs some convincing on this (understandably!). In his life and ministry, the Son of God lives out perfectly every command YHWH laid on Israel.

Any command God gives us in Scripture is one he has already obeyed in our place. As when learn to submit and obey ever more deeply, we are only following him. What a good God, not to require of us anything he has not already accomplished for us.

I Found It In Prison

2011-08-31T13:27:00.000-07:00

This is the same old, repetitive, glorious story. Man, I used to worship this guy in the 80s. I wouldn't get off my skateboard back then, and even though I didn't have one, Hosoi boards were huge. Can't say how happy I am to see this.
"When I went from freedom to prison, it was like I went from prison to freedom."

As a Sinner

2011-08-31T07:55:00.000-07:00

When you were having devotions this morning, or not; when you were rubbing your eyes and waiting for the coffee to kick in and going to work, you were under the love and compassion of an infinite Friend and Savior. When you prayed this morning, you did not have to compose your soul in order to win a hearing. If yesterday's failings were weighing on you, you did not have to become suitably humble and mournful in order for him to listen to you. You can say, "In my heart of (hardened) hearts, I still love that sin - deliver me from my impenitence," and his mercy quickly attends you. And if you're doing well, and quite happy to come to God, he loves you no less than if you were coming stricken and ashamed and hardly knowing what to say.
We come, simply as sinners. We do not need to prepare ourselves first and then come to God. That's self-focused - dressing ourselves up appropriately to make ourselves more acceptable to God. It's a little form of self-salvation. You are in Christ, and all your sins are absorbed into his person, and all his divine righteousness is counted as yours simply by faith, by looking beyond yourself.

Homo Adorans

2011-08-30T08:37:00.000-07:00

The Wicker Man is a Scottish horror film from the early '70's. I have seen only parts of it (which may be for the best), but I want to recommend it to you because it is one of the few films I've seen dealing explicitly with idolatry. The film is about a staunch Scottish Christian who is visiting a small town out in the boonies which (unbeknownst to him) is being run by a pagan cult. At the end, they sacrifice him to get a good harvest next year.

What I find surprising and refreshing about the film is that the Christian is actually the hero. For most of the movie, the Christian is generally disagreeable and over-reactive and needlessly strict, while the pagans are relaxed and more likeable. But by the end, as these pagans quite calmly and happily murder this guy, you (as the viewer) are forced to jettison your earlier judgments about the characters. The movie even gives this (generally unlikeable) Christian the opportunity to expose the falsity of their idolatry (watch at about the 2:00 mark on the link below), where he says, when this doesn't work, you'll sacrifice your own leader. (The cult leader denies this, but you can see the doubt on his face.) You can never find a sacrifice great enough to make the world work the way you want to, and eventually, your idolatry will eat itself. (Can you imagine any Hollywood movie giving an insight like that to a staunch Calvinist?)

Instead of calling ourselves homo sapiens, "thinking man," "wise man," we should call ourselves homo adorans, "worshipping man." It is the very essence of human being to trust in and look to something bigger than us to ground and beautify and transform our existence, and satisfy and thrill us. But we worship all the wrong things, and we do great evil. If you are in ministry, part of your job will be identifying and exposing idols. Please understand that it will be extremely dangerous to do so. Whether it is explicitly pagan idolatry or not, when idols get challenged, the fangs come out: people who are otherwise quite nice and relaxed and friendly will do awful things with a smile on their face.

This final scene (which I can't embed) is overacted and perhaps, in some ways, shows its age. But I find it both disturbing and edifying in the right sorts of ways (the goofy dance they do at 6:45 is just chilling.) The man's final, agonized sermon to these pagans and his prayers are deeply moving and true, because if you stick close to your prophetic calling to call people away from idols, you won't get treated much better. God himself strengthen us to do the impossible and not grovel before the goddess of the fields, of money, of family, of respectable Christian culture.

The Intriguing Possibilities Catch Up with You

2011-08-29T09:46:00.000-07:00

A Biblical Rebuke or Point-Scoring?

2011-08-26T08:19:00.000-07:00

As I suspect is true in many marriages, working full time means I'm pretty absent minded when it comes to remembering the many details around the house - who we invited over when, the thing I'm supposed to remember to do when I get home from work, etc. On the very few occasions (very few) when I remember something which Erin doesn't, I don't miss the opportunity to give her a hard time (gently, I hope). I'm scoring points against her, because I generally feel inferior when it comes to that part of life.

Christians do the same thing. There's a world of difference between a biblical rebuke/exhortation done in love, and point-scoring, in which the person criticizing is just trying to feel better about themselves by tearing someone else down. Far as I can see, there are three differences:

1) Is the rebuke given directly to the Christian, or is the Christian criticized behind their backs? (The internet makes this so easy!) If the one giving the rebuke can't be bothered to give it to the one being rebuked, they have some other motive than caring about that other Christian.
2) Is it a blanket statement, or are specific sins mentioned?
3) Is it a blanket condemnation, or are specific steps laid out, the following of which would lead to restoration? Example: "Friend, when you said x and y on that day, it hurt me for these reasons. If you could see your way to an apology, though, I'd be happy to consider the matter closed and forgotten, and walk forward with you in Christ."

Christians can do despicable things to each other with their tongues. Just because you don't literally shoot someone or take a knife to them doesn't mean (in God's eyes) you haven't done violence to them. Let's all be super cautious when it comes to rebukes, and keep asking, Am I willing to talk to the person directly, about specific sins, with specific steps for restoration? And if not, why not?

Refreshing Weirdness as Memento Mori

2011-08-26T08:05:00.000-07:00

There's an old Calvin and Hobbes in which our two heroes set out to find something gratifyingly weird (remember that Calvin is a six-year-old male). They find an old kite, but are disappointed when they don't find the skeleton of the child flying attached to it. The joke is that they eventually see Calvin's dad, riding his bike and enjoying the amount of exercise he's getting on a Saturday morning. Both Calvin and Hobbes are visibly shaken by this ("Weirdness hits you when you never expect it," one says). I've always liked that cartoon, because I think it's true. C. S. Lewis once said that the adult mind has more need of fantasy than the child's.
With that in mind, I present some paintings by the undeniably weird Polish fantasist Zdzislaw Beksinksi (with a name like that, how could you stay normal?). While I wouldn't post all of his paintings to this blog (some are just a little too creepy), I haven't found any that are obscene.

The top one is my favorite: a door to another world, right in the middle of our dead one. Aside from the sheer imaginative momentum of his work, I appreciate how many concern death in some way, and often living figures caught up in death. It reminds me of a scene from George MacDonald's Lilith, in which the narrator (in the fantasy world MacDonald creates) comes to a graveyard. The sexton watching over it has a tiny house with a huge basement, in which thousands of people are asleep, and having been sleeping for centuries, and each one is getting better, getting healed. There's a palpable sense of death in the scene, but it is not gory or evil; it's unsettling, but entirely appropriately so. Remember, folks, to whatever extent these paintings move you (as they do me), it is because they are tiny and simplistic signposts to the true reality, which is far more complex than any human could signify, and which is happening, even now, in us.

The Spiritual Benefits of Rejection

2011-08-25T10:07:00.000-07:00

I semi-regularly send out academic and fiction writing to publishers. I get rejected far, far more often than I get an acceptance notice. It stings every time, sometimes a little and sometimes a lot, even when I thought I was enjoying peace about what would happen. That's the old self, of course; the old ego, that wants everything to work out on my timetable, that wants everything I do to be praised, that wants everyone to like me.

But after I get over being flustered, I usually have a great day. Because I console myself with everything I do have, which no editor can take away. I mean, even if I never publish another word about the OT, I get to read that book in Hebrew for the rest of my life! Holy cow. What a privilege! I get to enjoy its many mountains and valleys and rivers and paths and gardens, walk through them as often as I like. That's a gift not every child of God has. And besides, continual acceptance of work is often bad for your soul - not always, but it's dangerous. Scholars who get everything they write published can easily become repetitive, jealously guarding their one tiny corner of study from anyone intruding. Rejection snaps me back to myself: a wanderer, a traveler, a child, trying to put into words what the Grand Canyon looks like to those who haven't seen it. It's healthy and bracing, and I'm always thankful for it when it happens.

Freudian Spirituality

2011-08-23T07:29:00.001-07:00

There are a number of descriptions of the human being out there which are more-or-less helpful but imprecise. The Myers-Briggs matrix is a pretty good way to understand the different dimensions of very different people (I come out INFJ, which is: Ingrown, Noobish, Farty, and Judgmental, if anyone cares. Just kidding: see here).

The old Freudian division into id, ego, and superego is, in my opinion, a relatively good description of the human person as well - "good" in the sense of being both accurate and revealing. By which I mean, I sense within myself a network of desires - an "id" - of which I am not fully aware. I'm also not fully aware of my conscience - it shouts at me out of nowhere sometimes, sometimes for good reasons, and sometimes over trivial things; but I often experience it as speaking to me from the outside. And the ego - the conscious self - constantly tries to negotiate between the demands of the id and of the conscience, and usually fails. It's not the final word on the human self, but I still appreciate it.

These aren't biblical categories, of course; you can't read about "spirit and flesh" in any psychologist. You have to read Paul. But that doesn't mean you can't read them together. All three "parts" of your personality can be in the flesh or in the spirit: your id, indomitable and unruly, constantly driving toward sin; your conscience, seared and broken, silent when it should speak and shouting at you when it should be silent. And your conscious mind bent inward on itself, constantly preoccupied with you, you, you, certain it knows how reality works and blind and deaf toward God.

But it doesn't have to be that way. Your id is not only sexual - it's that umph you have, the thing getting you out of bed in the morning, the thing inside you that yearns and thirsts, which wants to be deeply satisfied and thrilled and full. How many of us open our Bibles in the morning, hungry and expectant and panting? The id can be a powerful engine in a Spirit-filled personality. And to have one's conscience both enlivened and pacified by grace, so that it gently but urgently insists that we love our neighbor and take care of the needy - giving in to such a conscience is no burden. And to have the root lifted off of one's conscious mind, so that one consciously lives and acts and decides before the awesome loving Presence, with us always . . .

I sometimes wonder if part of God's tenderness toward us is his compassion on sinful people stuck within a chaotic, disordered, distempered personality. Grace doesn't obliterate or flatten that complexity; it salts those dark, unexplored regions within us. "May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through."

Something I'll Miss Over the Winter . . .

2011-08-19T08:02:00.000-07:00

Can't Wait . . .

2011-08-18T09:37:00.001-07:00

. . . to listen to this superb message.

A Prayer for Thursday

2011-08-18T06:03:00.000-07:00

Lord Jesus, this day is heaven-crafted, from you to me, whatever it holds. This day holds exactly what you would have for me. I accept it from your hand.

Lord Jesus, I am a deeply needy and fearful person, but I trust you to meet my needs, through obedience and by intervening for me today. I don't really believe you will intervene for me, but, believing against my unbelief, I trust you to care for me, nourish me, and shepherd me.

And so, I forsake my own needs to your care, and commit myself to loving You and loving my neighbor today, unto my own great joy. Amen.

The Glory of Keeping Quiet

2011-08-16T08:34:00.000-07:00

"A weighty stone, and heavy sand--the provocation of a fool is heavier than both." (Prov 27.3)

In Proverbs, a fool is someone who is certain they're right, who cannot listen to others, who talk a great deal and get into controversies constantly. A fool is someone who has to be right, who will present themselves as open and reasonable, but will say anything, or deny anything, just to be right. We're all vulnerable to this--you see a problem in someone else (or you think you do), and you go after them, either to their face or behind their backs. And you just can't see the other side of things. You miss the evidence which contradicts your conviction of the other person's wrongness. Just look on the internet, you'll see it everywhere.

Part of what is so "heavy" about a fool's vexation is the lack of closure. When a fool goes after you or someone you love, and you see plainly what is right in front of the other person, which they don't see--it's very tempting to wade into an argument and to try to get that closure, to pin the fool down until he says uncle.

"A wise man enters into controversy with the foolish man; he rages and laughs, and there is no quiet." (29.9)

But it never works. The fool blows up, mocks you; there's no quiet for anyone. And you never get that closure.

"It's an honor for a man to cease from arguing; but every fool will be quarreling (literally, "revealing themselves," Hithpael of gl'; i.e., always airing their own opinions; Prov 20.3)

It doesn't feel honorable to stop arguing. It doesn't feel noble and glorious; it feels humiliating, like you've let the other person win. But that's not what the verse says. It's actually glorious and weighty not to defend yourself to people who constantly criticize.

Why does the Bible say this? I suppose, at one level, it's because you're not stooping to the childish intricacies of someone constantly out to prove their rightness at someone else's expense. But perhaps at a deeper level, it is because you're following the one Jew who lived out Proverbs perfectly, who kept quiet when the most important people around accused him of the most ludicrous things, all so that us fools might become wise, stop trying to justify ourselves, shut our mouths and accept our rightness from outside.

An Analogy for Talking

2011-08-15T08:21:00.000-07:00

"How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire!" James 3.5.

Picture every time you sit down at a meal, pick up the telephone, or comment on a blog, that you are holding a giant container of gasoline and a burning match.

The more you talk, the closer the match gets to the gasoline.

Given the statements in Proverbs and elsewhere in James (and Paul!), I don't think it's an exaggeration to view our ability to speak this way.

"Death and life are in the power of the tongue; those who love it will eat its fruits." (Proverbs 18)

Exciting New Program

2011-08-12T13:24:00.000-07:00

Briercrest Seminary is offering a new degree in which students will graduate with at least two years of Hebrew and Greek. Please pass on the word, and get in touch with me (or Briercrest admissions) if interested!

The Dignifying Effect of Grace

2011-08-10T08:06:00.000-07:00

In Romans 1.21-23, we exchange the glory of God for idols - that overwhelming divine beauty and holiness, we throw away for our idols.
In Romans 3.23, we, who have slipped from that glory, are justified freely, by faith.
In Romans 5.2, those justified hope in the glory of God.
In Romans 8.17, we are glorified together with Christ.

Grace forgives and cleanses. It also transforms, so I start to obey in ways which are naturally impossible for me. And grace also beautifies - it gives a dignity and weightiness to people who otherwise trivialize themselves and God, and make themselves parodies of what God meant them to be.

How Can I Resist Temptation?

2011-08-08T12:39:00.000-07:00

"Gospel provisions will do this work; that is, keep the heart full of a sense of the love of God in Christ. This is the greatest preservative against the power of temptation in the world. . . . A man may, nay, ought to lay in provisions of the law also,--fear of death, hell, punishment, with the terror of the Lord in them. But these are far more easily conquered than the other; nay, they will never stand alone against a vigorous assault. They are conquered in convinced persons every day . . . . But store the heart with a sense of the love of God in Christ, with the eternal design of his grace, with a taste of the blood of Christ, and his love in the shedding of it; get a relish of the privileges we have thereby,--our adoption, justification, acceptation with God; fill the heart with thoughts of the beauty of holiness, as it is designed by Christ for the end, issue, and effect of his death;--and thou wilt, in an ordinary course of walking with God, have great peace and security as to the disturbance of temptations. . . .

"Contending to obtain and keep a sense of the love of God in Christ, in the nature of it, obviates all the workings and insinuations of temptation." -John Owen, Works 6: 133-34

What Does the Devil Aim At?

2011-08-08T12:37:00.000-07:00

"[T]he sin he [i.e., the Devil] tempts thee to against the law ... is not the thing he aims at; his design lies against thy interest in the gospel. He would make sin but a bridge to get over to a better ground, to assault thee as to thy interest in Christ." -John Owen, "Of Temptation," Works 6: 135

This Proves It

2011-08-08T09:44:00.000-07:00

I realized some time ago that I can't think of a Christian I admire who wasn't villified and gossiped about and criticized during his life. I learned recently that George Whitefield had an Anglican minister who devoted his life to attacking and accusing Whitefield. I can't remember the other guy's name, while Whitefield's is indelibly etched on my mind for all the good God did through him (which is exactly the point).

And now I learn my grandfather has joined these blessed ranks. Apparently, early on in his ministry, he was accused of being a communist. (Calling him a Martian probably would have been more convincing.) Amazing.

I tell my students that I want them, in my classes, to have their hearts broken, at least a little, by the dying love of Jesus - because if that doesn't happen, we're dangerous. There's so much wrong with the world, with the Church, with me, that a heart unsoftened by the friendship of Christ with sinners will go into attack mode. (And if you poke around the link, you'll see the same thing.) And without the calmness of grace, I will waste my life, attacking other Christians (who are far, far worse than I could ever fathom), and hiding all the while, hoping nobody notices my sins, and trying my best to deflect attention from them by focusing on others.

Grace takes a kind of surrender. You have to let go of (just) condemnation of others and yourself. It is a dizzying, vertiginous experience - a little eerie. But without it, I'm locked in wrongness, in always-not-good-enough, always wanting another confession from myself or someone else.

Lord God, I accept that I will be attacked in the church for preaching the gospel. Grant me a tithe of my grandfather's genuine love, and rescue us from the futility and emptiness of the ministry of accusation. Amen.

If Anyone Cares . . .

2011-07-21T17:44:00.000-07:00

. . . I'm having a short story published here. About King Manasseh in a sci-fi setting. Comments (of whatever sort) most welcome.

Violin Concerto, Philip Glass, Second Movement

2011-06-11T10:12:00.000-07:00

I leave you for this summer with this lovely, alluring, mysterious piece. Very sporadic blogging ahead. Have good vacations, everyone, and God bless.

Mere Moral Effort vs. the Gospel

2011-06-10T13:09:00.001-07:00

“Mere moral effort without the gospel may restrain the heart but cannot truly change the heart. Mere moral effort merely 'jury rigs' the evil of the heart to produce moral behavior, out of self-interest. It would be possible to use fear and pride as ways to motivate a person to be honest, but since fear and pride is also the root for lying, it is only a matter of time before such a thin tissue collapses. . . . You are being moral so that you can feel secure in your uprightness. You are being moral in the service of self-salvation, out of the fear and pride that arise without an identity built on Christ in the gospel.

“So Edwards says--what is true virtue? It is when you are honest not because it profits you or makes feel better, but only when you are smitten with the beauty of the God who is truth and sincerity and faithfulness! It is when you come to love truth-telling not for your sake but for God's sake and its own sake. But it particularly grows by a faith-sight of the glory of Christ and his salvation. How does 'true honesty' grow? It grows when I see him dying for me, keeping a promise he made despite the infinite suffering it brought him. Now that a) destroys pride on the one hand, because he had to do this for me--I am so lost! But that also b) destroys fear on the other hand, because if he'd do this for me while I'm an enemy, then he values me infinitely, and nothing I can do will wear out his love for me. Then my heart is not just restrained but changed. Its fundamental orientation is transformed.”
-Tim Keller, "Preaching in a Postmodern City"

So funny . . .

2011-06-09T11:59:00.001-07:00

Torque and Momentum

2011-06-09T08:46:00.000-07:00

Haven’t been able to get the Mountain Goats out of my system lately, and if you’re tired of hearing about them, I’m not nearly done talkin’ about them, so get ready. Why I find this song so compelling: without quite saying it, the narrator here is a criminal on the run with his girlfriend. The mixture of prayers interspersed in the quotidian details of the life of someone on the run seem ironic at first, but gradually gain a kind of density: you get the sense this criminal is really starting to pray, and really starting to mean it for the first time. This shifts the meaning of the repeated chorus: God has done something in this person’s life, but it’s only gradually flowering.

And look at John Darnielle up there! He’s very relaxed in interviews, but every time he starts singing, there’s no doubt the dude seriously cares about what he’s singing about. He’s the opposite of bored. It can be offputting at first, but I find it refreshing to watch the man sing his heart out on every single song. In fact, at 3:18, you can see him look at his mates, as if he’s having the time of his life. That’s awesome.

This song has a torque and momentum much so-called Christian music doesn’t. “Let my mouth be ever fresh with praise.”

Pulled off the highway in Missouri and low our hearts were heavy laiden
Made for the chapel with some spray paint for all the things we'd held in secret
Lord lift up these lifeless bones
Light cascading through the windows
All the rainbow's heavy tones

He has fixed his sign in the sky
He has raised me from the pit and set me high

Left that place in ruin, drunk on the Spirit and high on fumes
Checked into a Red Roof in stayed up for several hours and then slept like infants
In the burning fuselage of my days
Let me mouth be ever fresh with praise

He has fixed his sign in the sky
He has raised me from the pit and set me high

Each morning new
Each day shot through
With all the sharps small shards of shrapnel
That seem to burst out of me and you

Head down towards Kansas We will get there when we get there don't you worry
Feel bad about the things we do along the way
But not really that bad
We inhaled the frozen air
Lord send me a mechanic if I'm not beyond repair

He has fixed his sign in the sky
He has raised from the pit and he will set me high

How the Gospel Breaks Habitual Sin (1)

2011-06-09T08:36:00.000-07:00

“What if you find that you have a habit of lying? What do you do about it?

“Moralistic ways to stop lying: Fear: "I must stop doing this because God will punish me, he won't bless me." Pride: "I must stop doing this, because I'm a good Christian. I don't want to be like the kind of person who lies." In general, you will find that the more you simply lay Biblical principles on your heart, the more your heart resists it. (Rom.7:21--Paul says "When I [most] want to do good, evil lies close at hand.") The gospel way to stop lying: First, ask the question: "why am I lying in this particular situation?" The reason we lie (or ever do any sin) is because at that moment there is something we feel that we simply must have--and so we lie. One typical reason that we lie (though it is by no means the only one) is because we are deeply fearful of losing face or someone's approval. That means, that the 'sin under the sin' of lying is the idolatry of (at that moment) of human approval. If we break the commandment against false witness it is because we are breaking the first commandment against idolatry. We are looking more to human approval than to Jesus as a source of worth, meaning, and happiness. Under the sin of lying is the failure to rejoice in and believe in our acceptance in Christ. Under the sin of lying is a kind of heart-unbelief in the gospel (whatever we may tell ourselves intellectually.) As we will see below, anything you add to Jesus Christ as a requirement for a happy life is a functional salvation, a pseudo-lord, and it is controlling you, whether it be power, approval, comfort or control. The only way to change your habit of lying is to repent of your failure to believe the gospel, that you are not saved and acceptable by pursuing this goal and serving this master, but through the grace of Jesus Christ.”

-Tim Keller, "Preaching in a Postmodern City"

Read the whole thing - very, very worth reading - right here.

In Appreciation of James Hamilton

2011-06-07T08:11:00.000-07:00

When I read biblical scholarship, I ask a number of questions: what assumptions are being made? Does the argument hold together? Is the author factoring in all relevant evidence? But the bottom line is: do I understand the text better after reading this? That's why I got into this game, after all. I've never heard of a student choosing to pursue graduate-level study of the OT because they heard of some awesome paradigm they wanted to apply to the text. In my experience, people go into this field because of the text. But after years of laborious study, you can forget your original motive.

But, anyway, the majority of the time, I finish an article or book, and realize I don't understand the OT text better after having read this secondary piece of literature - I might understand scholarly paradigms, but not the OT. That is very much not true of the work of James Hamilton, who teaches at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville. His work eminently passes the questions I list above, and, more importantly, I get the Bible better after reading him. A number of links to his work are available on his page. The title of his most recent work alone makes me want to read it - God's Glory in Salvation Through Judgment. (Yeah!) The man actually gives the distinct impression of believing the Bible, and consistently applying sola Scriptura and the clarity of Scripture in academic work: i.e., reading texts and taking questions to the rest of the Bible. The Bible actually forms a framework for interpreting the Bible. What a revolutionary idea!

Mortification

2011-06-06T09:31:00.000-07:00

How do you kill ingrained, habitual, compulsive sin? Tim Keller, building on John Owen, gives one way, as part of a remarkably holistic view of human beings and how we change"

"One must fill the mind and conscience with the danger and guilt of sin by bringing it to the cross. One must look at his sin for what it is, unmask it and see it for the ugly thing it is in itself, not just for what it has done to him. There are two parts to this unmasking.

"To see the 'danger' of sin, one needs to consider what all the consequences will be: hardnening of the heart, the loss of peace and strength, the loss of assurance that he is really a Christian, and the possibility of temporal correction or punishment from God.

"But one should not consider merely the consequences of sin. Sorrow on that basis can arise out of self-love. Also one must load the conscience with the 'guilt' of his sin. It grieves the Spirit, it wounds the new man within him, it makes him useless to the God who has done so much for him, it offends the holiness and majesty of God, and spurns the blood of Christ. It is important to make this conviction of guilt evangelical as opposed to legal. This is accomplished by taking one's sin not just to the law (though he must reflect on the majesty and holiness of God for conviction) but also to the gospel--to the cross of Christ. A healthy conviction of sin grows by seeing the patience of God, the riches of grace, the suffering of Jesus-all so one would not sin.

"'Take thy lust to the gospel . . . for farther conviction of its guilt . . . Say to thy soul, 'What have I done? What love, what mercy, what blood, what grace have I despised and trampled on! Is this the return I make to the Father for his love, to the son for his blood, to the Holy Ghost for his grace? Do I thus requite the Lord? Have I defiled the heart that Christ died to wash, that the blessed spirit has chosen to dwell in? . . . Do I account communion with him of so little vlaue, that for this vile lust's sake I have scare left him any room in my heart? Shall I endeavour to disappoint the [purpose] of the death of Christ?' Entertain thy conscience daily with this treaty. See if it can stand before this aggravation of its guilt. If this make it not sink in some measure and let, I fear thy case is dangerous.'

"This process of loading the conscience before the cross of Christ helps the sinner begin to hate the sin in itself. It begins to lose its attractiveness and thus its power to move to sinful deeds and actions." -Tim Keller, "Puritian Resources for Biblical Counseling"

Idolatry and the Gospel

2011-06-03T08:19:00.000-07:00

All too often, "ministers derive more of their joy and a sense of personal significance from the success of their ministries than from the fact they are loved by God in Christ. Why? Their hearts are still operating on the principle--"if I do and accomplish all these things--then I will be accepted." (cf. Harold Abrahams in Chariots of Fire- "I have 10 seconds to justify my existence.") In other words, on one level, we believe the gospel but on another level we don't believe.

"So why do we over-work in ministry and burn out? Yes, we are not practicing the Sabbath principle, but the deeper cause is unbelief in the gospel! Why are we so devastated by criticism? The person whose self-worth is mainly in his or her ministry performance will be devastated by criticism of the ministry record because that record is our very self and identity. The fundamental problem is unbelief in the gospel.

"At the root, then, of all Christian failures to live right--i.e. not give their money generously, not tell the truth, not care for the poor, not handle worry and anxiety--is the sin under all sins, the sin of unbelief, of not rejoicing deeply in God's grace in Christ, not living out of our new identity in Christ." -Tim Keller, "Preaching in a Post-Modern City"

Breathtaking

2011-05-31T14:45:00.000-07:00

My awesome cousin Drew Harrah drew my attention to this today. I have no words.

Believe in Your Dreams . . .

2011-05-31T14:35:00.000-07:00

. . . right here.

The Humiliation of Grace

2011-05-30T08:08:00.000-07:00

God, in his grace, loves us all out of proportion to what we deserve. It knocks aside everything we're ashamed of, all the reasons we give others to love us less or not at all. God is able to see what is ugly and evil in us with perfect clarity, of course; but he looks on our evil, and says, "I love you no less because of all that. My love for you is not dimished because of that, it increases."

And God loves us out of proportion to everything we consider good about ourselves. The things in our lives we're proud of, which we parade in front of others, to make ourselves acceptable in the sight of others and give them reasons to like us - grace knocks those aside, too, saying, "I love you no more because of these things. I love you no less because you are evil, but whatever kinds of goodness you inherently have makes me love you no more."

It's quite unnerving to be loved this way - to be stripped of the faults we loathe (and secretly cling to), and to be stripped of the things we like about ourselves. How uncomfortable, to lose all moorings and control over God's reaction to us, to have to surrender to a love which simply loves.

Grace and Reward

2011-05-30T08:03:00.000-07:00

Kate was about 18 months old - walking and interacting a little, but not really talking - and I was trying to get her to put something back which she had knocked over. She was resisting - in a bad mood, and not cooperating. Eventually I put my hands over hers, picked the toy up with her hands, put it on the shelf, and then applauded Kate wildly, cheering for her. She smiled.

There's a parable there about God's reaction to our "obedience."