Reconciled

"The reconciled world is the church." -- St. Augustine (Sermon 46).

"But the sum is this, that Christ doth repair with his grace the world, being destroyed; which cometh to pass when he reconcileth us to the Father." -- John Calvin (Commentary on Acts 8:5).

Elbow Drop (Puritan Style)

"There are two rotten pillars which the fabric of late Arminianism (an egg of the old Pelagianism, which we had well hoped had long since chilled, but is sat upon and brooded by wanton wits of our degenerate and apostate spirits) doth principally stand.

"The one is, That God loveth all alike, Cain as well as Abel, Judas as the rest of the Apostles.

"The other is, That God giveth (nay is bound, "ex debito," so to do) both Christ, the great gift of his eternal love, for all alike to work out their redemption, and "vires credenda," power to believe in Christ to all alike to whom he gives the gospel; whereby that redemption may effectually be applied for their salvation, if they please to make right use of that which is so put into their power.

"The former destroys the free and special grace of God, by making it universal; the latter gives cause to man of glorying in himself rather than in God,--God concurring no farther to the salvation of a believer than a reprobate. Christ died for both alike;--God giving power of accepting Christ to both alike, men themselves determining the whole matter by their free-will; Christ making both savable, themselves make them to be saved.

"This cursed doctrine of theirs crosseth the main drift of the holy Scripture; which is to abase and pull down the pride of man, to make him even to despair of himself, and to advance and set up the glory of God's free grace from the beginning to the end of man's salvation. His hand hath laid the foundation of his spiritual house; his hand shall also finish it" (Prefatory remarks by Stanley Gower, who was a member of the Westminster Assembly, for John Owen's The Death of Death in the Death of Christ: A Treatise of the Redemption and Reconciliation that is in the Blood of Christ, with the Merit Thereof, and Satisfaction Wrought Thereby).

"The glory of God's free grace from the beginning to the end of man's salvation." Indeed.

Church History

"If we take seriously the Pauline conceptions of the Christian Church as the Body of Christ, then Church History may be regarded as the continuation of the story of Jesus. That is to say, Jesus, who began to act and teach on earth in the years immediately preceding A.D. 30, has continued to act and teach since that year by His Spirit in his servants; and the history of Christianity ought to be the history of what He has been doing and teaching in this way down to our own times--a continuous Acts of the Apostles. But this is not how Church history is usually viewed or presented. There is much truth in the words of the late Dean Inge:

The real history of Christianity is the history of a great spiritual tradition. The only true apostolic succession is the lives of the saints. Clement of Alexandria compared the Church to a great river, receiving affluents from all sides. The great river sometimes flows impetuously through a narrow channel; sometimes it spreads like a flood; sometimes it divides into several streams; sometimes, for a time, it seems to have been driven underground. But the Holy Spirit has never left himself without witness; and if we will put aside a great deal of what passes for Church history, and is really a rather unedifying branch of secular history, and follow the course of the religion of the Spirit and the Church of the Spirit, we shall judge very differently of the relative importance of events from those who merely follow the fortunes of institutionalism (W. R. Inge, Things New and Old, pp. 57f).

"But the difficulty for the would-be historian is this: it is relatively easy to trace the fortunes of a visible institution, whereas the course of a great spiritual tradition is much more elusive. And yet, the two are so closely interwoven that it is impossible to treat of the one without constant reference to the other" (F.F. Bruce, The Spreading Flame, 161).

Reading Notes: As I Lay Dying, Moby Dick, The Iliad, and the Noetic Effects of Sin and Anger-and-Revenge's Power to Degrade

Several months ago I read Gene Fant's article at First Things titled "William Faulkner's Peculiar Calvinism: As I Lay Dying." The author reflects on elements from a handful of different works by Faulkner, highlighting his "Peculiar [Read Redemption-Less] Calvinism", and vouches for the truthfulness of Faulkner's Southern characterizations (Fant is a native-born Mississippian). The author's reflections are tied up with the recent film adaptation of As I Lay Dying, written/directed/starring James Franco.

This has made me think of when, several years ago, I first read As I Lay Dying: I thought it was an emotionally-weighty but good read, especially since the noetic effects of sin are soberly portrayed. (The characters in As I Lay Dying do genuinely bizarre and irrational things again and again.) Also, recently I finished reading Moby Dick (I already read half of the book 3 or 4 times, but finally plowed through to the end. Yay!), and, again, I was impressed by the noetic effects of sin: Melville captures that untoward power in his characterization of Captain Ahab, a man who, like Achilles from The Iliad, becomes drunk with anger and revenge to the point of his own demise. Yikes. Gives me the heebie-jeebies.

On The Same Path

"The whole argument about tradition in this book has been predicated on the sober recognition that it is actually quite easy to go wrong in theology, and that we need the insights of precisely those within the Church with whom we disagree if we are to learn and progress. . . . The creeds essentially codify the patristic synthesis concerning the doctrine of God. The occasion for the promulgation of creeds were generally Christological and Trinitarian heresies, which made claims about who God is that were judged unacceptable. Now, in seeking to discern who, however wrong we may think them, still should be regarded as a Christian brother or sister, and who has left the faith some way behind, it seems to me that the doctrine of God is crucial. Two people who both alike confess one God in three Persons, and the hypostatic union of divine and human in Jesus Christ, are seeking to serve the same God as each other; someone who denies one of these crucial points is, from a Christian point of view, running after idols of their own construction. Given this, however wrong I may think someone who confesses these points is on other matters of faith and morals, they are on the same path as I am on, also imperfectly; the difference between us can only ever be in degree. Someone who confesses a different God, by contrast, is doing something different to what I am seeking to do" (Stephen R. Holmes, Listening to the Past: The Place of Tradition in Theology, 162-163).

Preaching

I preached as never sure to preach again. And as a dying man to dying men.
                                                                                 --Richard Baxter

LOL

"What would our forefathers have thought had they known that the blessings of their blessings would one day schedule the arrival of blessings as if they were bottles of milk left on the stoop? A soon-to-be-married couple tells themselves, "We figure that we'll spend a few years after the wedding getting to know each other, just the two of us, and working so we can save money for a house. Then we'll have our first child, and when he turns four, then we'll start working on the next. If at that point we have one of each then we'll probably just quit, and then fiver years after that I can go back to work. If they're the same, we'll wait three years and try again.' God will not be mocked; He who opens and closes the womb will not take orders from yuppie brides" (R. C. Sproul, Jr., Eternity in Our Hearts: Essays on the Good Life, 81).

Children

"There is probably no greater life-changing event than the arrival of a child. Jobs change often. That big mortgage we signed is financing a house that will one day be rubble. But children last forever" (R. C. Sproul, Jr., Eternity in Our Hearts: Essays on the Good Life, 80).

Athens and Jerusalem - Academy and Church

"Above all things, preserve the Kirk [Church] from the bondage of the Universities. Persuade them to rule themselves peaceably, and order thair [sic] schools in Christ; but subject never the pulpit to their Judgment, neither yet exempt them from your Jurisdiction" (John Knox, Works of John Knox, Vol. 6, 619).

Technological Discernment

"We live in an age of technological wonders, and have lost the capacity to wonder whether all this technology is actually healthy" (R. C. Sproul, Jr., Eternity in Our Hearts: Essays on the Good Life, 76).

Patience

"One nearby church chided passers-by with its sign that read, 'Be patient. It takes time for grass to become butter.' I needed the patience called for by the sign to figure out what that meant" (R. C. Sproul, Jr., Eternity in Our Hearts: Essays on the Good Life, 74).

Creed has "genuine authority as a privileged interpretation of Scripture."

"That the [Nicene] Creed says x is sufficient reason to assert that x is true, theologically" (Stephen R. Holmes, Listening to the Past: The Place of Tradition in Theology, 161).

Western Church: Salt has Lost Its Savor

"It is fuel for the fire to point out that western culture is in radical decline. I do not deny it. I recognize that things are getting ugly in the world--precisely because they are already ugly in the church. When another teenage gunman treating his school like a video game is greeted with a yawn, when sodomites become a protected class, when a million and a half babies are killed every year, we can safely conclude that the salt has lost its savor" (R. C. Sproul, Jr., Eternity in Our Hearts: Essays on the Good Life, 59).

Friendship

"You think a friend is an easy thing to be? If you are truly his friend, you will discover otherwise" (Chaim Potok, The Chosen, 142).

Creation Being Itself

"The work of the Spirit, as well as being fundamentally eschatological, is also essentially immanent: the Spirit works within creation, establishing the creation's ability to be itself to the praise of its Creator" (Stephen R. Holmes, Listening to the Past: The Place of Tradition in Theology, 158).

To a Thousand Generations

"The biblical vision, however, can inspire us to obedience. When we know the kingdom will grow, when we know that God is faithful in His covenants, when we know that He has promised to be God to us, to our children, and to as many as are afar off, when we know that Christ not only came to conquer the world but that He has already overcome it--then we move forward in the faith. We move forward believing the good news of the Kingdom of Christ. We don't send our little children out to drag their heathen classmates onto the boat; we prepare them for the larger task of raising their own children to be a light to a world that is not triumphing but perishing. Eschatology then becomes more than a theological parlor game. It is the very spring in our step, the very hope that is within us, the very vision that we are to pass onto His blessings--that He is in the midst of blessing to a thousand generations" (R. C. Sproul, Jr., Eternity in Our Hearts: Essays on the Good Life, 58).

Importance of Ordinary Things

"[Reuven Malter's father speaking to his son] Reuven, as you grow older you will discover that the most important things that will happen to you will often come as a result of silly things, as you call them--'ordinary things' is a better expression. That is the way the world is" (Chaim Potok, The Chosen, 110).

Chicken Little the Patron Saint of Dispensationalism

"Only the fool living under the sun determines to 'Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.' What then do we make of those under the Son who claim 'Evangelize, evangelize, evangelize, for tomorrow we are raptured?' No one wants to come out against evangelism, especially me. It may very well be that in the providence of God the threat of an impending rapture, and of a tribulation to follow, may actually have motivated a few folks to spread the Good News. Wouldn't it just be like God to use such a thing to bring His sheep into His fold? There's a true sign of the sovereignty of God--He is strong enough to use even a dispensational eschatology for His glory. On the other hand, it may be that one day all their apologetical labors will fall on deaf ears when they come to be seen by the world as those whose patron saint is Chicken Little" (R. C. Sproul, Jr., Eternity in Our Hearts: Essays on the Good Life, 55).

Official BLUE Trailer - "Carbon Dioxide is the staff of life."

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Radio - Blessing

"He [Reuven Malter's father] put the radio on the night table. A radio brought the world together, he said very often. Anything that brought the world together he called a blessing" (Chaim Potok, The Chosen, 50).

Cost of Discipleship

"In the Middle Ages, the church showed its glorious wisdom by placing statues of the martyrs at the front door, in the portal of the church. Thus the faithful were welcomed into the church with scenes of decapitation, bloody swords, and suffering servants of God. The church, up front, at the first, portrayed the cost of discipleship" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 102).

Inheritance

"I have thus far sought to argue that, because of the doctrine of creation, historical locatedness is something good. The tradition we inherit is part of our location in history, and so in doing theology it is necessary to relate to the tradition" (Stephen R. Holmes, Listening to the Past: The Place of Tradition in Theology, 17).

Graveyard Science

Doug Wilson recently posted Seven Theses on the Age of the Earth.

Theses #4 -- The fossil record is a record of death. The fossil record is a graveyard. We have exegetical reasons for believing that this paleontological graveyard was planted after the fall of man. We have a time stamp for Adam in the genealogies, and because of what the Scriptures teach about the nature of death, the recorded deaths of all sentient beings needs to be dated after that point.

"Yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory."

"When your congregation prays 'Yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory,' the folk at City Hall ought to get nervous. The church exists to sign, to signal, to sing about the tension whereby those who are at the bottom are being lifted up and those who are on top are being sent down" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 97).

Celebrations of a Sola Scripturist

"We should not attempt to escape from our embeddedness in the Christian tradition, but should rather celebrate it" (Stephen R. Holmes, Listening to the Past: The Place of Tradition in Theology, 13).

In light of the doctrine of creation, Stephen Holmes is contemplating the goodness of "historical locatedness" (6).

Let me add that it is the doctrine of sola scriptura which enables the believer embedded in the Christian tradition to celebrate, to borrow a phrase, both "in spirit and in truth." God's revelation teaches us first and foremost that God is God and we are part of his creation. Scripture is our chief authority, it is God's Word given by the inspiration of God to be the rule of faith and life (WCF. I. 2.), and in Scripture we learn to be thankful for "historical locatedness" (i.e., creatureliness) and to celebrate tradition, which is a "subsidiary authority" (6).

Aphoristic Commentary: Numbers 27:16-17

What Moses said to God when looking for a successor: Numbers 27:16-17, Let the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation, Which may go out before them, and which may go in before them, and which may lead them out, and which may bring them in; that the congregation of the LORD be not as sheep which have no shepherd.

Moses was a shepherd over the flocks of Jethro in Midian (Exodus 3:1) before becoming the shepherd of Israel (Exodus 3:10). Moses was a true shepherd, he was concerned that the flock would still be shepherded when he was gone.

Prayer of Allegiance

"The Lord's Prayer is training in how to understand the political significance of God's Messiah, Jesus. It is a pledge of allegiance to a king and his kingdom that throws all other allegiances into crisis" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 96).

Prayer: Getting Ready for a Fight

"Satan masquerades as an angel of light and resists being unmasked. Get ready for a fight" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 91).

Emily Dickinson: Envelope Poem - A 128

A 128

All       men       for        Honor
hardest        work
But            are      not      known
to     earn -
Paid      after        they   have
ceased     to        work
In          Infamy           or   Urn -

(Marta Werner and Jen Bervin, Emily Dickinson: The Gorgeous Nothings [a collection of Dickinson's "envelope poems"], 28).

Save Us!

"Christians are those who ask to be saved" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 87).

George MacDonald - The Girl That Lost Things

The Girl That Lost Things by George MacDonald

There was a girl that lost things—

Nor only from her hand;

She lost, indeed—why, most things,

As if they had been sand!

She said, "But I must use them,

And can't look after all!

Indeed I did not lose them,

I only let them fall!"

That's how she lost her thimble,

It fell upon the floor:

Her eyes were very nimble

But she never saw it more.

And then she lost her dolly,

Her very doll of all!

That loss was far from jolly,

But worse things did befall.

She lost a ring of pearls

With a ruby in them set;

But the dearest girl of girls

Cried only, did not fret.

And then she lost her robin;

Ah, that was sorrow dire!

He hopped along, and—bob in—

Hopped bob into the fire!

And once she lost a kiss

As she came down the stair;

But that she did not miss,

For sure it was somewhere!

Just then she lost her heart too,

But did so well without it

She took that in good part too,

And said—not much about it.

But when she lost her health

She did feel rather poor,

Till in came loads of wealth

By quite another door!

And soon she lost a dimple

That was upon her cheek,

But that was very simple—

She was so thin and weak!

And then she lost her mother,

And thought that she was dead;

Sure there was not another

On whom to lay her head!

And then she lost her self—

But that she threw away;

And God upon his shelf

It carefully did lay.

And then she lost her sight,

And lost all hope to find it;

But a fountain-well of light

Came flashing up behind it.

At last she lost the world:

In a black and stormy wind

Away from her it whirled—

But the loss how could she mind?

For with it she lost her losses,

Her aching and her weeping,

Her pains and griefs and crosses,

And all things not worth keeping;

It left her with the lost things

Her heart had still been craving;

'Mong them she found—why, most things,

And all things worth the saving.

She found her precious mother,

Who not the least had died;

And then she found that other

Whose heart had hers inside.

And next she found the kiss

She lost upon the stair;

'Twas sweeter far, I guess,

For ripening in that air.

She found her self, all mended,

New-drest, and strong, and white;

She found her health, new-blended

With a radiant delight.

She found her little robin:

He made his wings go flap,

Came fluttering, and went bob in,

Went bob into her lap.

So, girls that cannot keep things,

Be patient till to-morrow;

And mind you don't beweep things

That are not worth such sorrow;

For the Father great of fathers,

Of mothers, girls, and boys,

In his arms his children gathers,

And sees to all their toys

Housekeeping

"The true economy of housekeeping is simply the art of gathering up all the fragments, so that nothing is lost. I mean fragments of time as well as materials" (Lydia Maria Francis Child, The American Frugal Housewife, 3).

Forgiveness

"Forgiveness is not natural. That's why we have to pray, 'Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us' every day" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 85).

Prayer: Rediscover the Joy of Being a Creature

"Prayer is the essential practice, the gift that God has given us to help us rediscover the joy of being a creature, of being out of control" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 80).

History and Self

"Your father said I should read Jewish history. He said the first important step in anyone's education is to know your own people" (Chaim Potok, The Chosen, 154).

God Meets Us

"When we want to meet God, we Christians do not go up some high mountain, do not rummage around in our psyches, do not hold hands, close our eyes, and sing "Kum Ba Yah" in the hope of revelation. We gather and break bread in Jesus' name. That's where he has chosen to meet us, that's where our eyes are opened and we recognize him" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 73).

Defiant

"Note that the Lord's Prayer is meant to be prayed aloud, as a public gesture. Rarely do we mumble this prayer quietly. It is meant to be a very audible, very public event. As we have said, this is one of the most defiant, politically charged, public things we Christians can do--pray the Lord's Prayer" (William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord's Prayer and the Christian Life, 69).