BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

Love, the Song of Solomon and Christ: a sermon series recommendation

(David) It seems to me that modern and ancient treatments of the Song of Solomon almost always fall entirely on one side or the other of a very broad spectrum of potential approaches.

Some (mostly ancient preachers and commentators) view the Song of Solomon almost entirely allegorically. They look at Song of Solomon and see only Christ, His love for His Bride and His Bride's love for Him and nothing at all of human romance or sexual union.

Others (mostly modern preachers and commentators) get all squirrely over the obviously sexual nature of the book and forget metaphor altogether in preaching and teaching from it.

No one ever seems to square the circle by fully acknowledging both the sex and the metaphor at the heart of Song of Solomon. Either it's Song of Solomon as sex manual taught by giggly-eyed graduates of the Young Life school of theology for whom any mention of sex serves the same function as the bell with Pavlov's dogs, or it's a droning dissertation on Jesus that has little to do with the actual text of Song of Solomon.

Register now for ClearNote's "Standing in the Gap" conference...

(Tim) We're looking forward to hosting a number of you for the first annual ClearNote Fellowship conference, Standing in the Gap, to be held here in Bloomington two weeks from now, July 10-12. If you haven't done it yet, please register now and we'll look forward to meeting you and your children.

Online registration is available. And here's a PDF of the conference brochure for you to download. Message titles include, Who Will Stand?; Fight or Flight--True or False Contextualization; Cheap Grace; and Worship Wars.

We plan a refreshing time of fellowship, teaching, food, and worship. The whole family is welcome--we'll be child-friendly but we'll also provide childcare.

I hope you'll register now and join with us for the weekend.

If you'd like more information, please e-mail (Mrs.) Ali Trout at churchoffice at shepherdchurch dot com. Or, give her a call, Tuesday through Friday, at (812) 825-2684.

Serving Christ in Cedar Rapids, Iowa...

(Tim) Two weeks ago, our high school men and women went over to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to serve those trying to recover from the terrible flood the community suffered last year. Led by their youth workers, David Abu-Sara, Veronica Allen, Abram Hess, Emily Hess, and Ryan Schnitzer, they returned reporting that the governmental authorities were not particularly helpful to the residents, being better at red tape than getting things done.

The work done by the group was coordinated by church planters, Jeremy Knapp and Michael Langer, of One Ancient Hope (PCA). Our men and women were given a place to sleep in the basement of Hope Evangelical Church (PCA).

The Iowa Independent ran an article on the post-flood political problems and our group made the blurb under one of the pictures...

John Piper explaining his invitation to Doug Wilson...

(Tim) When John invited Doug Wilson to speak at one of his big conferences, I sent him an e-mail commending him for his courage. Like those who paid dearly for inviting Dad to speak after he publicly rebuked Bill Gothard in the pages of Eternity, John will pay for escorting Doug into the Reformed big top.

But like Doug, John has some courage and those who specialize in anti-Wilson bile should take note that, among men who are reformed pastors of national reputation, John stands with Doug. Why?

John released this video explaining his invitation. Forget the first three minutes or so. Just listen to the last few seconds and you'll get the straight dope. (And by the way, I do wish men would release a transcript of such video talks so we weren't forced to spend the time watching video to get their message.)

Over there...

(David) I've known that the PCA's missions arm (MTW) has worked in cooperation with at least one egalitarian national church in Europe for several years now. I hadn't known until Douglas Wilson brought it to light in this post that our engagement with this particular body has led to our giving it a newly-planted church so that it could immediately place a woman pastor (and her husband) in its pulpit.

Tim's and my dad once wrote that Billy Graham's practice of delivering new converts to Roman Catholic churches for discipling was like Christ giving His disciples to the Pharisees for training. Despite what I'm sure are similarly noble intentions, aren't we doing essentially the same thing in the PCA here?

Register now for ClearNote Fellowship's conference, Standing in the Gap, July 10-12...

(Tim) Two conferences to call your attention to:

First, online registration is now up and running for the Christ Church conference, Sexual Orthodoxy, to be held October 15-16 in Moscow, Idaho. Doug Wilson, Ben Merkle, and I will be addressing subjects such as: The Politics of Sodomy; Why Women Make Better Women Ministers than Men Do; The Politics of Fruitfulness; Family Government in the Church; Patriarchalism, Good and Bad; Sentimentalism and the Feminine Ethos; and Abortion: The Blood Sacrifice of Egalitarianism. Mary Lee and I hope we'll see you there!

Second, online registration is also available for another conference I'll be speaking at soon--July 10-12--here in Bloomington, Indiana. (Download the brochure.) Please make plans now to join us here in Bloomington for the ClearNote Fellowship conference, Standing in the Gap. Message titles include, Who Will Stand?; Fight or Flight--True or False Contextualization; Cheap Grace; and Worship Wars.

We plan a refreshing time of fellowship, teaching, food, and worship of our Triune God. The whole family is welcome--we'll be child-friendly as well as childcare being provided. I hope you'll register now and plan to be with us.

If you'd like more information, please feel free to e-mail (Mrs.) Ali Trout at churchoffice at shepherdchurch dot com. Or give her a call, Tuesday through Friday, at (812) 825-2684.

With gratitude to God

(David) I often tell the people of Christ the Word that if they're happy with me as their pastor they have only themselves to blame.

Find a worthy husband and you'll usually find a great wife. Find a faithful pastor and you'll usually find a great church which has incubated and formed her pastor. Sure, it's a symbiotic relationship--pastors also form churches. But it's almost impossible to overstate the influence godly, faithful church members have in the lives of their leadership.

And so it is with this blog as well.

An odor. Is it perfume?

(David) Reading this summary of this week's Presbyterian Church in America General Assembly by my friend, Joel Belz I thought rather sadly to myself, "He's whistling in the dark."

The news of closely divided votes on issues where there should be no division, of "prominent PCA churchmen" playing nice with each other while pretending to debate important ecclesial and theological issues, of 1100 PCA elders sashaying the streets of Disney World to the 2.4.2.4 meter of "The Spirituality of the Church" as American courts legalize sodomite marriage is (what should I say? disturbing? mesmerizing? droll?) at the very least, typically southern presbyterian.

God has placed eternity in their hearts....

(David) Regular readers of this blog may be wondering about the source of the recent storm of angry comments. These comments are the result of a link to our blog from an atheist/evolutionist blog.

A few words about these comments and their authors...

God's Word tells us that creation by itself, separate from revelation, so demonstrates His reality and perfection that we are without excuse when we rebel against Him. He has, in the words of Scripture "placed eternity in the hearts of men."

Those who are commenting angrily on our blog are not God-deniers. The intensity of their hatred belies any claim not to believe in God. They understand and know God sufficiently to hate Him. God has placed the weight of eternity in their hearts and they suffer under it.

Tim and I have removed comments from the blog that blaspheme God. We will not permit His name to be dishonored here. We've left those comments that primarily attack us as men.

Jerram Barrs has done research; he's so brave; he's my man...

(Tim) It's a great help to have Jerram Barrs continue at his post at Covenant Theological Seminary. But not for the reason you'd think.

Rather, because having him such a prominent voice representing Covenant's commitments and vision gives fair warning what kind of education men and women don't get there...

A very light, well-priced, hardy laptop with a killer battery...

(Tim) Through the years, I've owned more Apple computers than I can keep track of, and at least fifteen of their laptops. Some months back I traded in a 15" MacBook Pro for the then-new 13" aluminum MacBook. It's been the best laptop I've ever owned, and I say that despite being about to receive a new 13" MacBook Pro from Apple because of the problems I've been having with it. The upgrade is, of course, at no cost and you can all learn the lesson that it's dangerous to buy the first iteration of a new computer body. But fear not, my problems are not documented on the web as being shared with many others.

It scared me to go to a smaller screen but my aged eyes have not experienced any additional challenges with the 13" screen. It was worth it for the smaller footprint and (especially) lighter weight. I take the computer everywhere and my elbow is quite happy having shed the weight of the 15" Macbook Pro. So weight, speed, screen quality, keyboard, great glass trackpad, long battery life, smaller and lighter AC adapter than the MacBook Pro, extreme ease of adding RAM or switching out the hard drive, low price, all topped out with the absolutely bulletproof aluminum unibody casing; all have made me a happy camper.

Still, there are two things I haven't liked...

More on disembodied brains at worship...

(Tim) Under the post dealing with the discipline of the soul through the body, a brother asked these questions:

It sounds like you all are saying that those who raise their hands in worship are somehow more spiritual than those who don't. At the very least the people who raise their hands are portrayed here as somehow more mature than the counterparts who don't. Can you not be a Pharisee if you worship with your hands raised or sitting quietly in the pew? It is the prayer of a righteous man that avails much, not necessarily the prayer of the man with upraised hands, if you get my drift. Personally in my prayers at home I may kneel, raise my hands etc., but at church I tend to be more reserved, not wanting to draw attention to myself.

What I'm saying is not that those who raise their hands, kneel, and stand in corporate worship are more spiritual, but that raising of hands, kneeling, and standing is obedient to Scripture, taught and practiced by the Reformers, gives glory to God, and is a needed discipline for our souls. I suppose such statements could be construed as making the case that those who have repented of being disembodied brains in worship are more spiritual...

Five alarm fire...

(Tim) Six Flags, the owner of our nation's largest amusement parks with Bill Gates one of its major stockholders, has filed for bankruptcy. Undoubtedly, our non-federal government will take immediate action to nationalize this national treasure, assuring that our entertainment stupor will continue to serve as the foundation of our pliability and compliance.

John Calvin: Lifting hands helps "jolt us out of our laziness" in worship...

(Tim) One commenter (who, from charity, shall remain nameless) commented under an earlier post that he considered the discipline of lifting hands and kneeling in prayer to be unworthy of reformed worship. Maybe a sort of pietistic emotional manipulation?

"So lifting hands is wrong? Why? Who said so?"

"Well, any idiot can see it's those nasty Pentecostals and charismatics who do that sort of thing! Ugh! Who wants to be mistaken for a charismatic? Or a Vineyard type? Ugggghhhh!"

"So we don't do it because we don't want to have anyone think we're Pentecostals--is that it?"

"Well, no; of course that's not the only reason. There are lots and lots of reasons, but I can't spend all day telling you something you should know without thinking. Lifting hands is wrong. End of story. No self-respecting, proud, cerebral, Old School Presbyterian slothful in worship would ever be caught dead lifting his hands in prayer! Now, stop bothering me. I have more important things to do with my time than argue with you!"

Complaint against Metro New York Presbytery filed with General Assembly's Standing Judicial Commission...

(Tim) Since Metro New York Presbytery chose not to grant three of the four amends sought by those filing a complaint against her previous action by which she endorsed woman deacons and men and women serving together in the diaconate, without sexual distinction, the presbytery has now been taken before the Presbyterian Church in America's highest court, General Assembly's Standing Judicial Commission.

Here is the text of that complaint as it was filed.

Let us pray that God blesses the hard work these men are doing for the purity and peace of Christ's Bride, and her faithful witness to a world that hates biblical sexuality.

* * *

Complaint

TE Mark Robinson, et. al. vs. Metropolitan New York Presbytery

And now, this 4th day of June, 2009, come TE Mark Robinson and RE James Macbeth and complain against the action of the Metropolitan New York Presbytery (the “Presbytery”) taken on May 8, 2009 in denying certain amends requested in the complaint filed against the Presbytery by the complainants hereto on April 10, 2009.

The complainants allege that the Presbytery erred in denying TE Mark Robinson and RE James Macbeth’s requested amends and in so doing condoned substantial and continuing violations of certain provisions of the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in America (“PCA”), especially those touching on the office of deacon and diaconal ministry. In support of said complaint the following is set forth...

Music in worship: You don't want to miss this...

(Tim) I have a close friend who hated what I recently wrote concerning music and Christian worship--and particularly some of the anthems written, but more generally the leadership of our hymn singing, by our Good Shepherd Band. His name is Robert Patterson and there are few men I enjoy pursuing truth with more than Bob. This means we argue. Rarely in person, but often by e-mail and ocassionally, when things need to get really heated, by phone. Sometimes we put aside arguments and switch to name-calling. Bob's appellation of choice for me is something along the lines of "pietistic new-schooler;" other times, it's "pragmatic, tasteless baby-boomer." Happy to reciprocate, depending upon my mood I call Bob an "aesthete" or a "prig." Of course, neither of us has ever doubted the other's respect and love.

With that context, I'm promoting here as a main blog entry several of the comments responding to an argument Bob valiantly started under my recent post, "Preparing for persecution: two concrete steps to take." This particular argument was one of the most helpful I've ever been privileged to see developing on this blog...

Tillers close down baby slaughterhouse...

(Tim, w/thanks to David L.) As the old saying goes, "It's an ill wind that blows nobody some good." Praise God no more babies will be slaughtered under the auspices of the Tiller family. May God lead them all to the mercy of our beloved Lord Jesus Christ.

Preparing for persecution: two concrete steps to take...

(Tim, w/thanks to James) Please listen to Wake Up Sleeper (the title cut) and Where Are the Persecuted? as you read this post.

At Church of the Good Shepherd, we work to raise our children and disciple new believers in expectation of growing persecution. Calvin says times of peace are not to be used getting fat, but to prepare for the next battle already on the horizon and closing on us quickly.

This is our goal at CGS and it informs our preaching, Bible study, childrearing, reading, and worship. It's these last two things I want to focus on in this post--worship and reading. First then, worship; and within worship, the themes and instrumentation of our music.

STEP NUMBER ONE: MUSIC

In our age of feminized discourse and cheap grace, Church of the Good Shepherd makes a conscious effort to restore the biblical themes of persecution, conflict, suffering, Satan, death, the coming Judgment, Heaven, and Hell.

Have you noticed these themes are absent from reformed worship today? And beyond absent, they're anathema to woman deacon/Emergelical churches where everyone has an iPhone, evangelism happens in the art gallery, sermons are eloquent discourses on the many faces of narcissism, and women administer the Lord's Supper.

Living in such a decadent age, we're working to restore them--particularly to the music of our worship.

Next to one of the world's largest music schools, Church of the Good Shepherd is a congregation filled with musicians and composers, most of them classical...

If you think punctuation doesn't matter...

(Tim, w/thanks to TidBits) The second comma in this sentence cost the Canadian telecom company, Rogers Communications Inc., 2.13 million dollars:

The agreement “shall continue in force for a period of five years from the date it is made, and thereafter for successive five year terms, unless and until terminated by one year prior notice in writing by either party.”

When I was in my early twenties, Dad told me, "Get Strunk & White and read it. Read it until you have it memorized." For the uninitiated, that's Strunk and White's The Elements of Style.

Please read David's sermon; also, several helpful things from the Archibolds...

(Tim) First, if you haven't read the sermon David preached yesterday posted just below (A Sermon for the President--and for the People of God), I commend it to you. We need sermons like this to be preached across our country until those called by God as civil magistrates lead us to return to the fear of God and mercy to the poor, helpless, sojourners in our midst, and unborn. Note particularly David's comment about our self-made bonds.

Second, we're still getting the occasional Christmas/Easter letter and I thought we'd all benefit from this statement from my dear Roman Catholic friends from Denver, John and Molly Archibold:

We have been extraordinarily blessed through joys and sorrows. (Molly)

Just right...

A Sermon for the President--and for the People of God

(David--with thanks to Douglas Wilson for his suggestion that other pastors preach to President Obama as he recently did.)

Sunday, June 7, 2009
2 Timothy 2:8, 9

Last Sunday morning while we were gathered in worship a gunman entered a Lutheran (ELCA) church in Wichita, Kansas and shot to death the nation’s most famous abortionist, a man whose specialty had long been the dismemberment of late-second and third trimester infants, while he was serving as an usher.

A notorious murderer met what is certain to become a notorious end. By the goodness of God the witness of the Church was not entirely silenced in Dr. Tiller’s life. He had been excommunicated by his previous congregation, a church of the Missouri Synod Lutheran denomination. And so the judgment of God had been declared; not every watchman was silent, not every shepherd proved a hireling.

Gratitude for the faithful men who are fighting against the egalitarian feminist attack upon God's Fatherhood...

(Tim--Partly in an effort to take into account some of the comments, I've changed this post substantially this Saturday evening. If you'd read it before, you might want to read it again.)

For years it's been clear the egalitarian feminist attack upon reformed ecclesiastical communions has not been content to limit itself to the Christian Reformed and Evangelical Presbyterian Churches, but is increasingly focused on our own Presbyterian Church in America. This became obvious to me while serving on our General Assembly's Ad Interim Study Committee on Women in the Military. The arguments I heard then concerning the meaning and purpose of sexuality were absolutely abysmal--particularly those emanating from sophisticated teaching elders who saw themselves as God's gift to the PCA provided to aid their country bumpkin colleagues at rural, small town, and southern churches in learning how to contextualize the Gospel within this postmodern world.

As I listened to them carefully, it was evident the sound bites they employed in denying the truth or application of God's order of sexuality everywhere but inside the elders meeting and pulpit Sunday morning perfectly reflected arguments I'd heard in prior years at presbytery and general assembly levels in the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA). You know: slavery, cultural context, wife abuse, barefoot and pregnant, you can't turn back the clock, people will laugh at us--that sort of thing.

Then, of course the conservatives had their own reasons for not standing in the gap, opposing the feminist heresy. There was that old battle axe of Southern Presbyterianism, the spirituality of the Church, that conveniently kept many from feeling any responsibility to oppose our civil magistrate sending off our mothers and sisters and daughters to die for us on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. And there was also the federal vision to deal with--that issue alone took so much time and energy there was little zeal left for contending for God's order of sexuality.

Fifteen books...

(Tim, w/thanks to daughter, Michal) Got this Facebook thingie from Michal today. First, her list; then my own:

This can be a quick one. Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag 15 friends, including me because I'm interested in seeing what books my friends choose...

Okay, Talia, off the top of my head (I knew I had to do it right away or I'd be formulating the list in my head for the rest of the day, which is kinda cheating):

Michal Crum's List:

1. St. Augustine's Confessions
2. There is No Me Without You, Melissa Fay Greene
3. Howard's End, E.M. Forster
4. King Leopold's Ghost, Adam Hochschild

THE BOX BASH II

In just a few short weeks, Church of the Good Shepherd will be hosting our second annual community event, THE BOX BASH II. Last year's carnival and concert hosted people from all over Bloomington and even a few out-of-state visitors. Among the many highlights were the Giant Moon Bounce for the children, the now famous Pastor Dunk Tank (of course, everyone got in on this), and the multifariously talented Good Shepherd Band playing everything from Bob Dylan to Arcade Fire. The food, the fun, the friendships being formed--all of it was a great success.

We're exuberantly awaiting Saturday, June 13th at 2 PM for another chance to get to know and serve our community. If you're in the area or want to come for a visit, join us! We're sure you'll enjoy yourself and everyone else. And if you like, we could find you a place to sleep Saturday night so you could stay for worship and the home fellowship group of your choice Sunday morning and afternoon. 

The impossibility of "overheated rhetoric" in opposing abortion...

(Tim) David Lehr linked to a post titled, "Tiller, Long, Bonhoeffer, and Assassination," by Elizabeth Scalia on First Things blog that doesn't portend well for FT's post-Neuhaus era. Although the moderator hasn't approved it to go up, yet, here's my comment:

This is a very weak piece, depending more on dance like a butterfly than sting like a bee. Even on the matter of the morality of Bonhoeffer's commitment to kill Hitler, it's mostly equivocation. But one phrase exposes the underlying commitments of the author.

Precisely how do we come to the point of referring to any words spoken or written about the inexorable slaughter, worldwide, of somewhere around forty to sixty million little babies each year as "overheated rhetoric?"

Turn off the TV...

(Tim) In the middle of a list of ten ways to save money during these difficult times, Money magazine recommends, "Turn off the TV." Here's their rationale:

Television viewership is up in this down economy, which isn't all that surprising. TV is, after all, a cheap form of escapism. But before you tune in to tune out the realities of recession, remember that prime-time TV is full of pretty people and even prettier things. All this glamour affects how you think about your position in the world.

According to Boston College sociologist Juliet Schor, "Television viewing results in an upscaling of desire. And that in turn leads people to buy." Her study found that every additional hour of TV viewing per week boosts spending by roughly $200 a year. So a handful of sitcoms and a reality series or two can cost you more than a grand a year...

"No woman miscarrying or barren in your land."

(Tim) A couple nights ago we were reading the Bible together following dinner. We've finished Genesis and are halfway through Exodus in Robert Alter's translation of the Pentateuch. After the necessary corruption of 'adam' in the first couple chapters of Genesis (which was so bad we started laughing at Alter's PC circulocutions), we've very much enjoyed using a literal translation that, otherwise, is so careful to keep the Hebraisms intact. A couple years ago we'd used Alter's translation of 1 and 2 Samuel and appreciated it quite a bit, too.

Reading Exodus 23, we came across this promise God makes to His covenant people. Speaking of all the wicked people-groups in Canaan who have finally filled their cup of wickedness, He declares:

...I shall obliterate them. You shall not bow to their gods and you shall not worship them, and you shall not do as they do, but you shall utterly tear them down and you shall utterly smash their pillars. And you shall worship the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water, and I shall take away sickness from your midst. There shall be no woman miscarrying or barren in your land. The count of your days I will fill.

At this point we stopped and I asked a question: "Would Christians today be angry at God if He blessed them this way--that none of our wives or daughters would miscarry or be barren? Say God poured out His favor on us and all our homes sprouted children just like olive trees sprout branches; would we be pleased, or would we be angry?"

But then, God hasn't blessed us in this way, has He? Barrenness and miscarriage are a central reality of pastoral ministry, today. And also birth control.

Birth control? That doesn't fit into this discussion...

"I stopped trying to believe it too."

(Tim) Of course, it's hard for me to link to anything giving a soapbox to that half-Christian gone mad, Frankie Schaeffer. But if you can get past that part of it, here's a post from a former anti-abortionist providing a periscope into the minds of unbelievers as they watch and listen to Christians following the assassination of Dr. Tiller. A teaser:

Yet when (Paul) Hill repeated their own argument and their own rhetoric back to them, these groups all recoiled. They all claimed to share Hill's premise, but not to share his conclusion...