Love

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Loving the Church...

A friend of mine was commenting recently on my love for the church. It put me in mind of when and where I learned that love.

It was twelve years ago at the church Rob Rayburn serves in Tacoma, Washington. After a year or two attending Faith Presbyterian, I’d begun to be drawn into the life of the community. In my private devotions, I’d been meditating on Paul’s words in Ephesians 1:18 and they were striking home. That’s where Paul prays that the Ephesians will know "what are the riches of the glory of [God’s] inheritance in the saints.” The saints are full of riches. This is the Church.

For me, these riches were no abstraction. They were the riches of patience, kindness, long-suffering, love, and on and on; riches in the people I took for granted each week. God had put those riches in them through His Spirit.

I had never had much respect for the men and women who made up the churches I'd been in, but now it became clear...


Fix in us Thy humble dwelling...

This hymn by Charles Wesley was running through my mind as Mary Lee and I cleaned up the kitchen before going to bed early this morning. It's a good hymn for the new year. This is a pic of the hymnwriter preaching to American Indians.

Love divine, all loves excelling,
Joy of heaven to earth come down;
Fix in us thy humble dwelling;
All thy faithful mercies crown!
Jesus, Thou art all compassion,
Pure unbounded love Thou art;
Visit us with Thy salvation;
Enter every trembling heart.


Warning isn't easy...

We think we don't need warnings, but we do. Just like the Christians pastored by the Apostle Paul in the decadent Roman Empire, we need our pastors warning us house to house, day and night, with tears.

But we have no patience for it. Transfer us to Ephesus under the pastoral care of the Apostle Paul and listen to us whine. "Why does he want to meet with me? I don't need to meet with him. If he has something to say, he can text me. Has my wife been talking to his wife? Why can't she keep her big mouth shut?"

We want a reputation for authentic spirituality and deep theological insight, so we update and tweet spiritual-sounding quotes that make it seem as if...


Thoughts under the cross...

You're holding a sign that says "Pray for an end to abortion" and standing on the curb facing all the drivers waiting for the stoplight at one of the main intersections of your city. In the building behind you babies are being ripped apart and flushed down the disposal by Planned Parenthood. Up the sidewalk a little way are Roman Catholics praying to Mary. Also one solitary shy woman standing in the parking lot trying to talk to mothers intent on murdering their unborn child as they walk over to the abortuary.

Time passes and you notice things...


Bitterness, crackpots, and Joe Sobran...

This post was a private e-mail sent to me by a friend who thinks Joe Sobran went sour as his age advanced. My friend was responding to a couple recent posts (first and second) and comments made under those posts. I thought the e-mail worth posting on the blog given the movement of many young Reformed into libertarianism of a toxic sort (although I myself believe libertarianism is intrinsically toxic)

It's true that Joe's libertarianism went toxic, tending towards anarchism. A friend who serves as a civil magistrate remonstrated with Joe about this, personally, but seemingly to no avail. Joe remains our hero, but listen to these good warnings from a wise young man.

* * * 

I'll take this opportunity to identify myself as the "young man" with whom Tim corresponded. I agree with about 90% of what he's written about Joe Sobran—maybe more. Joe Sobran’s essays in defense of the faith were rare gems. "Is Darwin Holy?", one he wrote toward the end, is another one that stands out in my mind.

I started reading Sobran on the recommendation of a high school teacher when I was about 16. Reading him disabused me of the notion that a young man could make a good living writing truth. It's one of the reasons I decided to become an engineer, instead. Call me cynical if you wish, but I wanted to be able to support a wife and children...


Joe Sobran's Jesus...

Joe Sobran's dear friend, Fran Griffin, has put together a collection of Joe's pieces and it's selling under the title Subtracting Christianity: Essays on American Culture and Society. Also check out the work Fran is doing to bring Joe's collected essays on the Clintons, Hustler: The Clinton Yearsback into print

It was Joe's spiritual meditations I appreciated the most. Here's a sample of his writing when he turned from politics and culture to open up his own Christian faith.

The Man They Still Hate
December 2, 1999

The world has long since forgiven Julius Caesar. Nobody today finds Socrates or Cicero irritating. Few of us resent Alexander the Great or his tutor, Aristotle.

No, only one man in the ancient world is still hated after two millennia: Jesus Christ.

This does not in itself prove the divinity of Christ...


Loving animals rather than our neighbor...

Here's the first sentence of the article running at the top of the Google News page just now:

The killing of a gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo in order to save a child who fell in its enclosure has sparked nationwide outrage.

Worship of the creation rather than the Creator is on constant display in our world. No wonder men are lying with men, rather than women, and our women are lying with one another. Refusing to give thanks to God, He has given us over to utter degradation. And sadly, most Christians will read the above sentence from CBS News and feel neither revulsion nor fear of God. Similarly, when our cats scratch visitors' legs with their claws and our dogs bite visitor's legs with their teeth, we parade our shame by cooing over them. We make it clear to all that we love our pet—not our neighbor—as we love ourselves.

It sickens me how many Christians are nicer to their animals than they are to...


An early Valentine for your wife...

Daniel Meyer provided the link to this Millennial emoting about how his marriage is so good that he and his wife decided they'd keep their love for themselves. That's not exactly what he said, but reading between the lines, you know that's what it all adds up two. Not three.

Here's some of the man's public airing of his and his wife's dirty laundry:

On the eve of the procedure [his vasectomy], there was a sense of anxiety around the house. Not just mine, knowing I was about to undergo a bit of trauma in an area I'd heretofore protected so vigilantly. There was something else. This sense between Amy and me of, for lack of a better word, loss. We didn't have children. And we weren't going to. Ever. It was a serious thing, this. And serious things tend to touch our deepest emotions.

We both got a little sad. A little weepy. My wife, through a few tears, said the sweetest thing. "I know some people have kids because they want to see themselves in their children. But I would have wanted to see you."

Spare me. Why do Millennials take their most shameful private moments and broadcast them to millions? All previous generations of men and women grieved over their...


John, get your gun...

(NOTE: “Johnny” is a diminutive of “John.” After titling this piece, it occurred to me that using the title “Johnny get your gun” would be seen as disrespectful, so I’ve changed it to “John, get your gun.” I respect John Piper and apologize for a title that didn’t show proper respect for him.)

The Reformed church has been all atwitter over John Piper’s response to Jerry Falwell encouraging the students of his Baptist college to get a gun and help protect the campus against armed attack. John tells his readers that he talked with Jerry before writing him up. Then, he frames his response to Jerry this way: 

The issue is about the whole tenor and focus and demeanor and heart-attitude of the Christian life. Does it accord with the New Testament to encourage the attitude that says, “I have the power to kill you in my pocket, so don’t mess with me”? My answer is, No.

Of course, this is an uncharitable summary of President Falwell’s position since no one carrying a gun on Liberty’s campus is primarily concerned about himself. Christians don’t carry guns because they don’t want to be killed themselves, but because they want to be faithful to defend others—particularly women and children. This is our calling as Christian men. We defend the innocent and defenseless. It would have been more kind for John to phrase it this way: “I have the power to defend my sisters in Christ here in my holster, so don’t mess with them!”

(Henry Holsters are the superb work of a member of our church, Andrew Henry. Buy one.)

I haven’t read any of the responses to John’s anti-gun piece except Doug Wilson’s. Doug makes a good point when he begins his defense of John this way...


Justice Primer; is this really a scandal?

Canon Press has pulled their recent book, Justice Primer, from their list, issuing an apology for some few sentences which were unattributed to their original authors. Doug Wilsons' co-author, Randy Booth, has acknowledged he is the guilty party, and the father-rule haters are gleeful at their success in humiliating Doug.

Yet here in the calm, solely by the grace of God, there are a couple things that need to be said about pastors and books.

Most pastors, to a greater or lesser degree, use manuscripts in the pulpit, and therefore write from 2,500 to 10,000 words each week, just for their preaching. As we write those manuscripts, we have first read and read other men's preaching and teaching, so when it comes to writing our manuscript, we pull in direct quotes from others' work and face the decision whether to cite that work in our manuscript, itself; but also, whether to cite that work in our preaching on Lord's Day. It's similar to the work of a prof lecturing. If we had a way to record profs' lectures and run them through a search site that included all copyrighted works, it's long been my conviction that a large percentage of academics' lectures would be found to contain plagiarism. But is it really that simple?

We can all see the difference between preaching and lecturing, on the one hand, and blogging and writing articles and books, on the other hand...


Of men and dogs...

Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces. - Matthew 7:6

Google's news page just now had two headlines on top of each other. The first announced "IS militants abduct dozens of Christians in Syria." The article says the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates the number of Syrian Christians captured at ninety. IS itself announced that it had captured "tens of Crusaders," so the total isn't yet clear. Those captured include women and children. May God rescue them from these evil men intent on capturing victims to be offered up in worship of their bloodthirsty Molech.

Then, just under the headline about the abduction of Christians is this headline: "Rescuers free nineteen manatees stuck in drain in Satellite Beach (w/video)." Undoubtedly the story was filled with hope and transcendence. Like ASPCA commercials, it must have been a spiritual story about the meaning of life. Not in Florida alone, but across these United States.

Newly married, I was the custodian of our church and one Saturday night as I was cleaning for Sunday worship I began browsing through our pastor's books. One volume was a collection of writings of early church fathers on disparate subjects and one of the essays was a denunciation of Christians who poured money into their dogs while infants lay on the hillsides crying piteously as they died...


Abortion: a kickstarter proposal...

Harriet Beecher Stowe ended slavery in America by writing Uncle Tom's Cabin which returned negroes to their rightful place as full persons bearing the image and likeness of God, fully equal to their white masters. It took a well-written novel to bring Americans to our senses, and in time our African brothers and sisters were restored to the equality our forefathers had robbed them of through corrupt laws and judges who feared man rather than God.

I'm not saying the work is done. To this day racism is alive and well and Ferguson has it on full display, although the moral is not at all what anyone is saying.

Today, though, our national life is corrupted by evils worse than slavery and racism, and chief among them is the slaughter of unborn children we call "abortion." Slavery killed its millions but abortion kills its billions. And hard as it was for men with dark skin and thick noses to be viewed as God's image-bearers by men with light skin and long noses, no one but no one today views unborn children as men made in the image and likeness of God. No one today agrees that unborn souls are equal to born souls...


Friendship is the wine of life...

Yesterday during a long drive, I listened to several hours of Boswell's Life of Johnson, including this section:

I have often thought, that as longevity is generally desired, and I believe, generally expected, it would be wise to be continually adding to the number of our friends, that the loss of some may be supplied by others. Friendship, "the wine of life," should like a well-stocked cellar, be thus continually renewed; and it is consolatory to think, that although we can seldom add what will equal the generous first-growths of our youth, yet friendship becomes insensibly old in much less time than is commonly imagined, and not many years are required to make it very mellow and pleasant. Warmth will, no doubt, make a considerable difference. Men of affectionate temper and bright fancy will coalesce a great deal sooner than those who are cold and dull.

The proposition which I have now endeavoured to illustrate was, at a subsequent period of his life, the opinion of Johnson himself. He said to Sir Joshua Reynolds, "If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair."

May others find us to be men of warmth with affectionate tempers, not men who are cold and dull.

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God's protection...

Scripture tells us God gives men over to adultery. Note also it is God Who protects us from this terrible sin. It was God Who kept Abimelech from touching...


The baby box...

Wondering why Christians adopt so many children? Watch this video and give thanks to God for the lovingkindness and tender mercies He pours out on this world through His people. Set up a baby box in your own town and see what little blessings He sends your way.


Nelson Mandela's defense speech, "I Am Prepared To Die" (with links)...


Nelson Mandela has died. As Scripture puts it, God has blown upon this fair flower and he has returned to dust:

All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it... - Isaiah 40:6, 7

But who was Nelson Mandela? If you recognize that Reformed theology is simply Biblical theology, it's important for you to know.

Why?

The history of Nelson Mandela's fatherland and apartheid is bound up with Reformed men and their theology just as the history of the Confederacy, the Civil War, and slavery in America is bound up with Reformed men and their theology. God hates injustice, oppression, and the bloodshed of innocents, whether the oppressor is Pharoah in Egypt, Jezebel in Israel, Nero in Rome, the Roman Catholics in the Middle Ages, or Protestant and Reformed Christians in South Africa or these United States.

So then, to help with an understanding of Nelson Mandela's work, here is the text of the opening speech he gave at his Rivonia Trial in 1964. The title of the speech comes from the speech's final words, "I am prepared to die."

For what was Mandela prepared to die? Read on and see. I've provided links for names, organizations, legislative acts, and terms average readers would find confusing. Near the end of the text, I've provided a link to an audiotape of the speech you can listen to as you read the final paragraphs of the text.

Nelson Mandela spoke for four hours. When he declared "I am prepared to die," as he said it, he looked directly in the eyes of the presiding judge, Dr. Quartus de Wet.  During the rest of the trial he never again made eye contact with Judge de Wet. Following his conviction, Nelson Mandela spent twenty-seven years in prison, eighteen of those years on Robben Island. South Africa's President F. W. de Klerk released him on February 11, 1990.

My son Taylor is married to a beautiful Afrikaans-speaking South African woman...


The Guinness family has done Os proud...

"Great beer commercial" has always been oxymoronic...

Until now.

Thanks, Kamilla.

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Baby-slaughter and speaking the truth in love...

Nice, nice, very nice.

- Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle

Last week the director of a neighboring state's Right to Life Political Action Committee sent our church an e-mail saying that, while he was reading internet discussions between baby-slaughterers, he came across accusations that some of those sidewalk counselors witnessing against the slaughter here at the Bloomington abortuary had insulted the serial murderers' helpers by telling them their actions were "vile." Not using these words with the mothers, but the abortionists and their assistants.

He e-mailed our church because his google search turned up our church's name as the church home of some of those active in offering help to the mothers outside the abortuary. He said the abortionist's accomplices were claiming someone doing sidewalk counseling had told them they were "vile" and "wicked." He added that he hoped this was not people from our church because we seemed like "a strong Christian church committed to God's Word and sharing the Gospel." But if some member of our church had, in fact, said such offensive things, this is "not a productive way to show God's love."

To which I responded...