Monthly Archives: February 2009

The Joy of Study in a Cohort

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Every Monday and Thursday I get the amazing privilege of hovering over the book of Ephesians with ten other men…

We are from different parts of the country, different backgrounds, different locations ahead. But here in Minneapolis we come together to learn and to grow and to behold the glory of Christ in the Greek text. And we share this glorious thing in common–we all were once dead but are now made alive by God in Christ. For by grace we have been saved…

Thank you, Jesus.

I expect I will tell my grandchildren about these days.

Luther with Some Advice in Praying

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It sometimes happens that I lose myself in the rich thoughts of one part or petition and then I let the other six wait. When such rich and good thoughts come, one should let the other prayers go, make room for such thoughts, listen quietly, and by no means present an impediment, for the Holy Ghost himself is preaching here, and one word of his preaching is better than a thousand words of our praying. In this way I have often learned more in one prayer that I have been able to get out of much reading and reflection.

Martin Luther in a 1535 letter to Peter Beskendorf

Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel, trans. and ed. Theodore G. Tappert, 127

Embracing Stupidity for the Glory of Christ

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Why does the gospel sometimes become elusive when we need it the most? How do we take the good news of God reconciling His enemies to Himself through Jesus Christ and make it speak to the nitty gritty details of our day?

How frustrating it can be to rack our brains for gospel application! There is danger to make this very exercise a taxing process that discourages. We are bothered by our inability to articulate the very reality whereby we live. We stutter and stammer and keep running into this wall of dumbness. Our deficiency to articulate the gospel becomes an obstacle to embracing it. But the gospel saves us, deficiencies and all. We are not justified before God by our capability to articulate and apply the work of Christ. We are justified by the work of Christ, alone.

Embrace Jesus Christ Himself, not cognitive abilities to explain Him. May He reign over us! May Christ reign not only victorious over our sin, but also victorious over our stupidity.

Thank You

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“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

(Romans 3:21-26 ESV)

Summer, please

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It is a sloshy place here in the Twin Cities. A heat wave of sorts has come through  Minnesota. The snow is melting, puddles are everywhere, the sky is overcast. I have never wanted summer to be here so bad in my life.

I know back in the Carolinas, though it is still a little cold, teams are gathering around the diamond to play ball. The “boys of summer” have already had blisters appear on their hands, their throwing arms slightly sore. This is the first time in my life that I’ve not been around it. After my own experience I kept up with my brother, heard his reports, tuned into the day to day.

I miss it. Not so much the game as it is the feelings that associate it. The excitement and expectation of the summer. The conversations with my dad about the Cardinal’s lineup.

Hope the sun shines tomorrow.

The Intellect and the Will

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The lead faculty must be the intellect. For our will can only desire after that which our intellect deems as most appropriate. The will may initially move the intellect to observation (efficient cause in Aquinas, Kreeft in Summa of the Summa), but it does not determine the worthiness of a thing (definitive cause).

The will chases after that thing which the intellect says it should. No desire is arbitrary. We long for what our minds declare as that which results in our summum bonum.

Do We Pray Like the Dead?

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“God, please bless and protect my family, watch over me at work, help me to make good decisions…”

A good question to ask yourself is whether the prayers you pray could be prayed by unbelievers. Every spiritually dead person there is wants safety and success and good decision-making skills. Do we merely refer to God as our lackey? Give me this, do that, help there…

Those who have been brought from death to life, awakened by the Spirit of God, redeemed and transformed by Jesus Christ, they pray differently. It is not that they do not ask for protection and help in the most mundane things of life, IT IS that they ask everything under one banner: Father, hallowed be Your name! You be glorified!

Examine yourself. Spiritual maturity, or even spiritual life, has nothing to do with that you pray, but with how you pray.