Monthly Archives: July 2009

The God-Centeredness of God and His Goodness To Us

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“And the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. And I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. And I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. I will make the fruit of the tree and the increase of the field abundant, that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations.”

 

(Ezekiel 36:23-30 ESV, bold mine)

 

 

I don’t think that people with a man-centered theology read the Bible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Discovery for the Glory of Christ

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Why do we know certain things that we know? The knowledge of things is not an end of itself. We know that we might do–there is an effect, a result, an action in accordance with discovery.

More specifically, God shows us things about ourselves never for sake of our just knowing about them. Understanding more of the depths of our hearts, our sinful propensities, the roots of our struggles, is never so that we can acknowledge it’s there and move on to something else. We see them in order to bring the implications of the gospel to bear on them. Actually, I think it is in those discoveries of ourselves that the gospel shines the brightest. It is in those times, in the face of those inner realities, that the gospel declares the definitive word and is embraced afresh as really good news.

The gospel does not allow any ‘sweeping under the rug.’ The gospel does not avoid, it overcomes. It takes these inner discoveries, these circumstances, and it proclaims through them the sufficiency and glory of Jesus’ death and resurrection for us and our salvation.

Why I Want My 18-Month Old Daughter to Say ‘Jesus’ Although She Doesn’t Know Who He is Yet

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Elizabeth doesn’t know Jesus, but she has learned to say His name in English.

Is it okay for an 18-month old little girl say Jesus’ name although she doesn’t know Him? She doesn’t understand who she is talking about. Is it vain, then?

I’ve thought about this. My answer is not only that it is okay that she learn to say “Jesus,” but it is essential that she learn His name and say it often.

Okay, so imagine the alternative… we wait to teach her His name for when she is old enough to understand the person described. Perhaps we wait to teach her the name only when she gets that it is not just any other name. This seems to make some sense, unless the frequency that a name is mentioned carries some equivalence to its significance. We talk about what is important to us. Jesus is worthy of being the subject of our conversations, often. I want to worship Jesus and be about Jesus all the time. I want to be consumed by His glory and amazed by His grace. I want to treasure Him more than anything in the world. This means that I will talk about Him, too.

See, I want my daughter to learn to say Jesus’ name because she hears her daddy talk about Him. Her conception of who He is will initially be framed by what she hears me say about Him. I hope that it is attractive, and often.

‘Thy Mercy, My God’–His Mercy!

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1. Thy mercy, my God, is the theme of my song,
 the joy of my heart. and the boast of my tongue;
Thy free grace alone, from the first to the last,
hath won my affections, and bound my soul fast.

2. Without Thy sweet mercy I could not live here;
 Sin would reduce me to utter despair;
But, through Thy free goodness, my spirits revive,
and He that first made me still keeps me alive.

3. Thy mercy is more than a match for my heart,
which wonders to feel its own hardness depart;
dissolved by Thy goodness, I fall to the ground, 
and weep to the praise of the mercy I’ve found.

4. Great Father of mercies, Thy goodness I own,
 and the covenant love of Thy crucified Son;
 All praise to the Spirit, Whose whisper divine
seals mercy, and pardon, and righteousness mine.
 All praise to the Spirit, Whose whisper divine
seals mercy, and pardon, and righteousness mine.

John Stocker, Thy Mercy, My God (1776)

Jesus Christ died for us. He died for us. Do we know what this means? He died for us.

May we walk in the radiance of His glory, living out every implication that flows from the reality of what He has done.

Not Just In Our Neighborhood…

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Concerning OT prophets and NT apostles, Vanhoozer writes:

What unifies the two choirs of biblical voices is that each part is fully integrated into a single drama of redemption whose climax is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Apostles’ Creed states that “on the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures.” This creedal phrase, a milestone in the Christian tradition, is a direct quotation from Paul (1 Cor 15:3-4), who in turn alludes to the Old Testament Scriptures…

The new covenant is a solemn promise on God’s part than which nothing greater can be conceived. As the book of Hebrews makes clear, the terms of the new covenant are unsurpassable, because God’s word in Christ is unsurpassable. It is not only a matter of “I will be your God and you will be my people” but something altogether more intimate: “Christ in us and we in Christ.” God does not simply live in our neighborhood but makes the believing community itself his temple house (1 Pet. 2:5)…

Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Drama of Doctrine, 140

We Don’t Want to ‘Stand in God’s Way’

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“If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?””

(Acts 11:17 ESV)

 

The Holy Spirit has been given to Gentiles when we get here in Acts 11. Peter is retelling the event to his Jewish brethren. I cannot think of a more ‘hands-free’ response, or bigger understatement, than what Peter says here. Who was I that I could stand in God’s way? Or how can I hinder God? Peter doesn’t want to stand in God’s way. We don’t want to stand in God’s way. 

 

If we bring that sentence into our own world and make it the a mantra of the church, what would it look like? None of us wants to stand in “God’s way.” And to be sure, that is the real issue. What is “God’s way?” What action of His are we in danger of opposing? Could we plant our ‘inhibiting feet’ right in the middle of the divine course? Different groups on the interpretative spectrum will say different things, especially those who creatively speculate and let the community have the final say.

 

“God’s way” in Acts 11:17 is a loaded phrase. Literally, it is just God. We don’t want to oppose Him and Luke assumes that his readers know something about Him. Gentiles believing in Jesus is not some event that happens in a vacuum. It is not as if God gets spontaneous here and throws a little grace out on the ‘other guys.’ God is not like that. His way is not like that. Peter says what he says in the midst of a story. Remember God’s promise to Abraham, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed”…

 

We too are in the midst of this great narrative of redemption that reaches back, culminates in the covenant love of Jesus on the cross, and then points us forward. We know God’s way, not by the conjectures of our own charitable imaginations, but by looking at the story. The story, the canon, our script. There God has the final say about Himself and His way. 

 

Who are we to look anywhere else if we don’t want to stand in God’s way?

 

 

Prayer and Study: What Are We Preparing For?

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Among all the influences which go to make up a man honoured of God in the ministry, I know of none more mighty than his own familiarity with the mercy-seat. All that a college course can do for a student is coarse and external compared with the spiritual and delicate refinement obtained by communion with God. While the unformed minister is revolving upon the wheel of preparation, prayer is the tool of the great potter by which he moulds the vessel. All our libraries and studies are mere emptiness compared with our closets. We grow, we wax mighty, we prevail in private-prayer.

Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to my Students, 43

I don’t care how well we may learn to arc or diagram Greek sentences. We may memorize every ecumenical creed there is and recite Jonathan Edwards’ Religious Affections by heart, but if we’re not praying now than we’re not being prepared for ministry. We are preparing for something else, but not ministry–not God’s mission in the world, not a task so huge that we tremble at the thought of our utter inadequacy.

Brothers, we should pray before, during, and after we study.