On friendship and the church, No. 3

Part one
Part two

2. The practices of Christian friendship: talking, listening, and fellowship
So, faith and fidelity are absolutely vital for relationships of any sort. But faith and faithfulness are particularly important for friendship.

Friends make and keep promises to one another. In some friendships, these may not be verbal promises; in others, such as a marriage, they are. Even when unspoken, we know what we expect of friends, we know what they have promised. We expect our friends to listen to us, to keep our secrets, to dream with us, and to stand with us in times of trouble. We expect a “friend to love at all times”; we expect “a true friend to stick closer than one’s nearest kin.”

With our friends, our behavior creates expectations, needs, and loyalties with the other. Even if we don’t say so, there are promises that we make when we enter into a friendship. What we must recognize is that these expectations are based upon trust and loyalty, upon faith and faithfulness. When we enter into a friendship, we implicitly or explicitly promise to do certain things and we trust the other person will do the same. As long as we faithfully keep our promises, and the other party does as well, then the relationship works. When there is break down, when there is broken faith, then the relationship is wounded; our friend feels betrayed; and forgiveness needs to be sought.

What, then, are the promises that we make in friendship? Or to put it differently, what practices or habits do we develop in order to be a friend to another?

a. Speaking
There is great potential benefit in our speaking with our friend. The writer of Proverbs says, “Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body” (Proverbs 16.24). Our words penetrate and spread their effects in the lives of our friends. When we as a friend can speak to another and unburden our souls, we find a renewing of our hearts.

There are four kinds of speaking we do with our friends. First, there is the word of comfort. When we sense that our friend is in pain or despair, we deliver “a word fitly spoken [which] is like apples of gold in a setting of silver” (Proverbs 25.11). We point them to the comfort that is found in our Triune God:
· To the one who has experienced sorrow, we point them to the One who in the last day will make sorrow and sighing to flee away (Isaiah 35.10)
· To the one who is weary, we point them to the One who invited all those who are tired and weary to himself
· To the one who is fearful and who despairs, we remind them that God himself will never leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13.5)

We say to our friends: “do you not know? Have you not heard/that firm remains on high/the everlasting throne of him who formed the earth and sky…Supreme in wisdom as in power/the Rock of ages stands;/though you cannot see, nor trace/the working of his hands.” In delivering words of comfort to such ones, we demonstrate our faithfulness in walking with them in their sorrow and suffering for we know that “anxiety weighs down the human heart, but a good word cheers it up” (Proverbs 12.25).

Sometimes we speak the word of rebuke. We know that the Proverbs say, “Like a gold ring or an ornament of gold is a wise rebuke to a listening ear” (Proverbs 25.12). And while we fear the others response, we must have courage to blame and scold in a sharp way—in doing so, we let our friends know that we are willing to lose constant contact with them in order to be faithful to them.

As friends, we also may speak words of wisdom. Our friends will face challenges and difficult decisions—when they come to us for advice, they do not want “yes men,” but rather they seek wisdom. We must keep faith with our friends by looking at the situation from our perspective, sifting it through Scripture, and giving them wise words. The Scriptures tell us that “the wise of heart is called perceptive, and pleasant speech increases persuasiveness,” and “the mind of the wise makes their speech judicious and adds persuasiveness to their lips” (Proverbs 16.21, 23). Those who speak wise words know that wisdom is communicated not only in what is said, but also in how it is said. The manner in which we give advice can be just as or even more persuasive as the advice we give. When our friends come for advice, we must entreat them and persuade them with a kind and gentle tone, helping them trust that we have their best interests at heart.

Finally, friends speak words of vision and dreams. I don’t mean that friends experience dreams and visions from God about each other and then relay the information on. Rather, I mean that friends that keep faith will dream what their friends might do and envision further spheres of usefulness for their friends. Thus, when we speak, we open ourselves, our souls, up to our friend in speaking the word of rebuke and of comfort and of wisdom and of dreams and visions.

We keep faith to them and dream for them; we seek their betterment with our words and not their hurt. We are willing for them to see themselves as sinners, for who else will be so faithful?
And we are desirous that they be comforted in times of grief and pain. Speaking is one of the great practices necessary for keeping faith for our friends. In speaking we keep promises and live faithfully with one another.

b. Listening
However, not only is speaking an important practice for faithful friendship, but listening is equally important. Listening is important because communication is always reciprocal. In order to trust another enough to extend ourselves in speech, we must believe that the other will listen to us.

And good listening is difficult. It is difficult because there is so much in our age to hear, both outside and inside ourselves. But we are called upon to “be quick to listen” (James 1.19).

Listening faithfully to our friend involves two things.

· First, listening involves the restraint of ourselves.
We must set aside the voices that we hear inside ourselves, and two in particular, the voice of self-promotion and the voice of self-protection. Self-promotion cries out to us, particularly when our friend is speaking. We want to set ourselves forward as witty, funny, intellectual, aware, sophisticated, and so forth. However, in order to so manipulate our words in order to put ourselves forward in this light, we must be unfaithful to the person speaking largely by ignoring them. In order to set this voice aside, we must practice humility, looking to the interests of others rather than to the interests of self-promotion.

The other voice we must set aside is the voice of self-protection. This is the voice that refuses to bear our soul to our friend—we protect ourselves from our friends from the point they say, “How are you doing?” to the point they say, “Well, see you later.” We never would actually listen to their pain and grief or their successes and happiness for fear that it might demand something from us. And so, much of our conversation devolves into mere hearing and grunting noises to attempt to lull the other person into believing that we are actually listening. Here again, in order to keep faith with our friends, we must be those who are willing to involve ourselves in their successes and failures.

· However, a faithful practice of listening also involves the extension of ourselves.
Listening is a grace which is patterned on how God listens to us. The Psalmists continually asked God to hear their prayers. In Psalm 5, David sings, “Give ear to my words, O Lord; give heed to my sighing. Listen to the sound of my cry, my King and my God. O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice” (Psalm 5.1-3a; cf. Psalm 17.6, 54.2, 55.1; 61.1; 86.1, 6). And in Psalm 86, David asks God, “Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me” (Psalm 86.1). God is pictured as one who will interrupt what he is doing in order to bow down and hear the prayer of God’s people with a single-minded interest.

In the same way, we are to set aside what we are doing and listen to our friend with a single-minded interest. For it is in this faithful listening to one another that we are able to carry out James’ admonition to be quick to listen and that we might keep faith with those who are our friends.

c. Fellowship
A third practice which both demonstrates friendship and preserves faith and faithfulness is fellowship. Commonly, evangelicals have thought of fellowship as that which was done over coffee and doughnuts after church or in a week-night Bible study. And in the evangelical mind, fellowship would entail swapping stories about how the week past went and what is going to happen in the week coming. Or perhaps “fellowship” pictures for many what happens at a place of spiritual experience where there is a lot of people, whether at a retreat or a camp or Christian pep rally—Christians will return from such events and talk about the “fellowship.”

However, I would suggest to you that this is a truncated view of fellowship—for fellowship means that friends worship together, as in Acts 2.42: Acts 2.42, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers.”

· When we practice fellowship with our friends in worship, we share the Word.
And in order to share the Word with them, we must awaken ourselves to our various practices of worship—attentive listening, quiet meditation, thoughtful prayer, heart-felt singing, focused reading. It is only as we practice worship in these various activities that we can in any sense share the Word with our friends and thus practice fellowship with them.

· Likewise, the practice of fellowship means we also share the Lord’s Supper.
As we gather around the Lord’s table, and as we pass the elements among our friends, we are expressing a mystery that we cannot fully understand—that we, disparate people from various backgrounds and experiences which we cannot even guess, come to this table as a mob but in partaking the Lord’s supper, we are Christ’s body.

· Finally, fellowship means we share discipline together.
We share the discipline which the body of Christ receives from God; and we share in the discipline we practice in our own midst. It is only, then, in the means of grace, in the Word and the Supper and discipline, that we can truly practice fellowship.

These three practices—speaking, listening, and fellowship—represent some of the promises on which Christian friendship is based. As we speak and listen to each other and as we worship together, our hearts are tied together in Christian love and affection. We rejoice together and weep together; we speak comfort to each other and listen to one another’s rebuke; we sing songs of praise and heard the Word of God.

On friendship and the church, No. 2

Part one

1. The basis of all human relationship: faith (trust) and faithfulness (loyalty)
“If men no longer have faith in each other,” one modern theologian once asked, “can they exist as men?” At the base of this question is the assumption that human beings exist in connection with one another in faith, or covenant; that faith and faithfulness, or loyalty, is at the root of all relationships; and that if human beings, and particularly if Christians, fail to trust each other, and to act in faithfulness to each other, they will cease being Christians and even worse, will cease being human.

All relationships—whether between God and human beings or human beings with one another—operate on faith and faithfulness, or trust and loyalty. We can only have relationship when we trust the other to be loyal to us and when we reciprocate that loyalty. Once that faith, that trust, is broken by faithlessness or disloyalty, then relationship becomes difficult, if not impossible.
What is the nature of keeping faith and exercising loyalty? How are Christians to keep faith and exercise loyalty in a world that does not embody faithfulness but faithlessness?

Even in our beginning steps into this world of faith, we run into road blocks. For “faith” is a word which is very much like “nice” and “grace” and “holy”—it is a word which we use all the time, but have not a clue what it really means.

Even in Scripture, the closest thing we come to a definition seems to be no definition at all: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11.1).
The nineteenth-century Scottish divine, John Brown of Edinburgh, said of this verse, “I have always felt it difficult to attach distinct ideas to these English words.” Certainly Brown’s words could be uttered by many of us. For at bottom, there are not many things in this world that we are absolutely sure of; and we are particularly skeptical of those things we cannot see. Thomas is the patron saint for most of us.

And so, in order to illustrate what he means, the writer of Hebrews reminds his readers of stories which illustrate his definition:

Abraham obeying the voice of God, leaving his homeland, going to a land which he did not know, believing the promises of God concerning a son, and then willingly offering that son to God, all the time believing that God could raise the dead;

Moses, a special child, being protected by his parents, refusing to be called to son of Pharoah’s daughter, suffering with his people for Christ’s sake, keeping the Passover when the “destroyer” was killing firstborn children all over Egypt, passing through the Red Sea on dry land;

and finally, Jesus, not clinging to those things which could have easily entangled him, running our race, gaining our salvation in the Crucifixion event, and counting death on the cross a joy and not a shame.

Certainly other figures are mentioned in that eleventh chapter of Hebrews—but the main three figures stand out clear: Abraham the Promise-Receiver, Moses the Law-Giver, Jesus the Gracious Redeemer. These three teach us of faith.

And ultimately Abraham and Moses and Jesus’ faith all rested on the promises of God—they believed that God, who made many promises, would in fact keep those promises. The reason they believed this was because they knew God’s character—they knew that God is just and merciful and gracious and truthful and faithful. As a result, they knew that when God made promises God would keep them.

Yet, Abraham and Moses and Jesus’ faith did not stop simply at believing God would keep promises; they acted on that trust. They displayed faithfulness and they displayed it in action, often actions which were based directly on those promises.

Abraham is promised a place which he would received as an inheritance—he believes God and goes to find it, living in tents as an alien in a foreign country.

God promises Moses that God would deliver the people of God, and that Moses would play a starring role—Moses believes God, against his better judgment, and confronts his countrymen and Pharaoh and the wilderness.

Jesus is promised that not only would he die for his people’s sins but that he would be raised to life again—he believes God, scorns death, and willingly goes to the Cross.

Faith that acts is alive and is genuine; faith that sleeps, that does nothing, is dead and is false. In short, faith trusts God to keep God’s promises and acts accordingly.

If the nature of faith toward God is to trust God to keep God’s promises and to act in faithful response to God, then does it not stand to reason that human faith finds its basis in trusting other human beings to keep their promises and to act in faithfulness toward them?

I think so. Faith which stands at the basis of our relationships with one another—our friendships, marriages, churches and societies—demands faithfulness, it demands faith and fidelity. In truth, this trust and responsive faithfulness is absolutely vital for relationships to function normally. Marriages which excuse unfaithfulness by one or both spouses generally do not last long;
parent-child relationships which are characterized by unfaithful dealing and resentful distrust are termed “dysfunctional”; congregations which cannot trust their ministers and begin to act in unfaithfulness by failing to attend to the Word and Supper and disciplinary fellowship will soon be putting the “for sale” sign outside their sanctuaries; and societies which sow the seeds of dishonesty, greed, and cynicism born of distrust and infidelity will begin to implode.

On friendship and the church, No. 1

[I've been thinking about friendship as a way for understanding the nature of the church for quite a while now. In fact, I believe that Christ calls the church to exist as a community of friends; I first explored that claim in this meditation that I preached five or six years ago. Remember, these are notes for a sermon (and it was a little long); but it may provide some background for some things I may post in the future.]

In his recent book, A Visit to Vanity Fair, Alan Jacobs asks provocatively, “Why are there so few attempts, by Christians anyway, and for all I know by Jews, to formulate a theology of friendship?” Pondering that question the other night, I had to admit that it was a curiosity indeed. After all, friendship was a major issue in classical Greek thought—one writer observed that while it would be false to say that the entire history of Western thought about friendship is a series of footnotes to Plato, yet if we said to Plato and Aristotle, we would be closer to the truth.

In addition, the Christian Scriptures were not devoid of texts that could be used to construct a theology of friendship. Perhaps some of you can think readily of familiar accounts—

We think of Ruth crying out to Naomi, “Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die—there will I be buried. May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!” (Ruth 1.16-17)

We remember David’s friendship with Saul’s son Jonathan, which led the writer of Scripture to observe that “The soul of Jonathan was bound to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul” (1 Samuel 18.1)

We recall texts like the one we have read in the Proverbs, and one that counsels, “Some friends play at friendship, but a true friend sticks closer than one’s nearest kin” (Proverbs 18.24).

And yet, though we know that Scripture teaches us on this matter of friendship, most of us have never considered fully what friendship means, what friendship consists in, and what Christian friendship might look like.

Perhaps we think that friendship is something that teenagers should be concerned with, but once we become adults, it is no longer an issue.

Perhaps the most we have ever heard was the text most frequently used in my youth group growing up, 1 Corinthians 15.33, “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company ruins good morals’.”

Perhaps we approach friendship with the consumer and managerial mindset of our generation. We become “one-minute managers” of our friendships—our talk has a minute of praise, a minute of rebuke, and a minute of concern.

Or perhaps we reduce friendship to mere “accountability” on some moral issue so that we might live more “productively” for Christ’s sake.

As Christians can we say more than this? Is it possible to develop a picture, a theology, of Christian friendship? I think it is possible; I think we need to take a step back and attempt to think theologically about this vital area of human relationship.

Snicker, no. 2

Rodney Trotter/Carl Trueman and another "separated at birth"--I suppose this is why Ligon prefers to preach the Sunday and Wednesday evening services??

New Presbyterian "Style"

...Machen's Warrior Children clothing line.

[HT: Warfield List]

Back from Little Rock

I got back last night from Little Rock, Arkansas, where I was presenting a paper at an international conference on "The Little Rock Crisis: Fifty Years Later." This past week was the 50th anniversary of the attempt by the Little Rock 9 to integrate Little Rock Central High in 1957. The conference was arranged to focus on issues of Civil Rights, both as narrowly applied to the Little Rock Crisis and more broadly.

As it so happened, my paper was slated for a plenary session and represents one of the chapters in the book that I've been working on forever (at least, it feels that way; I started researching in 2002). The book is tentatively titled, For a Continuing Church: Fundamentalism in the Presbyterian South, 1934-74 (I keep fiddling with that subtitle); the chapter and paper was titled, "'Red and Yellow, Black and White': Southern Presbyterian Conservaties and the Crises of Postwar America." In the essay, I look at how PCUS conservatives developed an anti-progressive ideology that used biblical and theological warrants to link anti-integration, anti-Communism, and anti-centralization.

As such, these leaders serve as an important signpost on the road from the Old Christian Right (1910-1930) and the New Christian Right (1970-present) as well as a bellwether in the South's movement from the Democratic to Republican Parties. After all, Corwin Smidt has demonstrated in Pulpit and Politics that 93% of PCA clergy voted Republican in the 2000 Presidential election; I think the story I'm telling is important for understanding how this happened. Needless to say, told in its entirety and truthfully, it is always not a pretty story, especially our abysmal and unbiblical positions on race and segregation in the 1940s and 1950s--and yet, it needs to be told in order to continue to foster the truth and reconcilation that our denomination began in 2002 (with the passage of overture 20, apologizing for Presbyterians' covenantal role in slavery and segregation) and 2003 (with the adoption of the pastoral letter on racism).

The other thing I did while I was there was go to the Clinton Presidential Library, which was about a mile from my hotel. Since I am a presidential library junkie (surprise, surprise--I've been to Nixon, Carter, and Reagan as well; next summer we plan to go to Truman and maybe Ike), I was interested in seeing what they did with it.

Observations: 1) The building, which was hailed in 2004 when it opened, felt very sterile; while it was supposed to represent a bridge, connecting with the railroad bridge next to it, it reminded me of a double-wide trailer. 2) There was a ton of staff and police there; especially when compared to the number of tourists (no school kids the day I went), it seemed like overkill. 3) For the size of building, there weren't that many displays, especially compared to Reagan and Nixon's libraries. 4) The most enjoyable displays were the ones that showed Bill Clinton's essential humanity--the guided tours of the White House in which you touched a monitor and Clinton would appear to talk about various artifacts in a given room; and the video of Clinton's talks at the White House Press Dinner (which were very funny). Regardless of your politics or how you feel about Clinton's presidency, I thought the visit was worth it, especially if you are in Little Rock anyway.

A theology of hugging

Richard Mouw posts some thoughtful reflections on a theology of hugging. One story along this line: when I became the interim pastor at Covenant Presbyterian Church in June 2005, one of our elders, John Hancock, asked if there was anything he could do for me. I said, "Yes, there is. Every Sunday you are here, if you were to give me one of your big hugs, it would help me immensely." And for nearly 20 months, every Sunday, Hancock would give me a hug.

I have to say--it was such an encouragement. Even when the voices in my head and my heart told me that I was worthless, foolish, pointless, John's hug was God's grace coming to me saying, "Not only are you not worthless, you are loved by God and by God's people." Those hugs sustained me in a sacramental sort of way--by being means of grace to my often doubting soul.

Convocation Benediction 2007

This is the benediction I gave today at our 52nd opening convocation, drawn from Ephesians 4:20-21:

As you enter into this new year,

receive these good words from God:

May God grant you his grace to learn Jesus this year,

his great and dying love for you,

his continued intercession for you at the throne of God,

his ongoing work in and through you;

and as you gain this knowledge,

may God grant you to delight

in his love, intercession, and work

for his glory, your joy, and the nations' good.

Go in God's love, Amen.

Carl Trueman on southern theologians

Carl Trueman is back at it again with a thoughtful post listing three reasons why 19th century southern theologians are not worth one's time (along with a reference to my long-lost brother, Rob Lowe). While admitting that perhaps they aren't the most useful when it comes to systematic theology (a debatable point--Dabney, for example, was the theologian who best convinced me about the biblical and theological rationale for infant baptism), I would submit that it is exactly on the issue of how theology operates within cultural systems that Dabney and Thornwell prove most useful. That is to say, Dabney and Thornwell are important for historical reasons (and contemporary lessons), even when they may fail our tests for theological purposes.

I think this was one of the points that I tried to weave throughout my biography on Dabney. It was why I used this Dabney quote as the epigraph for the entire book: "We shall be wise, therefore, if we harken to the striking instruction of these instances, and make it our method to submit with modesty to the sober teachings of the past in all our legislation for the future." All too often, we have a hard time thinking self-critically about how our theological claims serve to legitimate (illegitimately!) various familial, economic, political, social, moral choices we make. By looking critically at someone like Dabney or Thornwell who blew it so royally on race and slavery, we have a better opportunity for noticing our own blind spots in our cultural systems.

I've made this point before from the perspective of cultural history (here ; here, here, here, and here; as well as here and here)--but it bears repeating: we can only gain perpsective on our present cultural systems through a critical appraisal of the way others have lived in cultural systems in the past. But even more, it is only as we view this past critically and sympathetically do we really understand that all human beings are deeply and profoundly sinful and flawed, save one: Jesus is the only hero of the historical story.

Christ and Culture, no. 1

I intend to post more on this issue, one about which I care much and have dedidicated much thought. But John Piper's reflections on this theme are so very useful (and so very Piper). You can read the whole here, but a salient quote: "The fact that Christians are exiles on the earth (1 Peter 2:11), does not mean that they don’t care what becomes of culture. But it does mean that they exert their influence as very happy, brokenhearted outsiders." And all I can say to this is, yes.

Setting Up False Devils

Read this piece by Richard Mouw....

Overcoming Sin and Temptation

Overcoming Sin and Temptation: Three Classic Works by John Owen, edited by Kelly M. Kapic and Justin Taylor. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2006.

I have to admit it: I have struggled to read John Owen. This is not exactly the best thing for a church history professor who has an abiding interest in Reformation and Post-Reformation theology. And yet, like many, I found Owen’s sentence and argument structure to be so long and convoluted that I gave up in despair ever truly accessing his theological and pastoral insights.

Until I received a copy of this newly edited version of his three classic works on sin and temptation. Kelly Kapic (from Covenant College) and Justin Taylor have done believers a great favor in producing this edition of Owen’s Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers; Of Temptation: The Nature and Power of It; and Indwelling Sin. Unlike other editions of these works that either modernized the language or rephrased Owen’s main theological points in different words, this edition is straight Owen—with important differences.

In terms of form and style, the editors helpfully defined nearly every archaic word at the bottom of the page (I swear sometimes Owen makes up these words!); Justin Taylor provided a helpful introduction at the beginning of each treatise that summarizes the argument; and they provided are very helpful outlines in the back of the book to assist the reader follow the flow of the argument (necessary for Indwelling Sin especially). Most helpful to me was the way the editors italicized Owen’s main points and broke up long paragraphs to make the reading much easier. All of this made Owen much more accessible for the struggling modern reader.

In terms of substance, Kelly Kapic’s marvelous introduction was both inspirational and informational. Not only did Kapic highlight key themes with a light and masterful touch, but he demonstrated why Owen is worth all the trouble. And of course, Owen himself was rich, reminding us “to be killing sin or sin will be killing you” (p. 50). I found him making pithy observations on sin and sanctification that I would subsequently write into my journal for meditation and future use.

One hint from my own experience that may prove useful: I made it my determination to read ten pages from Owen every day as part of my morning worship. That set a good limit for what my mind could absorb and consider throughout the day, but it also provided a natural pace through the book. It took me the better part of two months to complete, but the net result was worth it. However you go about reading this book, for the good of your soul, please do.

Acts of Theological Rebellion

Richard Mouw's description of reading Bernard Ramm's The Christian View of Science and the Scripture not only was hilarious--he wrote, "When one of the speakers at the camp denounced Ramm’s book as heretical, my friend secretly showed me his copy—in that context it might as well have been an issue of Playboy! I got him to lend me the book and I read it, and the two of us discussed it at length. We were co-conspirators in a private act of theological rebellion." It also reminded me of my own theological act of rebellion from way back in my murky past.

It happened when I was a graduate student at Bob Jones University. Prior to going to "the University," I had been raised in a broadly evangelical environment--a Plymouth Brethren assembly and then a Bible church. We loved Moody Press and Charles Ryrie; and we were also open to various versions of the Bible--the first Bible my parents gave me was a NASB Ryrie Study Bible. We saw ourselves as participating in a broadly evangelical approach to Scripture interpretation and as appreciating evangelical scholarship on the Bible.

When I made my way to BJU via Liberty University (long story), I found that they were "only KJV" (as opposed to "KJV only"--the distinction being that "KJV only" people believed that the KJV was the only inspired English translation of the Bible while "only KJV" people knew that to be hogwash but , while using other translations for private study and personal devotion, agreed to only use the KJV for preaching and teaching). While many of my teachers were open to modern word-for-word translations (like the NASB), they were death on the NIV. The NIV was viewed as having too much "interpretation" in the translation and hence was not a "safe" bible for "Bible-believers."

Not only was the University not too friendly to modern translations like the NIV, but they also didn't care too much for modern biblical and theological scholarship. Even organizations like ETS, which was relatively small and very conservative in the late 1980s (this was a few years after Robert Gundry was forced to leave ETS over issues related to his Matthew commentary), were viewed suspiciously.

But as I have already noted, I wanted to be able to access, evaluate, and engage modern theological scholarship. And so, one day, I snuck down to the Family Bookstore at the local mall in Greenville, SC. Having saved up my money for some time, I knew what I wanted to buy; I looked both ways before I entered the store, worked my way casually over to the proper section, picked up what I wanted, bought it, and carried the sack quickly out of the store. I went back to my apartment and pulled it out of the brown paper sack...

...A new NIV Study Bible! At the time, the NIV Study Bible was the standard for study bibles, representing the best of evangelical scholarship in the study notes and translation (Covenant Seminary's R. Laird Harris, Harold Mare, and Wilbur Wallis contributed as did Westminster Seminary's Ray Dillard and Richard Gaffin). I still have this Bible, ragged cover and all--it reminds me of a "declaration of independence" of sorts from the type of fundamentalism towards which I was sorely tempted.

Caring for Ministry Wives

The Washington Post recently reported that one of the largest seminaries in North America plans to offer a women-only concentration in "home-making." Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas, hopes that the program will focus on assisting ministry wives on the ministry of "hospitality in the home--teaching women interior design as well as how to sew and cook." In addition, these women students will "also study children's spiritual, physical and emotional development."

From the face of it (not having memorized SWBTS's mission statement), it does look like this program is "off-mission" for a theological seminary. And yet, Southwestern's attempt to address the needs of future ministry wives raises an important issue to which seminaries, presbyteries, and local churches would do well to pay attention: namely, the need to care for ministry wives. And this is because our lack of attention to supporting the entire ministry family is destroying these families "in Jesus' name."

All too often, ministry wives bear the brunt of their husband's ministerial calling. While their husband dedicates himself to caring for the needs of the congregation--often working 50, 60, 70-hour weeks in doing so--the ministry spouse is expected to bear the absence of her husband with grace, dutifully raising their children as a single parent, sacrificing family meals for session meetings, and dealing with either the ambition or exhaustion of her ministry-focused husband.

Not only this, pastoral confidentiality often means that the ministry wife is the last to know what is going on (even when it seems the rest of the church somehow knows); or, on the other side, church members use the ministry wife as a conduit of gossip and (mis)information that they hope she will relay to her husband. She bears all things, internalizes all things, tries to smile at all things, and cries over all things.

And sometimes ministry wives fail--because the local church fails, their husbands fail, the support system fails, and they fail. But above all, I wonder if our (i.e. churches, presbyteries, and seminaries) failure to recognize, name, and attempt to talk about the challenges of ministry for a couple's marriage contributes to all of this.

It is one of the areas of discovery that my colleague, Bob Burns, has uncovered in his research through the programs of Covenant Seminary's Center for Ministry Leadership (CML)--ministry marriages are a signficant contributor to sustaining pastoral excellence (or pastoral failure); and we continue to wrestle over what his findings mean for Seminary education at our shop. And that's why, while Southwestern's answer may be wrong-headed, at least they are trying to think through how to support future ministry wives.

Maybe our presbyteries, seminaries, and local churches need to engage in a sustained and meaningful conversation about tangible and meaningful ways we can support and care for ministry wives. We need to do this for the sake of our sisters, for the sake of the church, and for the sake of Jesus' name.

Snicker

Click here to see what Jonathan Edwards would look like on the Simpsons.

[HT: Reformissionary]

Cheese, Fundamentalism, and the Antithesis, no. 2

With a title this good, it demands two posts. Having reflected on the fundamentalist side of this conversation between my friends Rick Phillips and Carl Trueman, the more interesting (and untouched) part of their exchange touches on the divide within the Reformed world. Because what I heard in Rick's comments particularly may actually help us diagnosis why sometimes Reformed-types don't get along so well.

At one point, Rick wrote, "Frankly, because of the big idea of antithesis, I am more comfortable with the fundamentalists than I am with the broad evangelicals. More and more, broad evangelicals do not get the idea of antithesis, and for this reason even when they have a pretty good formal doctrinal statement, they seldom really stand up for it. In Psalm 1 terms, the broad evangelicals are to willing to 'walk in the counsel of the ungodly.' Broad evangelicals want to be successful; fundamentalists want to be faithful." Aside from the fact that I heard this regularly as a student at BJU, this observation is striking for a number of reasons.

If you think about this in terms of the Reformed world, I think you get a good sense of the divide that sometimes characterizes us and it is a leftover of the Kuyperian legacy--there are those who stress the "antithesis" and those who stress "common grace."

Those who stress "common grace" tend to want to engage the culture and seek its transformation. They want to read current novels, watch the current movies, listen to the current music and find continuing echoes of Eden. They want to produce art that reflects honestly the brokenness of the world as well as the possibility of redemption, science that affirms the purposefulness of all creation, history that looks unflinchingly and critically, yet hopefully, at its subjects, politics that seeks proximate love and justice. And they want to do these things as part of God's work of redemption in this present age, knowing that God's grace has gone before them in these various spheres.

Those who stress the "antithesis" note that the world has never been a safe place for Christians and the church (Matthew 5:10-12; John 16:33) and that the world itself is passing away (1 Cor 7:33; 1 John 2:17). As a result, they want to name the world as "the world" (to use Stanley Hauerwas' memorable way of putting it) and only the church in the preaching of the Gospel can do that. They want to take seriously the noetic effects of sin, the continuing reality of the world's brokenness, the continued influence of the devil in the world, the real temptations of power and influence and their corrupting nature upon the church. Above all, they want to maintain the "holiness" of the church (remember, it is the one holy catholic and apostolic church, they would say) and the purity of the its doctrine (not just peace and unity, but purity of the church is in the PCA ordination vows).

There are dangers on both sides. Those who overstress the antithesis tend toward a separatism that leads to ghettoization. My wife and I went back to BJU while on vacation and it struck us once again how time sort of stands still there. Going into the bookstore, there were, proportionally, very few books written after 1995 (although I was thankful for all the Banner of Truth and Sprinkle publication reprints there). When I was a student, I rebelled against this sense that it was dangerous to engage the academic world; I wanted to participate in the larger academic conversations that were simply not available to me there. I felt like we were talking to ourselves.

Now, to be fair, my friends and I often felt that the same thing happened when I was at WTS. We called it the "Clark-Van Til vortex." Whenever we were in class, some student would inevitably raise his hand and say, "You know, this really all goes back to Clark-Van Til." I would then draw a vortex on my paper and hold it up for my friend to see as we slipped into the vortex for 30 or 40 minutes of point-counterpoint on these issues. We often felt that the issues we would debate at WTS were in our own little ghetto of the Reformed world, separated and cordoned off from the rest of the world. I don't think we wanted to be "successful"; but we did want to be engaged.

To be candid, I think that when some of our Reformed brothers talk about "Reformed sectarianism," what they mean is the kind of separatism that an overemphasis upon the antithesis can foster. They want to read N. T. Wright, Lesslie Newbigin, Stanley Hauerwas; they want to be involved in the larger theological conversations. And it may be that our recent debates about justification were (for some) as much about whom am I allowed to read as anything else--whether intellectual separatism that draws from an overemphasis upon the antithesis would develop a list of prohibited books (like the "blacklist" of prohibited churches that BJU used to maintain when I was a student).

There is a danger on the other side: those who overstress common grace tend toward a triumphalist culturekampf that can lead to secularization. Sometimes I wonder if there are no boundaries in our willingness to engage culture, looking for hints of Eden. I was at a pastors gathering a few weeks ago and one of the guys was talking about a recent R-rated movie that he watched; his evaluation was, "Well, it was terribly violent and there was one pornographic scene in it." Another of the guys at the table said, "Oh yeah, I want to see that movie too." I left wondering whether these ministers would think well of me if I went to a bar in East St. Louis, Illinois, to witness a murder and watch a stripper; that strikes me as a moral equivalent.

Now, to be fair, we need Christians who think deeply about the cultural artifacts of our moment in time, who exegete our culture and present the Gospel to it. Don't hear what I am not saying: we need apologists. My fear is that in our attempts to transform culture through engagement of it, to be "relevant," that we will end up seeing the Holy Spirit in the spirit of the age to such a degree that the Spirit becomes the age's spirit and vice versa. In doing so, the church can become so secular that Leviticus 11:44 and 1 Peter 1:16 become nice pastoral advice for some people somewhere--but not us and not now.

To be candid, this is what I hear in Rick's concern. He is fearful that the church is sliding morally and doctrinally toward a liberalism that sadly replicates the late 19th and early 20th centuries, that loses sight of the Gospel and its transformative power, and that trades its spiritual birthright for a mess of relevant soup.

In the light of all this, I think in the Reformed world, and especially in the PCA, we need to recognize some things: First, it is not possible to reconcile common grace and the antithesis; Kuyper couldn't, lots of smart Dutch theologians haven't, and I don't expect we will either.

Second, recognizing this, we should realize that we will probably tend toward one side or the other--part of this will be family of origin issues, early religious training, personality predilections, etc.

Third, as we lean one way or the other, we need to become much more self-critical. There are a number of complex reasons why we see the world the way we do; we need to be honest with ourselves so that we don't simply sanctify our ideology as "biblical" when it might be deeply flawed.

Fourth, we also need to recognize the dangers inherent in the way we lean and try to hedge against them. For example, I recognize that by training, background, etc., I probably lean toward the antithesis--my hedge is that I am constantly trying to engage the academic world, recognizing that God's grace is to be found there as well in the scholarship produced by unbelievers or those who have different Christian commitments from mine.

Finally, above all, we need to exercise the judgment of charity toward each other. By recognizing the dangers in our position, we are freed to recognize the value of the other--I can affirm my brothers and sisters who in common grace run coffee houses and line their churches with their art in order to engage in conversations with others. They bring something to the body of Christ that I don't bring; they are "jazz" to my "three-chords and a chorus" (1 Cor 12:12-27). I need those who emphasis common grace; and they, frankly, need me.

After all, if someone brings aerosol cheese to a party, someone else needs to bring crackers. Unless you are Carl Trueman--who points the cheese can directly into his mouth and sprays.

Cheese, Fundamentalism, and the Antithesis, no. 1

I'm just back from vacation, having waded through over 150 (!) email and am now surfing the net to catch up on what I've missed. One thing I missed was the lively conversation going on at Ref21 between my friends, Rick Phillips and Carl Trueman, about cheese (not sure how that got in there), fundamentalism (especially the Bob Jones University variety), and the nature of the antithesis.

I guess I have a unique perspective on all this because I am a graduate of a fundamentalist Christian school, BJU graduate (BA, 93; MA, 94) as well as a WTS graduate (PhD, 2002; I even had Trueman on my dissertation committee!). In addition, I've spent a great deal of time writing and researching American fundamentalism as a academic, working on a book on fundamentalism in the southern Presbyterian church (yes, there was such a thing; wait till my book comes out and you will see!). So, perhaps I can put offer some insight to my friends.

Unlike many of my colleagues who graduated from "the University" and then transitioned to the Reformed faith, I have what I call a Richard Mouw/Smell of Sawdust appreciation of fundamentalism, for a number of the same reasons that Rick mentioned:

• they take the Bible seriously, upholding supernaturalism and inerrancy;
• they are determined to do whatever God in his Word says to do, leading to a passion for missions and evangelism;
• they are serious about piety;
• and, as Rick notes, they have a firm recognition that "the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever" (1 John 2:17), which leads to an emphasis upon the antithesis.

I'm personally very thankful for this part of my inheritance from my fundamentalist upbringing and education. I'm glad to call my family (my wife's siblings all married BJU grads as well) who attend fundamentalist churches brothers and sisters in Christ, glad that they raise their children in church and teach them the Bible, and glad that they love the Lord.

On the other side of the ledger, Carl is exactly right that there is a dark side of the antithesis, which often leads to an uncritical embrace and defense of the unjust status quo (e.g. in 1960, Dr. Bob Jones, Sr, published a booklet entitled, "Is Segregation Scriptural?"; and who can forget the classic title of John R. Rice, "Bobbed Hair, Bossy Wives, and Women Preachers" or his defense of free market capitalism as the "biblical" system of economics). Of course, there is a dark side of the other part of the Kuyperian inheritance--as historian Joel Carpenter as noted, common grace can often lead to secularization and has in neo-Calvinist educational institutions, both in the Netherlands and the United States (I touch on some of this in my essay, "Southern-Friend Kuyper? Robert Lewis Dabney, Abraham Kuyper, and the Limitations of Public Theology," WTJ 66 (2004): 179-201).

Likewise, there is an unhealthy cult of muscular personality that pervades fundamentalism, where individual pastors build fifedoms for their own glory (see, e.g, the wonderful study of W. B. Riley by Wayne Trollinger) and manipulate people for their own success. And of course, you can find this in the Reformed world as well, whether in the PCA or in other Reformed microdenominations. It does us well to admit that the "T" in the Reformed inheritance applies to all of us--because of total depravity, because of indwelling sin, all of our positions, ideas and ideals, can lead us astray. Really, the only thing that any of us have going for us is the steadfast love of God (Psalm 103).

Having affirmed and admitted all of this, I find myself falling back to my understanding of Reformed catholicity (though it drives my friend, D. G. Hart, bonkers)--my primary identity is a believer of Jesus and I'm called to love other believers in Jesus regardless of their spiritual maturity or theological perspective (even, shudder, Arminians). I live out this identity as a Presbyterian, committed to the wholeness of the Reformed faith as the best explanation of the Bible and eager for others to embrace the same perspective that I hold. I affirm catholicity while holding personally to the Reformed faith.

Hence, my fundamentalist friends are my brothers and sisters in Christ; they have a great deal to contribute to the life and health of Christianity in North America and around the world; they have preserved a deep love for God's Word and a passion for evangelism that would put most Reformed types to shame; and they rightly point us to the need, at times, to separate from unbelief or worldliness for the sake of personal and corporate holiness. I have a great deal to learn from them. That doesn't place them beyond critique (in the same way that I and my tradition is beyond criticism); that doesn't mean that I no longer hope they will come to embrace the doctrines of grace in the same way I have. In addition, I will continue to engage with them honestly out of my confessionally Presbyterian identity, not shading the truth of what I believe the Bible teaches.

And so, Reformed catholicity forces me to affirm that it is a good thing to partner with fundamentalist believers, like those at BJU, for the Gospel and even send our kids to their Christian schools. Even if they've never heard of aerosol cheese.

On vacation

I wanted to let you know that I'll be on vacation with my family, starting tomorrow until the first full week of August. We go to western North Carolina each year; this year we'll be in Brevard. We'll also be at Ridge Haven for Covenant Seminary's Family Camp with my colleague, Donald Guthrie, the week of July 30. Please be sure to check back next month...

Edwards on the only true happiness

Quoted in John Piper, Supremacy of God in Preaching, 109:

The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams, but God is the ocean.

Summer Reading 2007, No. 5

I finished The Supremacy of God in Preaching by John Piper last night. [For those of you who are wondering, some of the books I've finished were half-read and sitting on my bedside table, waiting for me to return. This is one of them.] I read this as part of my preparation for an essay I'm working on ("'Divine Light, Holy Heat': Jonathan Edwards, the Ministry of the Word, and Religious Affections").

I found this book particularly useful for that task; of course, the basic point that Piper makes--that preachers must delight in God as their supreme passion in order to preach in a way that moves others to delight in God--can be substantiated through Edwards' own writing. While his final chapter makes the case explicitly, I think we have an even better handle on this theme now than when the book was first written in 1993 because of the Yale edition of Edwards' works and the Yale online Jonathan Edwards Center manuscript project. I'm hoping to make this case in some detail for the paper.

Summer Reading 2007, no. 4

I finished Nate Larkin's Samson and the Pirate Monks last night. Funny story, first. I bought this book over the weekend in Owensboro, Kentucky, where I was preaching. After I bought it, I went to the Cracker Barrell next to the bookstore for dinner. The girl who was serving me was super friendly (as everyone in Owensboro was--my goodness, turn it down a few notches, people! I'm as southern as the next guy, but it was almost too much); anyway, as she is clearing my plates, she said, "Oh, I love to read! Is that book about pirates?" I said, "Well, not exactly. It is a book about ministering to men." Going on to explain, I said, "I'm a minister and this book caught my eye. But it is probably not something you'd want to read." She wasn't to be detered: "Oh, I love pirates. I'll have to remember that book." Whatever.

I think my waitress would be a little surprised by the content, but those who wrestle with patterns of sin themselves or minister to those who do will find nothing surprising. The first part of the book details Larkin's own story--preacher kid who goes to Princeton Seminary and pastors a church only to leave the ministry voluntarily because of struggles with sexual sin. The pathway out of destructive behavior was largely the power of authenicity within the context of an AA-styled ministry to sex addicts. Out of his own dealing with these issues, Larkin helped to start the Samson Society, a means for bringing men together in a Christianized AA setting to talk about their feelings and struggles with sin.

Summer Reading 2007, no. 3

I finished reading Praying at Burger King by Richard Mouw. This was not exactly what I expected; I had conceived (somehow) that it was a similar book to Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport. Instead, it was a collection of short, pithy, three page editorials on a wide-range of subjects; it took me two "sittings" to complete (actually, I read it in bed before I went to sleep).

Still, the little book (134 pages) represents what I so appreciate about Mouw--his open-eyed view of the world; his love for Jesus that shines through every description; his willingness to consider opposing ideas with respect (even when he disagrees). To me, he represents a wonderful model of Christian piety, especially in a thoughtful scholar. All too often, academics spend their time sharpening their swords on others foibles and follies; not Mouw. Instead, he reminds me of the One who said, "I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden light" (Matthew 11:29-30).

CT on justification by faith alone...

...and why it is still the doctrine on which the church stands and falls. [Uh, "CT" would be Christainity Today, not Carl Trueman. Although it is easy to get confused...]

[HT: Justin Taylor]

Summer Reading 2007, no. 2

Brief update...I finished Elisabeth Elliot's Shadow of the Almigthy. I first read this book in college and was deeply impacted by it; I longed to be on fire for Christ in the same way Jim Elliot was. When I came to the Reformed faith and especially as I was attending Reformed Baptist churches, I tended to see Jim's faith as more "hothouse" and "unstable"; I was very worried about my emotions then and probably confused Christian spirituality with a Lucas-devised form of Christian stoicism. Whatever the cause, I distanced myself from his type of longings for Christ.

Now, I find myself coming a bit full cycle--I once again long to have a similar type of devotion for Christ while recognizing the "idealism" of Jim's devotion. Still, it is that idealism and hope and joy in Christ that led Jim to the jungles of Ecuador to share the Gospel with those who had never heard, with those who were likely to (and did) kill him. And that is what I long for--such a joy in God through Christ by the Spirit that I will not fear to risk myself completely for God's Will, knowing that he is no fool to give what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

Piper on the Marks of a Spiritual Leader

John Piper has an excellent essay on "the marks of a spiritual leader." He divides the topic into two sections: "the inner circle of spiritual leadership," that which makes leadership spiritual, and "the outer circle of spiritual leadership," that which makes spiritual people leaders. There is a great deal of wisdom here--his 22 (!) points were:

Inner circle of spiritual leadership
1. Has as his goal that others will glorify God
2. Loves both friend and foe by trusting in God and hoping in his promises
3. Meditates on and prays over God's Word
4. Acknowledges his helplessness to God (there was a great quote at this point: "All true spiritual leadership has its roots in deseparation").

Outer circle of spiritual leadership
1. Restlessness
2. Optimistic
3. Intense
4. Self-controlled
5. Think-skinned ("we will feel the criticism, but we will not be incapcitated by it")
6. Energetic
7. A hard thinker
8. Articulate
9. Able to teach
10. A good judge of character
11. Tactful ("Tact is that quality of grace that wins the confidence of people who are sure you won't do or say something stupid")
12. Theologically oriented
13. A dreamer ("The spirit of venturesomeness is at a premium today. Oh, how we need people who will devote just five minutes a week to dream of what might possibly be")
14. Organized and efficient
15. Decisive
16. Perseverant
17. A lover (of your spouse)
18. Restful

What do men think about?

Actually, that was a line from a Jeff Foxworthy sketch; I just used it to get your attention--because the question is really what do Protestants and Catholics think about (which, in the case that these folks are humans and often males, doesn't make the title line that far off).

Richard Mouw can help us here, I think: "Where evangelicals think soteriology, Catholics tend to think ecclesiology—and so we proceed to talk past each other." I think this is right; although it might be even better (and closer) to say this--where evangelicals think about salvation coming individuals which leads them to the church, Catholics tend to think about individuals coming to the church and through the church experience salvation.

If I am close here, then it is an interesting observation for several reasons. One is Benedict XVI's recent reaffirmation of the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church. In the press, it was widely reported as a blow to ecumenical dialogue; German Lutherans and Anglicans from various countries wondered aloud where it left both their churches and their ecumenical dialogues with Rome. And yet, read in the light of Mouw's observation, the stress on the primacy of Rome makes sense--after all, to be in union with Rome (the "one" holy catholic and apostolic church as measured by its lineage back to the apostles through ordination) is to be in the place of salvation as distributed through its sacraments. If the Pope is a true shepherd, then he should want all men and women to be united to the Catholic church because that is the place of salvation.

But this observation is even more important when thinking about various moves within evangelical Protestantism that "tend to think ecclesiology." One example would be the New Perspective on Paul and especially N. T. Wright's reading of justification as more about ecclesiology, than soteriology. Another example would be the heightened interest on the part of Gen X-ers in ecclesiology, especially "communion ecclesiology," the role of the sacraments, and the importance of liturgical action for forming believers. A third example would be the renewed interest in the 19th century "Mercersburg Theology" and especially John Williamson Nevin, who--if D. G. Hart is correct--made his most important contribution in stressing that the church as the mediator of grace.

Regardless of what one thinks about these various interests, I think Mouw's observation makes it far more understandable why, when confronted by Wright or stress on the efficacy of the sacraments, evangelicals say, "That feels/sounds 'Catholic.'" They aren't simply being closed-minded modernists or southern Presbyterians or revivialistic fundamentalists or whatever pejorative. Rather, they recognize that this is a different, more "Roman Catholic" way of thinking about the relationship between salvation and church, soteriology and ecclesiology: "where evangelicals think soteriology, Catholics tend to think ecclesiology."

What makes this all a bit tricky for Presbyterians is that, confessionally, we try to straddle the fence a bit. After all, our Confession tells us that "outside of which [i.e. the visible church] there is no ordinary possibility of salvation" (WCF 25:2). As a result, Presbyterians tend to want to think about salvation and church all together at the same time as much as possible. We have a higher view of the sacraments than most evangelicals; we stress the importance of the church's life for the saints' perseverance; and we focus on the communion of saints (and give a whole chapter to the theme in our confessional standards).

Yet the challenge comes from the fact that our default mode is more evangelical than "Catholic"; if the stress falls anywhere for most of us, it is on individual salvation and heart-religion--because if our people do not have a vital relationship with Jesus, then the church is not the body of Christ, but at the best a social club or a religiously-oriented branch of the United Way, and at the worst a "synagogue of Satan" (Revelation 2:9). Perhaps that is why our current dialogues have proved so challenging and made it so difficult to hear each other; exegeting charitably and sensitively not simply the Word and the present day culture, but also Presbyterians' default presuppositions has not been a strong suit.

In other words, asking the question, "What do men think about?" might actually help us in our quest to understand each other as well as other religionists across the Protestant-Catholic divide.

The ESV Marches On

Encouraging news about the English Standard Version and its growth and usefulness. This is the Bible that I use for my own daily worship and memorization and I prefer it for preaching and teaching.

It is important to remember that, unlike many other publishing houses, Crossway is a non-profit organization; by charter, they must plow their "profits" back into their organization. And so, the expanded use of the ESV doesn't make stockholders wealthy; rather, it supports this publishing organization in their publishing of important theological books that might not otherwise be published as well as countless evangelistic tracks (through the Good News division) that typically make little net profit.

Q&A on Baptism

This past Sunday, at our church, I taught through chapter five in On Being Presbyterian and tried to make a strong case for infant baptism. In response, one of our most thoughtful ladies asked a great question that centered on the value of the promises signed and sealed in baptism that don't seem effectual for many, many people. While I tried to make a distinction between "promises" and "guarantees" in my answer, the more I've reflected on the question, the more I wish I could press the rewind button and try again.

Thankfully, another of our most thoughtful ladies emailed me some further questions and reflections on the whole issue. Having another crack at the essential existential question and thinking that my reply might prove useful to others--either who were in that class or who wrestle with this question--I thought I'd post it here.

Hi, ____:

I really appreciate your thoughtful interaction with ____'s comment and my response. As I think I said, this is where the existential issues really come for us; we trust God, we plead his promises for our children, and we wait for him in faith.

As I’ve thought about all this, I wonder if the distinction I tried to make between promises and guarantees is really all that helpful. Perhaps a better way to get at all this is to say: the promise in which the sacrament of baptism confirms our interest is that whoever believes in Jesus shall be saved. Further, parents have warrant to bring their children to be baptized because God promises us that he will be a God to us and our children. Those two promises are related but somewhat different. Let me try to unpack this.

First, baptism confirms our children’s interest in the promise that whoever believes in Jesus shall be saved (Acts 16:31). This is the same promise that is held out to them in the preaching of the Word. And that promise will be held out to them until they die (that was what I was talking about when I said, dv, our children will out-live us and so we don’t know the end of their stories). The value of baptism to the child (among other things) is that, if they were to doubt whether this promise was for them, they (and we) can say, “Yes, that promise is for you—God directed us to have you baptized so that you would have a seal of authentication that the promise is true and for you; your baptism serves as a sign to point you to faith in Jesus, to point you to the Gospel itself.”

Second, we baptize our children because God promises us that he will be a God to us and our children. This may mean that God is a God of grace to our children; he grants them his Spirit and draws them to himself. They are granted faith and they trust in the Savior who promised them in their baptism that whoever believes in Jesus will be saved. But it may be that God will be a God of judgment to our children. Even though he has granted them great mercy by allowing them to grow up among the visible people of God, to know the preaching of his Word, to experience the communion of the saints, they may turn from him, reject his promises, leave the church and never return. Either way, God is a God to our children; he keeps his promises to us, but in different ways.

Perhaps a good parallel to this is in our prayer life. We have precious promises from God that encourage us to pray and to ask him for deliverance from trials and sufferings. And yet, there are times, even when we plead God’s promises faithfully in prayer, that God answers by allowing us to suffer pain and heartbreak. Was God unfaithful to his promises? No—rather, he keeps his promises to us in different ways: in this instance, by leading us into the valley of the shadow of death so that we might be comforted by his rod and staff (an example of this might be 2 Corinthians 12:7-10).

Circling back around, I would say that when we trust God to keep his promises for our children, we pray that God will be a God to them and that God will be a God of mercy and salvation for them. We pray for them, just as we would pray for others who need Jesus, that God would open their eyes of faith, turn their hearts to him, and grant them grace to follow him all the days of their lives. We pray that God would allow them to truly “improve their baptisms,” to cling to the promise of salvation signed and sealed in their baptisms. And we parent in such a way that keeps God’s Word and promises of salvation to those who believe in front of them. Still, at the end of the day, we must live by faith, trusting the God of grace to do what is right for us and our children. And perhaps God might have other purposes in mind; he is still a God to our children, but shows himself to them and us as a God of judgment.

I’ve attached to this email a short baptismal homily I gave when our Benjamin was baptized in 2004. In particular, I was trying to answer the questions, on what basis do we baptize? And what do we expect to happen in this baptism? It might prove useful in answering some of practical, existential questions with which you are wrestling.

Thanks again for your thoughtful questions—I love the opportunity to explain and clarify things I say, so don’t hesitate to ask! Hope you all have a good time away…

Best,
Sean

News Flash: Pope affirms Roman Catholicism

I think the above title reflects well recent movements from Benedict XVI who has been spending his theological captial "correcting" the "mistakes" of Vatican II. According to this press release, he apparently has claimed that "Orthodox churches are defective and other Christian churches are not true churches." Boy, shocking--on the order of dog bites man. As Benedict goes on to explain in the article, "Christ 'established here on earth' only one church," the document said. The other communities "cannot be called 'churches' in the proper sense" because they do not have apostolic succession — the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ's original apostles.

And this remains one of the fundamental challenges that the Roman Catholic Church still presents to Protestantism--how is it possible to affirm "one holy catholic and apostolic church" when Protestantism is broken into hundreds of denominations? For Roman Catholics, the only way to preserve unity is to point to apostolic succession, a line of ordination that goes back to the apostles. For Protestants, the means for unity is also apostolic succession, but it is a succession of commitment to the apostolic message and mission (Ephesians 2:11-22; Matthew 28:16-20). As the authority of Word and Spirit continues to be observed in Protestant churches, we manifest the unity of Christ's church even in the midst of our denominational groupings.

Summer Reading 2007, No. 1

Finished:
John Piper, Future Grace

Current devotional book:
John Owen, Overcoming Sin and Temptation (finished first two sections; plugging away at about 10 pages a day)

Bedside table:
Complete English Poems of George Herbert
Letters of John Newton
Elisabeth Elliot, Shadow of the Almighty (reading this one, dipping in the others)

Other stuff:
John Piper and Justin Taylor, eds., Sex and the Supremacy of God
Charles Hambrick-Stowe, The Practice of Piety, and a lot of Jonathan Edwards sermons (for an essay on Jonathan Edwards, the ministry of the Word, and religious affections, which I'm giving at ETS this year)

Taking on vacation in two weeks:
Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality
Sidney Lanier, A Boy's King Arthur
E. O. Guerrant, The Galax Gatherers (about 3/4 through, but seems right to finish this in western NC, where we vacation each year; someday, I want to write a book on Guerrant)

Started and set aside:
C. J. Mahaney, Living the Cross-Centered Life (songs better than book)
Charles Frazier, Thirteen Moons (my wife finished it; I got about 200 pages in and gave up. It made me want to read about the Cherokee Nation, though).

Just ordered from Amazon:
Richard Mouw, Praying at Burger King (love everything Mouw writes; I wish I could be as gentle and generous and gracious as he is)
Paul Weston, Lesslie Newbigin: Missionary Theologian, a Reader

Graduation Benediction 2007

This is a little late; I meant to post it earlier. But this was the benediction I gave at Covenant Seminary's baccalaureate service on May 17, 2007; it was drawn from Ephesians 2:11-22:

Class of 2007, friends, families, loved ones: as you go from this place into the world to serve Christ our King, receive this good word from our God--
May our God grant you to have such a sight of Christ--
who is our peace and
who is making peace for
those who are far off and
those who are near---
that you will be compelled to love
the broken and the proud
the weak and the strong
the unlovely and the beautiful
as those who make up God's glorious, Holy Spirit-built temple, the Church,
of which Christ is the Cornerstone.
May God grant you this, now and forever! Go in his peace, Amen.

Piper on why we should read Christian biography

From Desiring God:

Thanksgiving for the Lives of Flawed Saints
By John Piper

God ordains that we gaze on his glory, dimly mirrored in the ministry of his flawed servants. He intends for us to consider their lives and peer through the imperfections of their faith and behold the beauty of their God. "Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God; consider the outcome of their life, and imitate their faith" (Hebrews 13:7 RSV).

The God who fashions the hearts of all men (Psalm 33:15) means for their lives to display his truth and his worth. From Phoebe to St. Francis, the divine plan--even spoken of the pagan Pharaoh--holds firm for all: "I have raised you up for the very purpose of showing my power in you, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth" (Romans 9:17 RSV). From David, the king, to David Brainerd, the missionary, extraordinary and incomplete specimens of godliness and wisdom have kindled the worship of sovereign grace in the hearts of reminiscing saints. "This will be written for the generation to come, that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord" (Psalm 102:18 NASB).

The history of the world is a field strewn with broken stones, which are sacred altars designed to waken worship in the hearts of those who will take the time to read and remember. "I shall remember the deeds of the Lord; surely I will remember Your wonders of old. I will meditate on all Your work and muse on Your deeds. Your way, O God, is holy; what god is great like our God?" (Psalm 77:11-13 NASB).

The aim of providence in the history of the world is the worship of the people of God. Ten thousand stories of grace and truth are meant to be remembered for the refinement of faith and the sustaining of hope and the guidance of love. "Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope" (Romans 15:4 RSV). Those who nurture their hope in the history of grace will live their lives to the glory of God.

The lives of our flawed Christian heroes are inspiring for two reasons: because they were flawed (like us) and because they were great (unlike us). Their flaws give us hope that maybe God could use us too. Their greatness inspires us to venture beyond the ordinary.

How does it come about that an ordinary person breaks out of the ruts of humdrum life to do something remarkable? It usually happens because of the inspiration of a man or woman they admire.

Do you have any heroes? Do you read about the lives of men and women who broke out of the mold and escaped the trap of the ordinary? Why not make a resolution now for the year 2000? - That you will read a biography. You have six weeks to plan this and choose the book. You can even put it on your Christmas wish list if you start thinking now. If you plan it, it is likely to happen. If you don't, it probably won't.

I am reading John G. Paton: Missionary to the New Hebrides. It has been worth all the hours to have gotten this one paragraph. When he resolved to go to the unreached tribes of the South Sea Islands in 1856, a Christian gentleman objected, "You'll be eaten by cannibals!" To this Paton responded:

Your own prospect is soon to be laid in the grave, there to be eaten by worms; I confess to you, that if I can but live and die serving and honoring the Lord Jesus, it will make no difference to me whether I am eaten by cannibals or by worms; and in the Great Day my resurrection body will arise as fair as yours in the likeness of our risen Redeemer. (p. 56)

This kind of abandon to the cause of Christ puts fire in my bones. Thank you, Lord, for the lives of flawed and faith-filled saints!

The Puritans on "Heart Religion," No. 3

From Charles Hambrick-Stowe, The Practice of Piety, 53:

The Puritan's goal in preaching and in producing and using manuals with devotional aids was always to promote the individual practice of piety, which ultimately relied on no printed work save the Bible. The entire pastoral work of the clergy, and the most basic thrust of the Puritan movement iself, were aimed at the spiritual regeneeration of sinners through the means of worship and devotional activity. Personal religious experience was at the heart of Puritanism. Everything in church and state was intended to serve this primary end. And this end, in turn, was the means of establishing the new order, which was the vanguard of God's Kingdom itself.

The Puritans on "Heart Religion," No. 2

From Charles Hambrick-Stowe, The Practice of Puritan Piety, 48-9:

Puritan iconoclasm stemmed from its deeper mythoclasm. The Puritan vanguard was dedicated to the destruction of an entire world view, a whole system of values and meaning woven from Roman liturgical forms and pagan religious traditions in their English manifestations. The clearest illustration of this "purification" process was the Puritan renunciation of the ecclesiastical year, ordered according to saint's days and local agricultural legends, a renunciation that one scholar referred to as "Puritan calendary iconoclasm." Economic and social as well as religious reasons motivated the shift to a weekly Sabbath and attack on the paganism of the maypole and the sports of holy days and Sabbaths. The result, however, was a major devotional disjunction with the Roman system of special days, which had been carried into the practice of the Church of England. Not a single saint's day survived the voyage to New England. Entirely new temporal patterns and rhythms emerged as Puritan spirituality developed and matured.

The Puritans on "Heart Religion," No. 1

From Charles Hambrick-Stowe, The Practice of Piety: Puritan Devotional Disciplines in Seventeenth-Century New England (University of North Carolina Press, 1982), 43:

The Puritan mind perceived a fundamental distinction between religion that affirmed the primacy of piety and experience and relation that emphasized established liturgical forms. Liturgical worship that treated form as paramount would stifle experience, resulting in the loss of "the power of godliness." The biblical reference of [Thomas] Hooker's phrase "the better part, heart religion." In Luke 10:38-42 Jesus looked favorably on Mary's posture of devotional rather than Martha's busy activity...Mary and Martha have always been interpreted as classic types of the contemplative and active life, respectively. Hooker now identified the busy show of activity in the liturgy with Martha and the devotional life of "heart religion" with Mary.

The decadence of church and society could not be separated from the official liturgy. Thomas Shepard insisted that even though many of the prayers included in "the Popish Formes of Masse, Matten, and Evensong, etc." were inoffensive, the godly should still "refuse the whole Forme." The Book of Common Prayer, "this corrupt Service-booke," he wrote, has "stunk above the ground twice 40 yeeres, in the nostrills of many godly, who breathed in the pure ayre of the holy Scriptures." Liturgical worship was nothing more than empty ritual, a routine made up of external gestures without deep inner commitment. By contrast, simplified worship that used the words of Scripture for its content promoted "heart religion." The Puritan form of worship gave the worshiper the sense of going directly to the true Source, of finding God in His own Word and rooting all words of sermon and prayer in the Word itself.

J. I. Packer on penal substitutionary atonement...

...posted via Derek Thomas at Reformation21.

I wish I could be like...

...my good friend, Steve Nichols, professor of Bible and Theology at Lancaster Bible College and Graduate School. He is an amazingly prolific writer and has had several books either published or about to be published : The Reformation (Crossway, 2007); For Us and Our Salvation (Crossway, 2007); and Jesus Made in America (IVP, 2008). Buy his books, feed his children.

The first twenty years

Phil Ryken wrote an exellent piece, reflecting on the first 20 years of his marriage to his wife, Lisa. I was surprised and amused by our similarities! (So much so that I emailed the link to my wife so that she could get a chuckle). The most important similarity was how Ryken closed his reflection:

If there is one practical principle that Lisa and I would insist on for marriage it is the absolute necessity of resolving any conflicts the same day they occur. We have taken Paul’s words to the Ephesians very literally: “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil” (Eph. 4:26-27). In order to prevent Satan from ever getting the chance to divide our partnership, we have sometimes stayed up late into the night. But in twenty years, by the grace of God, we have never gone to bed without being totally reconciled.

In nearly 14 years of marriage, my wife and I have followed this same principle. It made for some late nights (2 or 3 in the morning; yikes!). And yet, I think it has been important for us/me to pursue repentance and reconcilation so that we/I would not grow bitter. The other key principle has been the verse at the end of Ephesians 4: "Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another just as Christ has forgiven you" (4:32). Extending forgivenness freely and maintaining tender-heartedness toward each other, especially when we've sinned against each other, has been hugely important for us as well.

Edwards on the nature of justification

From Jonathan Edwards, "Profitable Hearers of the Word," in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 14: Sermons and Discourses, 1723-1729, ed. Kenneth P. Minkema (Yale University Press, 1997), 266-7:

...I would premise, negatively, that there are no degrees of imputed righteousness, but that all saints are alike justified in the sight of God by the righteousness of Christ. As there are no degrees in the same person with the represent to this, but he is as much justified the first moment of his conversion as ever he is, how much soever he may increase in holiness afterwards; so neither is there any difference in this respect in different persons.

The weakest saint is as much justified in the sight of God as the strongest. He that has but a spark of grace in his heart, the lowest degree of the sanctifying spirit, has his sins as much pardoned, and Christ's satisfaction and righteousness as much imputed to him, as Moses or Elijah or the apostle Paul had, yea, as much as the saints of heaven have.

'Tis very evident because all the sins of every believer, as soon as ever he believes, are pardoned; and if they are all pardoned and blotted out, cast into the depths of the sea, so that they shall be remembered no more, then there can be no degrees of pardon. If sins are so pardoned that God's anger is all ceased, they can't be more pardoned. Christ's death has fully satisfied for the sins of all believers, is of as much virtue to satisfy for the sins of one as of another. So his righteousness is wrought out for one saint as much for another.

'Tis the same perfect righteousness imputed to everyone, and if it be really imputed to all, there is as much as it can be; there can be no degrees of imputation of the same thing. If it be one covenant by which they have their righteousness, then their righteousness must be the same.

"Where'd all these Calvinists Come From..."

...is the question that Mark Dever is trying to answer here. I think his first of ten answers is right: Spurgeon had an important influence on me. I hope that #2 will be Banner of Truth because reading Spurgeon led me to reading various Puritan authors, which led me to Jonathan Edwards, which led me to realize I was a "five-point Calvinist" and set me on this journey to being Presbyterian.

Gaffin on Future Acquittal and Present Justification

From Richard Gaffin, "The Vitality of Reformed Systematic Theology," in The Faith Once Delivered (P&R, 2007), 16-7:

For justification, it is fair to say that, in general, Reformation theology has grasped, at least intuitively, the escathological "now" empathically asserted, for instance, in Romans 5:1 and 8:1. It has perceived with sound instinct that the verdict pronounced on believers, declaring them righteous and entitled to eternal life, involves, judgment, already realized, that is final and irrevocable. But it has been much more inhibited, no doubt because of polemics with Rome, in recognizing and incorporating into its doctrinal formulations the still-future aspect of justification clearly implied if not explicitly taught in the New Testament. The Westminster catechisms, for instance, confess that believers will be 'openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment.' Such language is thoroughly forensic, and acquittal is at the heart of justification.

The integral tie between that future acquittal and present justification needs to be made clear. As a single justification by the sole instrumentality of faith and based exclusively on the imputed righteousness of Christ, the one is the consummation of the other, as its open manifestation. For now until Jesus comes, the believer's justification is most certainly settled and certain but not uncontested. Romans 8:33-34, for instance, is clear in that regard. The faith that justifies perseveres in love (Gal. 5:6). No doubt, as so often in our theologizing, the proverbial razor's edge between the truth of the gospel and serious error presents itself here, a narrow ledge that will have to be negotiated with care.

Which theologian are you?

I too did this fascinating assessment: I rated out as Anselm (I was just thankful that I was not Karl Barth; I was pulling for either Calvin or Edwards, but am satisfied with Anselm. I'm a little troubled, thought, by my high Finney quotient...):

You scored as a Anselm
Anselm is the outstanding theologian of the medieval period.He sees man's primary problem as having failed to render unto God what we owe him, so God becomes man in Christ and gives God what he is due. You should read 'Cur Deus Homo?'

Anselm 100%
Karl Barth 80%
Jonathan Edwards 80%
Martin Luther 73%
John Calvin 67%
Charles Finney 60%
Augustine 47%
Friedrich Schleiermacher 40%
Jürgen Moltmann 20%
Paul Tillich 20%

Post 300: George Herbert, "The Altar"

[For Posts 100 and 200, I wrote about Wendell Berry. For Post 300, I offer a poem by my other favorite poet, George Herbert: "The Altar"]

The Altar.
A broken A L T A R, Lord, thy servant reares,
Made of a heart, and cemented with teares:
Whose parts are as thy hand did frame;
No workmans tool hath touch’d the same.
A H E A R T alone
Is such a stone,
As nothing but
Thy pow’r doth cut.
Wherefore each part
Of my hard heart
Meets in this frame,
To praise thy Name;
That, if I chance to hold my peace,
These stones to praise thee may not cease.
O let thy blessed S A C R I F I C E be mine,
And sanctifie this A L T A R to be thine.

LOL

This is too funny...As I tried to explain to Rodney Trotter via email, my parents were not yet married when Rob was born and so my grandmother forced my mom to give him up to adoption; his real name is Gareth.

Blogvertising

You know blog advertising (or "blogvertising") has gone a bit far, when you are reading a fairly sophisticated Reformed theological blog and the banner ad from Google reads, "Faith Baptist Church: Free to join. 1000s of pictures & of Beautiful Baptist Singles." Huh?

John Piper on Christ's obedience and death

John Piper from the Desiring God website:

Our only hope for living the radical demands of the Christian life is that God is totally for us now and forever. Therefore, God has not ordained that living the Christian life should be the basis of our hope that God is for us. That basis is the death and righteousness of Christ, counted as ours through faith alone. All the punishment required of us because of our sin, Christ endured for us on the cross. And all the obedience that God required of us, that he, as our Father, might be completely for us and not against us forever, Christ has performed for us in his perfect obedience to God.

This punishment and this obedience (not all obedience) is completed and past. It can never change. Our union with Christ and the enjoyment of these benefits is secure forever. Through faith alone, God establishes our union with Christ. This union will never fail, because in Christ, God is for us as an omnipotent Father who sustains our faith and works all things together for our everlasting good. The one and only instrument through which God preserves our union with Christ is faith in Christ—the purely receiving act of the soul.

The Place of Our Good Works in God’s Purposes
Our own works of love do not create or increase God’s being for us as a Father committed to bringing us everlasting joy in his presence. That fatherly commitment to be for us in this way was established once for all through faith and union with God’s Son. In his Son, the perfection and punishment required of us are past and unchangeable. They were performed by Christ in his obedience and death. They cannot be changed or increased in sufficiency or worth.

Our relationship with God is with One who has become for us as an omnipotent Father committed to working all things together for our everlasting enjoyment of him. This relationship was established at the point of our justification when God removed his judicial wrath from us, and imputed the obedience of his Son to us, and counted us as righteous in Christ, and forgave all our sins because he had punished them in the death of Jesus.

Therefore, the function of our own obedience, flowing from faith--that is, our own good works produced as the fruit of the Holy Spirit—is to make visible the worth of Christ and the worth of his work as our substitute-punishment and substitute-righteousness. God’s purpose in the universe is not only to be infinitely worthy but to be displayed as infinitely worthy. Our works of love, flowing from faith, are the way Christ-embracing faith shows the value of what it has embraced. The sacrifices of love for the good of others show the all-satisfying worth of Christ as the One whose blood and righteousness establishes the fact that God is for us forever.

All the benefits of Christ—all the blessings that flow from God being for us and not against us—rest on the redeeming work of Christ as our Substitute. If God is for us, who can be against us? With this confidence—that God is our omnipotent Father and is committed to working all things together for our everlasting joy in him—we will love others. God has so designed and ordered things that invisible faith, which embraces Christ as infinitely worthy, gives rise to acts of love that make the worth of Christ visible. Thus, our sacrifices of love do not have any hand in establishing the fact that God is completely for us, now and forever. It’s the reverse: The fact that God is for us establishes our sacrifices of love. If he were not totally for us, we would not persevere in faith and would not therefore be able to make sacrifices of love.

Our mindset toward our own good works must always be: These works depend on God being totally for us. That’s what the blood and righteousness of Christ have secured and guaranteed forever. Therefore, we must resist every tendency to think of our works as establishing or securing the fact that God is for us forever. It is always the other way around. Because he is for us, he sustains our faith. And through that faith-sustaining work, the Holy Spirit bears the fruit of love.

Avoiding the Double Tragedy
There would be a double tragedy in thinking of our works of love as securing the fact that God is completely for us. Not only would we obscure the very reason these works exist—namely, to display the beauty and worth of Christ, whose blood and righteousness is the only and all-sufficient guarantee that God is for us—but we would also undermine the very thing that makes the works of love possible—namely, the assurance that God is totally for us, from which flows the freedom and courage to make the sacrifices of love.

Our obedience does not add to the perfection and beauty and all-sufficiency of Christ’s obedience in securing the reality that God is for us; it displays that perfection and beauty and all-sufficiency. Our works of love are as necessary as God’s purpose to glorify himself. That is, they are necessary because God is righteous—he has an eternal and unwavering commitment to do the ultimately right thing: to make the infinite value of his Son visible in the world.

Valley of Vision

Slow to most parties, I just started listening to two recent CDs from Sovereign Grace Ministries: Upward and Valley of Vision. My new favorite song is on the Valley of Vision disc, "Heavenly Father, Beautiful Son":

Father, you loved me; sent your Son to redeem
Jesus, you washed me; by your blood I am clean
Spirit, you've opened these blind eyes and brought me to Christ

Chorus:
Heavenly Father, Beautiful Son, Spirit of Light and Truth
Thank you for bringing sinners to come to you (2x)

Father, you gave me to Jesus to keep
And Jesus, you love me as a Shepherd his sheep
Spirit, you've given me faith in the Son and made our hearts one

Chorus

Father, you're waiting to hear my requests
Jesus, your loving open hand is outstretched
Spirit, you're in me, you intercede and help in my need

Chorus

On Being Presbyterian: Ordained Servant review

I'm so grateful for friends who generously engaged with things about which I write and think. D. G. Hart's review in the OPC's Ordained Servant online magazine thoughtfully raises appropriate questions and honors what On Being Presbyterian was trying to accomplish. His review also sets forward the place where we probably see the way in which Christian (general) and Presbyterian (specific) identity correlate a little differently, although probably not as differently as he suggests.