Monday, September 16, 2013
What does it mean to be wise?
"To have wisdom is to have competence in how life really works." -- Timothy Keller
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Why We Gather (for Worship)
"Corporate worship is designed to reclaim your wandering heart once again so that love for God is the ruling motive of all that you do." - Paul Tripp
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Holy Optimism
"As we march forward into the days that are before us, the worst thing that we can possibly do in changing times is to come with a sour and dour and gloomy pessimism about the culture around us. We cannot stand and speak, 'You kids get off my lawn.' The word that Jesus has given to His church is a word that is filled with optimism and joy. We are not slouching toward Gomorrah, we are marching to Zion."
-- Russell D. Moore
-- Russell D. Moore
"A Prophetic Minority: Kingdom, Culture, and Mission in a New Era"
This is a wisely written, winsomely expressed statement about the Church's authentic mission in the culture, from Russell D. Moore.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
"The Gospel and Godliness"
Here is the opening paragraph of Joe Thorn's excellent essay:
If the gospel you believe does not include obedience as a fruit of faith then it is short-sighted and you will end up spiritually crashing into a wall. Certainly, we need to be exceedingly careful to make clear that our hope and confidence before God, and His righteous judgment, is singularly on the basis of the merit and mercy of Jesus. He has fulfilled the law in His active obedience and satisfied the wrath of God through His atoning death on the cross. Salvation is by grace alone, and is received by faith alone. As J.I. Packer wrote, "there is really only one point to be made in the field of soteriology: the point that God saves sinners."1 This is the heart of the gospel. If we lose this truth we die. But the heart of the gospel beats and carries the blood to the rest of our body, giving strength and movement to the muscles of godliness.....
Read the rest here.
If the gospel you believe does not include obedience as a fruit of faith then it is short-sighted and you will end up spiritually crashing into a wall. Certainly, we need to be exceedingly careful to make clear that our hope and confidence before God, and His righteous judgment, is singularly on the basis of the merit and mercy of Jesus. He has fulfilled the law in His active obedience and satisfied the wrath of God through His atoning death on the cross. Salvation is by grace alone, and is received by faith alone. As J.I. Packer wrote, "there is really only one point to be made in the field of soteriology: the point that God saves sinners."1 This is the heart of the gospel. If we lose this truth we die. But the heart of the gospel beats and carries the blood to the rest of our body, giving strength and movement to the muscles of godliness.....
Read the rest here.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Strengthened by His Grace
"You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus." 2 Timothy 2:1
“First, then, there is a call to be strong. Timothy was weak; Timothy was timid. Yet he was called to a position of leadership in the church – and in an area in which Paul’s authority was rejected. It is as if Paul said to him, ‘Listen Timothy, never mind what other people say, never mind what other people think, never mind what other people do; you are to be strong. Never mind how shy you feel, never mind how weak you feel; you are to be strong.’ That is the first thing.
Second, you are to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. If the exhortation had simply been ‘be strong,’ it would have been absurd indeed. You might as well tell a snail to be quick or a horse to fly as to tell a weak man to be strong or a shy man to be brave. But Paul’s calling Timothy to fortitude is a Christian and not a stoical exhortation. Timothy was not to be strong in himself. He was not just to grit his teeth and clench his fists and set his jaw. No, he was, as the Greek literally means, to be strengthened with the grace that is in Christ Jesus, to find his resources for Christian service not in his own nature but in the grace of Jesus Christ.”
-- John Stott, Urbana 1967. Italics original.
The grace of Christ is not an excuse for weakness; he is an endless resource for strength. -- Ray Ortlund, Jr.
“First, then, there is a call to be strong. Timothy was weak; Timothy was timid. Yet he was called to a position of leadership in the church – and in an area in which Paul’s authority was rejected. It is as if Paul said to him, ‘Listen Timothy, never mind what other people say, never mind what other people think, never mind what other people do; you are to be strong. Never mind how shy you feel, never mind how weak you feel; you are to be strong.’ That is the first thing.
Second, you are to be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. If the exhortation had simply been ‘be strong,’ it would have been absurd indeed. You might as well tell a snail to be quick or a horse to fly as to tell a weak man to be strong or a shy man to be brave. But Paul’s calling Timothy to fortitude is a Christian and not a stoical exhortation. Timothy was not to be strong in himself. He was not just to grit his teeth and clench his fists and set his jaw. No, he was, as the Greek literally means, to be strengthened with the grace that is in Christ Jesus, to find his resources for Christian service not in his own nature but in the grace of Jesus Christ.”
-- John Stott, Urbana 1967. Italics original.
The grace of Christ is not an excuse for weakness; he is an endless resource for strength. -- Ray Ortlund, Jr.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
J.I. Packer on Fyodor Dostoyevsky
J. I. Packer:
Dostoyevsky is to me both the greatest novelist, as such, and the greatest Christian storyteller, in particular, of all time. His plots and characters pinpoint the sublimity, perversity, meanness, and misery of fallen human adulthood in an archetypal way matched only by Aeschylus and Shakespeare, while his dramatic vision of God’s amazing grace and of the agonies, Christ’s and ours, that accompany salvation, has a range and depth that only Dante and Bunyan come anywhere near. . . . [H]is constant theme is the nightmare quality of unredeemed existence and the heartbreaking glory of the incarnation, whereby all human hurts came to find their place in the living and dying of Christ the risen Redeemer.
—The Gospel in Dostoyevsky: Selections from His Works (Orbis, 2004) vii.
Dostoyevsky is to me both the greatest novelist, as such, and the greatest Christian storyteller, in particular, of all time. His plots and characters pinpoint the sublimity, perversity, meanness, and misery of fallen human adulthood in an archetypal way matched only by Aeschylus and Shakespeare, while his dramatic vision of God’s amazing grace and of the agonies, Christ’s and ours, that accompany salvation, has a range and depth that only Dante and Bunyan come anywhere near. . . . [H]is constant theme is the nightmare quality of unredeemed existence and the heartbreaking glory of the incarnation, whereby all human hurts came to find their place in the living and dying of Christ the risen Redeemer.
—The Gospel in Dostoyevsky: Selections from His Works (Orbis, 2004) vii.
Monday, September 9, 2013
His Love for Us Is Relentless
"...the great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him."
-- C.S. Lewis ~ Mere Christianity
-- C.S. Lewis ~ Mere Christianity
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Believing Deeply in Your Being Right with God
“Only a fraction of the present body of professing Christians are solidly appropriating the justifying work of Christ in their lives. . . . In their day-to-day existence they rely on their sanctification for justification. . . . Few know enough to start each day with a thoroughgoing stand upon Luther’s platform: you are accepted, looking outward in faith and claiming the wholly alien righteousness of Christ as the only ground for acceptance, relaxing in that quality of trust which will produce increasing sanctification as faith is active in love and gratitude.
In order for a pure and lasting work of spiritual renewal to take place within the church, multitudes within it must be led to build their lives on this foundation. This means that they must be conducted into the light of a full conscious awareness of God’s holiness, the depth of their sin and the sufficiency of the atoning work of Christ for their acceptance with God, not just at the outset of their Christian lives but in every succeeding day.”
-- Richard F. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life (Downers Grove, 1979), pages 101-102. Italics his.
HT: Ray Ortlund, Jr.
In order for a pure and lasting work of spiritual renewal to take place within the church, multitudes within it must be led to build their lives on this foundation. This means that they must be conducted into the light of a full conscious awareness of God’s holiness, the depth of their sin and the sufficiency of the atoning work of Christ for their acceptance with God, not just at the outset of their Christian lives but in every succeeding day.”
-- Richard F. Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life (Downers Grove, 1979), pages 101-102. Italics his.
HT: Ray Ortlund, Jr.
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Keeping it real...
"If you claim to be religious but don’t keep a tight rein on your tongue [and, by a natural extension, on your typing fingers in regard to emails, text messages and Facebook posts], you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless." -- James 1:26
Friday, September 6, 2013
"FactChecker: What Is the 'Dark Night of the Soul'?"
-- from Glenn Stanton via the GospelCoalition.org
"My truck won't start, wife ran off with my best buddy, my dog don't love me no more and on top of all that, we just had a nasty church-split. God has me going through a real dark night of the soul!"
Dark night of the soul.
If you've been around the church for any time, you've probably heard people use this phrase to describe substantive black and difficult periods in their lives, typically a bit more trying than the hitches our good ol' boy here is experiencing.
These are times when God seems so far away if not altogether absent and trials of spiritual drought and life problems are one's constant companion. This dark night tests and torments the depths of our soul. You know it when you're in it.
The phrase comes from John of the Cross, a sixteenth-century Spanish priest who came to work with Teresa of Avila in her effort to reform the Carmelite Order. He was one of Spain's greatest poets. He addresses this dark night in two major writings, The Ascent of Mount Carmel and The Dark Night. Both of these books make up two different commentaries on one of his many poems. This piece starts:
One dark night,
fired with love's urgent longings
- ah, the sheer grace! -
I went out unseen,
My house being now all stilled
But John of the Cross' "dark night" is not what most think it is or how they use it. While it is indeed an experience one goes through, it is not something that happens to us, nor does it refer to the circumstances of life that affect our souls. The "dark night" John is referring to is something a disciple of Christ intentionally enters into, a particular mindful practice of a spiritual discipline.
How does the poet himself describe it? Right out of the gate, in his commentary on the poem, he explains to us:
In this first stanza, the soul speaks of the way it followed in its departure from love of both self and all things. Through a method of true mortification, it died to all things and to itself. It did this so as to reach the sweet and delightful life of love with God. And it declares that this departure was a dark night. As we will explain later, this dark night signifies here purgative contemplation, which passively causes in the soul this negation of self and of all things.
The soul states that it was able to make this escape because of the strength and warmth gained from loving its Bridegroom in the obscuring contemplation. [1]
"Purgative" is a word he uses often through this work, for it speaks of that which is sought and experienced by the disciple who enters this spiritual process. In his usages, the term refers to an emptying. In The Ascent of Mount Carmel, John explains that this process gets its name because, "in . . . them the soul journeys in darkness as though by night."[2]
This process or exercise is largely about what Augustine referred to in his book City of God as ordo amoris: the proper ordering of the loves. To be virtuous, the Christian should make sure that each love in one's soul receives the degree of attention appropriate to it, not more, not less.[3]
John explains,
When the soul reaches the dark night, all these loves are placed in reasonable order. This night strengthens and purifies the love that is of God, and takes away and destroys the other. But in the beginning [due to its soul-testing rigor] it causes the soul to lose sight of both of them.[4]
As serious Christians, we should honor our spiritual forefathers on whose shoulders we stand by speaking correctly and truly of important facets of the various disciplines and spiritualties that many in Christ's Body practice and have practiced for hundreds of years. If we choose to use such terms, let us go to the original source to learn their meaning, rather than from the last person we heard use it. Referencing gems from the wealth of our faith requires more than playing the telephone game. But too often that is precisely what we do.
The sacred history of Christian practice is worth exploring, knowing about, and referencing accurately. But we can and should be more diligent about how we use spiritual and theological language.
[1] St. John of the Cross, The Dark Night, in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, (ICS Publication, 1991), translated by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez, p. 360. Book One: Explanation:1,2.
[2] St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, (ICS Publication, 1991), translated by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez, p. 118. Chapter 1:1
[3] St. Augustine, City of God, 15:22.
[4] The Dark Night, 370. Chapter 4:8
"My truck won't start, wife ran off with my best buddy, my dog don't love me no more and on top of all that, we just had a nasty church-split. God has me going through a real dark night of the soul!"
Dark night of the soul.
If you've been around the church for any time, you've probably heard people use this phrase to describe substantive black and difficult periods in their lives, typically a bit more trying than the hitches our good ol' boy here is experiencing.
These are times when God seems so far away if not altogether absent and trials of spiritual drought and life problems are one's constant companion. This dark night tests and torments the depths of our soul. You know it when you're in it.
The phrase comes from John of the Cross, a sixteenth-century Spanish priest who came to work with Teresa of Avila in her effort to reform the Carmelite Order. He was one of Spain's greatest poets. He addresses this dark night in two major writings, The Ascent of Mount Carmel and The Dark Night. Both of these books make up two different commentaries on one of his many poems. This piece starts:
One dark night,
fired with love's urgent longings
- ah, the sheer grace! -
I went out unseen,
My house being now all stilled
But John of the Cross' "dark night" is not what most think it is or how they use it. While it is indeed an experience one goes through, it is not something that happens to us, nor does it refer to the circumstances of life that affect our souls. The "dark night" John is referring to is something a disciple of Christ intentionally enters into, a particular mindful practice of a spiritual discipline.
How does the poet himself describe it? Right out of the gate, in his commentary on the poem, he explains to us:
In this first stanza, the soul speaks of the way it followed in its departure from love of both self and all things. Through a method of true mortification, it died to all things and to itself. It did this so as to reach the sweet and delightful life of love with God. And it declares that this departure was a dark night. As we will explain later, this dark night signifies here purgative contemplation, which passively causes in the soul this negation of self and of all things.
The soul states that it was able to make this escape because of the strength and warmth gained from loving its Bridegroom in the obscuring contemplation. [1]
"Purgative" is a word he uses often through this work, for it speaks of that which is sought and experienced by the disciple who enters this spiritual process. In his usages, the term refers to an emptying. In The Ascent of Mount Carmel, John explains that this process gets its name because, "in . . . them the soul journeys in darkness as though by night."[2]
This process or exercise is largely about what Augustine referred to in his book City of God as ordo amoris: the proper ordering of the loves. To be virtuous, the Christian should make sure that each love in one's soul receives the degree of attention appropriate to it, not more, not less.[3]
John explains,
When the soul reaches the dark night, all these loves are placed in reasonable order. This night strengthens and purifies the love that is of God, and takes away and destroys the other. But in the beginning [due to its soul-testing rigor] it causes the soul to lose sight of both of them.[4]
As serious Christians, we should honor our spiritual forefathers on whose shoulders we stand by speaking correctly and truly of important facets of the various disciplines and spiritualties that many in Christ's Body practice and have practiced for hundreds of years. If we choose to use such terms, let us go to the original source to learn their meaning, rather than from the last person we heard use it. Referencing gems from the wealth of our faith requires more than playing the telephone game. But too often that is precisely what we do.
The sacred history of Christian practice is worth exploring, knowing about, and referencing accurately. But we can and should be more diligent about how we use spiritual and theological language.
[1] St. John of the Cross, The Dark Night, in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, (ICS Publication, 1991), translated by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez, p. 360. Book One: Explanation:1,2.
[2] St. John of the Cross, The Ascent of Mount Carmel, in The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross, (ICS Publication, 1991), translated by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez, p. 118. Chapter 1:1
[3] St. Augustine, City of God, 15:22.
[4] The Dark Night, 370. Chapter 4:8
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Know All That You Can Know of God's Revealed Truth
"I would have every Christian wish to know all that he can know of revealed truth. Somebody whispers that the secret things belong not to us. You may be sure you will never know them if they are secret; but all that is revealed you ought to know, for these things belong to you and to your children. Take care you know what the Holy Ghost teaches. Do not give way to a faint-hearted ignorance, lest you be great losers thereby."
-- Charles Spurgeon
-- Charles Spurgeon
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Holy Usefulness
Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work. 2 Timothy 2:20-21
“Lord and Master, make us thus fit for that infinitely precious privilege, a state of consecrated readiness for Your holy use. We are altogether Yours. Enable us as such so to ‘cleanse ourselves from’ complicity with evil within and without that we, when You require us for Your purposes, may be found by You handy to Your touch, in the place and in the condition in which You can take us up and employ us in whatever way, on the moment, for Yourself.”
-- H. C. G. Moule, The Second Epistle to Timothy (Grand Rapids, 1952), page 97. Italics original. Style updated.
“Lord and Master, make us thus fit for that infinitely precious privilege, a state of consecrated readiness for Your holy use. We are altogether Yours. Enable us as such so to ‘cleanse ourselves from’ complicity with evil within and without that we, when You require us for Your purposes, may be found by You handy to Your touch, in the place and in the condition in which You can take us up and employ us in whatever way, on the moment, for Yourself.”
-- H. C. G. Moule, The Second Epistle to Timothy (Grand Rapids, 1952), page 97. Italics original. Style updated.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
When Help Is No Help at All
"It is neither helpful, loving nor wise to do for someone what they ask you to do, if the doing of it, in reality, will do them harm, including the harm of interfering with their doing for themselves what they really ought to do." -- Jonathan G. Sheffield
Where All of History Is Headed
"The cosmic extent of salvation is seen as the Second Adam offers up to the Father a created order in which He has subdued every enemy (1 Cor. 15:24–26), and there is nothing unclean in the garden over which He rules (Rev. 21:1–8)."
— Russell D. Moore, "The Kingdom of Christ"
— Russell D. Moore, "The Kingdom of Christ"
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