Tuesday, May 31, 2011

1 Corinthians 2:6-9

We live in a world of experts, and many of them have stepped outside the boundaries which once marked the limits of their expertise, limits which once provided a certain humility. The most obvious and hackneyed of these would be evolutionary theorists, who now assume that their field – when combined with the broader “science” – provides our total knowledge about all things. Evolutionary science is not enough: now they have proclamations about life, ethics, meaning, society. You name it, they know about it. This can, I suspect, have a depressing effect on Christians, and generate feelings of inadequacy; this may especially be true for preachers.

In 1 Corinthians 2:6-9 we have a sobering and reassuring anchor point. The ‘wisdom’ which preachers are called to speak, as distinct from that of the wisdom of the age, finds its source outside and before creation as we understand it (v7). I assume this refers to its content, its vehicle (Jesus), and the power and the future of the gospel - God’s work of redemption for humanity. In which case, to feel inadequate is to miss out on the sheer scale of what we preach. It is huge, in that it is outside and in effect encompasses within its understanding all other discovered and derived wisdom (science, philosophy, political theory, ethics...). We may not be experts in those fields and not called to pontificate about them, but at least we do know they are fields: they have boundaries and limits which exist despite attempts to pull down fences. Which cautions people against pretending to be able to tell us authoritative wisdom on questions and issues outside their field. And outside-and-before-the-universe, and how the eternal impacts the now, is definitely, outside their field. Having the wisdom of this age does not qualify someone to pronounce on wisdom that transcends this age.

We should treasure all true wisdom that is unearthed and formulated from this age in which we live. But not uncritically. We can grasp how a lot of such wisdom helps in life, and even feeds into our understanding of the things of God. But not so that we get confused about jurisdiction. We need to see what we as preachers proclaim: the wisdom that is beyond the ages and that will not ultimately come to nothing (v6).

Badger

Deep originality

Strive for deep conviction more than superficial originality, and deep originality will come.

Doug Wilson (via Dickie Mint)

Monday, May 23, 2011

Elshof: acting consistently with belief

In response to the claim "I have trouble acting out my beliefs", Elshof says:

But with very few exceptions, no one has any trouble in acting out their beliefs. You do act in accordance with your beliefs.  More likely, you just don't believe what you've thought of yourself as believing.  Rather than trying to work up behaviour consistent with what we think we believe, we should be begging with the man who wanted desperately for Jesus to free his son from the demon that possessed him, "I believe;  help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24)

I Told Me So, p21.

Ortberg: Amusing

...we don't want to be merely amusing. I'm using the word here in its classical sense. To "muse" means to reflect and ponder; put an "a" in front of it and you have the absence of reflection. Amusement is a way of boredom-avoidance through external stimulation that fails to exercise our minds. It's mere diversion. It is a kind of performance-enhancing drug for an attention-deficit society. "Amusement" is appealing because we don't have to think; it spares us the fear and anxiety that might otherwise prey on our thoughts.

Leadership

Friday, May 20, 2011

The Books #5

Well...you knew it was coming.  The trouble is John Piper has suffered a little from massive exposure over the last few years, which means his every word has been followed by the people who follow other people's every words - a pressure most of us don't have to live with, nor the consequences.

Anyway, when I bought this:



he had only just turned up on these shores (in fact I bought the American edition straight from DG).  And I can only say: it is the book I wished I had read at the start of my Christian life, it's just that good.  It would have saved me so much trouble - and especially and fundamentally with this: that happiness and Christianity were, to all intents and purposes, not really connected in my mind.  I don't know if someone had said that to me, but as a young Christian and onwards the impression I had got from church, leaders, other Christians was somehow joy was not the concern of Christianity.  Maybe my misunderstanding - but I suspect I wasn't alone.

So having heard him in '98, I got the book and it all fell into place, and powerfully so.  (I told a Christian friend what I had heard in '98 in a 3-minute summary and it is not too much of an exaggeration to say it changed his life).

And yet what we really find here is, basically, traditional evangelical thinking  - particularly, in places, Puritan; and especially and overtly, Jonathan Edwards.  I just hadn't seen it before - but there it was.  And every fella saying Piper was some kind of mad uber-charismatic heretic, simply had not been reading Banner's Puritan Paperbacks properly (as I hadn't).

In this book you get his main thesis (pursuing God's glory and pursuing personal joy is fundamentally the same thing) and then how all the key areas of Christian life fit into that (Bible reading, prayer, missions etc).  And with it such warm-heartedness and passion. Calvinism on fire.

Like anyone with a big idea, it's always possible to go too far and see it everywhere.  Most people with big ideas do.  But there is something pervasive and persuasive about the principle Piper works out here.  To any younger Christian with a good reading ability and struggling through the fundamental questions of the faith, this is the book I would give.

I finally found out...

how I end up with so many responsibilities:  it doesn't matter how long the meeting is or much tea and coffee is drunk, I am THE ONLY ONE who EVER needs the bathroom:
Dilbert

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Elshof: self-deceived about self-deception

Due to the writings of the existentialists and other cultural trends, the "Good Person" was increasingly being understood as the "Authentic Person".  Being true to oneself became a - or in some cases the - chief good.  Self-deception, then, was given a promotion in the ranking of vices.  What was once a derivative vice - one whose primary importance was found in its ability to facilitate other, more serious, vices - became the most egregious of sins.

Now a remarkable thing happens when a sin get s a promotion...
[Elshof then uses racism as an example of his point]
So whenever a a particular vice gets a promotion in the ordering of vices, the temptation to be self-deceived about that fact that one exhibits that vice increases.  And with the rise of existentialism and the supreme value of authenticity, self-deception got a promotion in the ordering of vices.  And so, paradoxically, the vice of self-deception has been increasingly veiled from view by its own machinations.

Gregg Ten Elshof, I Told Me So, p10-11

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Keller: James 1:9-10

...James proposes that the well-off person who becomes a believer  would spiritually benefit by especially thinking about her sinfulness before God, since out in the world she gets nothing but acclaim.  On the other hand, the poor person who becomes a believer would spiritually benefit by especially thinking about her new high spiritual status, since out in the world she gets nothing but disdain.

Generous Justice, p103-104

Thursday, May 05, 2011

The Books #4

I seem to have slipped into some kind of chronological list at the moment - each of the 4 books so far are in the order I read them , with a year or three in between.  Won't last.

Anyway, for some reason I cannot remember (did we have lecture on him?) I bought this volume:



Schaeffer has tended to polarise people:  he has fans with such enthusiasm to rival even members of the Inklings Club, and others who say he wasn't anything to write home about.  All I can say is The God Who Is There was pivotal for me (it's one of the few books I have read twice).  Why?

Well for a start it was the first Christian book I had read which actually dealt with major cultural trends and schools of thought.  Of course it predated the rise of post-modernism so could not be expected to deal with it head on but, like Lewis, Schaeffer clearly sees something like it coming.  But taking a step back: it dealt with culture.  It didn't treat church as one thing and culture as another - it turned out we could interact with it AND there was a biblical way of viewing it that held water.  Blimey.  No one had told me.

Second it dealt with issues of doubt that, it transpires, were common for many Christians  - and plotted a way to think through them.

Third it took seriously the emptiness of modern man and that saying "Jesus loves you" would not be enough to tear down barriers to the gospel.  It was here I first saw the logic of "push their presuppositions":  that if you had arguments against the reality of God, you must be to some extent 'suppressing the truth in unrighteousness', and to do that you must be making certain assumptions on which to build your argument which simply aren't true (or not entirely so).  You could shout at them - or you could push the logic of them.  His point was that most people have not taken their presuppositions to a logical extreme because if they had their weakness would be seen.  So instead of arguing, why not gently lead them further along the path of their logic until the uneasy feeling crept in that something was wrong somewhere...then n that uncertainty point out a better way.  (Discerning readers will be thinking of certain Keller-phrases like "plausibility structures", and really the whole first section of The Reason for God).

Plus a supersonic overview of the development of post-enlightenment thought.

What a book.

Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Keller: Edwards on people who can't handle money

When answering the objection that the poor have often contributed to their condition, Edwards is remarkably balanced yet insistently generous.  He points out that it is possible some people simply do not have "a natural faculty to manage affairs to advantage".  In other words, some people persistently make sincere but very bad decisions about money and possessions.  Edwards says we should consider the lack of this faculty to be almost like being born with impaired eyesight:
Such a faculty is a gift that God bestows on some, and not on others.  And it is not owing to themselves....This is as reasonable as that he to whom Providence has imparted sight should be willing to help him to whom sight is denied, and that he should have the benefit of the sight of others, who has none of his own...

Generous Justice p72

Tuesday, May 03, 2011

Athanasius on Psalms

So then, my son, let whoever reads this Book of Psalms take the things in it quite simply as God-inspired; and let each select from it, as from the fruits of a garden, those things of which he sees himself in need. For I think that in the words of this book all human life is covered, with all its states and thoughts, and that nothing further can be found in man. For no matter what you seek, whether it be repentance and confession, or help in trouble and temptation or under persecution, whether you have been set free from plots and snares or, on the contrary, are sad for any reason, or whether, seeing yourself progressing and your enemy cast down, you want to praise and thank and bless the Lord, each of these things the Divine Psalms show you how to do, and in every case the words you want are written down for you, and you can say them as your own.

Letter to Marcinellus

Selling purity

Reflecting on the media commodification of girls, and Miranda Cosgrove's impending 18th birthday (given what has happened to most other teen starlets...)

Cosgrove’s pristine image is inextricably tied to her career, a dynamic that presents us with two key problems. Orenstein summarizes the first one in her book. Of the partnership between morality and profit she writes, “I suspect that you cannot commodify a girl’s virginity without, eventually, commodifying what comes after” (129). In other words, the entertainment industry isn’t promoting chastity; it’s selling what sells. Up until a certain age, innocence is a powerful marketing image, but when purity no longer garners attention, these young starlets turn to what sells. And what usually sells is sex.

CT her.menuetics.