JOLLYBLOGGER

Some Jolly Good Links

Ahhh, so many good blog posts out there, so little time to comment on them.  As I read through blog posts through the week I'll open the up in new tabs in my Flock Browser, meaning to come back to them and comment on them with a post of my own.  There's a problem though - right now in my browser I have 18 tabs open - that's right 18.  It's terrible, there's gotta be a 12 step group for people like me somewhere.  Oh yeah, and I forgot to mention that I've got another saved session with about 12 tabs.  I'll never write that many posts.  Guess I'm going to have to try to start imitating Joe Carter with his 33 Things posts, but I don't want to be compared with Joe - my ego is fragile enough as it is.

But let's see if I can link a bunch of stuff here, clear out some tabs and then I'll go see my counselor.

1.  C. S. Lewis on Paganism and Christianity - from Peter Chattaway - maybe the rise of neo-paganism in America is actually a good thing, it's a step closer to Christianity than secularism.

To quote what Lewis wrote in 'Is Theism Important?', from God in the Dock:

When grave persons express their fear that England is relapsing into Paganism, I am tempted to reply,  'Would that she were.' For I do not think it at all likely that we shall ever see Parliament opened by the slaughtering of a garlanded white bull in the House of Lords or Cabinet Ministers leaving sandwiches in Hyde Park as an offering for the Dryads. If such a state of affairs came about, then the Christian apologist would have something to work on. For a Pagan, as history shows, is a man eminently convertible to Christianity. He is essentially the pre-Christian, or sub-Christian, religious man. The post-Christian man of our day differs from him as much as a divorcée differs from a virgin. The Christian and the Pagan have much more in common with one another than either has with the writers of the New Statesman; and those writers would of course agree with me.

2. In the same vein, check out this terrific account from John F. Hobbins at Ancient Hebrew Poetry of a Buddhist in search of grace, whose Buddhism led him to Christianity.  It's in the last couple of paragraphs of the post.

3. FWIW - by linking to those first two posts I don't in any way mean to devalue the importance of apologetics nor to underestimate the depth of error in paganism and false religion.  I only mean to say that paganism and false religion aren't the big hairy, scary monsters we sometimes think they are.

4. Florida minister receives death threats for removing American and Christian flags from sanctuary. (HT - Bene Diction).  Egads, this happened in Deland, FL., which is about 2 hours south of where I grew up.  Lots of my Baptist friends went to Stetson University, which is in Deland and my wife's grandmother lived in a town just outside of there.  So, these are kinda my people down there and I am wondering just how many people in Deland have truly lost their minds.  Here's the rationale from the church's pastor, Sean Allen:

"Sean was of the belief that because we are a church, we are a people of Christ, we should be focusing on the cross of Christ," Long said. "So he removed the flags from the sanctuary."

Sounds like sound reasoning to me.  In all fairness, the news article says that the threats may not necessarily be coming from church members, but one does have to ask who would have enough vested interest in this matter to do such a thing.  As for me, I am wondering if the folks in Deland are drinking the same water as the people in nearby Cassadaga, and maybe some weird chemical reaction is driving people insane.

5.  Michael Patton shares the sad story of a Christian walkaway.  He lays the cause of this at the feet of what I would call Christian anti-intellectualism and poor theological education. I agree with him, but think it's bigger than that.  In his Reason for God tour Tim Keller is pointing out that Christian belief is founded on three things - which I summarized here by saying that Christian belief is:

• Socially conditioned - it must fit with a group to which you belong.   
• Intellectually conditioned - it must make sense to you. 
• Personally conditioned - it must have an impact, an effect, on your life.

This isn't to detract at all from what Michael Patton wrote, and I would bet he agrees.  It's just worth pointing out that walkaways walk away for a combination of reasons, including but not limited to intellectual reasons.

Mike Metzger on Belief, Behavior and Basic Assumptions

I did the dance for joy when I discovered that Mike Metzger is blogging.  Mike is the founder of the Clapham Institute here in the Annapolis area and I have had the good providence of hearing him speak and have several conversations with him.  I highly recommend you read anything and everything he writes - he will enlighten you, entertain you, delight you, disturb you, open your eyes and make you mad, but I guarantee he will never bore you.

In a post titled "Courting Disaster?" he discusses the differences between beliefs, behaviors and basic assumptions.

Icebergs have three strata — a tip, the waterline, and the bulk beneath the surface. So does human nature according to Richard Weaver. The tip is our behaviors or “specific ideas about things.”¹ These are daily things like work and play and friendships. The second stratum down bobs along the waterline as our beliefs. These two are important but if human nature is like an iceberg, behaviors and beliefs only constitute 10% of who we are. What’s the other 90%? For if we fail to pay attention to it, we court disaster.

Scholars often call the other 90% “worldview” — and that’s a problem. You don’t hear “worldview” around the dinner table. Try this instead: basic assumptions.

He goes on to show how worldview, or basic assumptions, drive our beliefs and behavior, yet we still focus most of our energy on changing beliefs and behavior.  One example he gives is that we might have a belief that marriage is sacred, but if one of our basic assumptions about life is "have it your way," that's going to trump the belief in the sanctity of marriage every time.  He gives several examples and evidences of how this plays out.

I agree wholeheartedly and think this is important.  Still, I am looking for a little more clarity.  I posted a comment on his post asking some questions but I thought I would go ahead and post it here to open up some discussion.  I would sincerely appreciate some feedback to the following:

Mike this is brilliant. But I have two followups. The first is that in practical terms it seems that the distinction between belief and basic assumption is pretty fuzzy. Isn’t “have it my way” as much a “belief” as my belief in the sanctity of marriage.

I ask that for pragmatic reasons because the next thought would be to ask exactly how we drill down to those basic assumptions and start changing them? Is it that basic assumptions are mostly unconscious or subconscious? In other words, “have it my way” may be a belief in one sense, but maybe there is a process by which it submerges into the unconscious realm and becomes a basic assumption that drives and overpowers specific beliefs. Am I on the right track here or hopelessly missing the point? And, how do we specifically address these basic assumptions if they are so hard to see?

Joe Carter on Discarding the Term "Supernatural"

Let me refer you to a post by Joe Carter from the Evangelical Outpost that I would call a "must-read."   It's called "Divine Demarcation: Why Christians Should Discard 'Supernatural."  In an effort to sharpen our use of language Joe shows why the term "supernatural" is a sloppy term that can have some unintended ill-effects. 

I'd like to quote and explain a good deal of his post, but there is too much, so let me sum-up.  Joe rightly points out that there are some beings and activities that we call "supernatural" that are actually a part of the created order.  For instance, we sometimes refer to God, and Satan and angels and demons as supernatural beings whereas we humans are "natural" beings.  The trouble with that is that it puts Satan and angels and demons in the same order as God.  Biblically, Satan and angels and demons are of the created order, like man.  Thus, the activity of Satan and angels and demons is activity within the created order.

This is why I prefer a phrase that is bulky and unwieldy and that will probably never get much play because of it's bulk and unwieldiness - to describe what usually goes by the name "supernatural."  That phrase is "extraordinary providence."  See what I mean about the difficulty of using that in ordinary conversation? 

But the idea has merit.  Everything that happens in the created realm - from me breathing, brushing my teeth and drinking soda to angelic intervention to prevent a car wreck, or divine deliverance from illness, happens by means of divine providence.  In other words, God is as active in giving me my next breath as He would be in delivering me from cancer.

But, God gives "next breath" far more often than He gives healing from cancer.  Thus, He ordinarily and providentially gives next breath, but from time to time He'll do something out of the ordinary, like heal cancer.  The same God and the same providence are working in both, one is just more ordinary and one is less ordinary.

Read the whole post here.

C. S. Lewis on "Mere Mortals"

I have seen the following quote from C. S. Lewis several times and have wanted to quote it in a sermon several times and it seems that each time I need it I can't find it.  It looks like my problem may have been solved - it's my buddy Adrian Warnock to the rescue.  This is a great quote to contemplate when thinking about your fellow image bearers.

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would strongly be tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.

— C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, HarperOne, pp. 14-15.

Tim Keller on the Crying Need of the Hour

In light of the discussion on this post on "strategic living" I thought I would let Tim Keller have the last word on the strategic importance of the city:

I’m throwing in with Jim Boice on this one (cf. his Two Cities: Two Loves.)

The evangelical church must stay true to its biblical foundations, and it must maintain and enhance the effectiveness of its expository preaching, the holiness of its members, the ‘thickness’ of its counter-cultural community, the fervor of its evangelism. But if it doesn’t learn how to do this in our biggest cities then we don’t have much hope for our culture.

If our cities are largely pagan while our countryside is largely Christian, then our society and culture will continue to slide into paganism. And that is exactly what is happening. Christians strengthen somewhat away from the cities and they have made some political gains, but that is not effecting cultural products much. It is because in the center cities (NYC, Boston, LA, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Washington DC) the percentages of people living and working there who are Christians are minuscule.

Jim Boice proposed that evangelical Christians need to live in the major cities at a higher percentage than the population at large (See Two Cities, p.163ff.) Currently 50% of the U.S. population live in urban areas (and 25% lives in just the 10 largest urban areas.) Boice proposes that evangelicals should be living in cities in at least the same percentages or more. As confirmation of Boice’s belief consider how much impact both the Jewish and the gay communities have had on our culture. Why? Though neither is more than 3-4% of the total population, they each comprise over 20% of the population of Manhattan (and in other center cities. )

So we have two problems. First, evangelicals (especially Anglos) in general are quite negative about U.S. cities and city living. Second, you can’t ‘do church’ in exactly the same way in a city as you do it elsewhere, not if you want to actually convert hard-core secular people to Christianity. There are churches that set up in cities without adapting to their environment. Ironically, they can grow rather well anyway in cities by just gathering in the young already-evangelicals who are temporarily living in the city after college. But that is not the way to make the cities heavily Christian—which is the crying need today.

HT - JT

Calvin's Hidden Philosophy

Here's a good quote from John Calvin to start your week.  Thanks to Cynthia Nielsen for finding and posting this:

The Lord willingly and freely reveals himself in his Christ.  For in Christ, he offers all happiness in place of our misery, all wealth in place of our neediness; in him he opens to us the heavenly treasures that our whole faith may contemplate his beloved Son, our whole expectation depend upon him, and our whole hope cleave to and rest in him.  This, indeed, is that secret and hidden philosophy which cannot be wrested from syllogisms.  But they whose eyes God has opened surely learnt it by heart, that in his light they may see light (Institutes, 3.20.1, trans. Ford Lewis Battles).

Jolly - Before and After

Way back when, someone mentioned that I should do a before and after here on the blog to document my weight loss.  I wanted to wait a bit to make sure I kept the weight off, and now I'm at a point where I'm pretty satisfied that I'm keeping the weight off.

I wish I had dates on all of these but the before pics are all somewhere between 2003 and 2006.  The after pics are all from fall 2007 till a few weeks ago.  The pics aren't good quality but they do give an idea of how much weight I've lost.  From now on I will refer to the before pictures as "David with a beachball under his shirt" and the after as "David minus the beach ball."  I also thought this would be a good follow up to the preceding post on the effects of a high fat - low carb diet on the body.

Before

 

After

This is what happens to your body when you eat a diet high in fat!

No, I'm not turning this into the Jolly Good Cosmo-GQ blog, but I thought I would share a couple of pics I have come across recently in the low-carb-osphere that show the dramatic effects that eating a diet high in fat can have on your body.

The guy is Mark Sisson, he's 54 years old and here's a description of how he eats.

2,458 calories, 58% of which was from fat; 165 grams of protein (1 gram per pound of body weight) and 114 grams of carbs. Now some might say that eating less than 2500 calories is too low for a moderately active man, but there are two points to make here. First, I am never really hungry. On this Primal Blueprint eating style, I eat when I want to and stop when I no longer feel hungry. Pretty simple. If I skip meals, I don’t get light-headed or famished. I don’t ever feel like I need more calories or that I am missing out on anything or “sacrificing” some guilty pleasure. I get plenty of protein to spare muscle and add to protein turnover. I get plenty of fat for fuel – sometimes 65% of daily calories.

Second - and this goes to the heart of the Primal concept – when you eat fewer carbs, your body readily accesses dietary and stored fat for fuel. Even at 8% body fat, I still have 46,000 calories of stored fat, at least 25,000 of which is available to use as fuel at any time. Theoretically, you could walk 250 miles on that. It’s a beautiful thing when you direct gene expression to “want” to burn fat instead of always storing it. You certainly don’t need cardio to produce the full effect (you can if you want, within guidelines). As we often say here “80% of your results come from how you eat.” Conversely, eating more carbs drives up insulin, drives carbs towards fat storage, decreases fat-burning by prompting fat cells to hold on to stored fat and makes you hungrier for more carbs. I could burn some or most of all that off again by doing tons of cardio, but that only makes me hungrier for more carbs and perpetuates the cycle. It’s like digging a hole to put the ladder in to wash the basement windows.

The lady is Kat James who runs a website called Informed Beauty. Jimmy Moore introduced an interview with her this way:

Kat shares the cold hard facts about why fat consumption in conjunction with a low-carb diet is an awesome way to take care of your body and make yourself truly beautiful inside and out.

I'm telling ya - don't feel guilty about bringing out the bacon, the butter and the eggs, and don't worry about the fat in the burgers - it's the bun, the fries and the condiments that are killing you - not the meat (well, unless the meat is diseased).

Josh and Gregg Harris on Education

I can't tell you how much I appreciate the things Josh Harris is saying these days about education options.   Josh has a post with video on Gospel Unity Among Educational Camps and today he posted a comment from his dad, Gregg, on the subject.  Here's the comment from Gregg Harris:

Hey Josh, this is your dad. Just for the record, I heartily agree with what you have said so well in this video clip. Educational choices have always been a matter of parental responsibility, not of some extra-biblical standard. Every householder should make an informed decision before God. All should research their local schools, public and private and become fully convinced in the way in which he (or she) decides to use his God-given liberty under the Lordship of Christ to bear the best and most abundant fruit he can for the glory of God.

The only moral issue at stake is whether we are willing to walk in the obedience of our faith in God and His will as we understand it from the Scriptures. Though wisdom and foolishness are called into play, there is no moral superiority to be found in any one educational option. Though dilligence is required of all three options, only our labor in Christ will not be in vain. Then, as the relative fruit of each option is put on display in time, may we all be humble enough to change our ways as needed in order to bear even better fruit for God.

Not all options seem to be equally fruitful thus far. But as a long-time home-schooling father and Christian home-schooling advocate I can honestly say that every option, including home schooling has its problems (as you well know). So, pick your problems, and by the grace of God deal with those problems as they arise. Our family has chosen the problems that come with home schooling. But, as you have said, we pray for all of our fellow parents and their children that God will mercifully bless their efforts to be faithful. We are all one in the body of Christ and that should allow us to support one another wholeheartedly in spite of our differing convictions on how to educate our children. Good job, Josh. I am so pleased with you and your service as a father, a pastor and just as my son. I love you. - Dad

Those who are familiar with the history of the homeschooling movement in the U.S. may remember that Gregg Harris was one of the early and most influential movers and shakers in the movement.  When I was in college, 25 years ago (wow, time flies) I was listening to Gregg Harris tapes and going to hear him speak.  I was in a community that was deeply committed to homeschooling so even in college I was preparing to homeschool.  And Gregg was the man.

As time went on, I gravitated toward a "home-school-is-the-only-educational-option-for-a-real-Christian" crowd and I became quite the, . . . um, . . . well, . . . unpleasant and unlikeable person about it.  Over the years I softened.  We homeschooled and found out there were huge challenges and difficulties with it.  Also, working in youth ministry I got to see that some of the most mature and spiritually healthy kids came out of a public schooling environment and some very dysfunctional kids came from homeschool environments.  At the same time I saw the reverse - some very mature and socially well adjusted homeschool kids, which countered the conventional wisdom that homeschool kids are socially inept.  I also saw plenty of public school kids who fell into all of the things the homeschoolers feared.

Overall, I began to see that there was far more to this whole thing than what school you sent your kids to.  My old pastor and mentor, Rod Whited, had a stump speech about education that he gave to everyone that went like this:

God has given parents the responsibility of educating their children.  Some will choose to fulfill this through homeschooling, some through public schooling, and some through private or private Christian schooling.  We will support these parents in whatever they choose.

This is what Gregg and Josh are saying here and I do so appreciate their stance for gospel unity in these matters.

Explain this Theologically and Practically

Kottke has an interesting story about the City Cafe Bakery in Ontario which lets customers add up their own bills and put the money into a box and make their own change.

"I liked the idea of simplifying things and ... the honour system made a whole lot of sense," Bergen says. "What irritated me about going into Tim Hortons, for example, was waiting in line for something as simple as getting a donut and a coffee. So the thought was, someone can pour his own coffee, grab his own bagel, cut it himself, throw the money in, and walk out. We don't touch 60 per cent of the transaction."

"Everything is rounded off to the nearest quarter with taxes included where applicable," he says. "So every desert is $1.50 (tarts, brownies, and date squares), every pizza lunch is $5, every beverage is $1.25, every loaf of bread is $2.75 (Italian sourdough, multi-grain, and raisin bread on weekends), croissants are $1 each, and bagels are three for $2 (plain, sesame, and multi-grain)."

The bakery conducts audits every six months and Bergen says only once did things come up short.

"Our theory is that two per cent of our sales are being ripped off. 'Ripped off' in the sense that there are people who forget to pay or they make a mistake in paying, and then there are people who deliberately don't pay. And every so often we have to kick somebody out that we know hasn't been paying," he says. "But at the same time we figure we're being overpaid by three per cent. Some people come in and want a $2.75 loaf of bread, but they see we're busy so they throw $3 in and walk out. Or, although we discourage tips, some people still give them to us. But because the staff is paid well (the average wage is $15.50 an hour), the tips go into the general pot."

In other words, the honor system basically works in this situation.  So how do we explain this theologically?  If "total depravity" is the fundamental defining mark of humanity then this shouldn't happen.  If "innocence" is the fundamental defining mark of humanity then this also couldn't happen because it wouldn't explain those who do rip the store off. 

In my mind the theological explanation should go something like this - this shows the glory and depravity of man.  Man is made in the image of God but because of sin has become totally depraved.  The "image" leads to altruism, the depravity leads to theft. 

But in this case altruism wins, the image wins - not without a fight - but altruism and the image wins.  The altruists overcompensate for the thieves and the bakery profits.

I have a few more thoughts after the jump.    

Regret in Heaven?

I'm gonna have to go with Phil Gons over John Piper on the issue of regret in heaven.  Discussing the second chapter of Piper's book Life as a Vapor, Gons says:

Piper reasons that since we will spend eternity praising Christ for ransoming us (e.g., Rev 5:9), we’ll certainly remember our sinful condition from which we’ve been ransomed. And those memories will yield feelings of regret.

It is inconceivable to me that we will remember our sin for what it really was, and the suffering of Christ for what it really was, and not feel regretful joy. . . . It does mean that regret will not ruin heaven. There will be kinds of joys, and complexities of happiness, and combinations of emotions in heaven of which we have never dreamed. (20)

Piper feels some tension leading him to speak in terms of “regretful joy.” He addresses Revelation 21:4, but concludes that he doesn’t think that it “rules out tears of joy” or “regretful joy.”

With all proper deference to John Piper, who is one of the great saints of our age, I have to agree with Phil when he says:

I’m having trouble being convinced. Regret is defined as “a feeling of sorrow, repentance, or disappointment” (Concise OED), “a sense of repentance, guilt, or sorrow, as over some wrong done or an unfulfilled ambition” or “a sense of loss or grief” (Collins English Dictionary), and “sorrow aroused by circumstances beyond one’s control or power to repair” or “an expression of distressing emotion (as sorrow or disappointment)” (Merriam-Webster’s).

Revelation 21:4 speaks of the permanent removal of mourning (πένθος), crying (κραυγὴ), and pain (πόνος). BDAG defines πένθος as “sorrow as experience or expression, grief, sadness, mourning” (795), κραυγὴ as  “outcry in grief or anxiety, wailing, crying” (565), and πόνος as “experience of great trouble, pain, distress, affliction” (852). It’s clear from a passage like Isaiah 65:14 that πόνος can refer to emotional pain (πόνον τῆς καρδίας) as well.

I struggle to see how the elimination of these leaves room for genuine regret (i.e., sorrow, disappointment, grief, guilt, distress). But since Piper never defines regret or “joyful regret,” it’s hard for me to know exactly what he has in mind. I’m really having a difficult time getting my mind around the concept of “joyful regret.” And if our praise of Christ for His work of ransoming us will be unceasing, and that praise requires that we remember our sin, then it would seem that our regret would be as constant as our praise.

Is it even right for believers to feel regret when recalling past sin?

I think one of the determinative passages on this is Jeremiah 31:34:

“People will no longer need to teach their neighbors and relatives to know me. For all of them, from the least important to the most important, will know me,” says the Lord. “For I will forgive their sin and will no longer call to mind the wrong they have done.”

If regret involves remembrance of past sin, and if God commits to not remembering our past sin, then how can we remember (regretfully) our past sin?

That last question that I quoted by Gons is one that I have given some thought to - aside from and before the question of regret for sin in the eternal state, should believers even feel regret for past sin while on this earth?

I will say that I am surprised at the determination of many I meet to live with a sense of guilt.  I meet many Christians who are fully committed (or as my friend Glenn Lucke says, they are "all in") to hanging on to guilt.  No amount of teaching or persuasion regarding the merits of Christ's work can convince them that they are free from guilt.  True, they may accept and be thankful that they are free from legal guilt, but experiential guilt is something they believe they must hang on to.

John MacArthur once said that the process of sanctification is the process of making our practice match our position.  In other words, we are positionally righteous before God, so we ought to make it our ambition to be practically righteous.  We understand that, because of indwelling sin, we won't do it perfectly in this life, but we still seek it.

Doesn't the same go for guilt?  We are positionally free from guilt because of the work of Christ.  Shouldn't we treat "experiential guilt" as an enemy the same as the other things for which the death of Christ paid the penalty?

Rolling Stone Goes Undercover with the Christian Fringe

I've been wanting to comment on the "Jesus Made Me Puke" story from Rolling Stone.  Fortunately, I don't have to because the blogosphere's two top Jared's have done my work for me and done a better job than I could have done.

In the latest of a burgeoning sub-genre of journalism called "undercover with the Christian right," Rolling Stone sent their man to get the scoop on one megachurch that is "representative" of the rest of evangelical Christianity.  Lo and behold, this reporter found a plethora of weirdness.

Jared Bridges rightly points out where the Rolling Stone reporter went wrong, but he acknowledges that the guy (unfortunately for evangelicals) got some things right.

When a writer for Rolling Stone can recognize that your preaching is more pop-psychology than biblical truth, you’re in trouble. Sadly, much of the evangelical landscape shares this wholesale adoption of talk-show therapy. It’s a practice the Apostle Paul might well refer to as conformity to the world.

Jared Wilson points out how the Rolling Stone writer rightly points out the troublesome privileging of jock culture in evangelical circles:

Some quotes, some thoughts . . .

One of the implicit promises of the church is that following its program will restore to you your vigor, confidence and assertiveness, effecting, among other things, a marked and obvious physical transformation from crippled lost soul to hearty vessel of God. That's one of the reasons that it's so important for the pastors to look healthy, lusty and lustrous — they're appearing as the "after" photo in the ongoing advertisement for the church wellness cure.

I found that observation really interesting, and generally true. Taibbi spends some time on the import of the macho, coulda-beena-contenda military/sportsman leaders, and it's an interesting perspective. As a guy who grew up in a youth ministry culture that propped up all manner of Christian ex-athletes, I always wondered if our youth ministers even cared that they were implicitly favoring jock culture with these endorsements, that many (most?) kids don't care that Jesus helped third string quaterback Brock Throwmeister get over losing that big game that one time.

My two comments are that unfortunately, some of what the article says is right and unfortunately, with this being John Hagee's church, it is representative of a significant minority in evangelicaldom.

My second comments is that Hagee, his followers and their ilk are still a minority in evangelicaldom and this article once again proves the prescience of James Davidson Hunter in his epochal work - Culture Wars.  Hunter points out that the culture wars are, by and large, fought by extremists on both sides, or I should say it is the extremists who get noticed by the press.  While it is true that not all who take a side are extremists, it is equally true that only the extremists get noticed by the press.

I wish these folks would send an undercover journalist to follow the folks at one of the ordinary, run of the mill, smallish churches of America, like mine.  And I wish they would follow the folks for a few days in their normal everyday lives.  What they would find is that most evangelical Christendom is made up of ordinary people, living ordinary lives, doing their best and trying to please God in the midst of it.  I have no doubt a reporter would probably uncover some sin and some greatness, but for the most part he wouldn't uncover much weirdness.  Then again, I guess such a story would probably be too boring to sell.

The Gospel in Ephesians 2

I'm preaching on Ephesians 3:14-21 - Paul's great prayer - this weekend.  Verse 14 begins with the words "for this reason," which tells you that what follows is predicated on what came before.  However, when you look at what came before you see the same Greek word in 3:1 that is also translated "for this reason" in the NIV.  This lets you know that, to understand the rationale behind what is said in those two sections (3:1-13 and 3:14-21) you need to look back into chapter 2. 

Without going into too much detail here I'll just say that Ephesians 2 gives a great description of the gospel.  And I thought I would share a few of my notes on this one for your review and study.

Here's a quick gospel outline from Ephesians 2

1. The Gift and Implications of Salvation - Ephesians 2:1-10

a. Our sin - Ephesians 2:1-3

1). Sinful nature - verse 1 (dead in trespasses and sins)

2). Sinful practice - verses 2-3 (followed the ways of this world, etc.)

3). Penalties of sin (children of wrath v. 3 - see also vv. 11-12 - exclusion from covenants of promise,without hope and without God in the world.

b. The remedy for our sin - Ephesians 2:4-10

1). The remedy for our sinful nature - verses 4-8 (made alive with Christ) - by implication this is contingent on the cross and resurrection).

2). The remedy for our sinful practice - verse 10 (created in Christ Jesus to do good works).

3). The remedy for the penalties of sin - verse 6 (seated in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, see also verse 13 - "brought near").

2. The Benefits of Salvation - Ephesians 2:11-22

a. Brought into citizenship in Israel, i.e. the kingdom of God - 2:13-20

b. And thereby heirs of the covenants of promise - verse 13

Excursus - what are the covenants of promise?  These are the promises to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3, Genesis 15:4-7 and Genesis 17:3-8.  A quick summary of these promises:

1). A kingdom - Abraham promised to be the father of nations, the father of kings, we are members of the royal family in this kingdom.

2). A family - Abraham promised a seed, offspring - we are his offspring, we have a new family relationship.

3). A land - Abraham was promised the land of Canaan which Jesus expands to include the whole earth - we are the inheritors of a new heaven and new earth for eternity.

4). A mission - to be a blessing to all the people of the earth.

I found this helpful and expansive in thinking about the gospel.  Sin is defined more broadly than mere action - it is our nature.  The work of Christ pays not only the penalty but crushes the power of sin, thus it has day to day relevance to Christian practice.  And the benefits of the gospel are so much more than just forgiveness of sin or eternal life.

It might also be a useful discussion to ask if being "on mission" is an inherent result of believing the gospel.  In other words we understand that being a member of the people of God is a necessary result of believing the gospel, having eternal life is a necessary result of believing the gospel, so wouldn't "being a blessing" to the nations be a necessary result also?

(And let me offer a commercial here - I mentioned a few days ago about my new found love for Logos software as a result of going to Camp Logos.  I don't claim that any of what I just shared is earth-shattering, just hopefully helpful - but Logos has some pretty cool syntax analysis tools which are helping me see connections and relationships in passages I didn't see before, and some of that has come into play here).

So where is the most "strategic" place to live?

But before you go any further in this post let's get something straight - I am not necessarily disagreeing with Tim Keller, or Hugh Hewitt, or Os Guinness or Rodney Stark or other people like that who have pointed out the vital importance of taking the gospel to the power centers of our world.  I might be disagreeing, but then again I might not . . . I'm just saying.

As we were discussing these guys all have a point - it can be fairly easily shown that the apostle Paul took the gospel to the great city centers of the ancient world.  This turned out to be good strategery, because as the gospel captured the cities it filtered out to the countryside.

Still, you have to admit that Will Willimon has a point.  Now again, I'm not trying to start something here, and don't hold it against him that he's a methodist (shh!) and please don't tell the folks at presbytery that I am having cyber-fellowship with a guy who's an arminian, maybe even a wesleyan-arminian - but he kinda makes sense when he says:

One might have thought that Jesus would do something effective.  If you want to have maximum results, don't waste your time talking to the first person whom you meet on the street, figure out a way to get to the movers and the shakers, the influential and the newsmakers, those who have some power and prestige.  If you really want to promote change, go to the top . . .

But Jesus?  He didn't go up to the palace, the White House, the Kremlin, or Downing Street.   (Jesus never got on well with politicians.)  Jesus went outback, back to Galilee.

Why Galilee?   Nobody special lived in Galilee, nobody except the followers of Jesus.  Us.

The resurrected Christ comes back to, appears before the very same rag tag group of failures who so disappointed him, misunderstood him, forsook him and fled into the darkness.  He returns to his betrayers.  He returns to us.

Feeble attempts at humor notwithstanding - Willimon raises some issues worth pondering.  I do think that some of the best kingdom work being done today is being done in city-centers like New York and other places like it.  And I do buy the rationale of Keller and others who point to Paul's example for their emphasis on the city.  At the same time, the example of Jesus suggests we ought not to write off the potential of those out of the way places.

One of the interesting points of commonality between Willimon here and Keller and others is their decisive "non-power" orientation.  Willimon makes the point that Jesus didn't go for the power centers.  The same methodology works for Keller and the others in New York.  They are counter-cultural in that they live in the power-centers and refuse to make power-grabs.

Maybe the "strategic" issue is not so much the location where you live but the orientation by which you live wherever you live?

Thoughts anyone?

Just Reading the Bible, eh?

Stop me if you've heard this one before:

“My theology is simply what I read in the Bible.”

Sure it is.

“What I believe and practice is simply what the Bible teaches and nothing else.”

That's how Michael Spencer started this post, which deals with those who claim to read the bible as a blank slate, minus any presuppositions.  Michael also says this:

If I ever tell you that all I do is just read the Bible, then believe and do what it says, you have permission to laugh at me. Pay a small fee and you can smack me and say “What’s the matter with you?”

I’m an iceberg, an onion, a mystery. I’m complex and rarely insightful into myself. Thousands of experiences co-exist in me at the same time. I’m a library of presuppositions and passively accepted versions of the truth. When I write a post, preach a sermon, respond in a conversation or give advice to a student, I am anything but simple. I’m complex and only partially aware of that complexity.

This doesn’t mean I can’t understand the simple statements of the Bible or believe and act on them with integrity. It does mean that I need to stop talking about myself as if I am a blank slate, and begin accepting myself as a human being.

Michael rightly argues that those who say such things don't understand human nature.  I think we can go a few steps further and say that the bible itself gives us reason to believe that no one comes to the bible as a blank slate.

Here's a few biblical reasons why no one "just reads the bible."

1. The noetic effects of sin.

"Noetic" is a fancy word from the greek word "nous" which means "mind."  This means that sin affects our minds, thus our ability to comprehend truth is marred by sin.

2. The finiteness of man

Think of God as a big box full of stuff and man as a small box.  You can't get everything from the big box into the small box, the small box is simply not able to contain it.  Thus man's can't hold all truth.

3. The blur

I Corinthians 13:12 -  For now we see in a mirror indirectly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known.

4. Perspectivalism

I'm borrowing this term from John Frame and am probably using it in ways he wouldn't.  But think of the gospels - the same story of the same Jesus told from four different perspectives.  We know that Jesus was one person who lived one life, yet this one life is recorded in four different ways, with each recording bearing the marks of the individual author.  These marks include personality, vocabulary, social/cultural setting and intended audience among others.

So if the process of writing scripture is influenced by the personal experience of the author, why should it surprise us if we insist that the understanding of Scripture is influenced by the experience of the reader?

This doesn't negate the truthfulness or trustworthiness of the Scripture in any way, but it does negate the pride of the "Scripture reader" who thinks he comes to the Scriptures with a blank slate and is thus more "pure" than the rest of us.