I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. you are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, and you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept my fathers commandments and abide in His love. These things have I spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.
John 15:1-11
Idol Renaissance
I had a thought running through my head after Bible Study at church last Wednesday. We had been talking about Psalm 8, and near the end, we briefly talked about dominion:
6 You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,
7 All sheep and oxen—
Even the beasts of the field,
8 The birds of the air,
And the fish of the sea
That pass through the paths of the seas.
Someone brought up global warming, in dare I say, nearly a mocking tone. I thought about this for a bit. Indifferent to political stances, the fact is, we have been poor stewards of His creation. Near indiscriminate industrialization, gas guzzling SUV’s, sportscars, minivans, sedans. Yes, relative the size of the earth, they are tiny. But the day to day bustle, for the past near century with vehicles, and China will be surpassing us soon in cars/fuel consumption. As it usually goes, Republicans under-emphasize the environment, and the Democrats worship it. I hope we find a balance. He has given it to us for our use, and to be good stewards.
I got to thinking about the industrial revolution and the blessing and cursings that pivotal era brought to fruition. Advances in technology brought us convenience and what we considered freedom. New transportation, new social activities, better medicine. An all encompassing paradigm shift for the world.
But if we probe deeply, do these amazing things really matter… Not being a buzzkill, but I want to see this through to it’s logical conclusion, the effects of which we suffer now. We have a society, Christians (loosly defined) included, who look for happiness everywhere but the Lord. We have new and better TV’s, TV programming for every interest, Movies for every fancy, bigger badder sexier sports cars, glorified station-wagons (SUVs), HD Plasma TV’s, swiss-army cell-phones, iPod’s that make french fries, social networking technology that takes us away from real people and into a shadow world of LOL and ROFLs.
While there has been some benefit, I believe that it has all simply served to divert us from the essentials of life, to the non-essential. It has given us idolatry in it’s most subversive, and at the same time, now obvious form. Our materialism is idolatry.
3“ You shall have no other gods before Me.
4” You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth.
5“You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me,
6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
This we know, when we rest on the Rock, our firm foundation, the chief cornerstone Christ Jesus, and truly seek his glory, we will be set apart.
The Humor of Christ
An ephemeral (and rightly so) study of the wit and ‘humor’ of our Lord. While I acknowledge the fullness of the humanity of Christ, and his use of piercing wit (for he has perfect knowledge of the hearts of men) and irony, this study falls far short of reasonable analysis, and into the pit of fancy. Trueblood relies heavily on quotes by predecessors such as Chesterton and contemporary writers of his time, while he’s emphasizing what he considers to be a ‘laugh out loud’ moment in the teachings of Christ, his sources seem to be in contention with his thesis.
What he brings to our attention is nothing new, and/or unrecognized in the theological community. It was plain practice for Hebrews to use sharp or extreme contrasts…
If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than to have two eyes and be cast into the fiery hell. -Matt 18:9
…to vividly illustrate an important teaching. We all know, I hope, this passage is not literal, for we would all be blind, deaf and mute. What he wants, from Chapter 1, is for his readers to notice that Christ was not the ‘…mild in manner, endlessly patient, grave in speech and serious almost to the point of dourness,’ Christ caricature popular ‘Christianity’ (particulary in America) has shamefully espoused in the 20th century. I’ll raise my glass to his intent as well, and the truthfulness only if it’s expounded reasonably.
The God Who Is There
I just finished Schaeffer’s seminal work this evening. In this work, Schaeffer brings us into the world of art, language, music, literature, distributes each through there respective philosophical frameworks. In doing so traces the excising of God and true truth from society, the import of eastern mysticism, theological liberalism, many and varied (yet hopelessly inadequate) secular philosophies.
Just a few highlights:
From Chapter 2, The First Step in the Line of Despair, he introduces German philosopher Hegel. Before Hegel:
truth, in the sense antithesis, is related to the idea of cause and effect. Cause and effect produces a chain reaction which goes strait on in a horizontal line. With the coming of Hegel this changed.
Instead of logical cause and effect, thesis and antithesis, he emphasized synthesis. According to Schaeffer’s very brief introduction, the Hegel’s attempt to synthesize thesis and antithesis through reason failed.
Which lead to Christian Existentialist Søren Kierkegaard, who Schaeffer places as the first below what he calls, the line of despair. How? He, like Hegel, could not make synthesis work by reason, he postulated that important decisions can only be determined by what has since been coined ‘a leap of faith.’ And this gave birth to the modern disparity between faith and reason.
Thanks Søren. Jerk.
Two (partial) Psalms
Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear Him,
On those who hope for His lovingkindness,
To deliver their soul from death
And to keep them alive in famine.
Our soul waits for the LORD;
He is our help and our shield.
For our heart rejoices in Him,
Because we trust in His holy name.
Let Your lovingkindness, O LORD, be upon us,
According as we have hoped in You.
I sought the LORD, and He answered me,
And delivered me from all my fears.
They looked to Him and were radiant,
And their faces will never be ashamed.
This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him
And saved him out of all his troubles.
The of the LORD encamps around those who fear Him,
And rescues them.
Holiness: Growth
I’m reading the chapter on growth in J.C. Ryle’s classic ‘Holiness: Its Nature, Hindrances, Difficulties, and Roots‘ for discussion at Tim Challies blog. I’m kind of late to the discussion but I won’t let that stop me.
Ryle writes with zeal, passion and a sense of immediacy for his readers. He also pulls no punches in the vein of Piper or MacArthur in telling it how it is, something we can all appreciate, with a hearty 19th century panache.
Before taking us to task with The Reality of Religious Growth, he remarks…
It is an eminently practical subject, if any is in religion. It is intimately and inseparably connected with the whole question of sanctification. It is a leading mark of true saints that they grow. The spiritual health and prosperity, the spiritual happiness and comfort of every true–hearted and holy Christian, are intimately connected with the subject of spiritual growth.
In The Reality of Religious Growth, Ryle clarifies what he terms ‘growth in grace.’ He denies that a believers interest in Christ can grow, nor can we grow in safety, acceptance with God or security, nor can he be more justified, as we know, justification of every believer is complete in Christ (Col 2:10)
Growth in grace, as he describes is… I only mean increase in the degree, size, strength, vigor and power of the graces which the Holy Spirit plants in a believer’s heart.…that his sense of sin is becoming deeper, his faith stronger, his hope brighter, his love more extensive, his spiritual–mindedness more marked. He feels more of the power of godliness in his own heart. He manifests more of it in his life. He is going on from strength to strength, from faith to faith and from grace to grace.
As any classic of the true religion, we are given obligatory scripture reference following his thoughts. He also attests to his view of growth in grace on a ground ‘of fact and experience.’ Appealing to readers of the New Testament, asking if we see varying degrees of grace in lives of saints recorded. He refers to passages of ones with ‘weak faith’ or ’strong faith’, new Christians as ‘newborn-babes,’ ‘little children,” young men and fathers.’ He also appeals to our own observational prowess in our own lives as well those of other saints.
He then emphasizes grace as ‘a thing of infinite importance to the soul.
a. Growth in grace is the best evidence of spiritual health and properity.
b. Growth in grace is one way to be happy in our religion.
c. Growth in grace is one secret of usefulness to others
d. Growth in grace pleases God
The Marks of Religious Growth
a. Increased humility
b. Increased faith and love towards our Lord Jesus Christ
c. Increased holiness of life and conversation
d. Increased spirituality of taste and mind
e. Increase in charity
f. Increase of zeal and diligence in doing good to souls (others).
The Means of Religious Growth
a. Diligence in the use of the private means of grace (ie. private prayer,Scripture reading, meditation.
b. Carefulness in the use of public means of grace
c. Watchfulness over our conduct in little matters
d. Caution in the company we keep
e. Habitual communion with Christ (sim. to a )We must seek to have personal intimacy with the Lord Jesus and to deal with Him as a man deals with a loving friend. We must realize what it is to turn to Him first in every need, to talk to Him about every difficulty, to consult Him about every step, to spread before Him all our sorrows, to get Him to share in all our joys, to do all as in His sight, and to go through every day leaning on and looking to Him.
Brethren in the Street
I sit at the bookstore, studying, night after night after night. Rarely if at all do I ever see anyone else engaged in reading of any Christian literature. Tonight was the exception to the rule. I’m reading the Minich article on the Federal Vision controversy and a scripture passage comes to mind that I can’t quite place, and I remembered I saw a guy with Stott, MacArthur and Boice books on the other side of the café when I came in. Bingo!
I went over to the condiment bar for some more water, I started to, as usual, try to talk myself out of an uncomfortable action, but then it’s as if my guard entirely dropped, I spun around, walked up and introduced myself. It was an instant comfortability with this guy. Turns out he’s an associate pastor at Cincinnati Primitive Baptist Church (first time I’ve heard of that denomination)
I was just surprised at how easily we hit it off. We talked a little, I asked him about the passage, he found it on his computer for me, shared our testimonys’ etc… I got his card, he got my contact info.
Researching the beliefs of his denomination has me wondering about the baptism issue. Again. Baptism. Pray for understanding.
Paper Thin
I stumbled across Christopher Hitchens wrath worthy book ‘God is Not Great’ at Barnes and Noble Sunday evening. I usually avoid secular hate propaganda, but my faith has been rock solid as of late. I flipped open to a random page , to my surprise, was the topic of the mornings sermon on Mark 7:24-30:
Jesus got up and went away from there to the region of Tyre. And when He had entered a house, He wanted no one to know of it; yet He could not escape notice.
But after hearing of Him, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately came and fell at His feet.
Now the woman was a Gentile, of the Syrophoenician race. And she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter.
And He was saying to her, “Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
But she answered and said to Him, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table feed on the children’s crumbs.”
And He said to her, “Because of this answer go; the demon has gone out of your daughter.”
And going back to her home, she found the child lying on the bed, the demon having left.
What was interesting, that Christ’s ‘harsh’ initial rejection of the Syrophoenecian woman, was chalked up by Hitchens, to racism, because she was a Gentile, simple as that, cut and dry. Here we see how easy it is for secular crusaders to employ contextomy to build arguments that hold water with unbelievers. While I’d like to think so called intellectuals do ‘research’, I believe in this case research would have refuted his case.
When we look at the same account in Matthew 15, Christ had withdrawn, that is, he went to rest. As Pastor Miessler pointed out, he was constantly hounded by miracle seekers. While he IS God, in his humbled state, he was still man and needed physical restoration.
We dare not say Christ a racist, for we read in Matthew 15:24 a statement of purpose.
But He answered and said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
Christ’s central focus to his ministry was to Israel. In fact, in John 4, prior to the feeding of the 5000, also mentioned in Mark, Christ most compassionately dialogues with the woman at the well:
You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.
But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.
We see here, ’salvation is from the Jews’, yet she was a gentile and did minister to her.
It’s people Hitchens, Harris and Dawkins who are, at least on the literary front, spearheading the ‘intellectual’ attack on religion. Dawkins claims his attacks are relegated to only ‘pen and paper’ as an attempt to disguise his hatred.
We all know, Mr. Dawkins, that the pen is mightier than the sword.
On the Character of Christ
I’m reading, among other things, John Stott’s Basic Christianity. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this small volume, I came to find out it could very well serve as tool for evangelistic training, if not just handing out copies. I would reserve handing out copies only after personal evangelism, as it is small, but dense.
Part One: Christ’s Person - is the first third of the book, wherein lies my topic. Stott draws, if not drives a wedge between the earthly ministry of Christ and His teaching, and all other ‘great’ teachers, prophets, eastern religious figures &c. This distinction is, in the plainest terms, His self-centered teaching. It’s interesting when I first read those words, I did a double take. I knew his ministry was not the all-inclusive hippyfest some would like us to believe, but some pop-culture greeting card view of Christ floating around in my cranium reared its irreverent head. I crushed that quick, needless to say.
Reflection on a Psalm
The LORD looks from heaven;
He sees all the sons of men;
From His dwelling place He looks out
On all the inhabitants of the earth,
He who fashions the hearts of them all,
He who understands all their works.
The king is not saved by a mighty army;
A warrior is not delivered by great strength.
A horse is a false hope for victory;
Nor does it deliver anyone by its great strength.
-Psalm 33:13-17
I find this passage sobering. On my knees as one in utter helplessness. If Kings and Warriors stand powerless, who am I? He sees ALL the sons of men. HE fashions their hearts. Even here we are confronted with the sovereignty of our Lord, his righteous rule and choice of his children.
Yet I do know who I am. I am a child of the Promise, and I will sacrifice even my life for Him.
