The humility to read

'The Disappearance of God' by Albert Mohler Jr recently came through my door from Monergism Books. Both cheaper and faster than amazon to the US mainland, but anyway. With it came a rather lovely looking pamphlet: 'A reader's guide to the Christian life' filled with ideas about what to read and why to read it. As well as that was a brief, unattributed article: 'The humility to read' which went like this:

I am one person in one place at one time. My experiences and perceptions are limited and coloured by the environment in which i live. Therefore, it would be profoundly arrogant of me to think that i can best grow in the knowledge of God through scripture by myself.

Certainly the Holy Spirit is graciously given to God's children to enable us to comprehend and be conformed to the truths of the Bible. Nevertheless, one of the primary means of grace God uses in the process of our transformation is the universal-historical community of believers. Within that community, God graciously provides leaders of few and leaders of many to equip the saints for the work of ministry.

It is a humbling thing for me to read a book. Most books take at least several hours of combined time to process and i have to forsake other distractions in order to focus and benefit from what i am reading. Most of all, i can't talk back. I am just forced to listen, patiently follow and receive, to think another mans thoughts after him.

One of the new desires placed into the heart of a believer is to think God's thoughts after Him. Let's pursue humility by receiving the thoughts of those who have led us and spoken the word of God to us in the most enduring of all earthly mediums: the book.

Luther's bedtime

Isn't the end of the day sometimes the most exciting part? Phone off, doors locked...just you and a bed. I've only been up a few hours and i'm already looking forward to it! It's an odd thing going to sleep though. People who know more than i do about it have said that when we're in our deepest sleep, when our organs and brain have shut down for the night that we're pretty much as close to death as we'd want to be... When we're asleep we can't defend ourselves, can't react to warning aches and pains.

The Psalmist says 'i lay down and i slept, but i awoke, because you sustained me.' Jesus sustains us while we sleep. But isn't Jesus the infinitely holy One who we've spent our day sinning against in thought and word and deed? How can we sleep easy knowing that what we've just spent our day doing could and should invoke holy, just wrath. As always, Martin Luther as a level headed, Biblical answer...

In the evening when you go to bed, make the sign of the holy cross and say: 'in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.' The standing or kneeling repeat the creed and say the Lord's prayer. If you choose you may also say this little prayer: 'I thank you my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ your dear Son, that you have graciously kept me this day; and i pray that you would forgive me my sins where i have done wrong and graciously keep me this night. For into your hands i commend myself, my body and my soul, and all things. Let your holy angel be with me that the evil foe may have no power over me. Amen. Then go to sleep at once, and in good cheer.'

If you had to sum up Luther in one sentence it could be worse than 'it's outside of you.' We are simil iustus et peccator, and Luther calls us every night to go to Him outside of us, to go to our righteousness, our substitute, our Savior, and remember that He will keep us though the night, and to sleep well, safe in the palm of His hand.

CS Lewis on thinking

It might be that humanity, rebelling against tradition and authority has made a ghastly mistake, a mistake that is not rendered less fatal because the corruptions of those in authority have rendered it very excusable. On the other hand it might be that the Power that rules our species is at this moment carrying out a very daring experiment. Could it be intended that the whole mass of humanity should now move forward and occupy for themselves which were once reserved only for the sages? Is the distinction between wise and simple is starting to disappear because all are now expected to become wise? If so our present blunderings would be but growing pains. But let us make no mistake about our necessities. If we are content to go back and becoming plain and humble men obeying a tradition, well. If we are ready to climb and struggle on till we become sages ourselves, better still. But the man who will neither obey the wisdom of others or adventure for himself is fatal. A society where the many simple obey the few seers can live. A society where all were seers could live all the more. But a society where the mass is still simple and the seers are no longer attended to can only achieve superficiality, baseness, ugliness and in the end extinction. On or back we must go; to stay here is death.
CS Lewis, Miracles, P47

Is he right? Maybe. In the next chapter Lewis goes onto talk about common, but 'red herring' objections to Christianity and miracles. 1) People didn't understand enough about miracles in Biblical times to know they were miracles. BUT unless you understand the parameters of nature, you don't know what's miraculous. Unless Joseph understood the way women became pregnant, he wouldn't have been angry at Mary, unless the disciples knew that man can not walk on water they wouldn't have been scared when Jesus did. No one would be surprised if the sun rose in the west one morning unless we understood that it should rise in the east.

2) That the universe is so huge how can we claim that God is concerned with us? Men have known since ancient Egypt the size of the universe, in the Psalms it's used as fuel for praise. No Christian has ever claimed the universe existed for man, it exists for God. No Christian should ever claim that Jesus came to Earth because we were lovely, but because He is love. And if naturalism is right, it still doesn't give us an answer. Old errors don't pass away, they simply change their form.

Are those slightly lazy, ill thought out objections to Christianity and miracles evidence of what Lewis is talking about? Maybe.

Spurgeon on Paul's cry: 'bring me the books!

Justin Taylor quoted this long section from Spurgeon's sermon on 2 Timothy 4:13:


We do not know what the books were about, and we can only form some guess as to what the parchments were. Paul had a few books which were left, perhaps wrapped up in the cloak, and Timothy was to be careful to bring them. Even an apostle must read. . . . A man who comes up into the pulpit, professes to take his text on the spot, and talks any quantity of nonsense, is the idol of many. If he will speak without premeditation, or pretend to do so, and never produce what they call a dish of dead men's brains—oh! that is the preacher. How rebuked are they by the apostle!

He is inspired, and yet he wants books!

He has been preaching at least for thirty years, and yet he wants books!

He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books!

He had had a wider experience than most men, and yet he wants books!

He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things which it was unlawful for a men to utter, yet he wants books!

He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books!

The apostle says to Timothy and so he says to every preacher, "Give thyself unto reading." The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains, proves that he has no brains of his own.

Brethren, what is true of ministers is true of all our people. You need to read. Renounce as much as you will all light literature, but study as much as possible sound theological works, especially the Puritanic writers, and expositions of the Bible. We are quite persuaded that the very best way for you to be spending your leisure, is to be either reading or praying. You may get much instruction from books which afterwards you may use as a true weapon in your Lord and Master's service. Paul cries, "Bring the books"—join in the cry.

I'm off the sit in the eighty degree evening heat with CS Lewis

'Our grandfather, who art in Heaven' Lewis on Love

'...by love in this context most of us mean kindness, the desire to see others than the self happy; not happy in this way or that way, just happy. What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like 'what does it matter as long as they're happy?' We want not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in Heaven, a smiling benevolence who, as they say 'liked to see the young people enjoying themselves' and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be said at the end of each day 'a good time was had by all.' Not many people, i admit would form a theology in precisely those terms, but a conception not very different lurks at the back of many people's minds. I do not claim to be an exception, i would very much like to live in a universe governed on such lines. But since it is abundantly clear i don't, and since i have reason to believe nevertheless than God is love, i conclude that my concept of love needs correction.'

CS Lewis, The Problem of Pain, Pp 31-32

A voice from a different time can be like a breath of fresh air, and that's what i'm finding Clive Staples to be at the moment. So far, The Problem of Pain is about the best book i've read on the love of God. He reminds me a bit of Tozer in his slightly 'mystical' tone, but it is good for the heart and the mind. The love of God is a deep, rich, terrible thing. We, as Lewis later points out, might often wish that God would treat us differently, that He might let us alone, as an artist would treat a sketch for a child rather than his life's finest work which he labours over, works over and scrapes over. In that case though, we are not asking for more love from God, but less.

The Doctor on John 4

I love this from Martyn Lloyd-Jones, via Justin Taylor:

Possibly one of the most devastating things that can happen to us as Christians is that we cease to expect anything to happen. I am not sure but that this is not one of our greatest troubles today. We come to our services and they are orderly, they are nice ‒ we come, we go ‒ and sometimes they are timed almost to the minute, and there it is. But that is not Christianity, my friend. Where is the Lord of glory? Where is the one sitting by the well? Are we expecting him? Do we anticipate this? Are we open to it? Are we aware that we are ever facing this glorious possibility of having the greatest surprise of our life?

Or let me put it like this. You may feel and say ‒ as many do ‒ ‘I was converted and became a Christian. I’ve grown ‒ yes, I’ve grown in knowledge, I’ve been reading books, I’ve been listening to sermons, but I’ve arrived now at a sort of peak and all I do is maintain that. For the rest of my life I will just go on like this.’

Read the whole thing here.

This surely is the answer to the struggle of the Christian life. Come to Jesus! We need to get on our knees over Scripture and ask that the Holy Spirit would illuminate the glory of God in the face of Christ in the text. We should go to the spring of living water, and drink, search for the bread of life, and eat. Gorge ourselves on the glory of God.

I'm following a chronological reading plan this year. The more Scripture i read, the more i want to. The more i discover, the more i want to discover. Jesus Christ satisfies. But how? Only with a deeper hunger for holiness and Him, only by slamming the doors of sin shut in our hearts and opening up wide, deep, long avenues of grace will we be satisfied. Sometimes we plateau, but this isn't to be considered the norm...Jesus Christ appears, and our hearts come alive...

A lamp unto my feet

We tend to use v105 as a text for talks on guidance. The problem is for the most part that the Bible doesn't help us with our guidance...it helps us with the simple decisions: 'should i kill my neighbour?' but most of the decisions in daily life the Bible does not actually make for us. And we should not pretend it does. But what the Bible does do is to light our feet so that we do not stumble into wrong.

Christopher Ash, Bible Delight, P 141.

I've often wondered if we think life would be easier if our Bibles were like the wands in Harry Potter. When the times comes we go to the shopkeeper, he asks us some questions, does some tests and then gives us the right Bible for us. The right verses to help us with our specific struggles, some individual advice on careers, marriage, education etc. But it's not like that. So Ash again:

So it is no careers guidance, but a light to keep me walking in the right way. To protect me from the traps of darkness and from falling into sin. When the devil tempted the Lord Jesus, it was the word of God that was a light to his feet.

'A perpetual stream of delights' for 1885

There are children of God who need this text, "Behold, I make all things new," whose sigh is that they so soon grow dull and weary in the ways of God, and therefore they need daily renewing.

A brother said to me some time ago, "Dear sir, I frequently grow very sleepy in my walk with God. I seem to lose the freshness of it; and especially by about Saturday I get I hardly know where; but," he added, "as for you, whenever I hear you, you seem to be all alive and full of fresh energy." "Ah, my dear brother," I said, "that is because you do not know much about me." That was all I was able to say just then. I thank God for keeping me near himself; but I am as weak, and stale, and unprofitable as any of you. I say this with very great shame—shame for myself, and shame for the brother who led me to make the confession. We are both wrong. With all our fresh springs in God, we ought to be always full of new life. Our love to Christ ought to be every minute as if it were new-born. Our zeal for God ought to be as fresh as if we had just begun to delight in him. "Ay, but it is not," says one; and I am sorry I cannot contradict him. After a few months a vigorous young Christian will begin to cool down; and those who have been long in the ways of God find that final perseverance must be a miracle if ever it is to be accomplished, for naturally they tire and faint.

Well, now, dear friends, why do you and I ever get stale and flat? Why do we sing,

"Dear Lord, and shall we ever live

At this poor dying rate?"

Why do we have to cry—

"In vain we tune our formal songs,

In vain we strive to rise;

Hosannas languish on our tongues,

And our devotion dies"?

Why, it is because we get away from him who says, "Behold, I make all things new." The straight way to a perpetual newness and freshness of holy youth is to go to Christ again, just as we did at the first. A better thing still is never to leave him, but to stand for ever at the cross-foot delighting yourself in his all-sufficient sacrifice. They that are full of the joy of the Lord never find life grow weary. They that walk in the light of his countenance can say of the Lord Jesus, "Thou hast the dew of thy youth"; and that dew falls upon those who dwell with him. Oh, I am sure that if we kept up perpetual communion with him, we should keep up a perpetual stream of delights. 

From Spurgeon's New Years' Day Sermon (HT Emily)

I AM in John's Gospel

John's 'I AM' sayings represent a textual phenomenon illuminated by a filial notion of Jesus' agency. John's Gospel contains two sets of 'I AM' sayings, each containing seven pronouncements made by Jesus concerning His own identity. One set consists of Jesus saying 'I AM' followed by a predicate that highlights Jesus saving significance for the world. I AM the bread of life, I AM the light of the world, I AM the gate for the sheep, I AM the good shepherd, I AM the resurrection and the life, I AM the true vine. The other consists of I AM sayings where Jesus announces I am, or I am He with no predicate... These declarations provide clear allusions to Yahwah's seven-fold self declaration of unique and unrivalled divinity that occur in the OT. John's point is clear, Jesus is Yahweh

Father, Son and Spirit: The Trinity in John's Gospel

Kostenberger and Swain

Pp124-125

The Guardian

Calvin asks, in his Commentary on Colossians, "How comes it that we are 'carried about with so many strange doctrines' (Hebrews 13:9)?" And he answers, "Because the excellence of Christ is not perceived by us". In other words, the great guardian of Biblical orthodoxy throughout the centuries is a passion for the glory and the excellency of God in Christ. Where the center shifts from God, everything begins to shift everywhere. Which does not bode well for doctrinal faithfulness in our own non-God-centered day.

Piper, The Legacy of Sovereign Joy, P121.

The weight, the depth, the loveliness of the glory of Christ, is what drove Calvin forward. A man who desired a quiet life in the study in Strasbourg, but instead was thrown into the middle of, essentially, a war zone, and kept going. A man who knew Christ from the scriptures, was fed by Christ by the scriptures, who loved to feed his people by the scriptures. it's hard not to be inspired by a man who would preach every day on alternate weeks, and in the course of an average month would preach twenty times and lecture twelve times, and that's even before you mention his commentaries on every New Testament book except Revelation, and nine Old Testament books. 

It was his focus on the glory of Christ, as revealed in the Word that sustained Him, that drove Him. It is this weight, this glory, this determination not to waste our lives that we need to see from scripture. A passion for Christ  is the guardian of the church though the ages, and in every age the centrality of the Bible must be fought for. That is where we meet with Christ, this is where we are fed, this is where lives and ministries stand or fall. Oh, let us be men and women of that book!

Yes! Oh yes!

"The man who has struggled to purify himself and has had nothing but repeated failures will experience real relief when he stops tinkering with his soul and looks away to the perfect One. While he looks at Christ, the very things he has so long been trying to do will be getting done within him. It will be God working in him to will and to do."

A.W Tozer, The Pursuit of God

Christian Hedonism according to Roy Hession

People imagine that dying to self makes one miserable. But it is just the opposite. It is refusal to die to self that makes one miserable. The more we know of death with Him, the more we shall know of His life within us and so the more of real peace and joy. His life too, will overflow through to lost souls with a real concern for their salvation, and to our fellow Christians with a deep desire for their blessing.

The Calvary Road, Roy Hession, P28

Theology and scripture

'...every human being will stand before the judgement seat of Christ. In such a context Christian theology can not afford to be an in house conversation,the intellectula self indulgence of a priveledged group. There is an urgent engagement with theology's engagement with the thinking and behavior of the world in which we live.'

Mark Thompson, A Clear and Present Word (NSBT) P53

'If God spare my lyfe ere many years i will cause a boye that driveth the plough than know more of the scripture than tho dost'

William Tyndale 1521

CS Lewis on salvation

Did you ever meet, or hear of, anyone who was converted from skepticism to a "liberal" or "demythologized" Christianity? I think that when unbelievers come in at all, they come in a good deal further.

HT: Desiring God blog

On the Gospels

The Bible is about Jesus. Every book, from 1 to 66, He is the hero, He is the focus, He is the champion. So wherever you read the Bible, you're going to be reading about Jesus...in theory at least.

I think there is something though, about reading the Gospel accounts themselves. Not in a red letter Christian kind of a way, or really even in a 'let Jesus speak for Jesus' way, but just to see Him, to hear Him and look at Him. Not that we can't do that in all 66 books, but it's good just to sit and read the Gospels. Good to read about the last supper, or the transfiguration, or the sermon on the mount, and then speak to Jesus, the same Jesus now invisible as then, visible.

Since March i've been read Matthew, ever so slowly, with a commentry. I've never done my quiet times like this before, and it's been mostly helpful. It's been great to just rub my face in one book for a year rather than simply rushing from passage to passage. And good to spend each morning with Jesus. Of course. Anyway, this has turned into a series of rather unconnected thoughts, so i'll end it with a Spurgeon quote, which amde me think this in the first place:

Consider his greatness, and I again remind you that the blessing comes only by consideration. I may speak to you this morning about the greatness of my Master, but I shall not succeed in fully declaring it. I am never more vexed with myself than when I have done my very best to extol his dear name! What is it but holding a candle to the sun? What are my lispings compared with the loud acclamations which such an one as he is might well expect from those who love him? You must carefully consider, or you will miss the blessing.

It will not be enough for you to hear, or read; you must do your own thinking, and consider your Lord for yourselves. You may even read the Bible itself without profit, if you do not consider as well as read. The wine is not made by gathering the clusters, but by treading the grapes in the wine-vat: under pressure the red juice leaps forth. Not the truth as you read it, but the truth as you meditate upon it, will be a blessing to you. "Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest." "Consider how great this man was."

Shut yourselves up with Jesus, if you would know him. "Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast." In Christ there is shelter, and the more you consider him the greater your peace will be. Come and lay your finger into the prints of the nails, and thrust your hand into his side. Commune with the personal Christ, who ever liveth; and evermore "consider how great this man was."

'wrapped up death'

A while ago a linked the the blog of a good friend, and said that the infrequency of her updating was ok due to the quality of what she wrote. She never blogged again.

So at the risk of repeating that, i won't say anything about this, just go and read it!

i love art, and i love fashion, and i love culture, and i love creativity. i feel passionately that these are God-given, that He's infinitely inventive, that the church should be gloriously and victoriously leading the way in all of the above, but there's a point where all these things are just wrapping up death

Two quotes

Sinclair Ferguson on catechisms (HT Challies)

Christians in an earlier generation rarely thought of writing books on guidance. There is a reason for that (just as there is a reason why so many of us today are drawn to books that will tell us how to find God’s will). Our forefathers in the faith were catechised, and they taught catechisms to their children. Often as much as half of the catechism would be devoted to an exposition of the answers to questions like the following: Question: Where do we find God’s will? Answer: In the Scriptures. Question: Where in particular in the Scriptures? Answer: In the Commandments that God has given to us.

Why were these questions and answers so important? Because these Christians understood that God’s law provides basic guidelines that cover the whole of life. Indeed, in the vast majority of instances, the answer to the question ‘What does God want me to do?’ will be found by answering the question: ‘How does the law of God apply to this situation? What does the Lord require of me here in his word?


John Piper on Saturdays

I am not laying down any law here. I am saying there are Saturday night ways that ruin Sunday morning worship. Don't be enslaved by them. Without sufficient sleep, our minds are dull, our emotions are flat, our proneness to depression is higher, and our fuses are short. My counsel decide when you must get up on Sunday in order to have time to eat, get dressed, pray and meditate on the Word, prepare the family, and travel to church; and then compute backward eight hours and be sure that you are in bed 15 minutes before that. Read your Bible in bed and fall asleep with the Word of God in your mind. I especially exhort parents to teach teenagers that Saturday is NOT the night to stay out late with friends. If there is a special late night, make it Friday.

'long for Jesus'

I know some in my generation have a hard time with truth claims. But i'm convinced there are just as many of us - Christians and not - in our postmodern world who are tired of endless uncertainties and doctrinal repaintings. We are tired of indecision and inconsistancy reheated as paradox and mystery. Some of us long for teaching that has authority, ethics rooted in dogma, something unique in this world of banal diversity. We long for Jesus. Not the shapeless, formless ethical good teacher Jesus, but the Jesus of the New Testament, the Jesus of the Church, the Jesus of faith, the Jesus of two millenia of Christian witness with all it's unchanging and edgy doctrinal propositions.

DeYoung and Kluck, 'why we're not emergent', P116

drink!

Knowledge, for Christians, is not an academic category, it's a moral category. We know we have understood not when we have mentally comprehended the Bible, but when we do what it says. Non-Christians can get the meaning of a lot of the Bible, but they haven't understood it because they don't obey. Its just an exercise in epistemology. If Christians leave biblical understanding at the level of knowing in the abstract then there are reasons to doubt whether we have understood anything.

Through the gates of splendour

The life of a missionary calls for infinate adaptability- from winning a national oratorical contest to struggling with an unwritten language...from starring on the college football field to teaching a bunch of small indians to play volleyball...from prospects of a law career in a north american city to a life in the jungle of south America. marilou, who had been music director in a big church slowly and carefully taught the indian children to sing two line songs which seh and Ed had written in the Quichua language...They were fully prepared to be fools for Christ's sake

'Through the gates of splendour' Elisabeth Elliot P42 .

There is no such thing as attainment in this life. As soon as one arrives at a highly coveted position he only jacks up his desire another notch or so and looks for further achievement- a process which is ulitmatly interuppted by the interventio of death. Life is truly likened to a rising vapour...coiling, evanescent, shifting. may the Lord teach us what it means to live in terms of the end, like Paul who said 'neither count i my life dear unto myself, that i might finish my course with joy.

Jim Elliot quoted in 'Through the gates of splendour' Elisabeth Elliot P7