The Promises of God to Abraham

In Paul's view Jew and Gentile united in Christ are the assembly of God, not merely in continuity with the assembly of God. This entity must be distinguished from 'Judaism'.  The heritage of Israel is seen by Paul as being claimed and fulfilled in the Christian assembly and not elsewhere. This is not the view of some in the Jerusalem church. As we shall see, Paul will argue that it is in the Christian assembly that the promises of God to Abraham are being fulfilled. In fact, Paul will go so far as to say in a later letter (in Rom. 9-11) that non-Christian Jews have been at least temporarily broken off from the people of God, with the hope that they might be grafted back in on the same basis as Gentiles, namely through faith in Christ. While this sort of approach should not be called anti-Semitism, as Paul certainly is not manifesting prejudice against the Jews as a race of people, it is not inappropriate to call it a radical critique of Judaism. Paul's days of being bound to observe Torah as someone under the Mosaic covenant were over. It was what he 'formerly' (πὀτε) did.

From Grace in Galatia by Ben Witherington III (pg. 99)

Heaven Misplaced by Douglas Wilson

 I read Heaven Misplaced by Douglas Wilson a few years ago, but I don't think my mind was ready for it yet. The proposal he is making in this book was so completely foreign to my mind that I wasn't ready to really relinquish my preconceived notions as I went through it. That wasn't the case this time. 

He begins his book by asking the reader to "suspend disbelief" until the end. He asks this because he is attempting, not necessarily to build a simple rational argument, but to paint an optimistic picture of Gospel Success. His rational arguments are there, to be sure, right along with his exposition of the scriptures and his broader and more all-encompassing handling of the full testimony of the Word of God. (i.e. his use, not only of the New Testament's portrayal of the Gospel message, but the Old Testament's depiction of it as well.)  But the rational and exegetical work are only supports for that grander and more optimistic portrayal of Gospel Success. 

This time through the book, I actually came to a point where my thinking shifted. Instead of suspending disbelief, I crossed over into tentative belief. I actually took a picture of my Kindle when I came to this point. 

The Presbyterian portion left to the side for a moment, I have definitely crossed into a potential belief in the Postmil vision of the world. This book has played a key role, not necessarily in the foundational work, but in the siding and shingles work of this new belief. Most importantly, it answered an old question I've had for years... "Why were the Gospel and New Testament writers so optimistic about the success of Christ's work on the cross? Why did it seem like they thought it would work?"  Well... what if it was because they did believe that it would work... and... what if it is working? 

If you are willing to suspend your own disbelief, consider reading this book. 

Heaven Misplaced: 
Christ's Kingdom on Earth

Don't be a Pagan.

 

Leadership and Emotional Sabotage by Joe Rigney

 I started Leadership and Emotional Sabotage about a year ago. I made it about half way through, and was really loving it, but got side-tracked with life. I picked it back up and finished it a couple of days ago. Like in his other book, The Sin of Empathy, Rigney is hitting on an important element of leadership in today's world, because, as he says, "Your home, your church, and this world need leaders who are mature and sober-minded, filled with gravity and gladness, and grounded in the glory of Jesus."  ... meaning that leadership is needed, not just in political positions and church pulpits, but in our homes. And since these leaders need to be "...steadfast, immovable, and always abounding in the work of the Lord..." (I Cor. 15:58), they need to not only be grounded in something that is steadfast and immovable, but they also need to be aware of those things that tend to move people off of the steadfast and immovable... and that is what this book is about. 

I found it to be very helpful personally. I am a leader in more than one sphere of life. I don't always want those roles, but so say all who experience times like these. My leadership has failed on more than one occasion... failed miserably. A few of those times of leadership failure, they might have even been due to the mentioned "Emotional Sabotage" this book is referencing. I have also seen leaders completely succumb to this same thing, and it has made shipwreck their faith. I wonder about the desire to have learned things earlier in my life, but God is sovereign over all, so I don't dwell there too long, I simply thank Him for learned truth when I do encounter it. 

I won't attempt to summarize what is going on in this book, but I will say that you don't need to be a leader to read it. In fact, I would encourage you, even if you don't see yourself as a leader in anything, to read this book. Read it to be a leader, if the opportunity were to ever arise. Read it to assist your leaders. Read it to be ready to lead in whatever area is presented to you. And read it to help yourself identify a leader to follow. 

Leadership and Emotional Sabotage

Two Errors in our View of Future History

Reading Heaven Misplaced by Douglas Wilson. I'm in Chapter 5 - Inexorable Love. This chapter opens this way: 

We tend to veer into one of two errors in our view of future history. Either we plunge into a very exciting study of the “end times” and become consumed with the book of Revelation and newspaper reports about the European Union, killer bees, trouble in the Middle East, and so forth; or we dismiss the whole thing with a wave of the hand and a joke—and it is usually the same joke. “I’m a pan-millennialist. Everything will pan out in the end.” But much more is involved in this subject than the particular “chronology” we set for the events at the end of the world. Christians must come to understand that our doctrine of the power of the cross—and the love of God exhibited there—will necessarily be at the heart of our doctrine of the future history of the human race.

I've been both. I've even used that joke. 

If you've ever been interested in why the New Testament writers always seemed so optimistic in their accomplishment of the great commission, I would encourage you to read this book. I've actually read it before, but thought I would come back to it again. Very interesting.  

Heaven Misplaced: 
Christ's Kingdom on Earth

The Problem of Pain - Human Wickedness

 I'm listening to the audiobook The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis. In the 4th chapter, titled, Human Wickedness, C. S. Lewis makes an observation concerning the need to preach the bad news before it can preach the good news. In other words, those who desire to preach the gospel to modern man, will often have to demonstrate that one is sinful and in need of a Savior before they can present the Gospel message of a Savior to rescue them from that sin. He then makes this statement: 

"There are two principal causes. One is the fact that for about a hundred years we have so concentrated on one of the virtues -- 'kindness' or mercy -- that most of us do not feel anything except kindness to be really good or anything but cruelty to be really bad. Such lopsided ethical developments are not uncommon, and other ages too have had their pet virtues and curious insensibilities. And if one virtue must be cultivated at the expense of all the rest, none has a higher claim than mercy -- for every Christian must reject with detestation that covert propaganda for cruelty which tries to drive mercy out of the world by calling it names such as 'Humanitarianism' and 'Sentimentality'. The real trouble is that 'kindness' is a quality fatally easy to attribute to ourselves on quite inadequate grounds. Everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment. Thus a man easily comes to console himself for all his other vices by a conviction that 'his heart's hurt a fly', though in fact he has never made the slightest sacrifice for a fellow creature. We think we are kind when we are only happy: it is not so easy on the same grounds, to imagine oneself temperate, chaste, or humble."

"The second cause is the effect of Psychoanalysis on the public mind, and, in particular, the doctrine of repressions and inhibitions. Whatever these doctrines really mean, the impression they have actually left on most people is that the sense of Shame is a dangerous and mischievous thing. We have laboured to overcome that sense of shrinking, that desire to conceal, which either Nature herself or the tradition of almost all mankind has attached to cowardice, unchastity, falsehood, and envy. We are told to 'get things out in the open', not for the sake of self-humiliation, but on the grounds that these 'things' are very natural and we need not be ashamed of them. But unless Christianity is wholly false, the perception of ourselves which we have in moments of shame must be the only true one; and even Pagan society has usually recognized 'shamelessness' as the nadir of the soul. In trying to extirpate shame we have broken down one of the ramparts of the human spirit, madly exulting in the work as the Trojans exulted when they broke their walls and pulled the Horse into Troy. I do not know that there is anything to be done but to set about the rebuilding as soon as we can. It is and work to remove hypocrisy by removing the temptation to hypocrisy: the 'frankness' of people sunk below shame is a very cheap frankness."

The Problem of Pain

6 more freebies (I've been waiting for a couple of these!)

 6 more free books from Canon Press. There are a couple of these I've been anxiously awaiting to be free, just so I could promote them. The first one is The Covenant Household. I read this book a while ago, and found it to be life altering in my perspective. It adjusted the focus of my ministry, and it wasn't even about that!  I highly recommend this book. (I'll probably read it again.)

The Covenant Household

This next book is Angels in the Architecture: A Protestant Vision for Middle Earth by Douglas Wilson and Douglas Jones. I've been looking forward to reading this one. I actually purchased it a bit ago (before it was free), but forgot about it until this round of freebies. It has moved to the top of my list. I hope to read it soon and give a review. Maybe someone else out there might read it as well and tell me what they think. 

Angels in the Architecture: 
A Protestant Vision for Middle Earth

I've also read this next book: On Secular Education by R.L. Dabney. I believe that Dabney was a pastor/preacher and theologian from the mid to late 1800s. This book is fairly short, I think it may have simply been an essay that he wrote. Much of what he talks about will refer to the influx of Catholic immigrants and the reasons why they started their own school system in America: it was because the system was too Protestant... the public/secular system was too Protestant for them. It wasn't because it was too secular. But at the time of this writing, Dabney saw the influx of this secular education and predicted that, "All prayers, catechisms, and Bibles will be driven out of the schools."  ... and when we read that, about half of us say, "There were catechisms in the public schools?!?" and the other half (sadly) say, "What is a catechism?"

On Secular Education

The last three books I know very little about, except that they are Free!

John Knox: Stalwart Courage

Anne Bradstreet: Passionate Femininity

The Cultural Mind: 
Collected Essays from 
Tabletalk Magazine