I know he lives.

 C.R. Wiley - From The Household and the War for the Cosmos

"I hate to say it, but even the piety of Wesley and Whitfield was a downgrade of the real thing. This is because by the eighteenth-century piety’s sphere had already contracted. It is a well-documented story, so I won’t go into detail, but I think I can sum it up succinctly. By the time of Wesley and Whitfield, what had once been regarded as public truth had been reduced to private convictions. Authority in general had eroded due to revolutions in politics, the sciences, and even economics. To meet the challenge evangelists were forced to stress direct, very personal experience of the supernatural by everyone. The second-hand Truth contained in catechisms and confessions was no longer enough. Even eyewitness accounts of the risen Christ were not as trustworthy as a “warmed heart.” This is how we ended up with a hymn like “I Serve a Risen Savior.” In that song the line that is supposed to persuade you to believe that Jesus rose from the dead is, “You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart!” What we are left with today is heart religion, because now the heart is the only place Jesus can be publicly acknowledged to live. Ironically, many people think that this is the sum total of Christianity, and the notion that this is actually a downgrading of the faith is inconceivable."

Cheap grace is...

[Cheap grace is] the grace which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and from whom sin departs. Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship; 

as quoted in Kevin DeYoung's book: What does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?

Entertainers of Goats

While others shelve the Scriptures to become entertainers of goats rather than feeders of sheep, we must declare with William Still, "Let goats entertain goats, and let them do it out in goat-land"! A pastor must feed his flock with "the whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:27) as one who knows that the Bible, as is the Christ it reveals, is true food and drink (cf. John 6:55), both for his people and also for himself. Show me a pastor for whom the Bible is the song of his heart and the source of his deepest convictions, and I will show you a pastor who speaks with the power of heave behind his words, yet who walks in a spirit of humility and in utter dependence on God.

William R. Edwards, Theology for Ministry: How Doctrine Affects Pastoral Life and Practice

Be thoughtful about the excellence and majesty of God and your infinite, inconceivable distance from him.

 

On The Mortification of Sin by John Owen

Chapter 12

Soul War

"... the delight is incomplete till it is expressed."

 “I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with. . . . The Scotch catechism says that man’s chief end is ‘to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’ But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him.”

― C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms

Soul Poverty and the Abnegation of All Things

 

Humble we must be...

 

Human Love VS Spiritual Love

 In his chapter on "Community" in the book, "Life Together," Dietrich Bonhoeffer says the following on, what he calls "human love" vs. "spiritual love."

"... there is a human love of one's neighbor.  Such passion is capable of prodigious sacrifices. Often it far surpasses genuine Christian love in fervent devotion and visible results. It speaks the Christian language with overwhelming and stirring eloquence. But it is what Paul is speaking of when he says: 'And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned' -- in other words, though I combine the utmost deeds of love with the utmost of devotion -- 'and have not charity [that is, the love of Christ], it profiteth me nothing' (1 Corinthians 13:3). Human love is directed to the other person for his own sake, spiritual love loves him for Christ's sake. Therefore, human love seeks direct contact with the other person; it loves him not as a free person but as one whom it binds to itself. It wants to gain, to capture by every means; it uses force. It desires to be irresistible, to rule.

"Human love has little regard for truth. It makes the truth relative, since nothing, not even the truth, must come between it and the beloved person.  Human love desires the other person, his company, his answering love, but it does not serve him.  On the contrary, it continues to desire even when it seems to be serving. There are two marks, both of which are one and the same thing, that manifest the difference between spiritual and human love: Human love cannot tolerate the dissolution of a fellowship that has become false for the sake of genuine fellowship, and human love cannot love an enemy, that is, one who seriously and stubbornly resists it. Both spring from the same source: human love is by its very nature desire -- desire for human community. So long as it can satisfy this desire in some way, it will not give it up, even for the sake of truth, even for the sake of genuine love for others. But where it can no longer expect its desire to be fulfilled, there it stops short -- namely, in the face of an enemy. There it turns into hatred, contempt, and calumny. 

"Right here is the point where spiritual love begins. This is why human love becomes personal hatred when it encounters genuine spiritual love, which does not desire but serves. Human love makes itself an end in itself. It creates of itself an end, an idol which it worships, to which it must subject everything. It nurses and cultivates an ideal, it loves itself, and nothing else in the world. Spiritual love, however, comes from Jesus Christ, it serves him alone; it knows that it has no immediate access to other persons."

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Life Together, 1923; pg 33-35)

A Condition of Low Visibility

 "Presenting an issue sharply is indeed by no means a popular business at the present time; there are many who prefer to fight their intellectual battles in what ... has [been] aptly called a 'condition of low visibility.'"

J. Gresham Machen (Christianity and Liberalism, 1923)

A Divine Reality vs. A Social Ideal

 I am currently reading "Life Together" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. 

In February of 1933, at the age of 27, Bonhoeffer was delivering a lecture via Berlin Radio. In this lecture, as he was attempting to call out the German public for their potential acceptance of Hitler, who was not a "leader" but a "misleader".  His radio broadcast was cut short. Once Hitler came to power, Bonhoeffer accepted a call to be the pastor of a couple of German-speaking churches in London and refused to have any part of the "German-Christian Compromise" with the Nazi Government.  He eventually accepted a call from the "Confessing Church" in German occupied territory, to lead an "illegal seminary." It was in this seminary, where he shared housing with 25 other vicars in emergency-built houses, that he wrote this book in 1938. 

If you can't tell from those ultra-brief comments that I pulled from the introduction to my copy of "Life Together," why I would be interested in reading books written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, then I don't think that you are paying attention to what is happening in many of our countries today. In Bonhoeffer we are presented with an opportunity to study and learn from an actual Christian who was facing unprecedented social changes... specifically ones that were finding a comfortable roost in his government, media, and schools. He also faced the reality of other churches that were following along into various degrees of compromise. Aligning themselves with these changes. We may as well find ourselves hurtling toward something like "government-approved" churches and religious organizations. 

Important Things

"In the sphere of religion, as in other spheres, the things about which men are agreed are apt to be the things that are least worth holding. The really important things are the things about which men must fight."

J. Gresham Machen (Christianity and Liberalism, 1923)
 

"I liked the white better."

 This blog post will also serve as Episode 35 of my podcast. Please feel free to listen to the podcast or read the original blog post below.

In The Fellowship of the Ring, there is a place where Gandalf the Grey goes to seek the aid of Saruman the White. In the story, there is a dark power rising, and all that are in alignment with the light are feeling the need for banding together. This is what has prompted Gandalf to seek out Saruman. The movies do an okay job of relaying this moment... specifically the portion where Gandalf questions when Saruman has "...abandoned reason for madness."  

I've felt those words boiling up in me over the last few days. It is bad enough when there is a complete collapse of a spiritual leader, but when the descent into madness comes from the mouths of potential allies... Anyway, I would like to share a portion from the book version though, because I believe that all those who are still in this with me will experience the prophetic feel of these couple of pages. (As you read... Gandalf is relaying the story of this encounter.)

Don't be salty, be salted.

 All speech... verbal, written, texted, off the cuff, in passing, in frustration, in anger, early in the morning, late at night... happy speech, sad speech, angry speech, agreement speech, disagreement speech, direct, indirect, and anonymous ... All speech: Let it always be gracious, seasoned with salt. 

(By the way, I know the blog title doesn't actually make any real sense.)

"... I am bound by the scriptures..."

 

more atrocious

www.reftoons.com

 

The Paradox of Blessedness

 

“It is the paradox of blessedness that it confers on a person at one and the same time the greatest joy in all the world and the greatest task in all the world.”

~William Barclay (Commentary on Luke)

Rampant Individualism

Stephen Um on Discipline…

“There is a cultural aversion to discipline. We’re comfortable with the idea of self-discipline. -- bringing ourselves into line with a certain standard in order to reach a long-term goal like weight loss, eating healthily, or earning an additional degree. We even refer to different branches of knowledge or fields of study as ‘disciplines’ because we understand that it takes sustained focus, hard work, and self-discipline to grasp them. However, we are uncomfortable with the idea of being disciplined by an external force -- someone or something outside ourselves.  And the reason for this is rampant individualism. Jonathan Leeman says, ‘[for] the average person in Western culture today: every attachment is negotiable. We are all free agents, and every relationship and life station is a contract that can be renegotiated or canceled, whether we are dealing with the prince, the parents, the spouse, the salesman, the boss, the ballot box, the courtroom judge, or, of course, the local church. I am principally obligated to myself and maximizing my life, liberty and pursuit of happiness… I retain the power to veto everything.’”

Stephen Um, 1 Corinthians: The Word of the Cross (Preaching the Word)

dream vs. reality

Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves. 

By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world. He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream. God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth. Only that fellowship which faces such disillusionment, with all of its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God’s sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it. The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both. A community which cannot bear and cannot survive such a crisis, which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattered, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community. Sooner or later it will collapse. Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be every so honest and earnest and sacrificial.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Preaching Jesus Christ... Crucified

“His task had been plain, his purpose definite; he determined to know nothing among them but Jesus Christ, and to know and proclaim him in a way least acceptable to the wisdom of the world, namely, as reduced to the deep disgrace of death by the cross. It was Christ and his atoning work and not any human philosophy of human salvation that formed the sum and substance of Paul’s message.”

Charles Erdman (The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians: An Exposition)