How Can God Allow Suffering and Evil in the World?

How can God allow suffering and evil in the world? from A Passion for Life on Vimeo.

Ask for Grace

Matthew Henry, commenting on Matthew 20:20-28:

We know not what we ask, when we ask for the glory of wearing the crown, and ask not for grace to bear the cross in our way to it.

As quoted in Carson's commentary on Matthew

Next Sermon - Matthew 20:17-34 on 11/15/09

Here's the text for this coming Sunday's sermon.

Matthew 20:17-34

17 And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, 18 “See, we are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death 19 and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.”

20 Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons, and kneeling before him she asked him for something. 21 And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” 22 Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” 23 He said to them, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” 24 And when the ten heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers. 25 But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 26 It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

29 And as they went out of Jericho, a great crowd followed him. 30 And behold, there were two blind men sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was passing by, they cried out, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” 31 The crowd rebuked them, telling them to be silent, but they cried out all the more, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” 32 And stopping, Jesus called them and said, “What do you want me to do for you?” 33 They said to him, “Lord, let our eyes be opened.” 34 And Jesus in pity touched their eyes, and immediately they recovered their sight and followed him.

What Is the Glory of God?

It's easy for phrases we use a lot to become emptied of their meaning. John Piper doesn't want that to happen to "the glory of God."

What is the glory of God?

The glory of God is the holiness of God put on display. That is, it is the infinite worth of God made manifest. Notice how Isaiah shifts from “holy” to “glory”: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isaiah 6:3). When the holiness of God fills the earth for people to see, it is called glory.

The basic meaning of holy is “separated” from the common. Thus, when you carry that definition all the way to the infinite “separation” of God from all that is common, the effect is to make him the infinite “one of a kind”—like the rarest and most perfect diamond in the world. Only there are no other diamond-gods. God’s uniqueness as the only God—his God-ness—makes him infinitely valuable, that is, holy.

The most common meaning for God’s glory in the Bible assumes that this infinite value has entered created experience. It has, as it were, shined. God’s glory is the radiance of his holiness. It is the out-streaming of his infinite value. And when it streams out, it is seen as beautiful and great. It has both infinite quality and infinite magnitude. So we may define the glory of God as the beauty and greatness of God’s manifold perfections.

Read the whole thing here.

Yawning at the Word

Mark Galli:

We often hear people say how difficult it is to hear God anymore, and I wonder if one reason is that we've forgotten how to listen to the Word of God when it comes to us in the sanctuary or the classroom. We listen like a husband and wife listen when they are in the middle of an argument: they listen only so they can have ammunition to mount a counterattack. That's not listening. And when we listen to the sermon only to hear what seems immediately and directly relevant, neither is that listening. And yet we've raised a whole generation of Christians to listen like this.

Again: I do not claim that I have transcended this cultural impatience with the Bible. I'm as irritated as the next person when it comes to the public reading of Scripture. Doesn't this person have anything original to say? I think. Isn't he going to address this issue, or that concern? Get on with it! At least I hope he says something funny soon … .

I try to laugh at myself when I catch myself in such moods: bored with the very revelation of God! We have this extraordinary gift, this miracle book, from the Creator of Heaven and Earth, the Mystery of the Universe, the Infinite One whom we (the finite) cannot begin to fathom, the Holy One whom we (blinded by our unholiness) cannot begin to comprehend. The One who can answer our deepest questions but could remain The Question, the One who can restore our broken humanity, but could remain a vague Hypothesis—this One has revealed himself in Law, Prophets, and Gospel—in the words of a collection we now call Holy Scripture.

How to Read a Biography

Chris Armstrong on "How to Read a Biography" from a larger article advocating a return to the declining practice of reading biographies of great Christians.

As noted above, biographies do not automatically lead to virtue, and can in fact move us in the reverse direction. So how do we read them rightly? With the same spirit of humility and openness that becomes us when we meet people face to face.

Note what happens when you read biography from a stance of humility: You do not become discouraged upon learning that the subject has accomplished astounding things. Sure, Wesley was a ministry whirlwind. But he was gifted in a particular way, for his own time and for God's own purposes. Your time and place are different; God, therefore, has gifted you differently.

Also, you are not inclined to envy Wesley, because humility has taught you, as it did Paul, to be content in whatever situation you face. Finally, you remember that Wesley had his flaws and difficulties: he tended to be autocratic, for example, and did not have a happy marriage. You wisely decide that you will not jump to desire others' gifts, since every strength comes with its own obverse weakness, and since with great responsibility, so often, comes great difficulty.

And look at what happens if you read with spiritual openness: When you discover the subject's struggles and character flaws, you are reminded that, no matter how many flaws and faults you see in your own makeup, you too can be changed by grace and used for greatness in the kingdom. The kind of life you live is not the only kind. There is a luminous possibility for you, something beyond life as usual.

Even better, you don't have to be pure as the driven snow to attain this life. Your current condition, with its all-too-obvious blemishes, will not prevent our loving God from moving you deeper and higher in his purposes. Since "nothing is too difficult for him"—he makes camels go through needles and rich men enter the kingdom of heaven—you can be used by God in wonderful ways, even in ways as exciting as some of the ones you are reading about.

Return to Your Home

Luke 8:38-39

38 The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39 “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.

Jon Bloom:

The words "return to your home" must have made this man's heart sink. Home for him was not a warm place of sentimental memories. Home was a place of memories so dark and pain-filled that he likely just wanted to escape them and never go back.

But sometimes following Jesus means being sent back to a place where we once knew desolation and indescribable pain. The thought of returning there conjures up fears of our old demons and the people who knew us as we were back then. But it is there that the grace of God in our lives will shine the brightest.

What Jesus wants us to know is that his salvation and his protection extend to those old, horrible haunts. If he can break the death-grip Satan once had on us and set us free, then he can redeem the places of our former slavery and make them showcases of God's omnipotent grace.

Do not be afraid. The Good Shepherd will walk with you and protect you on the darkest road (Psalm 23:4). Declare how much God has done for you. You are being sent because there are other tomb-people to free.

Our Only Comfort

From the 16th-century Heidelberg Catechism:

Q & A 1

Q. What is your only comfort
in life and in death?

A. That I am not my own,
but belong—
body and soul,
in life and in death—
to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.

He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood,
and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil.
He also watches over me in such a way
that not a hair can fall from my head
without the will of my Father in heaven:
in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.

Because I belong to him,
Christ, by his Holy Spirit,
assures me of eternal life
and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready
from now on to live for him.

Q & A 2

Q. What must you know
to live and die in the joy of this comfort?

A. Three things:
first, how great my sin and misery are;
second, how I am set free from all my sins and misery;
third, how I am to thank God for such deliverance.

Source

Wordy Worship

Kevin DeYoung:

Perhaps you’ve wondered why Christian worship is so heavy on words? Perhaps you or your church has been criticized for being too propositional, too auditory, too…wordy. Well, here are twenty-five reasons why verbal proclamation–through the reading, preaching, singing, and praying of the Bible and biblical truth–should have the preeminent place in corporate worship:

1. Faith comes by hearing (Rom. 10:14-15). We cannot call on Jesus unless we believe in him and we cannot believe in him unless we hear of him from the lips of a herald. Faith begins with words.

2. God has chosen word-gifts and word-offices to build up the church (Eph. 4:11-12).

3. God creates through his word (cf. Gen. 1; Col. 1:16). God’s work of creation is always a speech act.

4. God regenerates through his word. We are born again through the living and abiding word of God (1 Peter 1:23). And “word” here is not merely Jesus Christ, but the preaching Peter’s audience had received (v. 25).

5. God’s people are called to follow his commands and keep the laws. Jesus exhorted “if you love me, you will keep my commandments (John 14:15; cf. Deut. 11:1). We cannot love unless we are obedient and we cannot obey unless we are instructed in the law of the Lord. That is why the Psalmist not only rejoices in the person of God, but delights in his decrees and statutes (Psalm 119:16, 24).

6. Throughout the Bible, there is an unmistakable priority of hearing over sight. In distinction to the popular religions around them, God insisted that he was a God who would be unseen (cf. Exodus 20:3-4). When Moses asked to see God, the Lord refused, saying, “You cannot see my face, for no one can see me and live” (33:20). Instead, God caused his goodness to pass in front of Moses by proclaiming his name–“Yahweh”–and declaring his character–“I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion” (33:19). Biblical faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see (Heb. 11:1; cf. 1 Peter 1:8).

7. All the corporate worship we know of in the early church is saturated with words. While there are many things we don’t know about the worship of the early church in the Bible, we do know that they devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer (Acts 2:42). We know they were devoted to the public reading of Scripture (1 Tim. 4:13). We know they brought hymns, words of instruction, revelations, tongues and interpretations (1 Cor. 14:26). In other words, while we can make inferences and prudential judgments about the role of visual arts in worship, we know for certain that their gatherings were infused with words.

Go here for reasons 8-25.

Idolatry

Martin Luther:

“You are to have no other gods.” [Exodus 20:3]

That is, you are to regard me alone as your God. What does this mean, and how is it to be understood? What does “to have a god” mean, or what is God?

Answer: A “god” is the term for that to which we are to look for all good and in which we are to find refuge in all need. Therefore, to have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe in that one with your whole heart. As I have often said, it is the trust and faith of the heart alone that make both God and an idol. If your faith and trust are right, then your God is the true one. Conversely, where your trust is false and wrong, there you do not have the true God. For these two belong together, faith and God. Anything on which your heart relies and depends, I say, that is really your God.

Tim Keller:

What is an idol? It is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.

A counterfeit god is anything so central and essential to your life that, should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living. An idol has such a controlling position in your heart that you can spend most of your passion and energy, your emotional and financial resources, on it without a second thought. It can be family and children, or career and making money, or achievement and critical acclaim, or saving 'face' and social standing. It can be a romantic relationship, peer approval, competence and skill, secure and comfortable circumstances, your beauty or your brains, a great political or social cause, your morality and virtue, or even success in the Christian ministry. When your meaning in life is to fix someone else's life, we may call it 'co-dependency' but it is really idolatry. An idol is whatever you look at and say, in your heart of hearts, 'If I have that, then I'll feel my life has meaning, then I'll know I have value, then I'll feel significant and secure.' There are many ways to describe that kind of relationship to something, but perhaps the best one is worship.

From Luther's Large Catechism and Keller's Counterfeit Gods
Source 1, 2

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Next Sermon - Matthew 20:1-16 on 11/08/09

Here is the text for this coming Sunday's sermon. Don't miss the connection to the previous chapter, the passage we addressed on October 25, which was Matthew 19:16-30.

Matthew 20:1-16

1 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, 4 and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ 5 So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. 6 And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ 7 They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ 8 And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ 9 And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. 10 Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. 11 And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, 12 saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ 13 But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14 Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ 16 So the last will be first, and the first last.”

Why WE Still Need the Reformation

Russell Moore:

For most conservative American evangelicals, "Reformation Day" is not a big deal. Many, if asked, might think it to be a special emphasis day for prison ministry.

Most of us know the day as Halloween instead (or something closely approximating it), even if we feel a little guilty about that. I'll be away travelling tonight, unable to indulge the trick-or-treaters, so maybe I'll just nail 95 Reese's to the door.

But as one who grew up in a half-Catholic, half-Baptist extended family, October 31st is an interesting time for me. What would Martin Luther have done on that thundrous road if he'd had a background like mine? Invited Saint Anne into his heart as his personal lightning rod? Pledged to start a "True Nuns Wait" campaign?

What I do know is that, whatever your view of the Reformation, it's obvious to see that some of the things that drove Luther to anger (and to despair) are everywhere present, to this day, often even in the most "Reformation-centric" evangelical churches.

Hardened rebels against God rest easy in a prayer said at Vacation Bible School, or a card signed at confirmation class. And guilty consciences stand paralyzed outside, fearful that Christ can only save those who look or dress or speak a certain way. And, through it all, American Christianity has become a vast conspiracy to sell one another products.

The combination of the damning power of cheap grace with the accusing agony of performance-based righteousness before God exists in every wing of the church. That's because it's not a medieval problem, but a primeval one.

Syncopated Luther

In honor of Reformation Day today, here is a video (more audio than video, really) of Martin Luther's "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." It is sung in German in the original syncopated style. What?! You thought that syncopation originated 100 years ago with ragtime? Not so.

Stingy Jack

More from David Wayne on some of the history behind Halloween-- in this installment, the story behind the Jack o' Lantern:

The pumpkin, which many of us associate so strongly with Hallowe’en, is native only to North America, and grows nowhere else in the world. They simply did not have pumpkins to use as symbols, until about 300 years ago! The original Jack-O-Lanterns go back a little further, but were usually made from turnips or potatoes, and are a relatively recent European invention (c. 1200 A.D.).

According to tradition, the Jack-O-Lantern is the good-natured result of an old Irish-Christian wives-tale about a miser named Stingy Jack who refused his good wife’s exhortation to go to church. Jack instead frequented saloons, were he eventually met and tricked the Devil himself into paying for the drinks. A year later, on the eve of the Hallowed Day, Jack choked to death, eating a turnip. When he arrived at heaven’s gate he was turned away as an unrepentant sinner. At the gates of hell, Satan drove him off by throwing glowing embers of hell-fire at him, still angry over being tricked. Jack was doomed to walk between heaven and hell until the Judgment Day, still carrying his half-eaten turnip, in which burned the glowing embers he had caught. They called it Jack’s-Lantern, and Christians would put them up to mark the locations of their Hallowe’en parties. According to the legend, if Satan saw such a lantern he would turn and walk the other way rather than risk meeting Stingy Jack in such a gathering.

Isn't it interesting how a "Christianity" without an emphasis on the Scriptures fosters a folk religion that instinctively creates its own stories? And how, in this imagination, the Devil is always a more interesting character than, say, Jesus? And, not incidentally, that the gospel is absent?

At least it got a couple of things right: Unrepentant sinners don't go to heaven, and you can't swallow a whole turnip. So don't be a fool like Stingy Jack.

As Holy As Possible

Robert Murray McCheyne:

Lord, make me as holy as it is possible for a saved sinner to be.

Counting the Days

Psalms 139:16

Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.

Carolyn Nystrom:

God’s power, blended with his knowledge, has sobering implications. I remember well the day when I sat down and calculated the days that my own firstborn child had lived: a mere 8,175 days until a car crash on the way to work ended Sheri’s life as well as that of her own unborn child. At age seven, Sheri had completed nearly a third of her lifetime—and God knew. He had counted the days. When Sheri danced at her senior prom, she had completed more than three-quarters of it—and God knew. He had counted the days. At college graduation, she had completed all but seventy-one days. God had already counted them. I am grateful that those counted days were in God’s knowledge, not mine. It is comforting to know that the length of Sheri’s life did not somehow escape the knowledge and power of God, that her life (far too short by human measure), continues to this day in his presence. God the Creator shapes—conceives, constructs, connects, controls—all that he brings into any mode of being, and this shaping is his omnipotence in action.

From Praying: Finding Our Way through Duty to Delight, by J. I. Packer and Carolyn Nystrom

The History Behind Halloween

David Wayne, with "just the facts" on Halloween (the numbers at the end of sentences refer to footnotes you can see at his original post-- follow the link):

Hallowe’en was created by the Early Christian Church during the 4th century.1 Originally celebrated on the 13th and 14th of May as “All Martyr’s Day,” it was instituted to remember those who had given their lives for the Faith during the Great Christian Holocaust, by Rome.2 It was, in other words, the Christian Memorial Day — the second most important holy-day in the entire Christian Calendar. Fact.

Somewhere along the way it apparently became customary to hold Church pageants on the preceding evening. Everyone, even the audience, came dressed as their favorite martyred saint.3 Those who chose Paul, came beheaded. Those who chose Matthew, came with a spear thrust through them. In skits, congregations would reenact the valor and passion of the Church-in-persecution. Others dressed as the antagonists of the stories — Satan, his demons, the wild animals of the coliseum, the soldiers and the Caesars. These were the defeated enemies, booed and hissed, while the victorious heroes were cheered. Afterward they would all spill out into the streets of the city, begging food for the poor among them.4 Fact.

Some three hundred years later, the city of Rome donated a building to the Church in memory of all the “martyrs” of the Great Persecution. The building had formerly been used as a place of torture and the execution of Christians. Now, it would be used to worship Jesus Christ. The irony was not lost on the Church, and many shifted their All Martyr’s celebration to the day the new building was dedicated — November 1.5 Within the next fifty years that change became official in the Western Churches (the Eastern Churches still celebrate in the spring, to this day6). The celebration was gradually expanded to include any who had been persecuted for the name of Christ, and many began calling it “All Saints’ Day.” Fact.

In the centuries that followed, the name was finally changed to the “Holy Day” – or more popularly, the “Hallowed Day.” The festivities traditionally began the night before, because until recent times both Jews and Christians began their day at dusk. This is not the result of culture or superstition, but because God made them that way (”… and the evening and the morning, were the first day”, etc.). So, to the early Church the evening of a Saturday, for instance, was the night before, not the night after — Saturday began with Saturday-evening (what you and I would call Friday night). In fact, what we call “Christmas Eve” today, was originally the evening of/before Christmas-Day. The same is true of New Year’s Eve. Similarly, the Hallowed Day began with the “Hallowed Even’,” which was ultimately contracted to the “Hallowe’en” we know today. Today, we still begin our celebration on the evening before – what appears on our calendars as October 31. Fact.