Sunday, July 31, 2011

At the Foot of the Cross

As you may have concluded from recent posts, I've been using Martin Luther and John Stott quite a bit in my study of Galatians. You probably know Martin Luther as one of the giants of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. John Stott was one of the giants of expository preaching in the twentieth century. I had already planned to post this quotation of his today, but on Wednesday he passed away at the age of 90.

John Stott:
Every time we look at the cross Christ seems to say to us, ‘I am here because of you. It is your sin I am bearing, your curse I am suffering, your debt I am paying, your death I am dying.’ Nothing in history or in the universe cuts us down to size like the cross. All of us have inflated views of ourselves, especially in self-righteousness, until we have visited a place called Calvary. It is there, at the foot of the cross, that we shrink to our true size.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Moved and Melted

Pray for our worship service tomorrow.

Andrew Bonar (1894):
Having some time today I set myself to pray more, confessing sin, asking, thanking and praising. I am ashamed of my shallowness in knowledge, feeling and desire. Most humbling. On the other hand, how astonishing has been the Lord’s kindness to me, mercies like waves of the sea, bright mercies like the stars of heaven, mercies to my soul, mercies to me a sinner in every possible way, crowned with the unspeakable kindness of putting me into the ministry and using me to win souls. I long more and more to be ‘filled’ with the Spirit, and to see my congregation moved and melted under the Word, as in great revival times, ‘The place shaken where they are assembled together,’ because the Lord has come in power.

Friday, July 29, 2011

Look at My Shell Collection!

This is classic John Piper: a warning about the temptations of a comfortable retirement.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Ten Questions to Turn Your Conversation to the Gospel

Don Whitney:
Here are ten questions to ask to turn your conversation to the gospel.
  1. When you die, if God says to you, "Why should I let you into Heaven?", what would you say? Are you interested in what the Bible says about your answer?
  2. If you were to die tonight, where do you think you would spend eternity? Why? Are you interested in what the Bible says about this?
  3. Do you think much about spiritual things?
  4. How is God involved in your life?
  5. How important is your faith to you?
  6. What has been your most meaningful spiritual experience?
  7. Do you find that your religious heritage answers your questions about life?
  8. Do you have any kind of spiritual beliefs? If what you believe were not true, would you want to know it? Well, the Bible says . . .
  9. To you, who is Jesus?
  10. I often like to pray for people I meet; how can I pray for you?


Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Too Great

Derek Kidner:
The wrong inference from God's transcendence is that he is too great to care; the right one is that he is too great to fail.

The Crusades

Keith Mathison:

Does Christianity promote such politically inspired violence? Some would say yes, pointing to the Crusades as an example. In the following article, however, Dr. Robert Godfrey says no: He rightly points out that it is a betrayal of Christ to “identify Him with the slaughter of political enemies. As Christians, we must seek always to advance Christ’s cause through truth joined by love and self-sacrifice, not through violence.”

Read "The Crusades" by W. Robert Godfrey

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

He's Not a "Fundamentalist Christian"

Michael Horton:
At least 76 people are dead after Anders Behring Breivik massacred campers on an island off the coast of Oslo, Norway.

Finally, the media has a face and a name for making its heretofore unjustified claim of moral equivalency between conservative Christianity and Islam. Religion may be fine as long as it’s private, and you don’t really believe the key teachings of any one in particular. In any case, those who think they need to act on their confessional convictions in daily life—much less encourage other people to embrace them—are on the path to terrorism. Finally, we can reassure ourselves that Islam is not the problem; it’s “Christian fundamentalism."

But for anyone interested in the facts of the case, the secularist narrative has lost its poster-boy. In an on-line manifesto, Breivik makes it clear that he is not a “fundamentalist Christian.” He prefaces one comment with, “If there is a God…” and says that science should always trump religion. So in terms of religious convictions, he sounds more like Richard Dawkins than Jerry Falwell. Yet, unlike Dawkins, Breivik pines for the “good ‘ol days” of Christendom, especially the crusades. “Regarding my personal relationship with God, I guess I’m not an excessively religious man. I am first and foremost a man of logic. However, I am a supporter of a monocultural Christian Europe…”

The nineteenth century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche shrewdly observed that in his day the bourgeois elites of Europe wanted the fruit of Christianity (i.e., moral culture) without the tree itself (i.e., the actual doctrine and practice). Breivik is not a poster-boy for “Christian fundamentalism,” but the fulfillment of Nietzsche’s prophecy. It’s one thing to confuse the kingdom of Christ with the kingdoms of this age, but we need a new category besides “fundamentalism” for the secular faith in “Christendom” without Christ.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Controlled, Confused, and Trapped

Donald J. Hilton, Jr. illustrates the addictive and destructive power of pornography:

In 1869 the gypsy moth was brought to America to attempt to jumpstart a silk industry. Rarely have good intentions gone so wrong, as the unforeseen appetite of the moth for deciduous trees such as oaks, maples, and elms has devastated forests for 150 years. Numerous attempts were made to destroy this pest, but a major breakthrough came in the 1960s, when scientists noted that the male gypsy moth finds a female to mate with by following her scent. This scent is called a pheromone, and is extremely attractive to the male.

In 1971 a paper was published in the journal Nature that described how pheromones were used to prevent the moths from mating. The scientists mass-produced the pheromone and permeated the moths’ environment with it. This unnaturally strong scent overpowered the females’ normal ability to attract the male, and the confused males were unable to find females. A follow-up paper described how population control of the moths was achieved by “preventing male gypsy moths from finding mates.”

The gypsy moth was the first insect to be controlled by the use of pheromones, which work by two methods. One is called the confusion method. An airplane scatters an environmentally insignificant number of very small plastic pellets imbedded with the scent of the pheromone. Then, as science journalist Anna Salleh describes it, “The male either becomes confused and doesn’t know which direction to turn for the female, or he becomes desensitized to the lower levels of pheromones naturally given out by the female and has no incentive to mate with her.”

The other method is called the trapping method: Pheromone-infused traps are set, from which moths cannot escape; a male moth enters looking for a female, only to find a fatal substitute.

What does this have to do with pornography? Pornography is a visual pheromone, a powerful, $100 billion per year brain drug that is changing human sexuality by “inhibiting orientation” and “disrupting pre-mating communication between the sexes by permeating the atmosphere,” especially through the internet.


Read the whole thing here.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Our Greatest Need

Don Carson:
If God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, he would have sent an economist. If he had perceived that our greatest need was entertainment, he would have sent us a comedian or an artist. If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, he would have sent us a politician. If he had perceived that our greatest need was health, he would have sent us a doctor.
But he perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from him, our profound rebellion, our death; and he sent us a Savior.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Inheriting the Wind

Chris Brauns:

Whoever troubles his own household will inherit the wind, and the fool will be servant to the wise of heart. Proverbs 11:29.

My mind still can’t quite grasp the devastation of the Joplin Tornado. The destructive force is mind numbing. I’m sure it’s worse in person.

Even though some weeks have now passed since the Joplin Tornado, I was reminded of it today when I read Proverbs 11:29, “Whoever troubles his own household will inherit the wind. . .” The Proverb brings to mind the picture of a home destroyed by the wind. The point is that those who rebel bring about, one way or another, the sort of mind numbing destruction of a tornado that flattens homes.

If your home has been “flattened” by the rebellion of a family member, do be encouraged by the next verse Proverbs 11:30, “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life . . .” While the rebellious are a destructive force, godly people offer nourishment to those who pass by. Be godly. For your family, God can use you in great ways.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Literally?

If we think that taking the biblical descriptions of hell to be figurative would make it more palatable, we've missed the point of all that imagery.

R. C. Sproul:

Whenever I enter into discussions about the doctrine of hell, people ask, “R.C., do you believe that the New Testament portrait of hell is to be interpreted literally?” I usually respond by saying, “No, I don’t interpret those images literally,” and people typically respond with a sigh of relief.

If we take the New Testament’s descriptions of hell as symbolic language, we have to remember the function of symbols. The assumption is that there’s always more to the reality than what is indicated by the symbol, which makes me think that, instead of taking comfort that these images of the New Testament may indeed be symbolic, we should be worrying that the reality toward which these symbols point is more ghastly than the symbols.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Can I Thank God for This?

Kevin DeYoung:
I’ve learned over the years that the simplest way to judge gray areas in the Christian life like movies, television, and music is to ask one simple question: can I thank God for this? (We are to give thanks in all circumstances, right?) Not too long ago my wife and I went to the movie theater to watch one of the summer blockbusters. It was a fun PG-13 movie, and you’d probably say it didn’t really have any bad parts. But it was very sensual and suggestive in several places. I got done with the movie (yes, I watched the whole thing) and thought, “Can I really thank God for this?” Now, I’m not a total kill-joy. I like to laugh and enjoy life. I can thank God for the Chicago Bears, Hot N’ Readys, and Brian Regan. But I wonder if after most of our entertainment we could sincerely get down on our knees and say, “Thank you God for this good gift.” Something to think about.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Who Are You Married To?

Ray Ortlund:

“A married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. . . . and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another.” Romans 7:2-4

We were married to Mr. Law. He was a good man, in his way, but he did not understand our weakness. He came home every evening and asked, “So, how was your day? Did you do what I told you to? Did you make the kids behave? Did you waste any time?” So many demands and expectations. And hard as we tried, we couldn’t be perfect. We forgot things that were important to him. We let the children misbehave. We failed in other ways. It was a miserable marriage, because Mr. Law always pointed out our failings. And his remedy was always the same: Do better tomorrow. We couldn’t.

Mr. Law died – fortunately. And we remarried, this time to Mr. Grace. Our new husband, Jesus, comes home every evening and the house is a mess, the children are being naughty, dinner is burning on the stove, and we have even had other men in the house during the day. Still, he sweeps us into his arms and says, “I love you, I chose you, I died for you, I will never leave you nor forsake you.” And our hearts melt. We don’t understand such love. We expect him to judge us, but he treats us so well.

Being married to Mr. Law never changed us. But being married to Mr. Grace is finally changing us deep within, and it shows.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

The Devil's Martyrs

Galatians 5:1

For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Martin Luther:

Therefore, those who observe the law and those who rely entirely upon its righteousness and works are rightly called the devil’s martyrs. As the proverb says, they take more pains and punish themselves more in purchasing hell than the martyrs of Christ do in obtaining heaven. They are tormented in two ways: they are tormented while they live here by doing many difficult things, all in vain; and afterwards, when they die, they reap the reward of eternal damnation. Thus they are most miserable martyrs, both in this life and in the life to come, and their bondage is everlasting.

Godly people, on the other hand, have troubles in this world, but in Christ they have peace, because they believe that he has “overcome the world” (John 16:33). Therefore, we must stand firm in the freedom that Christ has purchased for us by his death, and we must take good care that we are not burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Don't Debate the Devil

Martin Luther, at his irreverent best:
It is the supreme art of the devil that he can make the law out of the gospel. If I can hold on to the distinction between law and gospel, I can say to him any and every time that he should kiss my backside. Even if I sinned I would say, ‘Should I deny the gospeI on this account?’ . . . Once I debate about what I have done and left undone, I am finished. But if I reply on the basis of the gospel, ‘The forgiveness of sins covers it all,’ I have won.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

How the Old Testament Points Us to Christ

In Galatians, we've seen Paul lean on the Old Testament quite a bit to make the case for justification through faith in Christ alone. Here's how Nancy Guthrie lists the variety of ways the OT can point us to Jesus Christ.

  1. A problem that only Christ can solve (the curse, our inability to keep the law, our alienation from God)
  2. A promise only Christ can fulfill (blessing, presence of God with us)
  3. A need that only Christ can meet (salvation from judgment, life beyond death)
  4. A pattern or theme that only comes to resolution in Christ (kingdom, rest)
  5. A story that only comes to its conclusion through Christ (the people of God, creation/fall/redemption/consummation)
  6. A person who prefigures an aspect of who Christ will be or what he will do by analogy and/or contrast (Joseph, Moses, David)
  7. An event or symbol that pictures an aspect of who Christ will be or what he will do (ark, exodus, sacrifices)
  8. A revelation of the pre-incarnate Christ (wrestling with Jacob, commander of the Lord’s army)

Friday, July 15, 2011

Test Yourselves

How can I know I'm not a Christian?

In II Corinthians 13:5, the apostle Paul commands his readers: "Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!"

OK, that seems straightforward enough. But what does it mean to examine yourself? What should you be looking for? How do you know whether or not you are "in the faith"? What is the "test" that we might fail? I wrote Am I Really a Christian? in order to try to help answer these questions.

Well, we should all hope that we pass "the test" (again, Paul's words, not mine!). And Scripture gives us a few things to look for that would indicate that in fact we are not "in the faith". A few examples:

  1. You're not a Christian if you don't believe true doctrine: By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. (I John 4:2-3)
  2. You're not a Christian if you enjoy sin: Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. (I John 2:4-6)
  3. You're not a Christian if you don't persevere: They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. (I John 2:19)
  4. You're not a Christian if you don't love others: Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (I John 4:7-8)
  5. You're not a Christian if you love your stuff more than you love Jesus: And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. (Luke 9:23-24)

Now, none of this is to say that our obedience somehow earns our salvation. But these are fruits of the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit that the authors of Scripture clearly expected a Christian to be able to discern in their lives.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

The Master Culture of the Kingdom of God

Remember when we studied these verses?

Galatians 3:27-29
27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.

Bryan Loritts, while not commenting on these verses directly, makes a statement that I believe fits well:
I have become entrenched in my conviction that culture is not to be ignored but subjugated to the master culture of the kingdom of God. My blackness is not to be dismissed, but submitted and subjugated to the redeeming power of the cross, and in humble participation to this new chosen race and royal priesthood called the church of Jesus Christ. This becomes a dance where 1) Christ is preeminent in my life, 2) I constantly go to war with the sinful expressions of and affections for my ethnicity, and 3) yet I allow redemptive expressions of my culture to be woven into the beautiful tapestry of the body of Christ which is both unified and uniquely diverse.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

God and Man on the Scale

J. I. Packer:

I think of the two pans of an old fashioned pair of scales. If one goes up, the other goes down.

Once upon a time folks new that God was great and that man by comparison was small. Each individual carried around a sense of his own smallness in the greatness of God’s world.

However, the scale pans are in a different relation today. Man has risen in his own estimation. He thinks of himself as great, grand and marvelously resourceful. This means inevitably that our thoughts about God have shrunk. As God goes down in our estimation, He gets smaller. He also exists now only for our pleasure, our convenience and our health, rather than we existing for His glory.

Now, I’m an old fashioned Christian and I believe that we exist for the glory of God. So the first thing I always want to do in any teaching of Christianity is to attempt to try and get those scale pans reversed. I want to try and show folks that God is the one of central importance. We exist for His praise, to worship Him, and find our joy and fulfillment in Him; therefore He must have all the glory. God is great and He must be acknowledged as great. I think there is a tremendous difference between the view that God saves us and the idea that we save ourselves with God’s help. Formula number two fits the modern idea, while formula number one, as I read my Bible, is scriptural. We do not see salvation straight until we recognize that from first to last it is God’s work. He didn’t need to save us. He owed us nothing but damnation after we sinned. What he does, though, is to move in mercy. He sends us a Savior and His Holy Spirit into our hearts to bring us to faith in that Savior. Then He keeps us in that faith and brings us to His glory. It is His work from beginning to end. God saves sinners. It does, of course, put us down very low. It is that aspect of the gospel that presents the biggest challenge to the modern viewpoint. But we must not forget that it also sets God up very high. It reveals to us a God who is very great, very gracious and very glorious. A God who is certainly worthy of our worship.


Tuesday, July 12, 2011

"Jesus Is Lord"

A story of ministry in a Muslim area of South Asia:
The realities of persecution were on everyone's minds as we walked down to the river for the baptisms. One by one, our new brothers in Christ walked out into the water, where they were met by our translator. He asked them some basic questions to make sure they understood the Gospel. But then he also asked them if they were prepared to lose their livelihoods, their families -- even their very lives. Their response? "Jesus is Lord." And with that, they went down into the watery grave, only to be raised as new creatures in Jesus Christ. The week after we left, these brothers worshiped together for the first time. Lord willing, they represent the genesis of a new local church.

As we departed from the river, no one had dry eyes. How could we? One of the students asked me what I thought about the events of the morning. I told him we'd just witnessed the Book of Acts.

Monday, July 11, 2011

OMG?

Justin Taylor:

Just because “Oh my God!” is abused in our culture—a case of taking great God’s name lightly and in vain—doesn’t mean we should refrain from the vocative “O my God!”

Note in the Bible how often it is used in conjunction with imploring God to listen, to see, to remember, to arise, and to save.

2 Chronicles 6:40

Now, O my God, let your eyes be open and your ears attentive to the prayer of this place.

Ezra 9:6

O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens.

Psalm 25:2

O my God, in you I trust; let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me.

Psalm 38:21

Do not forsake me, O Lord! O my God, be not far from me!

Psalm 40:8

I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”

Psalm 40:17

As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God!

Psalm 59:1

Deliver me from my enemies, O my God; protect me from those who rise up against me.

Psalm 71:12

O God, be not far from me; O my God, make haste to help me!

Daniel 9:19

O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake,O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Hearing Joy

I had the opportunity to preach at The Red Brick Church of Stillman Valley this morning. Here's a post by their pastor Chris Brauns, author of Unpacking Forgiveness. This is a good model of profitably meditating on Scripture.

Can you hear joy? Have you heard it?

Nehemiah 8:43 regarding the dedication of the wall:

And they offered great sacrifices that day and rejoiced, for God had made them rejoice with great joy; the women and children also rejoiced. And the joy of Jerusalem was heard far away. Nehemiah 8:43.

Scattered Questions

  • Don’t you wish you could have been there for the celebration?
  • How much more do you suppose the celebration meant for the ones who had been part of the wall building project?
  • What does it sound like for people to be so excited – - including women and children? Did they clap? Shout? Play instruments? Laugh?
  • What would need to take place for more of this to happen in our local assemblies?
  • Can you think of a time when you were a part of a time of such joy and enthusiasm?
  • How might God use you to help bring about such a show of celebration?

Saturday, July 09, 2011

Keeping Our Eyes on Christ

Galatians 4:14

…you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus.

Galatians 4:19

…my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you!

John Stott, connecting these two verses above:

What should matter to the people is not the pastor’s appearance, but whether Christ is speaking through him. And what should matter to the pastor is not the people’s favor, but whether Christ is formed in them. The church needs people who, in listening to their pastor, listen for the message of Christ, and pastors who, in laboring among the people, look for the image of Christ. Only when pastor and people thus keep their eyes on Christ will their mutual relations keep healthy, profitable and pleasing to almighty God.

Friday, July 08, 2011

Yes, Heaven Is For Real, But...

Greg Thornbury:
What bothers me about the reception of [the book] Heaven Is For Real is what it says about the relatively low view of the sufficiency of Scripture among evangelicals today. In other words, it’s not good enough for us to hear about heaven from the holy apostles, Church Fathers, and trusted commentaries on Scripture. No, we need a little boy sitting on Jesus’ lap to tell us that instead. Then we will believe it. And that phenomenon ultimately bodes ill for everyone who really does love the Bible: pastors, teachers, parents, and yes, even children.

Thursday, July 07, 2011

Seeing the Gospel in Your Daily Devotions

Dane Ortlund:

What are some tools/practical tips you’d give to a person to help them see the gospel in their daily devotions?

1. Reflect deeply, in an unhurried way, on your own sin. Not misanthropic introspection, but healthy self-assessment, in the spirit of 2 Cor. 13:5. One reason the gospel does not feel real to us is that our sin does not feel real to us.

2. Get married, then have kids, adopting if need be. Nothing exposes your sins and need of the gospel like living with other people who see what you’re like when you’re not out in public, wearing various masks, trying your hardest to come across a certain way.

3. Discipline yourself to read Scripture every day. It’s hard to get in a spiritual rhythm of communing with the God of all grace if you only have fellowship with him sporadically.

4. Sing. Print out your favorite hymns and worship songs and sing amid your Bible reading. We are whole people, not brains only.

5. Belong to a church that loves the gospel and preaches the gospel so that you can learn from a wise pastor how to see the gospel all over the Bible.

6. Read every passage mindful of what Jesus himself says in John 5:39-46 and Luke 24:25-27, 44-47, and what Paul says in 2 Cor. 1:19-20. If that’s how Jesus and Paul read their Bibles, shouldn’t we?


Wednesday, July 06, 2011

Should Just

Matt Johnson:

Stuck people already know what they should just be doing. They should just stop drinking to excess, they should just be more attentive to their spouse, they should just work harder, they should just stop masturbating. These two dirty words not only yield fruitlessness, they’re fertilizer for despair. The insidious, looming should / just is familiar and it sounds a little like this:

I should just be in the word more
I know I should just have more more faith
I should just trust God more

Hiding behind each of those familiar statements is a vortex of disappointment and failure waiting to happen. We’ve all tried to try harder. Depressed, stuck people need more admonishment about as much as they need a whack to the head with a tube sock full of rolled pennies. The problem is, Should / Just is packed to the brim with the conditional implications of law, not gospel. Remember--God’s law is perfect, holy and just but the law does not give, it only commands, accuses and judges. See, the gospel alone empowers obedience. So once someone has been crushed under the demand of the law, the gut punch of Should / Just isn’t helpful.

Broken people need less Should / Just impossibility and more Because / Therefore security. Because you are in Christ,because you are reconciled to the Father, because your sins are forgiven, therefore, go and [insert biblical command here].


Tuesday, July 05, 2011

For His Name's Sake

Josh Etter:

Three biblical texts to show God's zeal for his name's sake:

We are created for God's name's sake:

Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, every one who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory (Isaiah 43:6-7).

We are saved for God's name's sake:

I acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out (Ezekiel 20:14).

We are sanctified for God's name's sake:

Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act; for how can My name be profaned? And My glory I will not give to another (Isaiah 48:10-11).

Monday, July 04, 2011

God Gave Us Food

It's a holiday, so you'll probably be eating a lot. Here's Tim Chester on thinking about food from a biblical perspective (and it's not a warning about gluttony).

“Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, [Jesus] gave thanks and broke them. Then he gave them to the disciples to set before the people.” (9:16 NIV)

Consider for a moment what happens at the feeding of the 5,000. God gives out bread. On a massive scale. Or what about the wedding at Cana. Jesus turns perhaps 120-180 gallons of water into wine. Quality wine. At the beginning of the Bible story the first thing God does for humanity is present us with a menu. “The LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.” (Genesis 2:8-9) At the end of the Bible story God sets before us a perpetual feast. God likes doing the catering. He thinks food is a good thing.

God incarnate eats. Jesus would have eaten two meals a day. When he ate with the rich he might have had white bread, but most of the time he ate the barley bread eaten by the poor along with cheese, butter and eggs. Meat and poultry were too expensive to be eaten except on feast days. He may have had fish on the Sabbath. There were of course no tea or coffee. Jesus would have drunk wine, generally mixed with three-parts water. Honey was the primary sweetener along with figs. Pepper, ginger and other spices were imported, but were expensive.1 Such was the diet of God incarnate.

The risen Christ eats. Indeed he makes a point of doing so publicly. “They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.” (Luke 24:42-43) Eating in the presence of God is our future. Food will be part of the renewed creation. Food is not left behind with the resurrection. It’s not just a metaphor for an ethereal future existence. Our future is a feast.

The point is that food isn’t just fuel. It’s not just a mechanism for sustaining us for ministry. It’s gift, generosity, grace. Food matters as matter. It’s a physical substance, part of God’s good world. We’re to embrace the world as it is – not merely as a picture of some other spiritual world.


Sunday, July 03, 2011

I Do Not Desire It

Also related to our text.

Galatians 4:9
But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?

John Stott:
Oh, the folly of these Galatians! We can certainly understand the language of the Prodigal Son, who came to his father and said ‘I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants’ or ‘slaves’. But how can anyone be so foolish as to say: ‘You have made me your son; but I would rather be a slave’? It is one thing to say ‘I do not deserve it’; it is quite another to say ‘I do not desire it; I prefer slavery to sonship’. Yet that was the folly of the Galatians, under the influence of their false teachers.

Being Known by God

This is related to our text from this morning's sermon.

But in [1 Corinthians 8:3] Paul does not simply relate loving God to knowing as we ought to know. He says, ‘But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.’ What is the point of saying, ‘He is known by God’? This is parallel to Galatians 4:9: ‘But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world?’

Deeper than knowing God is being known by God. What defines us as Christians is not most profoundly that we have come to know him but that he took note of us and made us his own.

Being known by God is another way of talking about election—God’s freely choosing us for himself, in spite of our not deserving it. It the kind of knowing referred to in Amos 3:2: ‘You only have I known of all the families of the earth.’ God had chosen Israel as his people, though they were no better than any others.

What Paul is doing when he says, ‘If anyone loves God, he is known by God.’ Is reminding the proud Corinthians that loving God, not loveless knowledge, is the sign of being among the elect. He is reminding them that everything they have is owing to God’s free and sovereign initiative.

Saturday, July 02, 2011

A Reality Created by God

Remember to gather with your brothers and sisters in Christ tomorrow for worship.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer on life in the church:

Because God already has laid the only foundation of our community, because God has united us in one body with other Christians in Jesus Christ long before we entered into common life with them, we enter into that life together with other Christians, not as those who make demands, but as those who thankfully receive…. We do not complain about what God does not give us; rather we are thankful for what God does give us daily.

*****

Therefore, will not the very moment of great disillusionment with my brother or sister be incomparably wholesome for me because it so thoroughly teaches us that both of us can never live by our own words and deeds, but only by that one Word and deed that really binds us together, the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ? The bright day of Christian community dawns wherever the early morning mists of dreamy visions are lifting.

*****

Christian community is not an ideal we have to realize, but rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate. The more clearly we learn to recognize that the ground and strength and promise of all our community is in Jesus Christ alone, the more calmly we will learn to think about our community and pray and hope for it.


Friday, July 01, 2011

Christianity in China

TIME, on Christianity in China:

With its 40 Biblical reading groups, choir, catechism, its faithful (typically members of the new bourgeoisie — professors, doctors, lawyers, students, and even Party members), Shouwang gains dozens of new converts each month. For the regime, it is the strongest symbol of the wave of religious conversion that has swept over the country of late. Urban, educated, disgusted by the “red” discourse served by the media, and fed up even with the cult of consumerism, the new, Christ-conscious Chinese upper class is on a moral collision course with a government that it perceives as soulless.

The numbers speak for themselves. A survey conducted in 2006 suggests that about 300 million Chinese (31% of the population) practice a religion. Government estimates put that number far lower. Among Chinese religious practitioners, two-thirds declared themselves Buddhists or Taoists. The remaining third (100 million people) are Christians.

A leaked report dating from the same year suggests that the real number of Chinese Christians is closer to 130 million — up from just 5 million in 1949 when Mao came to power. Roughly four-fifths are Protestants. In the past 60 years, in other words, the number of Chinese Christians has multiplied by a factor of 25. They now make up between 7%-10% of the population, meaning that Christianity is quite possibly the second religion in China.