May 25, 2010: What’s Missing? (Part 1)
In his message "The Changing (Changless?) Face of Evangelicalism" professor D A Carson expresses concern over the way the gospel is presented in many evangelical churches today. I summarize below his characterization of modern "gospel narrative".
"In the beginning God made everything good. But in our sin and rebellion we set out to destroy everything. We destroyed our relationships with one another, with the world, and with God. But God in his mercy set out to save us. He called out Abraham and set up a whole new humanity. He gave us the law, the sacrificial system, the prophetic word, the modeling of a Davidic king, the institutions of the tabernacle and the priesthood. And in the fullness of time God sent his Son. Jesus inaugurated God's reign, displaying kingdom authority in signs and miracles, in the unraveling of evil, and, finally, in the destruction of death itself. He rose from the dead in anticipation of the great resurrection to come. And we are invited to participate in this kingdom proclamation and lifestyle. We are commanded to do so. We push back by God’s grace the frontiers of darkness and decay everywhere in anticipation of the time when God himself brings in the end: a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness and resurrection existence. Yes, come Lord Jesus."
There is nothing wrong with that message. You will not find a single unorthodox or misleading statement in the preceding paragraph. But something has been left out, and, in some churches and preaching ministries, it is always left out. On occasion, I have even heard the missing element denied!
"What's missing," Carson says, is "any recognition that bound up in our rebellion and decay, at the center of it, is such ugly heinous defiance of God that God stands over against us not only in love but in holy wrath. Six hundred times the Bible speaks of the wrath of God!"
Carson is right. The wrath of God appears often in our Bibles but seldom in our sermons. Just last week my pastor noted that we don't often speak of God's judgment and wrath - and he was right too.
I vividly recall a moment in 1989 when a missionary preacher in Costa Rica stood before our congregation and said to everyone assembled, "God isn't mad at you." My blood ran cold. Listen, if you ever hear a preacher say to anyone and everyone, "God isn't mad at you," you have my permission (for what it's worth) to raise your hand and ask, "Excuse me, sir, but how thick is the layer of dust on the cover of your Bible?"
Below is just a partial list of people with whom (the Bible explicitly says) God was angry:
Balaam (Numbers 22:22)
Moses (Deuteronomy 1:37)
Aaron (Deuteronomy 9:20)
David (Psalm 38:3)
Solomon (1 Kings 11:9)
Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar (Job 42:7)
Uzzah (2 Samuel 6:8)
Jehoshaphat (2 Chronicles 19:2)
Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 32:25)
Heman (Psalm 88:7)
And below is a (very) partial list of regions that provoked the wrath of God:
Israel (Judges 2:20)
Judah (2 Chronicles 28:9)
Damascus (Amos 1:3)
Gaza (Amos 1:6)
Tyre (Amos 1:9)
Edom (Amos 1:11)
Ammon (Amos 1:13)
Moab (Amos 2:1)
Someone might say, "But that's the Old Testament. God stopped being angry around the time BC changed to AD." Wrong. Below is a list of people who are explicitly subject to God's wrath in the New Testament.
Whoever rejects the Son (John 3:36)
Those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil (Romans 2:8)
All of us at one time (Ephesians 2:3)
Those who are disobedient (Ephesian 5:6)
Those who hinder the gospel (1 Thessalonians 2:16)
Those who worship the beast and receive his mark (Revelation 14:10)
Someone else might say, "But God doesn't get angry with people. He just gets angry at their sin." Wrong again. Take a few minutes to look up the above passages and read them for yourself. They all say that God's wrath is poured out against people.
Until and unless we have a biblical understanding of God's righteous anger, we will not be properly horrified by our sin, nor properly terrified of its consequences, nor properly awed by the cross of Jesus Christ, where God in his Triune mercy made satisfaction for the wrath that our rebellion provoked. When we omit - or even deny ("God isn't mad at you!") - the biblical wrath of the Almighty, we do more than just dishonor God. We also harm people by taking away from them one of Scripture's chief motivations for turning from sin and turning to Christ. More on that next week, Lord willing.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
May 18, 2010: Hear My Words That I Might Teach You
How do you mentor those who do not want to be mentored? How do you make disciples of those who don't want to be discipled? How do you teach when your "words, like silent raindrops, fall, and echo in the well of silence"?
These thoughts have come to mind a lot lately in one form or another. Some examples:
1) A relative of mine, an outstanding high school teacher, bewails political rhetoric about "schools that fail our children". He knows better. He has seen enough lazy belligerent mean-spirited blockheaded kids and their enabling parents to know that most often it's the children who are failing their schools. You can't teach kids who don't want to learn.
2) Heartbreaking case: an unwed and ill-prepared mother agrees at first to be mentored by a mature and godly woman who will raise her baby until she gets her life together. Instead, she gets pregnant again and screws up her life some more and then demands her toddler back. So much for learning responsible motherhood.
3) More than once I have been lectured about the superiority of the King James Version by people who didn't know what they were talking about. They hadn't studied Greek or Hebrew, never earned masters degrees in linguistics and divinity, never worked as Bible translators. At such times I can't help thinking, "You know, the way this should work is that you ask me what translation to use."
4) The world's finest pediatric physical therapist assistant (ok, I'm biased - I'm married to her) demonstrates proven techniques to parents about how to get their kids crawling and walking, and then she returns a week later to find the parents have done nothing, or have even done the opposite of what she suggested. The child's development stalls.
There's a Latin phrase, the exact wording of which I haven't been able to track down, that goes something like, "Heed the words of the expert in his field." It's a good rule. If I tell you, for example, how to fix a lawnmower, please feel free to roll your eyes, sigh inwardly, tell me that I'm talking out my rear end, and then go seek a second opinion. But if I tell you that some cherished dogma first appeared out of nowhere in the 1830s, or that every Church Father from Origen to J. I. Packer concurred on a doctrine that troubles you, well, (how do I put this modestly?) I'm right.
I got a great email the other day from my oldest and best friend. We were Bible Majors together at Wheaton, both studied at Trinity; he's an editor now in Christian publishing and has written a couple books. He wrote, "One of my favorite moments in different small groups is when I simply articulate a biblical principle, and a person will just stare at me for a moment, with his or her mouth slightly open, and then that person will say something like, "Wow, I never thought of that before."
Of course, the reason she "never thought of that before" is because she hasn't read the Bible countless times as my friend has, nor has she had the opportunity to view it through the interpretive lens of pastoral and theological giants like Augustine, Calvin, Edwards, Spurgeon and Lewis. My friend, an expert in the field of Bible interpretation, has vast amounts of that knowledge stored in his brain and can release it upon request with the ease of turning on a spigot. Got a question? Ask Doug, and then keep your mouth shut and take careful notes.
Much wisdom consists not in knowing something yourself, but in knowing how to defer to someone who does. A few years ago I met with a financial planner to discuss how to invest the yearly $2,000 that my church was giving me for retirement. It was a simple meeting. I knew she was a highly regarded financial expert - "well spoken of by everyone" like Demetrius in 3 John 12 - so I told her, "Look, I don't know SQUAT about investment. You do. Invest it whatever way you think is best." Never regretted it.
I surprise barbers and hair stylists with that same humble deference. All my life they have asked me how I wanted my hair cut, and I have never known how to respond because I don't understand hair. So I have learned to say, "Cut it the way you want. I trust your judgment. You do this for a living, and I'll assume you know better than I do how it should look." I think that suffices to explain the mystery of how, with zero fashion sense, I still manage to look so good. It's really just a matter of heeding the experts at Great Clips.
How do you mentor those who do not want to be mentored? How do you make disciples of those who don't want to be discipled? How do you teach when your "words, like silent raindrops, fall, and echo in the well of silence"?
These thoughts have come to mind a lot lately in one form or another. Some examples:
1) A relative of mine, an outstanding high school teacher, bewails political rhetoric about "schools that fail our children". He knows better. He has seen enough lazy belligerent mean-spirited blockheaded kids and their enabling parents to know that most often it's the children who are failing their schools. You can't teach kids who don't want to learn.
2) Heartbreaking case: an unwed and ill-prepared mother agrees at first to be mentored by a mature and godly woman who will raise her baby until she gets her life together. Instead, she gets pregnant again and screws up her life some more and then demands her toddler back. So much for learning responsible motherhood.
3) More than once I have been lectured about the superiority of the King James Version by people who didn't know what they were talking about. They hadn't studied Greek or Hebrew, never earned masters degrees in linguistics and divinity, never worked as Bible translators. At such times I can't help thinking, "You know, the way this should work is that you ask me what translation to use."
4) The world's finest pediatric physical therapist assistant (ok, I'm biased - I'm married to her) demonstrates proven techniques to parents about how to get their kids crawling and walking, and then she returns a week later to find the parents have done nothing, or have even done the opposite of what she suggested. The child's development stalls.
There's a Latin phrase, the exact wording of which I haven't been able to track down, that goes something like, "Heed the words of the expert in his field." It's a good rule. If I tell you, for example, how to fix a lawnmower, please feel free to roll your eyes, sigh inwardly, tell me that I'm talking out my rear end, and then go seek a second opinion. But if I tell you that some cherished dogma first appeared out of nowhere in the 1830s, or that every Church Father from Origen to J. I. Packer concurred on a doctrine that troubles you, well, (how do I put this modestly?) I'm right.
I got a great email the other day from my oldest and best friend. We were Bible Majors together at Wheaton, both studied at Trinity; he's an editor now in Christian publishing and has written a couple books. He wrote, "One of my favorite moments in different small groups is when I simply articulate a biblical principle, and a person will just stare at me for a moment, with his or her mouth slightly open, and then that person will say something like, "Wow, I never thought of that before."
Of course, the reason she "never thought of that before" is because she hasn't read the Bible countless times as my friend has, nor has she had the opportunity to view it through the interpretive lens of pastoral and theological giants like Augustine, Calvin, Edwards, Spurgeon and Lewis. My friend, an expert in the field of Bible interpretation, has vast amounts of that knowledge stored in his brain and can release it upon request with the ease of turning on a spigot. Got a question? Ask Doug, and then keep your mouth shut and take careful notes.
Much wisdom consists not in knowing something yourself, but in knowing how to defer to someone who does. A few years ago I met with a financial planner to discuss how to invest the yearly $2,000 that my church was giving me for retirement. It was a simple meeting. I knew she was a highly regarded financial expert - "well spoken of by everyone" like Demetrius in 3 John 12 - so I told her, "Look, I don't know SQUAT about investment. You do. Invest it whatever way you think is best." Never regretted it.
I surprise barbers and hair stylists with that same humble deference. All my life they have asked me how I wanted my hair cut, and I have never known how to respond because I don't understand hair. So I have learned to say, "Cut it the way you want. I trust your judgment. You do this for a living, and I'll assume you know better than I do how it should look." I think that suffices to explain the mystery of how, with zero fashion sense, I still manage to look so good. It's really just a matter of heeding the experts at Great Clips.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
May 11, 2010: An Artesian Well Of Pleasantness
I did not know what the word "artesian" meant until I was in my 30s. It refers to water that flows up naturally in a spring. You don't have to pump water out of an artesian well - you only have to uncork it, and it will jump out of the ground like Jed Clampett's bubblin' crude. In northern Illinois you can see a flowing artesian well at Silver Springs State Park, where I have stood for long minutes watching a small stream of clear water swirl out of sandy pebbles on a hillside to start a tiny, drinkable creek. (Read the Wikipedia article "Artesian Aquifer" to see how it works.)
I am the most blessed of men, because nine months ago I was wed to an artesian well of pleasantness and grace. It's her birthday today. Last year at this time, when I was courting her so subtly she didn't even know it, I emailed her a happy birthday note and then took off on a trip with my sons to South Dakota and contemplated the moment when I'd tell her how much I liked her.
There are two things I still can't figure out about her. One is how she lasted so long as a single person. It amazes me that no one snatched her up before I found her. Were there no discerning single men in her life? Why couldn't they detect the treasure in their midst? Did God - in a special mercy to me - blind their eyes and leave open mine alone? I am like Boaz, finding Ruth out in the field while my would-be competitors sit around picking their noses or go off chasing unworthy Delilahs. I am Bulls general manager Rod Thorn, not believing my eyes that Michael Jordan remains on the board while Portland selects Sam ("Who?") Bowie.
The other thing I can't figure out about her is the artesian nature of her pleasantness and good will. It's just always there, bubbling out from God knows what source. Yesterday we went for a walk and she smiled and pointed to a big green lawn and talked about how much she would like to do cartwheels on it, like when she was a kid. I liked looking at her face while she talked about cartwheels. When my sons were here over Christmas I made a point of saying to them, "Don't you like the way she smiles whenever she talks?" I think if she ever tried to force a frown she'd break into gales of laughter over the attempt.
My pastor sometimes refers to an illustration that can be worded as the following question and answer: "How can you tell if an opaque cup contains water or wine? Shake it and see what spills out." I know what spills out of some shaken souls: hostility, profanity, meanness, contempt, faithlessness, bitterness and monomaniacal self-regard. But I thank God, oh how I thank God, that I also know what life's stern circumstances have shaken free from the woman who agreed to be my wife. Cartwheels of kindness. A persevering smile. Artesian goodwill.
Happy Birthday, Lisa.
I did not know what the word "artesian" meant until I was in my 30s. It refers to water that flows up naturally in a spring. You don't have to pump water out of an artesian well - you only have to uncork it, and it will jump out of the ground like Jed Clampett's bubblin' crude. In northern Illinois you can see a flowing artesian well at Silver Springs State Park, where I have stood for long minutes watching a small stream of clear water swirl out of sandy pebbles on a hillside to start a tiny, drinkable creek. (Read the Wikipedia article "Artesian Aquifer" to see how it works.)
I am the most blessed of men, because nine months ago I was wed to an artesian well of pleasantness and grace. It's her birthday today. Last year at this time, when I was courting her so subtly she didn't even know it, I emailed her a happy birthday note and then took off on a trip with my sons to South Dakota and contemplated the moment when I'd tell her how much I liked her.
There are two things I still can't figure out about her. One is how she lasted so long as a single person. It amazes me that no one snatched her up before I found her. Were there no discerning single men in her life? Why couldn't they detect the treasure in their midst? Did God - in a special mercy to me - blind their eyes and leave open mine alone? I am like Boaz, finding Ruth out in the field while my would-be competitors sit around picking their noses or go off chasing unworthy Delilahs. I am Bulls general manager Rod Thorn, not believing my eyes that Michael Jordan remains on the board while Portland selects Sam ("Who?") Bowie.
The other thing I can't figure out about her is the artesian nature of her pleasantness and good will. It's just always there, bubbling out from God knows what source. Yesterday we went for a walk and she smiled and pointed to a big green lawn and talked about how much she would like to do cartwheels on it, like when she was a kid. I liked looking at her face while she talked about cartwheels. When my sons were here over Christmas I made a point of saying to them, "Don't you like the way she smiles whenever she talks?" I think if she ever tried to force a frown she'd break into gales of laughter over the attempt.
My pastor sometimes refers to an illustration that can be worded as the following question and answer: "How can you tell if an opaque cup contains water or wine? Shake it and see what spills out." I know what spills out of some shaken souls: hostility, profanity, meanness, contempt, faithlessness, bitterness and monomaniacal self-regard. But I thank God, oh how I thank God, that I also know what life's stern circumstances have shaken free from the woman who agreed to be my wife. Cartwheels of kindness. A persevering smile. Artesian goodwill.
Happy Birthday, Lisa.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
May 4, 2010: A Line In The Sand
On March 10, 2008, the New York Times reported that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer had used the services of prostitute Ashley Dupre. Soon we learned he had solicited six or seven other call girls. Now, the Chicago Tribune reports, "Spitzer hired prostitutes more extensively than previously revealed, dropping more than $100,000 on more than 20 assignations over at least two years." ("'Rough Justice' recounts Spitzer's journey to disgrace", May 1, 2010).
There's always more, isn't there?
A distraught woman once called me concerning a situation that required some pastoral counseling. I can reveal no details except to say that, after hearing her story, I felt I had to warn her, "Do not trust the individual you are telling me about. The misbehavior that you know of will not turn out to be an isolated incident. He has done it before, and he will do it again. There have been, and there will be, other victims."
I did not say that because I knew him (I didn't, and still don't), but because I know human nature. Or at least masculine nature. Years of experience have taught me that a man either draws a line in the sand against conduct impermissible to him, or he doesn't. A behavior is either impossible for him - in which case he never does it - or possible for him, in which case he does it a lot. A man's sin does not erupt suddenly out of a vacuum chamber of purity, but out of a corrupt heart that, like the volcano at Eyjafjallajokull, can spew repeatedly. Once we knew that Spitzer had solicited Dupre, it should not have been shocking to discover that he had hired many, many others. What would have been shocking would have been to find that there were no others.
Is this principle true of all men? No, just 98 percent of them.
Think of it this way. When we hear that a priest has molested a boy, is it ever just one boy, one time? Did Bernie Madoff defraud only one client? Did Ted Haggard sodomize a male prostitute just once? Did Tiger Woods cavort with only one woman of ill repute? Does anyone ever get drunk only once? Does an angry man strike his wife "just that one time, when she got me really mad"?
We deceive ourselves when we regard our sins as easily isolatable failures. They're not. They come in bunches, usually, and reflect long-standing patterns. That is one of the reasons why it is so important to draw a hard line in the sand against evil practice. When you permit yourself to fling one careless epithet, for example, you will soon discover that you have acquired a naggingly persistent potty mouth. Then all it takes to provoke a string of profanity from you is a little stress. (And every day seems to bring a little stress, doesn't it?). Decide, decide now, that there are some words you cannot say. They are on the other side of a hard line in the sand.
Sometimes I surprise people by telling them that I've never had a beer nor smoked a cigarette. I'm not proud of that, and I'm certainly no fundamentalist - I don't regard smoking or moderate drinking as sinful - but in my case I confess that the hard line I have drawn against such things may well be the only reason that, by God's grace, I have not become a nicotine addict or an alcoholic.
Carve your hard lines with gruesome finality, if you must. When I wrote to my son about marital faithfulness (see the December 26, 2009 essay), I told him, "I want you to regard adultery as an act of such unspeakably cruel hatred against your spouse that you could no more do it than you could torture a child." Is that comparison too extreme or graphic for you? I do not apologize for it, because I learned extreme imagery from my Master. Jesus spoke of gouging out your eye and cutting off your hand, of drowning tempters in the sea with heavy millstones around their necks, of religious authorities who were "broods of vipers", of damned souls who will wail and gnash their teeth. No one who earnestly imitates Jesus Christ ever speaks mildly about sin. Jesus knew - and perhaps our generation must re-learn - that strong words and gory pictures are necessary to mark out the hard lines that a soul must draw against corruption.
A friend of mine confessed to me a while ago some concerns about "shading the truth." I know by now that I would make a horrible priest, because I can never think fast enough to respond appropriately to such confessions. But now that I've thought it over, maybe if it happens again I'll refer to this stanza from the Steve Goodman song "Trouble Will Find You":
The first time you shade the truth
You want to run and hide
Your tongue gets tied
Your throat gets dry
And then you start thinking,
Maybe no one knows you lied
And now you're shady all the time.
Confess, repent, and draw a line in the sand that keeps shady stuff far away from you; while, on your side, there shines only the bright sun of truth.
On March 10, 2008, the New York Times reported that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer had used the services of prostitute Ashley Dupre. Soon we learned he had solicited six or seven other call girls. Now, the Chicago Tribune reports, "Spitzer hired prostitutes more extensively than previously revealed, dropping more than $100,000 on more than 20 assignations over at least two years." ("'Rough Justice' recounts Spitzer's journey to disgrace", May 1, 2010).
There's always more, isn't there?
A distraught woman once called me concerning a situation that required some pastoral counseling. I can reveal no details except to say that, after hearing her story, I felt I had to warn her, "Do not trust the individual you are telling me about. The misbehavior that you know of will not turn out to be an isolated incident. He has done it before, and he will do it again. There have been, and there will be, other victims."
I did not say that because I knew him (I didn't, and still don't), but because I know human nature. Or at least masculine nature. Years of experience have taught me that a man either draws a line in the sand against conduct impermissible to him, or he doesn't. A behavior is either impossible for him - in which case he never does it - or possible for him, in which case he does it a lot. A man's sin does not erupt suddenly out of a vacuum chamber of purity, but out of a corrupt heart that, like the volcano at Eyjafjallajokull, can spew repeatedly. Once we knew that Spitzer had solicited Dupre, it should not have been shocking to discover that he had hired many, many others. What would have been shocking would have been to find that there were no others.
Is this principle true of all men? No, just 98 percent of them.
Think of it this way. When we hear that a priest has molested a boy, is it ever just one boy, one time? Did Bernie Madoff defraud only one client? Did Ted Haggard sodomize a male prostitute just once? Did Tiger Woods cavort with only one woman of ill repute? Does anyone ever get drunk only once? Does an angry man strike his wife "just that one time, when she got me really mad"?
We deceive ourselves when we regard our sins as easily isolatable failures. They're not. They come in bunches, usually, and reflect long-standing patterns. That is one of the reasons why it is so important to draw a hard line in the sand against evil practice. When you permit yourself to fling one careless epithet, for example, you will soon discover that you have acquired a naggingly persistent potty mouth. Then all it takes to provoke a string of profanity from you is a little stress. (And every day seems to bring a little stress, doesn't it?). Decide, decide now, that there are some words you cannot say. They are on the other side of a hard line in the sand.
Sometimes I surprise people by telling them that I've never had a beer nor smoked a cigarette. I'm not proud of that, and I'm certainly no fundamentalist - I don't regard smoking or moderate drinking as sinful - but in my case I confess that the hard line I have drawn against such things may well be the only reason that, by God's grace, I have not become a nicotine addict or an alcoholic.
Carve your hard lines with gruesome finality, if you must. When I wrote to my son about marital faithfulness (see the December 26, 2009 essay), I told him, "I want you to regard adultery as an act of such unspeakably cruel hatred against your spouse that you could no more do it than you could torture a child." Is that comparison too extreme or graphic for you? I do not apologize for it, because I learned extreme imagery from my Master. Jesus spoke of gouging out your eye and cutting off your hand, of drowning tempters in the sea with heavy millstones around their necks, of religious authorities who were "broods of vipers", of damned souls who will wail and gnash their teeth. No one who earnestly imitates Jesus Christ ever speaks mildly about sin. Jesus knew - and perhaps our generation must re-learn - that strong words and gory pictures are necessary to mark out the hard lines that a soul must draw against corruption.
A friend of mine confessed to me a while ago some concerns about "shading the truth." I know by now that I would make a horrible priest, because I can never think fast enough to respond appropriately to such confessions. But now that I've thought it over, maybe if it happens again I'll refer to this stanza from the Steve Goodman song "Trouble Will Find You":
The first time you shade the truth
You want to run and hide
Your tongue gets tied
Your throat gets dry
And then you start thinking,
Maybe no one knows you lied
And now you're shady all the time.
Confess, repent, and draw a line in the sand that keeps shady stuff far away from you; while, on your side, there shines only the bright sun of truth.
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