Sunday Post for Shepherds -- Courageous Preaching

"If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest expression every portion of the truth of God except that point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point."

Martin Luther 

(1483-1546)

Time Travel . . . If Only

The Kingdom Notes NOVEMBER 19, 2013

Ask RC: If you could go back in time, what would you tell 18 year old you? We all have regrets. We look back at forks in the road behind us and wonder where we might be now had we chosen more wisely back then. Every misstep, however, is an opportunity to learn, to follow more faithfully in Jesus’ footsteps. How gracious that our Lord not only covers our folly, but is able to grow wisdom out of it? Below are ten things now me would seek to impress into the stubborn mind of then me. 10. Cultivate gratitude, put to death grumbling. I am persuaded the path to future blessing follows on the trail of giving thanks for past blessings. We, like our fathers before us, are given to forgetting, to taking grace for granted, to believing we are due more than we have been given. Like our fathers before us we are wrong. Gratitude is its own reward, as no one has ever been truly grateful and truly unhappy. 9. Worry about your sanctification rather than your standing. This, I suspect, is central to what it means to seek first the kingdom and His righteousness. Just as Jesus warned, we tend to worry about what we will eat or wear. In a context as richly blessed as ours we don’t lose the worry, but inflate it. That is, we don’t worry about having enough to eat. We worry instead about how well we are doing, how much we are respected or envied. 8. Master your temper. Not many of my emotions can get the best of me. Anger, however, often seems to have my number. 7. Encourage yourself and your circle of influence to find your and their satisfaction in Jesus. I am now a professional persuader. This is what I wish I had been laboring to persuade people of from my youth. 6. Learn to like vegetables and be leery of carbs. Bad eating habits, like any other habit, are tough to get past, especially in middle age. 5. Relax, wind down, recreate by doing rather than watching. Reading is better than television. Talking is better than reading. Learning to play music is better than listening to music. Making is better than buying. Those who can rest while still exercising dominion are not only more productive, but more rested. 4. Seek out and read those rare books that both tell you something important and do so beautifully. Read fewer theological controversies, more Lewis, Chesterton; fewer spy novels, more Jon Krakaur, Paul Johnson, Ian Murray. Read people whose insights flow less out of what they have studied, more out of what they have lived. 3. Never stop playing baseball. 2. Listen to and honor your parents. This, according to the Word of God, is how you have a good life. Plus, they were telling you all this stuff I’m now trying to tell you. They were right, and you, 18 year old RC, were wrong. 1. Hold Denise’s hand every chance you get. Tell her you love her every time she enters the room. Let the tears well up every time you think of her, and never stop thinking of her. Make sure that her last thought on this earth will be, My Lord loves me forever, and my lord loves me forever.  For more from RC Sproul Jr, go here.

Martin Luther, on Reformation Day, for those that Suffer the "Whippings and Beatings" of their Heavenly Father

October 31 is Reformation Day. It is also, in a sense, Luther's Day. Below is something Luther once said over dinner.

    "God deals strangely with the saints, contrary to all human wisdom and understanding, to the end that those who fear God are good Christians, may learn to depend on invisible things, and through mortification may be made alive again; for God's Word is a light that shines in a dark place, as all examples of faith show. Esau was accursed, yet it went well with him; he was lord in the land, and priest in the church; but Jacob had to fly, and dwell in poverty in another country.
    God deals with godly Christians much as with the ungodly, yea, and sometimes far worse. He deals with them even as a house-father with a son and a servant; he whips and beats the son much more and oftener than the servant, yet nevertheless, he gathers for the son a treasure to inherit, while a stubborn and a disobedient servant he beats not with the rod, but thrusts out of doors, and gives him nothing of the inheritance."  -  From Luther's Tabletalk, #77.

A Gospel Too Small

In one of the books I'm reading on the Trinity ("The Deep Things of God"), Fred Sanders attempts to communicate the scope and depth of the gospel of the triune Godhead of the Bible. He "struggles to frame thoughts big enough to accommodate it." In this effort he writes,

"A gospel which is only about the moment of conversion but does not extend to every moment of life in Christ is too small. A gospel that gets your sins forgiven but offers no power for transformation is too small. A gospel that isolates one of the benefits of union with Christ and ignores all the others is too small. A gospel that must be measured by your own moral conduct, social conscience, or religious experience is too small. A gospel that rearranges the components of your life but does not put you personally in the presence of God is too small." (p106)

A "Trouble" I Love

". . .and a time to dance. . ."

Ec 3:4

Sitting Up with the Trinity

It's 3:48 AM. I've been out of bed for about 45 minutes, sipping Wild Turkey and decaf coffee, listening to George Winston's "December" and reading Fred Sanders' "The Deep Things of God." Good alone time. Below are a few lines from Sanders' book, Chapter 2 - "Within the Happy Land of the Trinity."

". . .the Trinity is not ultimately for anything, any more than God is the purpose for anything. Just as you wouldn't ask what purpose God serves or what function he fulfills, it makes no sense to ask what the point of the Trinity is or what purpose the Trinity serves. The Trinity isn't for anything beyond itself, because the Trinity is God. . .God's way of being God is to be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit simultaneously from all eternity, perfectly complete in a triune fellowship of love. If we don't take this as our starting point, everything we say about the practical relevance of the Trinity could lead us to one colossal misunderstanding: thinking of God the Trinity as a means to some other end, as if God were the Trinity in order to make himself useful. But God the Trinity is the end, the goal, the telos, the omega. In himself and without any reference to a created world or the plan of salvation, God is that being who exists as the triune love of the Father for the Son in the unity of the Spirit. The boundless life that God lives in himself, at home, within the happy land of the Trinity above all worlds, is perfect. It is complete, inexhaustibly full, and infinitely blessed." (pages 61-62)

"When evangelicals lose their sense of proportion, they begin to talk as if they no longer care about the character of God unless they get something from it. The best defense against this has always been the doctrine of the eternal Trinity itself. Pondering the eternal, essential Trinity is the most concrete and biblical way of acknowledging the distinction between who God is and what he does." (pages 69-70)

The Untamed Bill Poore - Paying Honor to Whom Honor is Due

My friend Bill is dead, and forever alive. He's finally face to face with the One he so loved to learn of (Mt 11:29). I used to sit with Bill in his den and sip homemade scuffydine wine and talk about God and His Word and His people. Now Bill drinks with Jesus, (or will after receiving his new body - 1 Co 15; Mt 26:29, etc), which is far better for him. The thought is surreal. And today I resurrect this blog to pay honor to whom honor is due (Ro 13:7).

I loved Bill because, frankly, Bill loved me. He seemed to understand me more than most. We were two like souls. I met Bill because, while in seminary, my friend Dwight, who was a member of the church Bill shepherded, said to me that I should attend one of the church's gatherings. The reason Dwight gave for why I would enjoy myself in the gathering was that his pastor, Bill, was me at age 50 (I was in my mid 20's at the time). An older version of me -- this I had to see.

I immediately liked Bill's preaching (It was much better than my own). He clearly wasn't out to win friends, but at the same time he definitely cared for people, cared that they know the real Jesus, the one revealed in the Bible who in turn reveals His Father and gives His Holy Spirit. Bill, perhaps more than anyone I've known, loved to study God's Word. He was a gifted preacher with a terribly small audience. He was not the sort to be invited to address larger crowds. He was much too uncontrollable for that. Bill was not a tame man. And rarely are men untamed by the denomination considered assets by it.

Bill was the most comical person I've ever known. No one could make me laugh more deeply, or more happily, than Bill Poore. He had an unusual and intelligent wit, and observant sarcasm, that I can't help but admire.

Few folks near to me emotionally have died. Bill is the most near. I am sad over his going, because he was my friend, and because he was so good for the world.

Brother Bill, if you can read this from where you are, many deep thanks for your kindness to me. Your influence lingers.