Tried With Fire

A Cry For Justice: How the Evil of Domestic Abuse Hides in Your Church by Jeff Crippen and Anna Wood, Calvary Press, 2012, 335 pages. Abuse. We avoid this topic because we don't want to believe it can happen in Christian homes. Through our ignorance, it often flies below our radar. Even if abuse comes to the surface, a lack of proper understanding can cause the church to hurt those it intends to help. These are the very reasons, Jeff Crippen and Anna Wood have taken on this difficult subject.  A Cry For Justice seeks to open the eyes of pastors, counselors, and believers in the pews to the nature of abuse and abusers. What is abuse? Abuse, then, is a mentality of entitlement and superiority in which an abuser uses various tactics to obtain and enforce unjustified power and control over another person. The abuser thinks that he is absolutely justified in using these tactics to maintain this power and control over his victim. Abuse is effected in many ways: both physica...

The kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Romans 14:17 The Spirit is promised as the gift of the Father and the Son, and he comes into the heart and so loves his people that he abides and dwells with them forever, acting with authority and power, according to his own pleasure, as their various circumstances may require. He prepares and strengthens them for every event, reveals what they must know, and inclines their hearts in the ways and degrees he pleases. The joy of the Spirit is real fruit: solid, substantial, refreshing, and nourishing. He comforts, revives, strengthens, and establishes the soul. Long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, etc. , are all the fruits of the Spirit, and they are nowhere to be found bu in the believers heart. Though he takes away your outward comforts, and makes you as poor and as afflicted as Job, yet being within you, he can bring you effectual peace and comfort. Th...

We dream not of a faith which is devoid of good works, nor of a justification which can exist without them: the only difference is, that while we acknowledge that faith and works are necessarily connected, we, however, place justification in faith, not in works. How this is done is easily explained, if we turn to Christ only, to whom our faith is directed and from whom it derives all its power. Why, then, are we justified by faith? Because by faith we apprehend the righteousness of Christ, which alone reconciles us to God. This faith, however, you cannot apprehend without at the same time apprehending sanctification; for Christ “is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption,” (1 Cor. 1:30). Christ, therefore, justifies no man without also sanctifying him. These blessings are conjoined by a perpetual and inseparable tie. Those whom he enlightens by his wisdom he redeems; whom he redeems he justifies; whom he justifies he sanctifies. But as the question ...

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in 60 seconds. Thanks to my cousin Irene!

I'm thankful for: Spring flowers. The azaleas have liked the cooler weather. A robin's nest outside the window. Tuesday night Bible study. We were very tired, a bit punchy, but the fellowship on Phil. 3:12-4:1 was very encouraging. Unity of the spirit until we attain the unity of the faith. Theology that leads to doxology. These words by John Newton: I am not what I ought to be — ah, how imperfect and deficient! I am not what I wish to be — I abhor what is evil, and I would cleave to what is good! I am not what I hope to be — soon, soon shall I put off mortality, and with mortality all sin and imperfection. Yet, though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say, I am not what I once was; a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the apostle, and acknowledge, "By the grace of God I am what I am."

Compare the attributes of God with what men usually trust. They trust in riches, strength, and princes. Riches are uncertain, unsatisfying, insufficient, limited, and deceitful. God is unchangeable, satisfying, all sufficient, and faithful. Strength is vain. God is omnipotent. Princes are trembling, broken reeds. God is the Rock of Ages. Will men trust in a spider's web, in a shadow, in a lie, and in nothing? Is it not reasonable to trust in the Lord? Use God's attributes to strengthen faith. I am sinful, but God is merciful. I am unworthy, but he is gracious. I abused patience, but he is love. I am unfaithful, but he is faithful, Fix on the attribute of God that most suits your condition. In him, there is more than we need, more than we desire, more than we can imagine, infinitely more! David Clarkson, Voices From the Past , Richard Rushing ed., Banner of Truth Trust, 2009, pg. 113.

Melissa and I are swapping post days this week at Out of the Ordinary , so it's my turn: If I took a cross section of the women in my church, there are ladies from their twenties to nineties. Widowed, married, divorced, and single. No kids to many. Everything from empty-nesters and great-grandmas to first-time moms. Women who work outside and in the home. Some raised in Christian homes and some not. New believers and saints who have been on this pilgrimage for decades. Introverts and extroverts. Girly and nerdy. Different ethnicities. Different views on eschatology. Different trials. Different struggles. Different strengths. All this variety in one small church. Now zoom out and consider the Christian women in your community/state/country. Widen the scope even further and imagine your sisters on the other side of the globe, fellow members of the invisible church. If I could interview each one, there are probably a host of differences just by virtue of our cultural and ethnic b...

Faith not only holds to the fact that God is able, but that he is willing to do what you seek. Grip two handles with your faith. Take hold that he is able, omnipotent, omniscient, and all sufficient; but also take hold that he is willing to meet your needs by his mercy. Learn to draw arguments from these attributes. When you hold on to both his power and his mercy, faith can easily draw sweet and strong assurances from these. It is true that we are prone to doubt God's willingness, but the Lord has provided for this remarkably. Where there is but one atttribute to describe God's power, there are many titles that prove his willingness: mercy, goodness, bounty, grace, love, lovingkindness, compassion, bowels of compassion, patience, and long-suffering. Get faith fixed upon this double bases and it will stand firm. God is able and willing. David Clarkson, Works , 1:174-179.  Voices from the Past , Richard Rushing, ed., Banner of Truth Trust, 2009, pg. 112.

Paul says, that in the architecture of Christian doctrine, it is necessary to retain the foundation which he had laid with the Corinthians, “Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ,” (1 Cor. 3:11). What then is our foundation in Christ? Is it that he begins salvation and leaves us to complete it? Is it that he only opened up the way, and left us to follow it in our own strength? By no means, but as Paul had a little before declared, it is to acknowledge that he has been given us for righteousness. No man, therefore, is well founded in Christ who has not entire righteousness in him, since the Apostle says not that he was sent to assist us in procuring, but was himself to be our righteousness. Thus, it is said that God “has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,” not according to our merit, but “according to the good pleasure of his will;” that in him “we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins;” that peace ha...

Learn the ways of Reformed Theology, you must. Hmmm. ht: Reformed Humor on FB

I am thankful that God saves sinners. At small group last night, we discussed the sermon on Romans 8:1-4 and delved into election and the role of the Trinity in our salvation. For some of us, Shai Linne's Mission Accomplished came immediately to mind. When I got home, I listened to Shai's song and picked up John Owen's The Death of Death in the Death of Christ .  Here's a section from J.I. Packer's introduction. Read it and worship our Triune God: God saves sinners . God - the Triune Jehovah, Father, Son and Spirit: three Persons working together in sovereign wisdom, power and love to achieve the salvation of a chosen people, the Father electing, the Son fulfilling the Father's will by redeeming, the Spirit executing the purpose of Father and Son by renewing. Saves - does everything, first to last, that is involved in brining man form death in sin to life in glory: plans, achieves and communicates redemption, calls and keeps, justifies, sanctifies, glor...

Sometimes it's easy to be overwhelmed with sin and guilt. We get a glimpse of how rotten we are even as believers and despair that God could ever forgive and restore. On the one hand, we can treat sin too lightly and demean the incalculable cost of Christ's death. But conversely, sin can loom so large that what Christ has done doesn't seem to be enough. Either way we get it wrong because we're looking at ourselves and not at Him. All the more reason to believe what God has said about Himself and what He has promised to His children. Here are a few quotes from Williams Spurstowe regarding God's promises in times of sin and temptation What, then, is true humiliation? What is godly sorrow that leads to repentance (2 Cor. 7:10)? True sorrow for sin drives a sinner utterly out of himself. It stirs up a vehement thirst for Christ and a settled resolution to cleave wholly to Him as Lord, Savior, King, and Priest. Can you attest to such sorrow? Then believe it to be tru...

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.  Romans 8:4 Pastor Ryan spoke yesterday on Romans 8:1-4.  The whole sermon was great, but this point stuck with me.  From my notes: In verse 2, God has set us free from the law of sin and death, and yet verse 4, implies a responsibility on our part to walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Is Paul making a contradiction between verse 2 between verse 4? No, because this is descriptive not prescriptive . Paul is describing what the believer look...

Heaven comes by grace, by Christ's blood, and not by works; works are not your title to glory. 'No law music', says Rutherford, 'in heaven'; no, 'worthy is the Lamb.' Look not to what you have done, but to what Christ has done; you neither share in whole nor in part with Christ: good works are mentioned, not to buy or purchase glory by, but to evidence an interest in Christ and sincerity of grace; if there be as much as will evidence sincerity. there is enough. The least gold is gold as well as the greatest piece. Am I a Christian? , James Fraser, Banner of Truth Trust, 2009, pp. 60-61.

When we see that all the parts of our salvation thus exist without us, what ground can we have for glorying or confiding in our works? Neither as to the efficient nor the final cause can the most sworn enemies of divine grace raise any controversy with us unless they would abjure the whole of Scripture. In regard to the material or formal cause they make a gloss, as if they held that our works divide the merit with faith and the righteousness of Christ. But here also Scripture reclaims, simply affirming that Christ is both righteousness and life, and that the blessing of justification is possessed by faith alone. Institutes of the Christian Religion  3.14.17 John Calvin, translated by Henry Beveridge, Hendrickson, pg, 513.

ht: Cake or Death

I'm thankful for: Warmer weather. We did jump from winter to summer in a few days, but I'm glad the cold is behind us. Azaleas, dogwood, red bud, flowering cherry and plum which make up for the tree pollen, chickweed, dandelions, and henbit. God's provision for a refurbished computer after my old IMac died. Zooming in on Romans 8 and zooming out for an overview of the entire Old Testament on Sunday mornings. God's Word is so rich. Heart-to-heart talks. God's sovereignty. Where would we be without it?

It's my turn at Out of the Ordinary today: I don't know about you, but for most of my life, I approached the Bible with wrong questions and wrong assumptions. My favorite method was this - read a passage which fits my current situation "perfectly", aided by the sacred shoe horn of allegorical interpretation, and then assume the outcome of the text is going to be paralleled in my life. But God did not ordain Sennacherib's siege of Jerusalem with me in mind. Or the story of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel. Or countless other narratives where I squeezed myself into the text like the step-sisters' feet into the glass slipper. I can laugh at myself in hindsight, but I completely misunderstood the point of the text. Rather than God being the central theme, I became the star of the show. I was missing something in my interpretation of the Bible. I was missing the concept of  authorial intent . Read more here .

It's a Friday or Sunday evening at the gas station right off the highway. A car pulls up. There's an adult with one, maybe more kids in the back. Another car pulls up. The adult and children get out of the first car. Luggage is pulled out of the trunk and placed in the second car. There are hugs good-bye and hugs hello. The interaction between the adults varies. Sometimes there's friendly acknowledgement. Sometimes there is no recognition whatsoever. Eventually the cars drive away. Another successful visitation handoff. I should be used to this by now, but it's sad watching kids getting passed from one parent to the other. It's sad when I have to do this myself, hugging my daughter good-bye, and then watching her drive away. On the one hand it's routine, all part of the new normal. On the other hand, it's a reminder that things are not as they should be. I don't want to turn the clock back. I don't want to go back to being who I used to be ...

Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat. Luke 22:31 Temptation will darken the mind, so that a man will not be able to make a right judgment of things as he did before he entered into it. Temptation can darken the mind by a sad tangling of the affections. When the affections are engaged, they have a strong influence in blinding the mind and darkening the understanding. Affections set at liberty by temptation will run on in madness. Previous thoughts of the hatred of sin, the terrors of the Lord, and a sense of the love and presence of Christ crucified, all depart and leave the heart a prey to its enemy. Temptation gives fuel to our lusts. It incites, provokes, and makes them turbulent beyond measure. Giving a lust or a corruption a suitable object, an advantage, or an occasion, heightens and exacerbates it and for a season makes it wholly predominate. We see it in the fear of Peter, the pride of Hezekiah, the covetousness of Achan, the un...

Paul uniformly declares that the conscience can have no peace or quiet joy until it is held for certain that we are justified by faith. And he at the same time declares whence this certainty is derived—viz. when “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost,” (Rom. 5:5); as if he had said that our souls cannot have peace until we are fully assured that we are pleasing to God. Hence he elsewhere exclaims in the person of believers in general, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” (Rom. 8:35). Until we have reached that haven, the slightest breeze will make us tremble, but so long as the Lord is our Shepherd, we shall walk without fear in the valley of the shadow of death (Ps. 23). Thus those who pretend that justification by faith consists in being regenerated and made just, by living spiritually, have never tasted the sweetness of grace in trusting that God will be propitious.   Institutes of the Christian Religion  3.13.5 John Calvin, translat...

Thanks to Khem on FB.

Crucifying Morality by R.W. Glenn, Shepherd Press, 2013, 128 pages. What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the Beatitudes? For me, it's the Sunday school lesson "Be this Attitude". Therefore, all good little Christian boys and girls need to try really hard to be like this. Right? Author and pastor R.W. Glenn would heartily disagree with that assessment. In Crucifying Morality , the Beatitudes are not presented as a list of dos and dont's but as a gospel litmus test. They "presuppose that you have turned from your sin and self-righteousness to trust in Jesus as the one who lived the life you could never live and died the death you deserved to die and now gives you the benefit of that life and death as a free gift." (pg. 17)  Thus the Christian realizes he cannot trust in his own righteousness, effort, or morality to please God. Jesus had to crucify those very things on the cross. But in exchange, the Christian can now experience w...

Source     I'm thankful for: Longer days and signs of spring. Sound sleep and the strength to get up in the morning. Used books, book sales, and new books for the church library. Answered prayer in some tough situations. Grace that can heal the past. A perfect High Priest who intercedes for me, who understands me better than I know myself, who can sympathize with me in my weakness, but is without sin.

The issues of sin and justice have been on a back burner in my mind for several years. One particular aspect is the idea of moral equivalence - where all sins are considered equal. This older post by Kevin DeYoung is worth reading, the majority of which is also in Hole in our Holiness . In the book, he references The Holiness of God where R.C. Sproul states that all sins require atonement but all sins are not equal. [I]t seems humble to act as if no sin is worse than another, but we lose the impetus for striving and the ability to hold each other accountable when we tumble down the slip-n-slide of moral equivalence... When we can no longer see the different gradations among sins and sinners and sinful nations, we have not succeeded in respecting our own badness, we've cheapened God's goodness. 1 The idea of gradations of sin is important for us to keep in mind so we understand the difference between sin and gross sin . Again, all of our sins require forgiveness. All of...

Last week, I had the opportunity to hear Dr. R.C. Sproul, Jr. speak on apologetics to the Christopher Newport University InterVarsity Fellowship. Here is a summary of the talk. (This is to best of my note deciphering and recall.) Since the garden of Eden, there has been a war between Satan and God. The devil's attack began through his own rebellion and subsequent enlistment of the human race into his army. He deceived Adam and Eve into doubting God and His Word, an outright rejection of His rightful authority. But God made a declaration of war right back - the proto gospel where the seed of the serpent would bruise the heel of the seed of the woman, but He, in turn, would crush his head. Since that time, God has rescued men and women from Satan's army into His own, to fight in the battle until Jesus returns. But there is a war going on in the hearts of each side. On God's side, our new nature is at war with the old. On the devil's side, it is a war between the falle...