Tried With Fire

And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. Rev. 21:5 That same Spirit of God who taught us that we were ruined in our old estate, led us gently by the hand till we came to the New Covenant promise and looked to Jesus, and saw in Him the full atonement for sin. Happy discovery for us, it was the kindling of new life in us. From the moment that we trusted in Jesus, a new life darted into our spirit. I am not going to say which is first, the new birth, or faith, or repentance. Nobody can tell which spoke of a wheel moves first, it moves as a whole. The moment the divine life comes into the heart we believe; the moment we believe the eternal life is there. We repent because we believe, and believe while we repent. The life that we live in the flesh is no longer according to the lusts of the world, but we live by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave Himself for us. Our spiritual life is a new-born thing, the creation of the Spirit of life. We have, of...

It may be silly for me to post this for my little blog, but hey, why not? Writing is a way to get thoughts out of my head for further examination, so whether it is read or not is secondary. But this also gives me an idea of which subjects struck a chord or possibly a nerve. Based on this list, those subjects are: domestic violence, women in the church and society, the eternal subordination of the Son (ESS) debate, John Piper's rather perplexing statements on justification by faith, and thinking through difficult, ethical issues. Given my interests and concerns, I'll probably keep writing about them in the coming year. 10. If I had my druthers 9. These were tied:  Questioning a false dichotomy  &   The ESS elephant is still in the room 8.  Justified and not sanctified? 7. Roles: Another Andelin Connection? 6. It took "Hidden Figures" 5. Does this say what I think it says? 4. Domestic violence in the Australian church 3. "Me, myself, and I" spirit...

"When I was in elementary school, I discovered the joy of reading biographies. In my mind's eye, I can still see the shelf containing a series about important figures in American history. I loved the stories and was disappointed when I finished the last book. First impressions leave a mark, so I retained a rather idealistic view of these people, which was probably the goal of the series. Thus, when I was required to read a biography of George Washington in my first (and only) college history class, I was exposed to much more than the cherry tree and the crossing of the Delaware. The text was in-depth and well researched, but the iconic figure was not the larger-than-life hero I remembered. He was human and quite fallible, and I was a bit disillusioned. But perhaps the humanity of the subject is one of the benefits of reading biographies." You can read the rest of my post here .

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins. Matthew 1:21

God had made many visits to men before Christ’s Incarnation, but the most wonderful, visit of all was when He came to tarry here, some three and thirty years, to work out our salvation. What but “tender mercy, “  hearty mercy, intense mercy, could bring the great God to visit us so closely that He actually assumed our nature? Kings may, for various reasons, visit their subjects; but they do not think of taking upon themselves their poverty, their sickness, or their sorrow. They could not if they would, and they would not if they could; but our Divine Lord, when He came hither, took upon Him our flesh... But remember that He visited us, not merely to look upon us, and to talk with us, and to teach us, and set us a high and Divine example; but He so visited us that He took upon Himself our condemnation, that He might deliver us from. it. He was made a curse for us, as it is written, “ Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.” He took our debts upon Him that He might pay them,...

They say a picture is worth 1000 words, so here you go: Embodied Hope: A Theological Meditation on Pain and Suffering , Kelly Kapic, IVP Academic, 2017, pg. 33.

This quote is from Dorothy L. Sayer's essay Are Women Human? "When the pioneers of university training for women demanded that women should be admitted to the universities, the cry went up at once: "Why should women want to know about Aristotle?" The answer is NOT that all women would be the better for knowing about Aristotle… but simply: "What women want as a class is irrelevant. I want to know about Aristotle. It is true that most women care nothing about him, and a great many male undergraduates turn pale and faint at the thought of him - but I, eccentric individual that I am, do want to know about Aristotle, and I submit that there is nothing in my shape or bodily functions which need prevent my knowing about him."" 1 Academia isn't what it used to be in Sayers' day, but it's taken time for women to overcome this sort of prejudice. In The Disappearing Spoon , Sam Kean tells the story of Maria Goeppert-Mayer who won the Nobel Priz...

Here are my top books from 2017. They are listed in the order read. Favorite Books: The Making of Asian America - Erika Lee.  This book covers quite a lot of ground as it documents Asian immigration from before Columbus up to today. After reading this, it gave me a greater understanding and respect for my immigrant family. It also also demythologizes the model minority and the idea that the Asian American experience is uniform. The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind - Mark Noll. "The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind." This is a classic work from the 1980's early 90's but is still relevant today. We've recovered very little of the thinking that Noll says we've lost, and we may have lost even more in the last year. No Little Women - Aimee Byrd. I wrote a review at Out of the Ordinary. But in a nut shell, it's time we stopped dumbing-down women's discipleship, calling cultural ideals biblical, an...

When I have felt the burden of my sin, I confess that I have at times felt as if it were too great to be taken away by any conceivable power; but, on the other hand, when I have seen the excellence of my Master’s person, the perfection of His manhood, the glory of His Godhead, the wondrous intensity of His anguish, the solid value of His obedience, I have felt as if my sin were too little a thing to need so vast a sacrifice. I have felt like John Hyatt who, when dying, said that he could not only trust Christ with his one soul, but that he could trust Him with a million souls if he had them. Were my sins greater than they are, and God forbid they should be! — were my sense of them ten thousand times more vivid than it is, — and I could wish I had a more clear and humbling consciousness of my own iniquity; yet, even then, I know that my Lord and Master is a greater Savior than I am a sinner... Christ did not come as an amateur Savior, trying an experiment on His own account; He came...

This statement by R.C. Sproul (1939-2017) changed my spiritual life because the role of imputation in the gospel finally clicked: "In the final analysis, the only way that any person is ever justified before God is by works. We are saved by works, and we are saved by works alone. Don't touch that dial..." "[W]hen I say that we are justified by works and by works alone, what do I mean by it? I mean that the grounds of my justification and the grounds of your justification are the perfect works of Jesus Christ. We're saved by works, but they are not our own. That's why we say we're saved by faith, and we're saved by grace, because the works that save us aren't our works, they're Somebody else's works." From "What is Reformed Theology?." You can watch the lecture here . Don't let the title put you off. Covenant theology is a wonderful doctrine.

In February, I  wrote about a ten-year anniversary - the day my husband moved out of the house on Valentine's Day and out of our marriage. But at the end of 2007, another event took place. The last Sunday of 2007 was the first day I walked through the door of Grace Baptist Chapel and found a church home. I'm sharing that story at Out of the Ordinary today. You can read the post here . Photo credit: By LudwigSebastianMicheler (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds - Alan Jacobs, Currency,  2017, 157 pages. I debated about writing a one sentence review - "If you don't want to act like a jerk toward people you disagree with, read this book." Or its converse - "If you want to be respectful and gracious toward people you disagree with, read this book." While both of those statements are true about How to Think , this book is more than tips on being nice and not being mean. Thinking is more than just being intelligent. It's more than always making the right decision or having the right answer. It also isn't about turning off emotions and being purely rational. Thinking is about taking the time and making the effort to consider how our thoughts and thought patterns cause us to view and treat others. To use biblical language, thinking is critical in how we love our neighbor. Written out of concern for the increasing nastiness in the culture and social media, in...

What amazing condescension is it that God, who made all things, should assume the nature of one of His own creatures, that the Self existent should be united with the dependent and derived, and the Almighty linked with the feeble and mortal! In His Incarnation, our Lord Jesus Christ descended to the very depths of humiliation, by entering into alliance with a nature which did not occupy the chief place in the scale of existence. It would have been marvelous condescension for the infinite and incomprehensible Jehovah to have taken upon Himself the nature of some noble spiritual being, such as a seraph or a cherub. The union of the Divine Creator with any created spirit would have been an immeasurable stoop; but for God to become one with man, is far greater condescension. Remember that, in the person of Christ, manhood was not merely an immortal spirit, but also suffering, hungering, dying, flesh and blood. There was taken to Himself, by our Lord, all that materialism which makes up...

From The Whole Christ : "The Confession of Faith states that rather than produce antinomianism and license, assurance produces gracious fruits. In essence, it involves what the Westminster Divines describe as an enlarged heart: In peace and joy; In love and thankfulness; In strength and cheerfulness in duties. (WCF18.3) This conforms well to the joyful confidence of the New Testament church. There, assurance of salvation produced boldness in witness; eagerness and intimacy in prayer; poise in character in the face of trial, danger, and opposition; and joy in worship. The lack of these is also evidence of a lack of assurance that produces them, for rather than breed presumption or antinomianism, assurance produces humility. Christian assurance is not self-assurance and self-confidence. It is the reverse; confidence in our Father, trust in Christ as our Savior, and joy in the Spirit as the Spirit of sonship, seal of grace, and earnest of our inheritance as sons and daughte...

I've been listening to The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, & Gospel Assurance - Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters by Sinclair Ferguson. It was a freebie from Christian Audio and is read by someone with a British accent. I know this is a minor point, but given the author, a North American accent would never do. I also got a copy of the book for the church library, which will be on the book nook on Sunday. I'm halfway through the audio, and it's so good.  Unfortunately, I can't mark an audio book or the church's copy, so alas and yet again, I will need to get my own. Ferguson points out that we veer into legalism because we doubt the character of God. We are skeptical that He is a loving Father. We distrust what He says because it seems too good to be true. So it is safer to take things into our own hands and do our bit in case He doesn't come through. The same lie from the garden still deceives us today. "Has God said?..." So our u...

I got B.B. Warfield's book on the deeper life movement, Perfectionism , several years ago to try to make sense of my former theological beliefs. I never thought I would be referring to it regarding the current discussion on sola fide . This debate is more than academic hair-splitting over theological terms. It is critical to how we answer the question, "What must I do to be saved?" Consequently, I am very concerned that a prominent theologian in the loosely reformed-ish camp is answering that question in this way. John Piper  (ht:  Brad Mason ) - "Electing love is unconditional, regenerating love is unconditional, and all other loves are conditional. Everything after regeneration that you benefit from is conditional, including glorification, salvation, sanctification, and everything else. It’s conditional, one, on faith, and second, upon the evidences of faith in obedience. Anybody in my church can understand that. Electing love is unconditional. The act of sett...

One benefit of being the church librarian is I get the fun job of finding new books for the church. The downside is that when I flip through the new additions, I get engrossed and end up wanting to get a copy for myself because I can't mark the church's copy.  Embodied Hope: A Theological Meditation on Pain and Suffering  is one of those books. Suffering is an important topic, but how we handle it can make all the difference between adding to that suffering or comforting the sufferer. Early in this book, author Kelly Kapic notes that ever since the Enlightenment, there's a subtle sense that we can analyze God by putting Him and His ways under a microscope, as it were, and find an explanation. Perhaps there's even a subtle pressure to explain . But God is bigger than that, and we aren't always privy to what He has not made plain. Also people are more complicated. Just because we may have a plausible explanation for a person's trial doesn't mean that an...

Wars had raged unto the ends of the earth; men had slaughtered one another, heaps on heaps. There had been strife within as well as struggles without. Conscience had fought with man, and Satan had tormented him with sinful thoughts. There had been no peace on earth since Adam fell. But, now, when the newborn King made His appearance, the swaddling band with which He was wrapped up was the white flag of peace. That manger was the place where the treaty was signed, whereby warfare should be stopped between man’s conscience and himself, and between man’s conscience and his God. Then it was that the trumpet of the heavenly herald was blown aloud, and the royal proclamation was made, “Sheathe thy sword, O man, sheathe thy sword, O conscience, for God has provided a way by which He can be at peace with man, and by which man can be at peace with God, and with his own conscience, too!” The Gospel of the grace of God promises peace to every man who accepts it; where else can peace be fou...

I posted quotes from How to Think about argument as war . If we don't want to fall into that trap, it is easy to make another mistake by overlooking very real differences that need to be acknowledged. Here's what Jacobs has to say about that: "So when people say, "They really mean the same thing, they're just using different vocabularies to express it," 1 or "We all believe in the same God, we just express that belief in different ways," we may with some justification commend these people for attempting to get beyond confrontation, dichotomy, argument as war. But we have to go on to say that the attempt is a facile one. The real story will be far more complicated, and not to be grasped by replacing a fictitious polarity with an equally fictitious unity. Blessed are the peacemakers, to be sure, but peacemaking is a long, hard labor, and not a mere declaration." 2 1. Didn't this happen during the 2016 Trinity debate? 2. 2.  How to Th...

Your claims are indefensible. He attacked every weak point in my argument. His criticisms were right on target . I demolished his argument. I've never won an argument with him. You disagree? Okay, shoot ! If you use that strategy , he will wipe you out . He shot down all my arguments. 1 "The identification of argument with war is so complete that if you try to suggest some alternative way of thinking about what argument is - It's an attempt to achieve mutual understanding; It's a means of clarifying our views - you're almost certainly going to be denounced as a wishy-washy, namby-pamby sissy-britches." 2 "So yes: argument can indeed be war, or at least a contest in which it is possible to lose. But there's another side to this story: what is lost not in an argument but through passive complicity with that militaristic metaphor. Because there are many situations in which we lose something of our humanity by militarizing disc...

I was just thinking about this very thing when this pic providentially showed up on a friend's FB wall. (Thank you, Brandi!) If I had my druthers, I would be part of a group of Christians who regularly discussed difficult topics. Not for the sake of pressuring consensus or to vent but to ask hard questions and not assume there are easy answers. I've been able to find this to a certain degree online. It is harder face-to-face, which is really where my heart is. It seems that discussing our place in the public square is not exactly a favorite topic among Christians. We don't want to start arguments. We don't want to disagree, but how can we challenge one another to make doctrine in the pew a matter of practical Christian ethics if we don't talk about these things? I also wonder if we mistakenly put consensus and conformity in the place of unity in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Then it is easier to norm and assume we all vote the same, have the same educational ...

Jesus, when He had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom.  Matthew 27:50-51. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He has consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh.  Hebrews 10:19-20. For believers the veil is not rolled up, but rent. The veil was not unhooked, and carefully folded up, and put away, so that it might be put in its place at some future time. Oh, no! But the divine hand took it and rent it from top to bottom. It can never be hung up again; that is impossible. Between those who are in Christ Jesus and the great God, there will never be another separation. “Who shall separate us from the love of God?” Only one veil was made, and as that is rent, the one and only separator is destroyed. I delight to think of this. The devil himself can never divide me from God no...

Happy Thanksgiving! This isn't a traditional "Thanksgiving" hymn, but I affirm every word of it. 1. Thy mercy, my God, is the theme of my song, The joy of my heart. and the boast of my tongue; Thy free grace alone, from the first to the last, Hath won my affections, and bound my soul fast. 2. Without Thy sweet mercy I could not live here; Sin would reduce me to utter despair; But, through Thy free goodness, my spirits revive, And He that first made me still keeps me alive. 3. Thy mercy is more than a match for my heart, Which wonders to feel its own hardness depart; Dissolved by Thy goodness, I fall to the ground, And weep to the praise of the mercy I’ve found. 4. Great Father of mercies, Thy goodness I own, And the covenant love of Thy crucified Son; All praise to the Spirit, Whose whisper divine Seals mercy, and pardon, and righteousness mine. All praise to the Spirit, Whose whisper divine Seals mercy, and pardon, and righteousness mine. Words - John Stocker (1776),...

It's easy to assume that emotions have little place, if any, in thinking well. After all, an argument based on "I just feel this is the way it is" isn't much of an argument at all. So should we check our emotions at the door? To continue in  How to Think , Alan Jacobs uses the example of the philosopher John Stuart Mill. He was raised by his father to be a thinker, no emotions necessary with a true Brit stiff upper lip. But as brilliant as Mill was, he reached a point of mental collapse. What rescued him from the brink was a volume of Wordsworth's poetry in which he experienced a delight that had been missing for so long. Mill's writes "the habit of analysis has a tendency to wear away the feelings... when no other mental habit is cultivated, and the analysing spirit remains without its natural complements and correctives." Jacobs interprets this as "The analytical mind constantly separates, divides, distinguishes until its whole mental wo...

Megan Phelps-Roper grew up in Westboro Baptist Church, and Fred Phelps was her grandfather. This was the only mindset she knew, and she believed it. She picketed and protested and used her social media account to denigrate anyone who would try to challenge her brand of hate. However, she interacted with one young man, a Jew in fact, who did not trade fire for fire but engaged her in respectful conversation, as best as Twitter could provide. Through these dialogues, Megan began to question what she believed. She eventually rejected what she had known all her life and now "is a social media activist, lobbying to overcome divisions and hatred between religious and political divides." ( Wikipedia ) Quite a transformation. If you are like me, my first reaction was "I am so glad she started to think for herself ." But did she? In How to Think , Alan Jacobs argues that it wasn't so much thinking by herself as beginning to think with different people.   He als...

“Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.” We have tried to show from the words of the text that Christ is sufficient to purify us by supplying us with holy motives, and to pardon us by His having Himself atoned for sin. The doctrine, then, is, that THERE IS NO MORE SACRIFICE FOR SIN, BECAUSE CHRIST SUPPLIES ALL THAT IS NEEDED... “Ah!” you will say, “this is meant for Catholics.” Well, then, a little for yourselves. There are some of you who are quite as bad; you receive the same doctrine only in another shape... Some others of you think that you must get your hearts softened before you can trust in Christ . When we preach the gospel to you, you say, “I do not feel such tenderness as I should like to feel.” No, dear friend, and you never will while you talk so, for true tenderness of heart is not obtained by shutting your eyes to the cross. If you will not trust Christ, your heart will grow harder instead of softer, and if you set up the ...

ht: Fake Science

I am thankful for: ~ Fall is finally here! I have un-raked leaves in the yard and the days are noticeably getting shorter, but there is something about the crispness in the air and the quality of the sunlight that is so nice after the heat and humidity of summer. ~ My daughter's school and God's providence in placing her there. She has great teachers, but I am thankful for more than their academic knowledge, which is impressive. They genuinely care for their students and go the extra mile, even helping to mend a broken shoe. ~ The testimony of other Christians who have had their eyes opened to the good news of the gospel. I was listening to a podcast where two pastors were sharing their testimonies and having trouble not getting teary-eyed because I could relate so well. Christians need the gospel too! ~ The sola fide debate has given me a reason to go back to the scriptures to see what they have to say about salvation. I am thankful that at the end of the day an...

After so many decades of not thinking carefully about what I believe and why I believe it, I want to think well. How to Think arrived yesterday which went straight to the top of my reading stack. In the introduction, author Alan Jacobs cites an essay by Marilynne Robinson where she observed that if you associate "rigidity, narrowness of mind, judgmentalism" with the label "puritan", this is exactly what is demonstrated by some people when they criticize the Puritans. She writes "it is a great example of our collective eagerness to disparage without knowledge or information about the thing disparaged, when the reward is the pleasure of sharing an attitude one knows is socially approved." So the actual historical meaning of a word like "Puritan" doesn't matter anymore. The point is to toss around the same pejoratives "like a password to get into the clubhouse." Jacobs writes - "Robinson further comments that this kind of u...

I tend to be careful about airing my political opinions because it can be so divisive. However, I need to get these thoughts out of my head or I will have trouble sleeping again tonight. These are my opinions. Feel free to form your own. The cognitive dissonance must be off the chart when professing Christians, who make a big show of being pro-family and pro-life: 1. Are instrumental in electing a sexual predator to the highest office in the land. 2. Feel torn between losing a senate seat and electing an alleged pedophile. This has flabbergasted me even prior to last year's election, and I continue to be astounded as self-appointed Court Evangelicals 1 make a trumpery (yes, I used that word intentionally) of Christianity. But I am also troubled that average professing Christians are more  willing to turn a blind eye to what would be condemned in someone of the opposing political party. At this point, being a "Christian" or an "Evangelical" is rapidly ...

There is so much wrong with the world that it is easy to get discouraged and forget that God is bigger, greater, more powerful, and more loving than I can even imagine. But even with my forgetfulness, God is faithful to remind me what is true. So here are few things that encouraged me from being with the saints yesterday. My pastor has been leading a theological fellowship with 5 students from Christopher Newport University. These 5 young men shared with the adult Sunday school class what they have been learning. Each took turns briefly speaking about the doctrine of God including the Trinity and Simplicity, the doctrine of Creation, and the need for an historical Adam. It was encouraging to see them make the connection between good doctrine, the gospel, and discipleship, a connection which many of us don't get until we are much older. In the morning sermon from the 1 Cor. 2, Pastor Ryan spoke on how much we owe the Holy Spirit in our salvation. We were bumbling around in the d...

And he arose and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.  Luke 15:20 And if this morning my Father, and your Father, should come out to meet mourning penitents, in a moment He will show you that you are His children! You shall say, “Abba, Father,” on your road to your own house; you shall feel that your sins are all forgiven, that every particle of it has been cast behind Jehovah’s back; you shall feel today that you are accepted—as your faith looks to Christ you shall see that God accepts you, because Christ your substitute is worthy of God’s love and God’s delight. I trust you shall, this very morning, delight yourself in God, because God delights Himself in you. And you shall hear Him whisper in your ear, “You shall be called Hephzibah . . . for the Lord delights in you.” I wish I could picture such a text as this as it ought to be; it needs some tender, sympathetic hea...

Irenaeus of Lyon by Simonetta Carr, illustrations by Max Abraxas, Reformation Heritage Books, 2017,  64 pages. Simonetta Carr has written another biography in the Christian Biographies for Young Readers series. Her latest subject is Irenaeus of Lyons, the early church father and author of Against Heresies . Irenaeus lived around 130-200 A.D. He was a disciple of Polycarp who was discipled by the apostle John. The Roman Empire was still the dominant force in the world, and their polytheism and emperor worship were stark contrasts to Christianity. Thus the Christians' refusal to take part in pagan religion led to widespread persecution. Irenaeus' mentor, Polycarp, was one of the many martyrs for the faith. This time was also marked by the rise of false teachers who were distorting the gospel and leading people astray. With a desire to strengthen the church in biblical truth, Irenaeus began his work Against Heresies , which is still read today. He set about refuting the ...