Tried With Fire

Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not. (Jeremiah 33:3) God encourages us to pray. They tell us that prayer is a pious exercise which has no influence except upon the mind engaged in it. We know better. Our experience gives the lie a thousand times over to this infidel assertion. Here Jehovah, the living God, distinctly promises to answer the prayer of His servant. Let us call upon Him again and admit no doubt upon the question of His hearing us and answering us. He that made the ear, shall He not hear? He that gave parents a love to their children, will He not listen to the cries of His own sons and daughters! God will answer His pleading people in their anguish. He has wonders in store for them. What they have never seen, heard of, or dreamed of, He will do for them. He will invent new blessings if needful. He will ransack sea and land to feed them: He will send every angel out of heaven to succor them if their distress r...

I finished A Fiery Gospel and hope to write a review soon. As I posted before, Julia Ward Howe was a Unitarian whose bad hermeneutics and bad theology became the perfect combination to create a vaguely religious and nationalistic poem to claim "God" for our side. There were some who realized the contradiction between Howe's beliefs and Christianity, but they found a way around it. This is an excerpt from Moody Bible Institute's Christian Workers Magazine from 1917. They published The Battle Hymn as part of their "patriotic duty." The editors were fully aware of Howe's theological problems, but they "reassured their readers that "The Battle Hymn" could be made safe for Bible-believing Christians." 1 Mrs. Howe was not an evangelical Christian, her strongest sympathies being with the Unitarians, and yet as one reads the hymn, he is impressed with the fact that the Unitarianism it represents is almost more orthodox than the so-c...

When I look back over my life, there have been unanticipated events and unexpected turns from the smooth path that I thought was before me. I am a very different person than when I began adulting with the most drastic changes occurring in the last 10 years. I've been a Christian for most of my life, but my theology has changed. My view of God has grown for the better, I trust, and my view of humanity too. We are much more complicated than I had previously thought. We aren't just what we think but how we love. We aren't just a set of correct beliefs or a brain with two legs, but embodied souls that are mysteries to us but fully known by God. We are his workmanship, and he is fully capable of bringing us to where we need to be in the right time and in the right way. (Eph. 2:10, Phil. 1:6) Then shouldn't we be patient with one another? There was no way I could predict how I would change over years. God moved in mysterious ways through difficult circumstances, but he ne...

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. (Psalm 23:4) Sweet are these words in describing a deathbed assurance. How many have repeated them in their last hours with intense delight! But the verse is equally applicable to agonies of spirit in the midst of life. Some of us, like Paul, die daily through a tendency to gloom of soul. Bunyan puts the Valley of the Shadow of Death far earlier in the pilgrimage than the river which rolls at the foot of the celestial hills. We have some of us traversed the dark and dreadful defile of "the shadow of death" several times, and we can bear witness that the Lord alone enabled us to bear up amid its wild thought, its mysterious horrors, its terrible depressions. The Lord has sustained us and kept us above all real fear of evil, even when our spirit has been overwhelmed. We have been pressed and oppressed, but yet we have lived, for we ha...

Water Tossing Boulders: How a Family of Chinese Immigrants Led the First Fight to Desegregate Schools in the Jim Crow South, Adrienne Berard, Beacon Press, 2016. Water Tossing Boulders is the true story of the Lum family's fight to have their children admitted to the whites-only public school in Rosedale, Mississippi. This unfolded in 1924-1927 during the years of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act , Jim Crow laws, and the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act . Jeu Gong and Katherine Lum were immigrants and part of the wave of Chinese laborers that came to this country to supply the loss of slave labor after the end of the Civil War. A large number of these laborers were denied entry or reentry with the Chinese Exclusion Act, the only law to-date that prohibited people from entering the US based on national origin. Laws were also stricter regarding the Chinese already here, but the Lums were able to settle in the deep South and open a small grocery store. The children, who were Americans by ...

My dad went to be with the Lord last fall, so this was the first Father's Day without him. As a family, we never made a big deal about the Hallmark holidays, but we still gave cards and called. I think my parents appreciated it even if they didn't make a point of remembering those holidays themselves. I was feeling a little weepy last night. Even though we never saw 100% eye-to-eye 100% of the time, I loved my dad. I know he loved me and never stopped being a dad no matter how old I got. At our last goodbye, he asked if we had gas and food for the long drive home. So like him. Last night, my daughter said, "He was the right dad for you and your sister." And she's right. My dad wasn't perfect. He made mistakes. He was a sinner who needed a savior. I  doubt he would have measured up to whatever is the latest conservative Christian ideal man, but he was the right dad for me because God was the one who put our family together. God created each member of my fa...

For the Lord will not forsake his people for his great name's sake; because it hath pleased the Lord to make you his people. (1 Samuel 12:22) God's choice of His people is the reason for His abiding by them and not forsaking them. He chose them for His love, and He loves them for His choice. His own good pleasure is the source of their election, and His election is the reason for the continuance of His pleasure in them. It would dishonor His great name for Him to forsake them, since it would either show that He made an error in His choice or that He was fickle in His love. God's love has this glory, that it never changes, and this glory He will never tarnish. By all the memories of the Lord's former lovingkindnesses let us rest assured that He will not forsake us. He who has gone so far as to make us His people will not undo the creation of His grace. He has not wrought such wonders for us that He might leave us after all. His Son Jesus has died for us, and we may be ...

We recently had a short Sunday school class on how to read the Bible. A few principles to consider are: Genre - Is the passage historical narrative, poetry, teaching, or apocalyptic literature? Context - What is the context of the verse in relation to the chapter, the book, and redemptive history? What was the meaning of the author? What would it have meant to the original readers/hearers? Without these guidelines, it is possible to misuse the Bible. Rather than asking what was the intent of the author , the text can become what I want it to mean to me . Authorial intent versus reader response . Instead of the Bible being about God's revelation of himself and his plan of redemption, I can read myself into the text and make the Bible all about me. For example, the story of David and Goliath. This is historical narrative that actually took place. It shows God's faithfulness to preserve his people and the line through which the Messiah would eventually come. The passage d...

This has been an unusual spring. In April and May, I had jury duty which meant being on call every Tuesday of the month not knowing until the night before. I reported only two Tuesdays, but it was stressful not knowing when I would have to serve. I like having some idea of the week ahead so spur-of-the-moment isn't my preference. It's gardenia time. I've cut dozens of flowers over the past week, and my house is filled with the fragrance. All the wet weather we had since last year seems to have made the gardenia bushes happy because they are full of blooms. Even though creation is under curse, even though there is so much that is wrong, there is still so much beauty in the world for which I am grateful. The book of nature, while limited, still speaks loudly of its Creator. If you like audio books, the freebie from Christian Audio this month has been very thought provoking. Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren picks up the same ideas as in You Are Wha...

And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. (John 10:28) We believe in the eternal security of the saints. First, because they are Christ's, and He will never lose the sheep which He has bought with His blood and received of His Father. Next, because He gives them eternal life, and if it be eternal, well then, it is eternal, and there can be no end to hell, and heaven, and God. If spiritual life can die out, it is manifestly not eternal life, and that effectually shuts out the possibility of an end. Observe, further, that the Lord expressly says, "They shall never perish." As long as words have a meaning, this secures believers from perishing. The most obstinate unbelief cannot force this meaning out of this sentence. Then, to make the matter complete, He declares that His people are in His hand, and He defies all their enemies to pluck them out of it. Surely it is a thing impossible even for the fiend...

I saw this tweet recently from Ray Chang - "If your definition of loyalty does not allow for honesty, you may be a tyrant." And I would also add, if the people you look up to don't allow for honest inquiry and disagreement, you may be following a tyrant. This shouldn't be the case, but emotional and spiritual abuse can happen in Christian circles. Here are some warning signs that I have gleaned from my own experience and from listening to others: 1. Grooming and love bombing tactics used to draw a person into a group or into a leader's personal orbit. 2. Group loyalty is paramount, and a strong need for acceptance into the inner ring  is encouraged and cultivated in this environment. Once you've been included or are on the verge of joining this select circle, you can't bear to be left out. So this leads to a willingness to ignore the signs of cognitive dissonance and to make excuses for doctrinal, ethical, and character red flags. It is very commo...

When I started delving into the history of Asian American immigration, I uncovered stories and facts that I was never taught in school. One of those facts was the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act , a racist government policy that troubles me. It has left me skeptical about the rosy picture of the past that was painted for me through school texts and biographies. Thus I've been reading more history in search of the truth. Now I've learned something else. Water Tossing Boulders is the story of the Lum family, a Chinese Mississippi Delta family who challenged the state's school segregation laws when their daughters were forbidden to attend the whites-only public school. Their case went to the Supreme Court in 1927 , 25 years before Brown v. Board of Education , a landmark case worth reading about . Yet the Lum's story was omitted from history books. When asked the reason why, a descendent said, "Because we lost" to a unanimous 9-0 vote. What would it have been ...

In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33) My Lord's words are true as to the tribulation. I have my share of it beyond all doubt. The flail is not hung up out of the way, nor can I hope that it will be laid aside so long as I lie upon the threshing floor, How can I look to be at home in the enemy's country, joyful while in exile, or comfortable in a wilderness? This is not my rest. This is the place of the furnace, and the forge, and the hammer. My experience tallies with my Lord's words. I note how He bids me "be of good cheer." Alas! I am far too apt to be downcast. My spirit soon sinks when I am sorely tried. But I must not give way to this feeling. When my Lord bids me cheer up I must not dare to be cast down. What is the argument which He uses to encourage me? Why, it is His own victory. He says, "I have overcome the world." His battle was much more severe than mine. I have not yet resist...