Tried With Fire

The Bible's answer is simple: fear for God is produced by the Word of God. Many modern trends boil down to self-expression. Self-expression, however wonderful it may feel, tells us nothing of God. God's Word produces the right attitude toward Him, because His Word reveals Him, His mind and His ways to us. His Word alone gives content to our faith. Without content, there would be no reason to fear. Without content, there would be no object to fear. Without content, there would be no form to give to our fear. This finds a strong echo in the words of Jesus, recorded in John 8:31-32 - Therefore, He was saying to the Jews, who believed Him, "If you remain in My word, truly you are My students; and you will know the truth, and the truth will free you." (DJP) Our Lord here provides both the promise and the definition of discipleship. His progression of thought is very definite: To be set free, we must know the truth. To know the truth, we must be students (di...

The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge; Wisdom and discipline, dense people belittle. (Prov. 1:7 DJP) The fear of Yahweh is not a concept without a context, hanging on nothing. It is not a vibration, not a virus. We don't catch it, and it doesn't happen either outside of us, or to us. It is an attitude. It is a mindset. More, it is a worldview; it is the grid through which we perceive, arrange, understand, interpret, and interact with the world. And what is a worldview without a viewer? ... [E]ach of us must make personal application of what we learn here. True, we may well learn something of help to a friend or relative. Still, we should think primarily in terms of how we can learn and personally apply the fear of Yahweh in  our own lives. It is I who must learn to fear Yahweh, myself. And so must you. No one can or will do it for us, as our substitute - not even the Holy Spirit. God's Wisdom in Proverbs , Dan Phillips, Kress, 2011, pp. 66-67.

For receiving intelligent discipline - righteousness, and justice and uprightness. Proverbs 1:3 (DJP) So ask yourself this: Why would Solomon write a book to give us something we could get easier and better by mystical channels? If the formula for wisdom is "Just add prayer and mystical openness, and pop! wisdom!" - then why waste all the quills and papyrus? Just tell us to go mentally limp, and you will save a few trees... or, rather reeds. This "intelligent discipline" will not come to the intellectually lazy.  Intelligent discipline becomes ours only as we diligently apply ourselves to obtaining what Yahweh has objectively given, once for all time, in Scripture. To access it, we must open up, bear down, and accept instruction. God's Wisdom in Proverbs , Dan Phillips, Kress, 2011, pp. 46-47.

No harm befalls the righteous, But the wicked are filled with trouble.  Proverbs 12:21 (NAS) Taken on face value as if it were prose, this verse voices a sentiment that Job's friends would have heartily "Amen-ed, " and which they would have used to further club him over the head as with a frozen meat chub. Job's three wretched comforters reasoned that misery, "harm," is always caused by sin. Then these men noted that "harm" had befallen Job. He was "filled with trouble." Conclusion, Job could not be "righteous" and his misery must have been caused by some personal sin. Or, again, those ignoring the genre might seize upon Proverbs 22:4 - "The reward for humility and fear of the Lord is riches and honor and life." Armed with this verse, they might observe; "you aren't rich... so that means you are arrogant and godless." So we are learning that Proverbs both teaches wisdom and requires  wisdom. f...

Having benefited from Dan Phillips' contributions to Pyromaniacs and his own blog, Biblical Christianity , I was eager to read his book The World Tilting Gospel . I was not disappointed. The Gospel turned the world upside down in the days of the early church, and that same Gospel is for us today. But sadly we have lost a right biblical view and reduced it to entry-level Christianity. While the gospel is not complicated, neither is it simplistic. If we don't have a right understanding of God and man, there's a good chance our understanding of the relationship between the two will be off base. So starting from Genesis, Dan examines who we are, who God is, and how we got where we are. He then moves us to the apex of redemptive history, the cross, and how God deals with our bad record and our bad nature. Following that, the book discusses the process of Christian growth, including distortions to the Gospel that plague the church. Finally, we're challenged to bring the tr...

God's real grace is gutsy, dynamic, transformative power. No one who receives this grace remains the same. It transforms and motivates. No transformation = no grace. If grace has not transformed your life to some degree, then grace has not saved your soul, either. And so, if we cherish any notion of "grace" that defines it as "God's way of making it okay for me to live as if He didn't exist, wasn't my Master, and hadn't spoken a word of command or prohibitions" - we had better lose that notion... Grace is God's dynamic, free, flowing gift of Himself that delivers us from the guilt and domain of sin (justification) and enables us to live lives that please Him (progressive sanctification). After we become recipients of justifying grace, we become participants in sanctifying grace. If the latter is not happening, then the former never happened. "Gutless" is the last thing God's real grace is. from The World Tilting Go...

Another book arrived in the mail today. The latest addition to the library is  The World Tilting Gospel by Dan Phillips  (also of TeamPyro ). Here's a bit from the intro: "People leap for an experience, fall short of truth, and wander off lost and aimless. A truncated "half-spell" has been substituted for the biblical Gospel. The "nice bits" are snipped out, isolated, and dolled up as more marketable. Folks have signed on without any real grasp of the Gospel in all its fullness and power. "Many professed Christians regard the Gospel as our ticket "in", and then we're done with it. It's like a contract: We ignore the lawyer-talk, sign it, and then forget about it. We think that the Gospel was beginner's material. Pray a prayer, pen your name, you're "in"; now move on to something else. "But what too many of us have not grasped is: who we really are what kind of world we are really living in how the w...

I received this offer in the mail from a local card store. Not only do I get 20% off my purchase, but I get a free gift - this wonderful birthday angel pin. Apparently this "angel" has the ability to grant my birthday wishes and make them all come true. Four things came to mind: 1. Aren't we supposed to worship and trust God, not angels? 2. Do people really like and believe this stuff? It seems like there's a whole industry cranking out tacky, cutesy, unbiblical angel paraphernalia. 3. This post by Dan Phillips - "Artists' angels look as if they're about to say "Please, may I have another chocolate?" Real angels usually have to start out with saying, "Dude, dude — try not to die!" 4. This line from Angelz from Shai Linne's Solus Christus Project - "and I don't resemble chubby babies with wings That's a lying replica" Maybe I'll use the 20% off coupon, but I think I'll pass on the "angel".