You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December 2006.
“Fall on your knees,
O hear the angel voices,
O night divine,
O night when Christ was born!”
Surely that night was divine! The Christ, the Anointed One, the Messiah was finally here! What word but Hallelujah could give voice to the joy of those whose hopes and fears were met in Him that night! Thousands of years of promises, thousands of years of waiting, thousands of years of failing and reviving faith were fulfilled in that baby. He was here!! God with us. Should we not fall on our knees?
Some of you who frequent this blog may be wondering what happened to me…or maybe not. In any case, I’m supposed to be on holidays, but instead I’m working harder on schoolwork than during the school year! Anyways, I haven’t had time to write anything profound (or, as is usually the case: something that only seems profound). So here’s a comic I found in today’s paper. I suspect it is truer than the artist even realizes. In this Christmas season, when it seems that the whole Middle East is one big, bloody, terribly hopeless mess, let us remember that no amount of politics or diplomacy (or bombs, Mr. Bush!) will fix Iraq or Palestine or Iran or Afghanistan. Jesus Christ is the only hope for peace on earth and peace in the Middle East. Centuries of hatred and bloodshed can find their resolution in the hatred poured out on—and the blood poured out of—our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us keep this area of the world in our prayers for alas, there is a critical shortage of wise men.
…to make God love him more—or less. I gleaned that succinct bit of wisdom from one of the older men in my church. A Christian stands before God in Jesus Christ and on the basis of his blood and righteousness ALONE. In God’s eyes a Christian is as perfect as Jesus himself, and God loves them on that basis. “There is nothing a Christian can do to make God love him more—or less.” Take five and think about that. Think of how easily we slip into the mentality that we are under God’s wrath tonight because of our terrible conduct today, or, God must love me so much because of how obedient I was today. Examine your prayers: does how you approach the almighty God change depending on how well or poorly you think you performed your Christian duties that day? Although it is certainly possible to earn God’s displeasure or glorify him more depending on our conduct, nevertheless, his love for us remains constant through it all. “There is nothing a Christian can do to make God love him more—or less.” Now that is a truth that merits much meditation. Now that is a truth to live and die for!
Now, I liked NT Wright before I read Simply Christian. I disagreed with him on a bunch of things, but I liked him nonetheless. After reading Simply Christian…not so much. This book is not a systematic theology, it’s an introduction, and therefore it would be inappropriate for me to criticize it in its details. Sadly, I don’t have too. If this is Wright’s Christianity, I am forced to conclude that he has TOTALLY missed the boat. This book is interesting, thought-provoking, and a hundred other nice adjectives, but it’s seriously flawed at the most important point—the atonement. Or rather, it is almost non-existent at that point. Wright spends a lot of time going on about social justice and beauty and other stuff like that (to be fair, its not as bad as it sounds), but spends almost no time at all on the atonement. Throughout the book (and throughout his other writings) Wright constantly criticizes those who make Christianity all about “going to heaven when you die.” On several points I think his critique in this area is legitimate, but unfortunately he has thrown out the baby with the bathwater and says nothing about how a sinner can be made right with God. Interestingly, in a talk he gave at his book release tour in Washington DC, Wright got about three-quarters of the way through his speech and then said something like this (I’m quoting from memory, but the sense is intact), “Now someone will say, ‘What about the atonement?’ Of course, the atonement is important. It’s the core of my theology!” Yikes! I’m sorry man, but if the core of your theology doesn’t make it into the book, you can talk till the cows come home, but that is NOT the core of your theology. Usually it is specious at best to criticize a book for what it doesn’t say, but if the book itself claims to be a general introduction to the subject and leaves out the heart of it? That’s a problem. Being an Anglican, NT has Anglican heroes. That’s great, but sadly his heroes are much closer to Archbishop Desmond Tutu than to Bishop JC Ryle. Alas, the impression I am left with is that NT Wright, for all the good things he has written, and all the benefit he has done me, has missed the heart of the gospel: that there is salvation for helpless sinners at the cross of Jesus Christ.
Over the past decade or so, Bishop NT Wright has become a big name in New Testament studies. This is not without dessert. The man is obviously brilliant and capable of writing voluminous amounts with great style. He has been a staunch defender of the historical, bodily resurrection of our Lord, and has pushed the study of narrative in scripture towards new and exciting things. I’ve read a few of his articles and a couple of his books, but never had the time to embark on the conquest of his magnum opus, a multivolume (and big volumes at that) treatment of, well, everything! This left me in the dark with regard to his theology as a whole, so you can imagine how delighted I was when I found that he had just published a slender little volume entitled Simply Christian. In this work, Wright provides us with an introduction (suitable for the uninitiated) to the world of Christianity, and why Christianity makes sense (that last clause forms the subtitle of his book). In fact, the dust jacket makes explicit reference to CS Lewis’ book Mere Christianity. Here’s what the publisher wrote: “Not since CS Lewis’s (sic?) classic summary of the faith, Mere Christianity, has such a wise and thorough scholar taken the time to explain to anyone who wants to know what Christianity really is and how it is practiced.” That statement may be completely out of touch with history, but it sure is good marketing hype! Here was my chance to get a birds-eye view of Wright’s theology. If trying to sum up Christianity in a short (240 pages) book doesn’t reveal your theology, I don’t know what will!! So I procured a copy and read it. And what do you think I found? Find out here—tomorrow :)
“Guilt and pain are gifts of God to warn us that the pleasures of sin are suicidal.”
–John Piper
They are suicidal, aren’t they? So why do we insist on falling for the devil’s lie again and again? It’s the same old lie: “Has God really said?” YES, HE HAS!! (and we have something that Eve didn’t—experience). Each one of us knows that sin has never brought us the pleasure it has promised (just like God said), and each one of us knows that holiness has brought joy and peace beyond words (just like God said). So why are we such idiots!?! It’s been the same the last thousand times, what makes us think that it will be different this time? How can we be so foolish to think that the trade will be worth it—just this once? A peek inside our hearts is a scary thing. What oceans of grace must reside in God’s heart that he is willing to make a home in hearts still so full of unbelief. There is no God like our God! Trust him.
I’ve been reading through the Old Testament for the last few months, and I’ve recently noticed something—the number of reprobate covenant children. Besides the thousands and thousands of nameless covenant children who are under the wrath of God all throughout the exodus and the rest of biblical history, there are lots of children of notable saints who reject the God of their fathers. Surely this should give us food for thought when the norm in many of our churches is to expect that nearly all covenant children will grow up in faith and where covenant-breakers are viewed as sad abnormalities. I think its safe to say that they were anything but abnormal in the Bible. Here’s a quick list of some notable believers and their children that came to mind. I’m sure there are many more examples that could be given.
Adam?: Cain
Noah: Ham
Abraham: Ishmael
Isaac: Esau
Jacob: While their final state is unclear, it is crystal clear that Joseph’s brothers did not know the Lord from their youth on.
Aaron: Nadab and Abihu
Gideon: Abimelech
Eli: Hophni and Phineas
David: Absalom
Solomon?: Rehoboam and Jeroboam
(?) indicates those whose spiritual state is not clearly attested to in scripture, but I think a case could be made that they were believers.
From full, low notes so gentle that one can almost feel the horsehair sliding over the strings, to pitches so high as to be barely audible, the virtuosic violin-work of Anne-Sophie Mutter is sure to impress. Whether she’s agonizing over a particularly endless whole note or shredding her way through supersonic arpeggios, Anne-Sophie plays with a passion that is both striking and never out of control. I recently stumbled upon her Simply Anne-Sophie while looking for an album containing all twenty-one of Brahms’ Hungarian Dances (hers doesn’t, but it does contain a jaw-dropping rendition of No. 6). If you like violin music or classical music at all, you really should check this out. And if you don’t, this would be a great introduction! Her playing is excellent and sometimes highly technical, but she never lets her raw skill overpower the music and is content to fade into the background whenever appropriate. This is refreshing and ensures that the pieces never become mere vehicles for her to show off. This is the kind of album that makes me wish I knew how to play violin :(
I just wrote my last exam, oh yeah BABY!!!
What really convinced me that Westerholm was on to something here was his argument from Romans 1:18-32. He notes: “Paul does not refer in this passage to divine law. Human sinfulness here is a matter of wilfully inappropriate responses to reality, not the transgression of a specified moral code.” (48) Wow! If you read through this passage you can really see that theme coming out. “…although they knew God, they did not honour him as God…they exchanged the truth of God for a lie…they did not see fit to acknowledge God…”. And all this is in the context of Gentile unbelievers, those who had not received the Decalogue! Note how well another of Westerholm’s observations fits with the passages I’ve just quoted: “If sin is inappropriate response to reality, the fundamental human sin (for Paul as for Proverbs) is the failure to respond appropriately to the Creator of all that is.” (48) Keeping in mind the “predictable consequences” we noted in Proverbs in the previous post, check out how Romans 1 speaks of punishment for these sins apart from the law: “…the created order recoils and wreaks havoc upon those who defy it. God, Paul states, has ‘given up,’ or ‘abandoned,’ sinners to the degradation of their own sins.” (50-1) Read through the passage and see how true this is! Those who have never heard the law or the gospel are still guilty before God for their rebellion against him, his goodness, and the goodness of his created order. In the society in which we live, those we rub shoulders with each day are increasingly falling into this category. Yet, they are still under condemnation! Do we believe this? Then let us take and make every opportunity we can to share the good news of a good Christ who can reconcile evil sinners to his good Father!!
The rest of Westerholm’s book is filled with more “good” stuff, but if you want to know more, you’ll just have to read it!
