More than I ask or imagine. . .

Calvin's Institutes: the Prefatory Week One

Calvin is there reason I am Presbyterian.  I remember reading him in college and thinking that this man was not the cold Scholastic I thought he would be. In fact, reading John Calvin was like drinking Choclate Milk, smooth and sweet showing me beautiful vistas of God's goodness. 

I will be reading a chapter or so a week and finish whenever I finish.  I am not in a rush, I want to understand in a new way what this work is about and how Calvin does theology.  I read the Institutes before seminary 10-12 years ago, now I hope to see new things as a pastor and father. 

What is embarrassing is that I never have read the Prefatory before!  But what a great historical work that is.  Calvin writes this to the King of France as an exile pleading with the King that he and this movement are innocent of the charges being brought against them.   

He addresses briefly the charge of schism and the authority of the Pope.  I find this especially important in our modern world. Unity is prized in many circles, but the fact remains that people are divided in their own churches.   So what then should the unity be based on?  The Word being purely preached and the sacraments rightly practiced.  There is the unity. Of course the follow up questions can be legion: What is the Gospel?  How Pure? what is rightly?  Are they sacraments or ordinances?  However, I get the feeling that all of the Institutes are all about answering all these questions.

So my reading will be guided by that statement of Word and Sacrament and how that guides the Institutes.

A Year with Calvin and Barth: Compare, Contrasting, and Learning

New Year's Resolutions are a time for me to decided my reading for the next year.  I have been trying to decide between reading Calvin's Institutes or Barth Dogmatics.  I have perused Barth's first two volumes as I have followed Daniel Kirk's blog. But when it came down to it, I could not decide. 

So it's both!  It should be a good exercise as I understand what it means to be Presbyterian.  Also, Barth had a tremendous respect for Calvin, here is what Barth said about Calvin in a letter. Also, by starting Barth on the Doctrine of God, I can compare with Calvin as he starts the Institutes with the Doctrine of God.

John Calvin is a cataract, a primeval forest, a demonic power, something directly down from Himalaya, absolutely Chinese, strange, mythological; I lack completely the means, the suction cups, even to assimilate this phenomenon, not to speak of presenting it adequately. What I receive is only a thin little stream and what I can then give out again is only a yet thinner extract of this little stream. I could gladly and profitably set myself down and spend all the rest of my life with just Calvin.

I pray that this year of reading along with my Bible study and reading would shape and form me into a man who loves Christ with my whole life blessing my family, church, and community.  So, I will have to cut the number of novels or sports books that I would like to read, but it will be worth it.

What will you be reading this year?

For a Merry Christmas Day: God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman/ We Three Kings

One of my favorite songs of all time, and so good to hear it this year.  O Tidings of Comfort and Joy to you today. 

 

Have some Christmas Blend too!

 

Grieve for Renewal: A Work of the People Short Film feating @ScottyWardSmith

As I finish a sermon series on Lamentations, I have been reflecting on the nature of prayer and hope.  It seems that there is something inherent in prayer that would include lament and grief over the way things are longing for renewal and transformation.

Here is a film with Pastor Scotty Smith, my pastor in college.  I still remember after Easter in 1996 he was grieveing the loss of his mentor, Jack Miller. I remember how that impacted me so greatly, though I did not even know it at the time. I ended up at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, PA and being a called pastor at one of the church's of the movement that Jack Miller had begun.  Here, Scotty calls the artist or the one "living the artful life" as he calls it to grieve for renewal.  I hope you enjoy!

The Injustice, The Scandal, and Lamentations: Making Sense of Penn State in Prayer

 

 

   Living in Central PA now, there is one story that everyone is talking about the Penn State  scandal.  In preaching the book of Lamentations, I am seeing this whole scandal in a new light.  Lamentations details the destruction of the city Jerusalem and the punishment that was brought on by their injustice and sin.  While the destruction is terrible, the reason that is has happened is detailed in Lam 3:

34      To crush underfoot
         all prisoners in the land,

35      to deny a man his rights
         before the Most High,

36      to deprive a man of justice—
         would not the Lord see such things?

The answer of course, is "Yes He will see and He will act."  Therefore, when justice happens God has seen and acted.

My sermon last week was on praying prayer of vengence, known as the imprectory psalms.  Praying that God would bring justice is so vital to those who do not have a leading voice.  God hears those prayers and brings justice. I used the example for someone who has been abused. Tolerence or sentimental notions of God being only a tolerate God will not give hope.  God will bring judgment to those who oppress and victimize. He will make things right again. Only God who loves deeply and passionately will see and act in response to the prayers of the victimized and abused.

The Penn State story broke Saturday up here but no one knew the details until Monday or late Sunday.  I have seen friends go through the whole process of greif. They see JoePa fired and the end of everything for the program that dominated sports life here. They see the program they love turn to something diabolical.  Those abused children have cried out and God has heard their prayer.  Finally the abuser will be brought to justice and the whole system needs to be disrupted.

Below is a video of Matt Millen, a former Penn State football player reacting to the scandal.  As he processes what has happened he breaks down around minute 4:00 of the clip.  He says, "When we can no longer protect our children, then we as a society are pathetic".  This scandal is not just about one man's violent abuse or one university's inaction. This has far reaching implications in our whole society, from our obessions with sports to our families breaking down allowing for children to be preyed upon.  We are sick, and we are pathetic as a society. This is an opportunity for us to repent to examine our lives and call out that God would change our hearts and the hearts of others.  We should also pray that God would end such victimization of our children and bring justice to those who have no justice.  Only before the throne of God can we begin to let this change us. We also give honor to the victims by allowing it to change us. Let justice come as Jesus makes all the wrongs right.

O God, would you fogive us as a people and individually in ways that we have contriubuted to this culture where the most vulnerable are the most violated.  Have mercy, Lord, and may Jesus' victory triumph in this whole event and in our world's history.

 

My First Two Sermons on Lamenations

October 2 2011

October 9 2011

Steve Jobs on Leadership and Imagination.

 

With the passing of Steve Jobs, I admire his leadership and his imagination in leading.  He is a great example for anyone in leadership positions. The day before he passed the new iPhone was presented a new software called Siri.  Below is a video of Apple's future vision a device that is a personal assistant, face to face calling, and touch screen interface.  The video was made in 1987. This is leadership knowing where to go and giving motivation to get there.

The other video was Steve Jobs first address when he came back to email in 1997.  He begins telling the crowd around minute 14:30, he casts a vision for iCloud, calling a giant hole in computing.   He even mentions making apps for something like flash memory building on devices that only Apple makes. He also talks about how focus is saying no which is why he cleaned house when he first came.  His language is locker room for the conference, so apologies beforehand.  But here he is raw and leading his company.

How Can I Change the World? It begins in the Sanctuary of the Lord.

I have always been a big fan of the idea that you live how your worship.  I firmly believe that worship services train us as God's people to live for him.  Below is an article by Mark Horne on How to Change the World?  Hope you enjoy it.

10 things a church can do to change the world

by Mark Horne

The principle to keep in mind is that we have to change ourselves first.

1. Participate in the Lord’s Supper Every Sunday in Worship
The Kingdom is again and again a feast. The Church is the beachhead of the Kingdom. Does Jesus ever tell a parable comparing the Kingdom to a lecture hall? Does he ever compare the Kingdom to a music concert? Then lets not stop up the Kingdom at the source. Lets get it right. Lets eat and drink.

2. Drink Wine in Church
Duh. How else would you worship a glutton and a drunkard? The Gospel is New Wine that bursts wineskins–not grape juice that sits there inert. You want to know if God can forgive a sinner like you. Get it in a cup and drink it down and you will know. That changes everything.

3. Sing the Psalms
By sing, I mean chant. Don’t remake the Psalms to fit a rhyme scheme. Sing the words that are there according to an accurate translation. What would happen if we did this? For one thing a ton of bad theology would be exorcised.

Arise, O Yahweh
O God, lift up your hand;
forget not the afflicted.
Why does the wicked renounce God
and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”?
But you do see,
for you note mischief and vexation,
that you may take it into your hands;
to you the helpless commits himself;
you have been the helper of the fatherless.
Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer;
call his wickedness to account till you find none.
Yahweh is king forever and ever; the nations perish from his land.

4. Pray the Psalms
Arguably this is redundant with the point above. But I want to stress that God wants us to pray things like:

judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness
and according to the integrity that is in me.
Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end,
and may you establish the righteous—
you who test the minds and hearts,
O righteous God!

There are people and whole churches who claim to be Bible-believing who think this is sinful to pray. You can’t change the world for God if you think He is really a Pharisee unless he has the help of your styleguide by which to edit his prayers.

5. Tell people in church that God has forgiven them.

Don’t preach that God forgives some people somewhere some time. Tell the professing Christians in front of you, and their children, when they confess their sins together, that God has wiped each one of their slates clean. The good news that is going to change the world is not that God forgives someone somewhere at some time.

(Yes, God forgives them at other times, including when they pray apart. But these things are not opposed. Rather, one helps the the other. Those who are trained to believe that God hears and forgives them will be encouraged to trust God for the same at other times and places.)

6. Believe the whole Bible and teach it like God really meant it.

Because saying, “You’re getting too much of your theology from the parables” mostly means, “Jesus was a stupid peasant who told misleading stories that we have to carefully strip down to a single point that we found in Paul’s Epistles”–or rather, “that we found in Westminster Confession” (or, “… the Councils of Trent” or whatever). I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that God isn’t blessing churches who don’t like the Bible.

7. Preach Jesus as King but Avoid Petty Politics

Jesus is Lord and he wants a visible unified entrance to the Kingdom (Church) as a witness to that fact. We have to obey what Jesus says, but we also have to recognize how divisions and arguments actually can undermine the theocratic Faith. So find some highly obvious points in the public square to harp on (i.e. abortion), but try not to get bogged down in minutia (don’t preach Christian libertarianism, socialism, or whatever from the pulpit).

8. Let the Great Commission be your commission

If you think you know what this means, go read it, and ask yourself what this says about being “born again,” “faith,” or “evangelism” compared to what it says about obedience, theocracy, baptism, and ongoing teaching/training of everyone.

9. Worship like the Bible matters

Does it not strike anyone as odd that, if you want to attend a worship service that took you systematically through Scripture, you would be better off in an Episcopal, formal Lutheran, Roman Catholic, or Eastern Orthodox service rather than a Baptists, conservaitve Presbyterian, or “Bible Church” assembly? Is God supposed to speak to us in the Church or not? If not, how are we supposed to see anything change, let alone the world?

10. Live Corporately like Matthew 18 is in the Bible

I mention the whole chapter on purpose, by the way, because it is obviously focused on humility and forgiveness, and in that context gives directions for accountability and purifying the Church. I think that is important because, while not one church in a hundred includes Matthew 18.15-19 in their real canon, some that do can be so zealous (I’m using a euphemism) about it as to reinforce the temptation to neglect it. But it is in the Bible and it is an operating instruction from the Lord Jesus. So obey Him.

An Invitation to Lament: The Bible "Rolling in the Deep"

I am beginning a sermon series on Lamentations this Sunday.  Many of our hymns or songs in Evangelicalism have no room for lament.  Lamenting is part of life and reflects the glory of God in whose likeness we are created.  I find that the only place in our culture we can lament is break up songs.  Country songs do this too.  What happens when you play a country song backwards?  You get your wife, car, and dog back, as the old joke goes.  But this morning I was thinking about our lack of lament in our culture and heard this song, Rolling in the Deep.  Adele reminds me of Dusty Springfield, and the song reminds me of the Stone's great anthem, Gimme Shelter.  In the video, a city is destroyed, a warrior stirs up the dust that is settled, and plates are broken. What a great picture of relationship loss and struggle. Enjoy the video with the song as an example of modern day lament.

My Credo Part Three: Judgement and Mercy in Christ

As continuing this series on my Credo, I wrote about the Christology and Trinitarian views of the Primitive Church before the split between East and West.  I love that ecumenical team work but as you will read below, I have the Holy Spirit proceeding from both the Father and Son as the Western church has taught.  I take that position knowing that the Filioque Controversy behind that statement. The question is where in the Nicene Creed the Western Church added the phrase filioque to the original "the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son." I firmly believe that both sides of the church were talking past each other as Christians have been known to do. Another lesson in church history why we need one another as Christians.

I believe Jesus is the eternal Son of God eternally begotten by the Father.  The Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Son and the Father.  This is the Trinity that is united as one Godhead in three distinct persons all equal in power and glory.  The Son is the image of the invisible God while at the same time he is fully human.  He was born of the Virgin Mary living a life that succeeded where humanity had failed in the past, then died on the Cross as a propitiation for humanity’s rebellion and mine.   Then, the Father declared him to be the Son of God with power by raising Him from the dead by the Holy Spirit.   The Gospel message is that Christ died and rose again to defeat death. He is coming again to make everything right bringing even more peace and prosperity as Heaven and Earth become one.  Thus, humanity and creation are brought into the fellowship of the Trinity after the world is purified through Final Judgement.

I firmly believe that Judgement was poured out on the Cross of Christ, but there is still a final judgement coming.  I am not a universalist and I do not think that all paths lead to God.  As I will divulge later, I am a Post-Millenialist so I believe at the end there will be universal salvation because there will be no one left on Earth except the church.  BB Warfield in The Plan of Salvation calls this the escathological 'all'.  Salvation is collective, personal, universal and particular in Christ, "rolling as a mighty ocean in its fulness over me".