Ourspace

I had a brainstorm last night. I’m thinking about starting my own social networking site – a social networking site for socialists. I’ll call it “Ourspace”. The tag line will be “a place for comrades”. Participation won’t be optional, and government oversight will be prevalent and mandatory. There will be no decking out one’s page with bright color schemes of one’s own choosing – just the same basic color scheme of scarlet red and army green for every page. After all, we wouldn’t want inequality between the different individual’s pages. Ourspace pages would be free and available for all, though you would be taxed for them, and standing in line for hours at a time in order to use one’s page would be a regular occurrence - and you’d better hope your page was still there when you got to the front of the line. (Never mind the incoherence of the last sentence. Logic is for the weak. Besides, it all evens out in the end.)

Socialism sounds fun, doesn’t it?

The Top Ten Things Raymond Arroyo Would Never Say

10. That Neuhaus guy is so full of it.

9. Could I interview a Protestant for a change?

8. That Hillary’d make a great president.

7. I think I’d look better with a beard.

6. Mary who?

5. My job sucks.

4. The last Pope was much better than the guy we’ve got now.

3. Vatican II sure screwed up the Mass.

2. Well, it wasn’t the best speech Benedict’s ever given…

1. Hey Ratzinger! What’s with the Santa hat?

Irregular bloggers, of whom I am chief

In this past October’s edition of Christianity Today, there was a brief article entitled “The Death of Blogs” about… well, I’ll let you guess what it was about. Author Ted Olsen notes the immense number of blogs started, the immense number of blogs discontinued, and the fickleness of at least some of those who read them. Many bloggers (those who are read, that is) find it difficult to keep up a regular blogging schedule, and so lose readers as a result of their inconsistency. Many bloggers end up shutting down their blogs because of lack of readership.

I, however, have no intentions of doing that. I have a counter, so I know how many hits this page gets, which, as of late, is about three per day. I figure that’s three of my friends who absolutely love what I write and would rather remain anonymous, so I would like to thank all three of you, whoever you may be. And since you three are probably my friends, you know that I have picked up an extra day of work in recent weeks, and am in a Bible study on Daniel on Monday nights, plus a Bible study on Romans on Wednesday nights. This has resulted in blogging falling a few notches on the list of important things to do, though I will try to do better in coming weeks. For now, here are a few “here’s what’s going on in life” thoughts.

For those who haven’t noticed, I updated my links list a few weeks back. I cut out a couple of things, but I mostly just added a few. Most notable is the ever-hilarious engrish.com. Go there in much sadness, and have happy time.

I also included website related to the ministry of a local pastor named Roger Wiles. Roger is the pastor of Covenant of Grace Presbyterian Church (ARP) in Winston-Salem. He also has a weblog, which I’ve linked, as well as a local radio show, called Reformation Today, the website of which I’ve linked as well. Roger is a good man, as I’ve discovered in the few opportunities to speak to him. In a time when so many Presbyterian churches are sacrificing truth and godly practice in order to embrace the seeker-centered model of ministry, Pastor Wiles has refused to compromise on the essentials of the faith. He and the ministries he engages in deserve your prayers.

I added links to some other blogs and websites, but I’ll leave those for your perusal rather than discussing them in detail.

In our Bible study on Daniel, we are using an Intervarsity Press study guide by a fellow named Douglas Connelly. It is fairly well done so far, though very simplistic, as most study guides tend to be. I have been supplementing it with James Jordan’s commentary on Daniel, which, at about 700 pages in length, I hope to have mostly read by the end of the study. If I do finish it, it will be by far the longest book I’ve ever read, so it will be quite an accomplishment for me. I must add (in a fit of faux humility), however, that the print is rather large, and the appendices include about fifty pages of detailed dating and chronology matters that I intend to skip over. Nonetheless, it will be a task to be proud of (in that non-sinful, prideful sort of way, if you know what I mean). How much I will retain will be another question. Jordan is in one sense easy to read. In another sense, however, he is hard to read, in that it isn’t always easy to understand where he’s coming from. He has a certain grasp of typology and a certain set of assumptions he’s working with that, unless you’re tracking right in line with his thinking, can make him hard to follow. Doug Wilson once quoted one wit as saying of Jordan, “Sometimes you think he’s onto something, other times you think he’s on something.” Those are my feelings as I read Jordan. I often run into things he says that he doesn’t convince me of – sometimes I am later convinced he’s right, other times not. Nonetheless, he’s one of the most insightful scholars around, and reading his commentary on Daniel has been invaluable.

To illustrate his insight, here’s one from my current reading. When one pays attention, the reader of Scripture discovers quite a bit of scatological humor in Scripture. Sadly, this is usually veiled by the translator’s overly queasy pen. Daniel 5, which our group will be covering tomorrow night, contains such a passage. Belshazzar is hosting a feast, which, Jordan notes, is obviously a religious or worship feast, as indicated by the fact that he brings out the vessels of the temple to drink wine from and by the fact that he and his companions praised the gods in their drinking. (This is something hard to imagine for the average conservative reacting to the seeker model of worship. While the contemporary worship model makes use of the concept of “celebrating” in worship in an illegitimate way, this doesn’t mean that worship isn’t a celebration. It just means that Christians who prefer the contemporary model don’t know how to party.) A hand, the hand of God, appears, and writes on the wall (echoed, notes Jordan, in the case of the woman caught in adultery in John 8). We are told that “the king’s color changed, and his thoughts alarmed him; his limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together” (English Standard Version). Jordan translates this thus: “Then the king’s splendors were changed in him, and his thoughts troubled him, and the knots of his loins were untied, and his knees were knocking one against another.” In a footnote, as well as later in the commentary, Jordan notes that the third phrase means that Belshazzar “wet his pants or dirtied his trousers, or both”, citing a paper from the Journal of Biblical literature by Al Wolters for support. Jordan also notes that the sequence of statements about the king’s physical and emotional responses parallel the structure of the metal figure (head, chest, loins, legs) in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in chapter two. This is appropriate, as the fulfillment of the prophecy given initially in the dream, that the kingdom would be taken from the Babylonians (gold head) and given to another (silver chest and arms), was to be fulfilled that night, as Belshazzar was killed and Babylon was taken over by the Persian empire.

It is worth noting as well that if, as Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel 2 indicates, the same kingdom held by the Babylonians was handed down all the way to the Romans, where it was defeated by God who set up an eternal kingdom, then the only eschatological system that comports with Scripture is Postmillennial Preterism.

This will have to do for now, though I hope to blog a little more regularly. “More regularly”, “irregular bloggers”… the scatological humor never stops.

More on Issues Etc.

Here's an interesting article on the cancellation of Issues Etc. and the political battles in the LCMS from the Wall Street Journal Online.

Issues Etc. Cancelled

I have just learned that my favourite online radio show, the LCMS-sponsored Issues Etc., has been cancelled. In trying to discover the reason, I found out that others in blogdom have already known about this and have been trying to contact those involved in an attempt to get the show back on the air. Here are a couple of links to check out if you’re interested:

http://talkingdonkey.wordpress.com/2008/03/18/issues-etc-gone/

http://bringbackissues.blogspot.com/

The Gradual for Good Friday

Reproach has broken my heart and I am full of heaviness and I looked for some to take pity but there was none and for comforters but I found none. Is it nothing to you, all you that pass by? Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto My sorrow which is done unto Me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted Me in the day of His fierce anger. He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him and with His stripes we are healed.

Hardware Mispronunciations, pt. 3

It’s been a while since I’ve done any of these, but here are a few more:

Concreek – concrete

Pacifically – specifically (not a hardware item, but a mispronunciation anyway)

Filter head screw driver – Phillips head screw driver

Backpack mower – backpack blower (one of my favorites)

Moss balls – moth balls

Air reflector – air deflector

Wheat scraw – wheat straw

Smacklin’ – spackling

Feedamice – feeder mice

Surgical outlet – the customer was apparently referring to a surge suppressor


I’ve got enough for one more list, so I’ll save the rest for later.

A big waste of time

So I was watching TV and decided to stop by the TV Guide channel to see if anything worth watching was on tonight, when I noticed that Big Brother 9 was coming on tonight. I’ve never watched more than ten seconds of the show, an excruciating ten seconds, I might add. It was painful enough for me not to return to it again.

But Big Brother 9… that means they’ve had nine seasons of it? They’ve been doing that crap for nine years?!? And people are watching it? My goodness. Our country is worse off than I thought.

Feasting on a mountain

I was reading today’s gospel text, John 6:1-14, when a couple of details of the text stood out to me as they never had before. John’s account of the feeding of the five thousand has two details that the other Gospel writers leave out in their accounts (Matt. 14, Mark 6, Luke 9). First, John mentions that “Jesus went up on the mountain”. Secondly, John notes that “the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.”

There are numerous parallels between this and other passages that John probably had in mind. Mountains are mentioned many times in Scripture, notably as places of worship. Among other things, John probably had in mind Moses’ receiving of the Law at Sinai, where Moses received specific instructions about the worship of Israel, and where the people sinfully ate in their worship of the golden calf (1 Cor. 10:7). Later in John 6, Jesus would show the people who followed him that they were idolaters just as those in Israel of old were (vss. 26 and following). Also interesting is John’s noting of the nearness of Passover. In Moses’ meeting of Yahweh at Sinai, Israel had just celebrated their first Passover feast, and so the connection with the golden calf incident is obviously intentional.

But the passage also brought to mind the setting of the Last Supper. John tells us of the celebration of the Passover by Jesus and his disciples (John 13:1. In fact, John notes the nearness of the Passover several times – John 11:55, 12:1 – suggesting that the feast of the Passover plays more than a passing significance in his thinking and writing). He does not show the connection between Passover and what we call Holy Communion (or Holy Eucharist, or the Lord’s Supper – pick your own term) as the other Gospel writers do (Matt. 26, Mark 14, Luke 22), though the allusion to Holy Communion in John 6 has been noted by theologians through the centuries (vss. 53-56). Nor does John note that they celebrated the feast in an upper room (Mark 14:15, Luke 22:12). But this second aspect is worth noting in connection with John 6. While Jesus did not celebrate the Passover with them on a mountain, I think it may be reasonably suggested that in feasting in the upper room they were in fact symbolically feasting on a mountain, paralleling all the other passages dealing with mountains throughout Scripture. The fact that they also went out from there to the Mount of Olives would seem to relate as well.

Sometimes there are no shortcuts

Yesterday at work I overheard a couple of women talking about great Joel Osteen’s latest book is supposed to be. They only spoke of him briefly, expressing how much they love Osteen, before moving on to other topics. Whenever I hear conversations like that, I want to jump in, but often hesitate. I find when people latch onto someone like Osteen, trying to convince them that maybe he isn’t the kind of person they should be listening to is a difficult task. People become defensive when you attack their favorite icon, and often they take your words as an attack on themselves.

Osteen’s goal is in “encouraging” people and making them feel good about themselves, and people are responding in droves. As I’ve alluded to before, this is the same phenomenon that we’re currently witnessing with Barack Obama. He’s an inspirational speaker. He’s a good rhetoritician who speaks of hope and change, and no matter how vacuous the terms are he’s using, people love it. Osteen’s speech is equally vacuous, but the thousands of people who worship him hardly notice.

People of every time period want to be encouraged and want to feel good about themselves, but there’s something in the air in our own time and place that is making more people in want of these things. I’m sure a number of factors have contributed to the current zeitgeist, such as the state of war we’ve been in the past few years, attended by the increase of government intrusion into our lives in the name of “protection”, all of which has generally failed to provide the promised results. The shows on TV are more fast paced, violent, and profane. Even the TV news shows, along with the “reality” shows, are more negative than positive, carrying a sense of power and vindictiveness about them. And so when someone like Osteen comes along, smiling really big, and says lots of feel-good sorts of things, it shouldn’t be a surprise that people attach themselves to him in a emotional way.

For a lot of people, though, I would expect that Osteen provides them with a way of feeling good about themselves without dealing with their guilt. We all sin, even Christians, on a regular basis, and unless we are of the most hard-hearted of individuals, we feel guilty for at least some of those sins. We know instinctively that we can’t just sin without something being done with that sin. And there is a solution, only one solution, to that problem, and that solution is the saving work of Jesus Christ. It is in trusting in Christ’s work that we are saved, whether we are trusting in him for the first time or for the five thousandth time. I think a lot of people turn to Osteen because they haven’t heard the gospel. This should give us an impetus for evangelism in making sure those that we know not only see Christ in us, but also in telling the gospel whenever an opportunity arises.

Part of the blame, then, can rightly be laid at the feet of the church. This is true of the church in regard to her individual members, but also the church as an institution. As I have said in criticizing the institutional church before, so long as the church doesn’t preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, people will look elsewhere for answers for their guilt.

In our part of the country, we also have the problem of people simply misunderstanding the gospel and the character of God. Thanks to various false teachings, such as Weslyan/Pentecostal Perfectionism and Baptistic legalism, people can come to a number of wrong conclusions. For instance, with the kind of teaching that goes on in some Fundamentalist churches, one can easily come to think that God is cranky and stingy and really doesn’t want to forgive anyone. Or one can believe that God is ready to throw off His relationship with them the first time that person commits a sin. It is important that we emphasize the character of God, especially as expressed in the Gospel. People need to know that God isn’t fickle and petty like we are, but instead He overflows with love and forgiveness freely, not only because He is able to do so, but because He wants to.

I think, however, that the followers of Osteen have their own responsibility in this as well. If they turn to God as He requires, many know what this means for them – they will have to be accountable to someone other than themselves, and that they will have to repent of their sins. But this is not only what God requires of us. It is also what is good and right for us. And there is no other way than this to deal with our guilt. Sometimes there are no shortcuts.

So we all need prayer. Those of us who seek to represent Jesus Christ aright need prayer that we might do as we should. Those who idolize Joel Osteen need prayer, that they might turn from worshipping him to worshipping Jesus Christ. And Joel Osteen himself needs prayer, that he might turn from preaching a false gospel, to embracing and preaching the true gospel, which is the only gospel that is.

Melville on Theology

Good theology is like a good garden.

--Herman Melville, The Confidence Man

Hannity and Colmes

TONIGHT ON HANNITY AND COLMES: Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes will accomplish nothing of real value as they insult one another and talk over top of their guests, all while creating a sense of excitement to deceive you into thinking something important is happening. Don’t miss it!

Pietism...

...is driving 10 mph below the speed limit.

Preaching

I first left the church of my youth, a Plymouth Brethren assembly, in 1999. I had come to Reformed convictions through a few years of thought and study, and, after trying for awhile to be Reformed and remain in the Brethren church at the same time, I picked up my hungry soul, pulled up several years of roots (ecclesiastically speaking), and went in search of a church where I could plant myself and be nourished for some time to come.

I have been in my current church for over two years now and, while it isn’t really Reformed, I believe for the moment it is where I should be. I still visit other churches on occasion, though, where friends of mine attend. Between leaving the Brethren and the present day, I’ve been in a number of churches of a variety of theological traditions: Presbyterian, Lutheran, Evangelical Covenant, Christian & Missionary Alliance, Baptist, and Anglican. And through this experience, I’ve learned that one problem exists across the denominational perspective: there is a serious lack of good preaching and teaching.

I’m no pastor. And I’ve only taught on a handful of occasions. In spite of this, I recognize that preaching is a difficult job. In order to do either right, one has to spend hours of time preparing by reading Scripture, commentaries, and other theological literature. A properly trained pastor, I believe, should know Greek and Hebrew, and therefore be able to look at the relevant passages in the original languages. And then there’s simply the matter of time praying and meditating in conjunction with the sermon or lesson one is preparing. When one thinks of doing this in the midst of other pastoral duties and the other responsibilities of life, it is enough to make one want to pass the job on to someone else.

I’ve also never studied the theology and practice of preaching, so I don’t pretend to be an expert on the subject. And if I ever have the opportunity to preach, I might end up resembling my own criticisms here. Nonetheless, I think the lack I’ve noticed is real. The problems vary from church to church, and the confessional stance can play no small part in the problems. If a church is Dispensational, for instance, the pastor in that church will almost inevitably misunderstand any passage directly related to eschatological matters. During the time I was in a Presbyterian church, I heard enough sermons about election that I didn’t care if I heard another one in my life. Also, no pastor knows everything. It’s easy for a theology wonk like myself to throw tomatoes, thinking he’s so much smarter than the pastor. We often aren’t as good at seeing our own faults as we are the faults of others. Through the years I’ve learned, I hope, a small measure of humility in approaching questions like this.

All this considered, I’ve come up with a couple of questions that I look for to be answered in each sermon I hear. For me, this isn’t the type of thing where I’m holding up cue cards and rating each sermon I hear. This is far more personal than that for me. It’s about whether or not I leave the church satisfied that I’ve been fed on Sunday morning. Because I consider it so important, these questions are ones that I believe each pastor should ask himself as he prepares his sermons.

1. “Am I saying what the text says?” or “What does the text say?”

This probably will seem on the face of it to be so obvious as to make you wonder why I would even mention it. And the reason is that so often the minister in question doesn’t do it. I’ve noticed this in churches I’ve been to, and in most of the preachers I hear on Christian radio. I was speaking with a friend about this this afternoon. He named a particular local preacher that has a radio show and who broadcasts his sermons on public access television. The fellow, like so many others, claims to teach the Bible “verse by verse”. But it is a false claim. I’m sure he thinks he is doing it – I wouldn’t try to impugn the man’s character. But he skips over verses as he is teaching, only seeking to bring out the points that serve his purpose, whatever that may be. The other mistake connected with this is the tendency to use the text simply as a launching point from which the pastor jumps into talking about whatever topic he wants to teach on. I’m not a big fan of so-called “topical sermons” for that reason. This is common in the Evangelical preachers I hear on the radio. Rather than talking their way through a passage of Scripture, difficult passages and all, they start in one text and move on to several after it in succession, using Scripture as a series of disconnected wise sayings. It is a result of American Pragmatism and the fragmented way of thinking we’re all guilty of. This is also a problem in Reformed circles, where we have a tendency to think of Scripture merely as a justification (pardon the pun) for our abstract theological systems. One of the most important things for us to learn in our day is that if God had wanted to give us either a systematic theology, or a book of moral instruction, He would have done it. But he didn’t. While the Bible has theology, and moral instructions, the book God gave us is bigger and more complex than that. If we don’t begin by preaching the way it speaks, then we’ve already begun on the wrong foot.

2. “Where is Jesus in this passage?”

There is a school of biblical interpretation called the Redemptive-Historical School that is known for placing this question at the center of its emphasis. For any who might be wondering, I’m not attempting to side especially with this school in bringing up this question since, as I mentioned before, I haven’t really studied preaching formally. Yet I think the Redemptive-Historicists are at least right in saying that this is a question that every sermon should answer. If Jesus could show his disciples on the road to Emmaus how Moses and all the prophets spoke of him (Luke 24:27), then that means he’s in there, wherever we look. This, in fact, is the point of the New Testament. Jesus fulfilled all of the Old Testament, and the New Testament writers spend all their time explaining that and showing how that shapes all of life. But pastors often seem scared of Jesus. This happens with those who preach in Fundamentalist form, where the emphasis is on my sin and my need to “make a decision for Jesus”. But Jesus’ attributes and work are almost incidental in sermons like this, because the sermon is really all about me. Then there is the tendency of pastors to gravitate toward the latter portion of each epistle, where the “practical” teaching is, and skipping over the first halves, which are more difficult to explain and understand, and which deal particularly with Christ’s person and work. But this is a case of our fragmented thinking again. When the NT writers wrote, they intended the first portions of their epistles to create the framework in which the latter portions should be interpreted. If we don’t read them that way, then we fail to understand fully what they were trying to teach.

I keep hoping one day to hear a sermon that’s just about how great Jesus is, but maybe that’s wishful thinking on my part. In lieu of that, I can still hope that preachers will begin talking more about Jesus. For my part, I get practicality all day long, because the world around me is full of it. Pagans love anything that will improve their lives, because all they really care about is themselves anyway. But it’s Jesus Christ and him crucified that I need to hear and see, if he really is to be the object of my faith. The fact that it’s him the world hates should probably tip us off to the fact that it’s him we should be obsessed with.

In closing, let me say that this is a fairly unread blog. I don’t know who reads it. And maybe out of those who do, not a one is a pastor. But whoever you are, let me ask you: do you think that I’m right in what I’ve written here? If so, I’d like to know. But if you don’t feel comfortable commenting, consider passing these questions on to your pastors or your elders. Unless someone starts the conversation about this, nothing will be done to improve things.

Pants Wars

I ran across the following bit of Star Wars humor as I was sorting out some old emails. I originally found it a couple of years ago over here.


Lines from Star Wars that can be improved if you substitute the word "Pants" for key words:

We've got to be able to get some reading on those pants, up or down.

The pants may not look like much, kid, but they've got it where it counts.

I find your lack of pants disturbing.

These pants contain the ultimate power in the Universe. I suggest we use it.

Han will have those pants down. We've got to give him more time!

General Veers, prepare your pants for a ground assault.

I used to bulls-eye womp-rats in my pants back home.

TK-421. . . Why aren't you in your pants?

Lock the door. And hope they don't have pants.

You are unwise to lower your pants.

She must have hidden the plans in her pants. Send a detachment down to retrieve them. See to it personally Commander.

Governor Tarkin. I recognized your foul pants when I was brought on board.

You look strong enough to pull the pants of a Gundark.

Luke. . . Help me remove these pants.

Great, Chewie, great. Always thinking with your pants.

That blast came from those pants. That thing's operational!

A tremor in the pants. The last time I felt this was in the presence of my old master.

Don't worry. Chewie and I have gotten into pants a lot more heavily guarded than this.

Maybe you'd like it back in your pants, your highness.

Your pants betray you. Your feelings for them are strong. Especially one. . . Your sister!

Jabba doesn't have time for smugglers who drop their pants at the first sign of an Imperial Cruiser.

Short pants is better than no pants at all.

Occasional Riddle #7

Why is it that, in preparing to have company over, the goal is to make one’s house appear as if nobody lives there?

The state of theology in the Atlantic Coast Conference

From a sign in the audience at tonight’s Duke – Wake basketball game:

A DEVIL’S GOT NOTHING ON A DEMON!

This is what happens when a Baptist college goes liberal.

Lenten Freedom

I wrote this piece last year about this time, at the beginning of Lent, and since we are in the Lenten season again, I thought it might be appropriate to write a few more thoughts. My feelings and thoughts about the practice have not significantly changed since last year. I am still inconsistent in my Lenten observance, I still have a concern about legalism, and I still have a concern about the tendency to focus on one’s own piety rather than on Christ. This came up again for me as I was glancing back over Calvin’s comments on fasting in his Institutes, in book 4, chapter 12, sections 19 and 20. Calvin speaks of three errors in fasting: the error of fasting as a mere outward observance as divorced from inward repentance; the error of regarding “fasting as a work of merit or a form of divine worship”; and a third error, which Calvin explains as follows:

…to require it to be kept too strictly and rigidly as if it were one of the chief duties, and to extol it with such immoderate praises that men think they have done something noble when they have fasted. In this respect, I dare not wholly absolve the ancient writers from having sown certain seeds of superstition and having furnished the occasion of the tyranny which afterward arose. In them one sometimes comes across sane and wise statements about fasting, but later one repeatedly meets immoderate praises of fasting, which set it up among the chief virtues.

At that time the superstitious observance of Lent had prevailed everywhere, because the common people thought that in it they were doing some exceptional service to God, and the pastors commended it as a holy imitation of Christ. On the contrary, it is plain that Christ did not fast to set an example for others, but to prove, in so beginning to proclaim the gospel, that it was no human doctrine but actually one sent from heaven [Matt. 4:2]. And the marvel is that such sheer hallucination (which is refuted so often and with such clear arguments) could creep upon men of keen judgment. For Christ does not fast often – as he would have to do if he had willed to lay down a law of yearly fasting – but only once, when he girded himself for the proclamation of the gospel. Nor does he fast in human fashion, as would have been fitting if he willed to arouse men to imitate him; but he shows an example rather to transport all men to admiration of him than to arouse them with zeal to imitate him.

Calvin proceeds from here on in discussing the history of fasting in the church, but this section contains the part that really struck me. Let me say first that I think Calvin overstates his case when he sets Christ as Saviour as over against Christ as example. He is to be both for us. In fact, one of the purposes of the church calendar is that we might order our lives after Christ in a symbolic yet real way, and I think this is a good thing. Yet the problem in the church prior to Calvin had been exactly the opposite, that of neglecting Christ as Saviour in favour of Christ as example. This rang especially true for me, having observed Catholic and Anglo-Catholic practices over the past few years. It is understandable for one (whether clergy or laity) to look at the immorality of our society and think that the pressing need is to emphasize self-discipline and personal piety, or, as traditional Reformed and Lutheran dogmatics has called it, the Law. But as Calvin here points out, the real answer for lawlessness is the work of Jesus Christ, that is, the Gospel. That isn’t to say that the Law shouldn’t be preached. But the Law can save no one, not even Christians. Certainly, I can’t just ignore my sin. I have to flee sin. But the power to flee sin comes from the Gospel. We access this power by worshipping Christ. Christ’s first concern is that we, as Calvin put it, admire Him. Without adoring Christ first, and keeping Him ever before us in our thoughts and our hearts, our pursuit of holiness will be in vain.

In light of this matter of the centrality of the work of Jesus Christ, I was thinking of the following song the other day, entitled "Jesus Christ the Apple Tree". This is a song I return to often, especially when I find myself struggling with some sin or despairing over a sinful habit I can’t seem to kick. Notice the emphasis on resting in Christ. The songwriter, who is unknown, does not say, “I’m done with my former licentiousness, I will now get busy for Jesus.” He says, “I’m weary with my former toil, I will now rest in Jesus.” The point here is that Christ, and Christ alone, saves. This is not to say we don’t have to strive for holiness. But even my holiness isn’t my work; it is the work of a sovereign God. And when all is said and done, I will be saved, and it will be Christ who saves me. The words have been set to different tunes, but the tune I prefer is featured on the cd Faire is the Heaven: Music of the English Church, by the Cambridge Singers. In process of locating the words on the web, I found this video of the Choir of King’s College in Cambridge singing the song to the same tune as the Cambridge Singers. Those of you who are of a more scholarly bent might find it interesting that the tune is structured in a sort of chiastic fashion, with the first and fifth verses having only the melody and therefore being the simplest, and the middle verse being the most complex harmonically.


The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green:
The tree of life my soul hath seen,
Laden with fruit and always green:
The trees of nature fruitless be
Compared with Christ the apple tree.

His beauty doth all things excel:
By faith I know, but ne’er can tell,
His beauty doth all things excel:
By faith I know, but ne'er can tell
The glory which I now can see
In Jesus Christ the apple tree.

For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought:
For happiness I long have sought,
And pleasure dearly I have bought:
I missed of all; but now I see
'Tis found in Christ the apple tree.

I'm weary with my former toil,
Here I will sit and rest a while:
I'm weary with my former toil,
Here I will sit and rest a while:
Under the shadow I will be,
Of Jesus Christ the apple tree.

This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive:
This fruit doth make my soul to thrive,
It keeps my dying faith alive:
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the apple tree.

Potty Humor of a Different Sort

Today after meeting a friend for lunch I wandered over to one of our local Barnes & Noble stores for a stroll among the books and magazines. My first stop as I entered the store, however, was the men’s facilities. As I stepped into one of the stalls and latched the door shut, I turned and was met with the sort of scribbled writing usually conjured by the less clever individuals of our society, often of the jilted lover set. It read “Call Alexis for…”, and the rest of the sentence, no doubt profane beyond what I would be willing to repeat, had been marked through to the point of illegibility. Above it and in its place another person had written “bad grammar and spelling errors.” That’s right. The entire sentence now read, “Call Alexis for bad grammar and spelling errors.” No doubt this was better than what Alexis had formerly been accused of. I was at that moment very glad to be the only one in the restroom, as I was barely able to keep my laughter at a sputtered giggle, having in mind the patrons sitting in armchairs amidst the religion section less than twenty feet away where they were, I’m sure, reading and meditating in deep spiritual ecstasy. What I really wanted to do was howl uproariously, but that would have made leaving the restroom embarrassing to say the least and would have called several of the employees to my presence in order to discover the cause of the commotion. Thankfully I had a good minute or so of muffled chortling before I heard the bathroom door open, at which point I stifled my sniggling with no small amount of concentrated discipline.

Only in Barnes & Noble would you find graffiti like that.

More on Obama

Barack Obama wins in Maine, and is closing in on Hillary very quickly in the delegate counts. I’m not particularly surprised. Hillary has always struck me as too fake and too, shall we say, tense a person to convince enough of America that she’s worthy of the office of president.

One thing that concerns me about the number of people voting for Obama, however, is the reasons that I often hear (both in one on one conversations and from individuals speaking on tv) people giving when asked why they think he’s a good candidate. The most common reason I hear is that they think he is a good speaker. They find him to be convincing and encouraging. Adolf Hitler was convincing and encouraging too, lest we forget. A person’s ability in oratory means nothing other than that he’s a convincing speaker. It says nothing about the value of the ideas he’s trying to convince you of. The saddest thing in my saying this, however, is that most people who would read this would think I was comparing Adolf Hitler and Barack Obama in a one to one correspondence, therefore implying that Obama is somehow a racist. It seems to me very obvious that he is not, and unless I were to say it that clearly, the aforementioned person who thought I was calling him a racist would miss it completely. So let me make it even clearer: Obama isn’t a racist. How’s that for clarity?

There is one other area in which Obama is very close to Hitler, however, and that is that they are/were both Socialists. But you can also list other Socialists with them, such as Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, George Bush Sr., George Bush Jr., John McCain, and Mike Huckabee. So the title of “Socialist” is actually of little distinction.

The other reason I hear people give for voting for Obama is that he’s black. That America has finally come to a place beyond its racially segregated days that a black man can run for president and have a very good chance of winning is a good thing. But to think that a person qualifies for president just because of their race shows the lack of wisdom that pervades our nation. It seems to me that it was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself who said he longed for the day when a man would be judged for his character and not for the color of his skin. It doesn’t matter if you’re judging a person to be evil simply because of the color of their skin, or if you’re judging them to be good because of the color of their skin. The color of one’s skin still has nothing to do with whether or not they’ll be a good president. Therefore, those who vote for Obama because he is black are not only betraying the legacy of Dr. King and dishonoring him, they are in effect seeking to lead America back to the racist era that Dr. King fought so hard to bring America out of.

The wisest thing for one to do then is to find out what the candidates believe, to the best of your ability, and vote for the one you think will best follow the requirements of the office of the president. Inasmuch as that means upholding the Constitution, there is only one candidate qualified for the job, and that is Ron Paul.

But if that isn’t good for you, check out this page that features the positions of the five major remaining candidates side by side. Take note especially of the bracket labeled “Proposed Government Spending Changes”. While Paul wants to cut spending by $150 billion, Obama wants to raise spending by $287 billion. And that isn’t money that the government has stored somewhere in Washington. That means Obama intends to raise taxes. Here is the page the information was derived from. You will find the various spending analyses of each candidate broken down in detail on that website.