The Mixed Multitude

Gen. 50 - And when the days of weeping for him were past, Joseph spoke to the household of Pharaoh, saying, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, please speak in the ears of Pharaoh, saying,  ‘My father made me swear, saying, “I am about to die: in my tomb that I hewed out for myself in the land of Canaan, there shall you bury me.” Now therefore, let me please go up and bury my father. Then I will return.’”  And Pharaoh answered, “Go up, and bury your father, as he made you swear.”

Exodus 5 - Afterward Moses and Aaron went and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let my people go, that they may hold a feast to me in the wilderness.’” 2 But Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, and moreover, I will not let Israel go.”

A fairly obvious contrast between Pharaohs, when you put them side by side, echoing what we’re told in Ex. 1: “Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.” Both “goings out” were announced as being for occasional purposes, the first a funeral, the second a feast to Yahweh.

Genesis 50 - 7 So Joseph went up to bury his father. With him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his household, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, 8 as well as all the household of Joseph, his brothers, and his father's household. Only their children, their flocks, and their herds were left in the land of Goshen. 9 And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen. It was a very great company.

Exodus 12 - 37 And the people of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. 38 A mixed multitude also went up with them, and very much livestock, both flocks and herds. 

In both cases a mixed body of those who were children of Abraham and those who weren’t went out to participate alongside of Israel. By “mixed multitude”, we’re told that it wasn’t only Israelites who went with Israel when they left Egypt, but others who were living in the land, probably including Egyptians and those from other places who were living in Egypt but neither Egyptian nor Hebrew. 

Any semblance of a “racially pure” Hebrew people disappeared fairly early in Israel’s history. Even Joseph married a daughter of an Egyptian. The covenant was kept and passed from generation to generation, from fathers to their sons. But while the covenant with God was familial, it was never racial. Israel was always “mixed”, however one might try to define that.

At that point the contrast that supposedly exists between Israel and the Church falls apart. Israel was never a racially pure entity in such a way that distinguishes it from the New Covenant body we call the Church. Isaiah stresses over several chapters that the Good News is that Yahweh’s covenant body Israel would spread the corners of her tent so that the Gentile nations could come in and join eternally with her in covenant with Yahweh, so that all peoples of the earth could be a part of Israel.

3 

Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say,

    “The Lord will surely separate me from his people”;

and let not the eunuch say,

    “Behold, I am a dry tree.”

4 

For thus says the Lord:

“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,

    who choose the things that please me

    and hold fast my covenant,

5 

I will give in my house and within my walls

    a monument and a name

    better than sons and daughters;

I will give them an everlasting name

    that shall not be cut off.

6 

“And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord,

    to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord,

    and to be his servants,

everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it,

    and holds fast my covenant—

7 

these I will bring to my holy mountain,

    and make them joyful in my house of prayer;

their burnt offerings and their sacrifices

    will be accepted on my altar;

for my house shall be called a house of prayer

    for all peoples.”

8 

The Lord God,

    who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares,

“I will gather yet others to him

    besides those already gathered.” (Isaiah 56)

And, as Paul says, Jew and Gentile have been made one in Christ. What already existed has merely been amplified in the New Covenant, as the people of God were detached from any earthly national body known as Israel to become a new, trans-national creation. What remains is a people and a kingdom whose King is physically seated and ruling in Heaven over all creation. There is no “Replacement Theology”. The Church is Israel.

Holder’s Op-Ed

Every op-ed by somebody like Holder is strategic. When he crawls out from under his rock to write something like this, you know something’s up. In one sense, this is the best opportunity to overturn the culture the Communists, including some of Obama’s former administration, have ever had. But at the same time, they know Barr has their number. They’re terrified.

I suspect, too, that the Dems won’t resist finding some way of going after Barr the way they have Trump, and, having found their impeachment efforts to be a failure, will proceed after him in a more determined way shortly.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eric-holder-william-barr-is-unfit-to-be-attorney-general/2019/12/11/99882092-1c55-11ea-87f7-f2e91143c60d_story.html

The Suckers We Are

Greta Thunberg was a nobody, so far as the United States was concerned, a few months back. No one here had heard of her. But she was being lifted up in Europe and pushed forward as somebody that should be paid attention to. The international organizations were all behind her, grooming her, and using her for their propaganda in Europe. You could see it in all their media, all while we were still oblivious. And over the past three months, she’s become somebody well known here also, for no substantial reason whatsoever. She has accomplished nothing worth our paying attention to.

And yet this is how we get suckered. Every time. We’d do better to simply ignore people like this. The problem, of course, is getting everybody on board with that plan. It’s impossible.

Across the Wastelands

Day two: searching the wastelands. I’ve survived thus far on the few morsels and scraps of food I’ve been able to turn up. The results have been poor so far, with little hope in conditions changing. I’ve run across the remains of a few fellow stragglers, many days long expired, laying in their tattered tents, or huddled beneath the sparse branches of nearly dead trees. The scenes have been gruesome, too gruesome to describe. I am nauseous even now as I remember them. 

But in the midst of it all I ran across one man not quite gone. He simply called himself The Follower. It had been so long since anyone had called him anything else that he couldn’t even remember his real name. But there was no time for details beyond that, as he was almost gone. I sat with him, telling him of all I had seen, trying to distract him from the pain until he was dead.

He said he had heard rumors of signs of hope in the West, the direction I had already been going. These were his last words before his breath left him. I hope he is right.

I had neither the tools nor the strength to bury him, so I left him where he lay, regretfully. I can only pray the rumors he heard were true. I travel on.

Batman V Superman: a Biblical Epic

I just learned that the Kryptonite spear that Batman used in Batman v Superman was supposed to be a reference to the spear used to pierce Jesus’ side. It finally occurred to me recently, after several watchings, that Zack Snyder intended this film - probably including the three Justice League films he intended to follow it - to be his version of a Biblical epic, a la “The Greatest Story Ever Told”. The themes of the lack of faith Superman was surrounded by, and the internal struggle that Superman dealt with throughout the film as he felt the weight of people’s doubts and his responsibilities, were intended to reflect that. Compare this to the doubt Jesus was surrounded by, even in “Greatest Story” - from Herod, from his disciples, and so on. If you watch the Crucifixion scene in “Greatest Story” and put it side by side with the end battle and death scene in BVS, you see the color palette is the same, as is other imagery, such as the presence of crosses in BVS. The film failed in some ways, and some folks didn’t like the heavy-handed allusions, but the brilliance of it has to be acknowledged. The goal never was to make something along the lines of an Avengers film, but something weightier.

The Air’s Thinner At the Top

Elitist: “I don’t understand why these people voted for Trump. Don’t they trust us?

{pays $120 thousand for fruit taped to wall}

I mean, it makes no sense.”

The Impeachment Racket

Today Putin of Russia and Zelensky of Ukraine are meeting in an attempt to end their conflict.

So if you’re keeping score, according to the Dems, President Trump was in cahoots with Russia and Ukraine, but the relationship with Ukraine was in favor of Russia somehow, even though Ukraine and Russia hate each other and have been in conflict for years.

That’s a bit like saying cheating on your wife will improve your relationship with your wife. And if anyone’s confused about this (the Dems), there’s no universe in which that works out well for anybody.

And the U.S. pull back from Syria was in favor of Russia, we’re told, instead of being about the amount of money and resources we’ve expended to our own detriment in our international meddling for decades, or about the degree to which our own people have suffered for it, and about the need of other countries to take care of their own responsibilities, which we’ve been talking about forever, and which has been the President’s constant drumbeat. And it can’t possibly be about the fact that Syria has been about regime change for the socialist globalist order, which always ends up with minority communities devastated, including Christian communities, about which the conversation was going long before Trump was president.

And Al Green today is telling us that President Trump needs to be impeached because something-something-slavery.

If your head’s spinning, then you’re reacting correctly.

Stephen Amell’s Retirement

Stephen: This is a...serious...situation.

His wife: We’re just out of milk. I’ll pick some up after lunch. And you can stop whispering all the time, honey. You aren’t on the show anymore. You’re at home. Why don’t you take off the hoodie and go watch some tv?

Stephen: {looks around} Can we have the room please? Felicity and I need to talk for a minute. Alone.

His wife: We’re the only ones here, Stephen. Okay, we’re going to get you some therapy.

Libertarians and Conservatives Debate Your “Freedoms”

The current debate between Libertarians and Conservatives on Twitter is whether or not p@rnography should be made illegal. Let’s take a second to appreciate the fact that we’re in such a place culturally and politically that we believe that’s a conversation worth having, which suggests it may actually be something we could see happen. Wherever we land on it, the biggest obstacle in in the spiritual realm. If clarity of the Gospel and holiness of life are not present in individuals, families, and churches, trying to make laws is a vain endeavor.

Those who think this question shouldn’t even be considered hold a fundamental misunderstanding as to what a healthy society and culture looks like. The greatness of our society is not determined by the extent of our individuality/independence, any more than it is determined by our collective diversity, however each of those is defined. The greatness of our society is determined by our conformity to that which is good, true, and beautiful, as defined according to transcendent standards, that is, the person and character of the Triune God, revealed through His Creation and His Word.

That Doesn’t Follow

“Conservatives obviously don’t really care about the unborn, because they don’t care about the rights of women, immigrants, and LGBTQ people.” 

That’s what’s called a Non Sequitur, which is a logical fallacy. Aside from any other errors that might be in the above statement, it doesn’t follow that just because you don’t care about one person that then you must not really care about another person. A man can love his wife dearly and not particularly care for his annoying co-worker.

Then we can move on to the question of whether or not the supposed “rights” assumed in the above statement really are rights.

Greed Run Amuck

Trump’s administration is rolling back regulations at a rapid pace, which has been one the best things about it. But there has also been an element of guilt on the part of manufacturers in the failing quality of products over the past few decades. Things that were once made to quality in the U.S. lost that quality when they began to be made overseas (clothing is a great example). Beyond that, products are being made by the companies who make them to not last. It is greed that is out of control. Plastic parts replace metal parts. And the one who suffers is the common man, who would just like to get his money’s worth out of what he buys.

https://fee.org/articles/how-government-wrecked-the-gas-can/

Man is Born for Trouble

Had a yearly physical with the doctor yesterday. He said he was two years out from losing his mother; one year out, almost to the day, of losing his daughter to a drug overdose; and he was going to have to put down his 12 year old dog after leaving work last night. We encounter innumerable people on any given day, but rarely know all they’re dealing with. “Everybody hurts,” as REM told us. Or, maybe better, “Man is born for trouble as the sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7). If you are living a life that has been relatively free of death or other major struggles, you are unusual in this world. But the trouble will eventually find you. And when it does, you won’t be ready for it, as much as you might think you will. There is an ease to it for those who are in Christ, that is true. We know it has a purpose and a final destination, and that gives comfort. It was decreed and ordered by your loving Father for His glory and your eternal good. But as much as Christ really felt the nails, so will you. It is in holding the sympathy and promises of God before you as you go through it that you maintain hope, grow in faith, and, even in the darkness, find joy.

The Problem of Coddling?

Is overnurturing the problem with people today? Is it softness in general, and a result, as is often suggested, of “participation trophies”?

The attitude of the parent(s) doing the overnurturing or undernurturing is the key. A child knows when the parent is insecure and then either is controlling and violates boundaries, or takes the route of neglect or harshness, also the result of insecurity on the part of the parent. In either case the parent isn’t trusting in God, but worships other things, which leads to the wrong attitudes and actions. When the parent doesn’t trust God, the child is being trained to not trust God, which leads to the child not living in obedience to God when he or she gets older. That’s why when a parent or other authority figure reacts to softness with cruel harshness the latter is just as destructive. There’s a failure of the parent to reflect accurately on the humanity of that child (as made in the image of God) and all it entails, too - that they’re worthy of respect, able and responsible to handle their own lives, and so on.

Adding too...the nurture of the parent who isn’t trusting in God, as much as that parent might give to the child and be nurturing, ends up not being truly nurturing, because the parent is doing it for themselves, selfishly, to prove to people they’re a good parent, to impress others, to find their security in the acceptance of themselves by the child rather than Christ, etc.

Run, Barry, Run

Things the Fastest Man Alive can’t outrun, according to the CW Flash show:

Ice blasts
Energy blasts
Flame throwers
Atomic blast shockwaves
Arrows
At least half the other speedsters on the show
The future
His destiny
Twue Wuv
The personal descent into self-pity and loathing
The series writers’ bizarre agendas
Probably a paper airplane, if the kid making the airplane gets the creases on it really tight

Black Widow, pt. 2

We already know it’s going to have its share of feminist tropes, such as the women tearing down the men verbally. I think they’re setting up a Russia-U.S. alliance, with the Thunderbolts as the new (Dark) Avengers being spearheaded by Thunderbolt Ross, who will either here or later become the Red Hulk. So you’ll get heavy-handed Trump administration analogies here and in later films. This is basically Marvel’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”, Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “Herland” inverted. Anti-Feminist dystopian USSR/Russia in union with patriarchal America. They’d probably bring in Hydra Cap from the comics, the version of Steve Rogers that has always been a Nazi, but I expect that’s something Kevin Feige would say no to.

Black Widow

The trailer looks great. But the director made it obvious early on that she was interested in pushing a feminist agenda through the film. The fact that they did make Red Guardian fat for the film, and had another character point it out in the trailer, is a tip-off for what direction this movie is going in. Women tearing down men to make themselves feel or look better is the classic feminist trope. And with the Russia setting as part of this, expect the movie to be overflowing with analogies to our current administration. Cultural Marxism as an epidemic carries on.

The Mandalorian

Lone Ranger Mandalorian and Yoda Cub is excellent so far. It’s definitely the best thing Disney has done with Star Wars, and probably the best thing since the original trilogy. We’ve had years in which the female and the effeminate have increasingly run all things sci-fi and fantasy, and we finally get something now that’s more representative the masculinity of Western Culture. The sparsity of dialogue fits the genre(s), though you can’t help but think that Disney knows it’s walking a tightrope with Star Wars right now, that they’ve alienated most of their male fans, and the less that is said in the show, the less likely they are to say something Leftist and foolish, something that will cost them more money in the end. You can’t help but watch the show with some skepticism though, looking for the worn out Commie shoe to drop. I’m expecting the Yoda cub to be a girl and waiting for the first transgender droid that identifies as a Wookie to show up.

Barry Allen, For the Life of the World

The Flash tv show has been infected with SJWism since season 1, with it getting progressively worse throughout. They’re attempting to redeem themselves a bit this season though, setting up Barry Allen as the Christ-figure to lay himself down for the life of the world in the coming Crisis. Having found himself to be unable to choose otherwise and the only one able to carry out the saving work, his friends take different attitudes in the face of his impending departure. Cisco, his best friend to his right, plays the role of both Judas and John, betraying Barry, but for the purpose of trying to save him. The inevitability of death has been the key theme of the season, which includes a villain trying to cure himself of cancer who also manages to create zombies in the process - the undead, clear symbols of the resurrection. The show writers manage to work in some George Romero references in the process. Then there’s the new version of time- and dimension- traveling H. Wells, this time an adventurer a la Indiana Jones, giving us a “Raiders” and “Last Crusade” reference. 

They also treat us with the Last Supper tableau featured below.

Now if they can get away from the Cultural Marxism that infests the show otherwise, they’ll be good to go.

Sin, Suffering, and the Cross

As Reformed believers, we’re good at holding on to the fact that sin is sin. Just because a person is reacting sinfully to a bad situation doesn’t mean their sin isn’t sin, nor does it excuse them.

But it still remains a fact - and one we seem to want to ignore often - that people often speak from a place of pain. Again, that doesn’t justify any sin on their part. But the pain is still there for them. The truth is we often run to pointing out their sin and hang exclusively on that because we find their pain to be an inconvenience we don’t want to deal with.

A reactionary response to a therapeutic culture is wrong when it denies the reality of suffering, suffering which our Lord Himself affirmed in His own suffering on the cross.

Circumcision and Baptism in Col. 2

In the debate on the connection between circumcision and baptism, you get all the debate on what connection there is, if any, between vss. 11 and 12 in Col. 2. But it seems to me that vs. 13 seals the deal (pardon the pun): "And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses...". To be uncircumcised is to be dead. You need to be circumcised (vs. 11), you need to put off your flesh by being buried (vs. 12), so then you can be raised from the dead with Christ. OT circumcision => NT baptism.

Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is a good writer. He isn't spinning out random, unconnected thoughts or doctrines. We might have a hard time following his flow of thought at times, but that there is a flow is apparent.

God's Not Dead

Today everyone is abuzz about the movie "Noah". But I'm still thinking about "God's Not Dead", which I saw a week ago. Here are a few belated thoughts.

I kind of knew what to expect going into the film. There's always this hope, when going to see a Christian movie, that this one will be the one to pleasantly surprise you with a good script, good acting, no melodrama, no Christian cliches, etc. "God's Not Dead" isn't that film. It follows all the predictability of the typical Christian movie.

The acting was largely stilted and lacking depth. Kevin Sorbo is a good actor, and handled his parts well. But the rest of the acting ranged between stiff and melodramatic, and sometimes both at the same time. There were a few other highlights, other than with Sorbo, but it was largely pretty bad. But one can't entirely blame the cast. No doubt the directing and the script were partially to blame.

The script came across as several interconnected scenes from a Jack Chick tract (I'm not the first to point out the Chick tract connection). Sure, the scenes somewhat reflected reality. But they were too distantly related to anything real to be more than cartoonish. While the movie was loosely based on college court cases defending Christian freedom, have you ever known a college professor who would give a student three classes to defend the existence of God? Or a student, in a 100-level class, smart enough to do it successfully? Or how about an atheist professor who in a moment of anger would openly admit, before his whole class, to hating God because he believed God had let him down? The crowning jewel of silliness came after the student's last defense, when all the students one by one stood up and proclaimed "God's not dead". What world would this ever happen in? No, God isn't dead, praise His Name. But He deserves better than this.

I will leave the apologetics to the apologists to deal with, if they care to bother. I will note that the apologetics followed a largely Evangelical line. Two things to point out is the critique of the Big Bang, and the appeal to free will. My guess is that most of the audience is like me, in that the apologetics portions went by too fast and in too scattered a way to be of any help. But I have a feeling that learning the apologetics wasn't really the point. Christian movies, I've figured out, tend to serve as a sort of pep rally, or cheerleading session. The purpose is to get Christians pumped up about Christiany sorts of things, whether they are rooted in Scripture or not. If you're looking for any substance in a movie like this, your expectations are wrong.

There were a couple of bright spots. The young lady coming to grips with her cancer was moving, if overdone. The scene near the end of the movie, when the elderly woman with dementia began speaking truth out of the blue to her angry businessman son, was like something out of Flannery O'Connor. Quite good. But for every good scene like these, there were several more that were horrible.

I think the most appalling scene for me came at the end of the movie. Here, we see the atheist professor, struggling with his atheism, and running to a Newsboys concert to find his girlfriend (or wife?). Only in a Christian film. He gets struck by a car, and has the weirdest, most unrealistic conversation with a pastor, as his life slips away. The professor dies, and we are immediately taken to the concert, where Willie Robertson, via video, somewhat mocks the professor, who we've just watched die. How the heck this could have gotten past the final edit, without it being seen how distasteful the whole thing was, is beyond me. Then we are taken back to the street where the accident happened, and we see the pastor with his missionary friend, rejoicing that the professor, having accepted Jesus into his heart, is now in heaven. But is this realistic? Where is the mourning and sorrow in the face of death and suffering? The coldness and shallowness of the whole thing was disturbing.

A similar scene, right before this, is worth mentioning. The young lady with cancer, who is a reporter, barges in on the Newsboys before their concert, in an effort to cause them to doubt their faith. And again, the lack of emotional depth in the way the woman's sickness is dealt with is shocking.

One can take these scenes, and the whole film, into consideration, and reasonably wonder if this is really a reflection how the Christian community views suffering, death, life, and salvation. If so, then it would explain why the world doesn't look to us in their troubles. We really are out of touch with reality. And making movies like this helps none at all.

"Son of God" - A Movie Review

I went to see "Son of God" on Friday, because if you're going to run your mouth, you might as well know what you're talking about.  Here are a few brief thoughts.  (There will probably be spoilers.  Yes, spoilers - and you thought you knew the story.)

Cinematographically, I thought it was well done overall.  There were a few places that were hard to take seriously in that regard.  Jesus floating over the water on the Sea of Galilee made it look like they ran out of money when time came for the finishing touches.

Acting was mixed.  It's hard to get any Christian film without bad acting or overacting, and there was both here.  You hate to criticize anything so sacred as a portrayal of the sufferings and crucifixion of Christ, especially when going to a film like this is an act of serious devotion for so many people.  But I honestly had a hard time with the way some of the crucifixion scene was done acting-wise. 

The portrayal of Jesus was fairly effeminate.  Lines were often spoken in a breathy, non-offensive way, kind of like in a chick flick.  If we're looking to inspire men to live great lives of masculinity, this isn't going to help.

One of the most comical scenes in the movie - unintentionally so - was when Jesus met Peter while he was fishing.  The line in the trailer, where Jesus tells Peter they were going to change the world, was just too much.  Immediately thereafter, the camera panned across Jesus and Peter in the boat, staring out at the sea, in "hero shot" fashion.  I think this was one of the points in the movie where I laughed out loud in the theater.  There were a couple of those "hero shots", and they were hilarious each time.

Slow motion shots were in abundance - make that over-abundance.  Again, I couldn't help laughing at them, and the over-seriousness in them.

Of course, there was no point in the film that you were supposed to be laughing.  Super-serious music dominated from beginning to end, non-stop, even in scenes where Jesus and his disciples were contentedly smiling, as the crowds flocked them.  "At least they're smiling some," I thought.  But the smiles were odd - obviously artificial, perhaps?  It's hard to put a finger on it.  But when paired with the weird, navel-gazing music, it was bizarre. 

Melancholy dominated the film.  For the crucifixion, that is necessary.  But was the whole life of Jesus at best calmly serene, and depressing at worst?  I hardly think so.  It would have helped to include Jesus first miracle at the wedding feast of Cana.  But with the fact that so many Fundamentalists still want to pretend Jesus didn't actually turn water into alcohol, I imagine that would be too controversial.

While we had plenty of actors who looked like they could be Jewish, Jesus didn't.  It would have been nice if we could have broken the American tradition of non-Jewish Jesuses.

There was plenty of crying at weird spots.  We meet John on Patmos at the beginning and end of the film.  In both occasions his eyes are watered up.  But why?  Is all that Jesus ever does is makes people cry?  Again, this has more to do with American sentimentalism than Biblical Christianity - more chick flick than Bible.  There are other places where people fall apart rather strangely.  Then the one place where one would expect to see Jesus bawling, the tomb of Lazarus, he doesn't.  Just bizarre.

The whole connection with chick flicks makes sense, when you learn that the actor chosen to play Jesus, Diogo Morgado, has a background in modeling and Portuguese telenovelas.  The equivalent to casting him would have been casting a Victoria Secret model to play the Virgin Mary (with apologies to Roma Downey).  What it points out is that a large portion of Evangelicalism has a warped sense of spirituality, and this is one place where it's screaming.

The events in the life of Jesus that they chose to portray were odd.  I haven't entirely been able to put together what all they were trying to convey.  Was it at least partially random?  I couldn't tell.  One ideology that seemed very clear, though, was one of pacifism or non-violence.  It was constant in the passages of Scripture that were quoted by Jesus and others, as well as the scenes portrayed.  Even when we come to the overturning of the tables of the moneychangers, Jesus does it in the most non-violent atonement way possible.  The whip of cords is also noticeably absent.  This Jesus wouldn't hurt a fly.  Some of those ninja moves done by the angels in Sodom in "The Bible" miniseries would have been welcome here.

When the crowds start calling Jesus "Messiah" he reacts with a pained look on his face.  This apparently suggests to him the notion of political revolution, which involves violence.  This Jesus wants nothing to do with that.  Apparently the idea that he is the Messiah is going too far.  Try making that fit with the Bible.

There were interesting contrasts throughout - Judas going to the authorities, set in contrast with Nicodemus going to Jesus, both betraying their loyalties in a sense.  The feasting of Pilate in a luxurious palace set in contrast with the homeless Jesus and his disciples around a campfire.  From a filmmaking perspective, they were well done.

One of the odder inclusions was that of Mary Magdalene in just about every scene the apostles appear in.  When no one else but Jesus and the disciples were there, Mary was strangely there as well, almost seeming to suggest her as a disciple.  Interestingly enough, her face isn't shown at the last supper.  And yet she appears as soon as they leave the upper room, in such a way as to suggest she was there all along.

There was the inclusion of Veronica, wiping the face of Jesus as he fell on the way to Golgotha.  I imagine we wouldn't want to offend the Catholics by leaving out something the Bible doesn't mention and which probably didn't happen.

Jesus reading in the synagogue from Isaiah and pronouncing his ministry, which actually took place at the beginning of his ministry, doesn't occur until much later in the movie.  Another odd choice.

The whole upper room scene was strange.  Early in the feast, Jesus seems to lapse into a sort of vision.  He sees himself being betrayed by Judas, and being crucified.  He gets a startled look on his face, as though he didn't know before that it was coming.  Then, when he begins to tell the disciples that that was to be his last meal with them, they all begin to weep.  But in the Bible, Jesus had been warning them all the way that this was coming.  The theological problems, along with the failure to be faithful to Scripture, are huge.

Again, when Jesus, outside the room, hears Peter say he won't betray him, Jesus has another vision, this time of Peter's betrayal, and it takes him by surprise.  This Jesus apparently gets lots of mystical revelations on the fly.

After the crucifixion, the two Sunday gatherings of the apostles are compressed into one meeting.  This is again a failure of faithfulness to the text of Scripture.

I could probably say more, but this has already gone on quite long.  It should be fairly obvious what I think of the film.  I don't want to be misunderstood - if any person were to come to Christ through this film, I would be thrilled.  But God uses all sorts of things to bring people to Himself, and just because he uses a thing, doesn't mean that the thing itself is good.  And insofar as the film seeks to glorify God, and is trying to rightly portray the life of Christ, I am thankful.  But I also think the film fails miserably in a number of respects.  And in the process, it displays a faulty spirituality, playing into the already existing weaknesses of the Evangelical church.  We need art and entertainment that will counter such a faulty spirituality, not that which will encourage it.

Holidays and Loneliness

I've read a number of people lamenting how many stores and restaurants are going to be open on Thanksgiving Day.  And while I understand the concern, it raises questions in my mind.  Every church and community has people who are single, widows, widowers, or who for some other reason have no family to spend the holidays with.  Are the people who are complaining about stores and restaurants being open reaching out to those people and opening their homes to them?  Or are they hovelling up with their families and refusing to make room for people who don't share their last name?

I realize their are plenty of people who want to be with their families, but are put in a position such that they have to work if they want to keep their jobs.  And that's a horrible thing.  But there are plenty of people who want to work.  The holidays are hard enough for them as it is.  By working, it helps them forget how alone they are.  There are people for whom the only conversation they will have on Thanksgiving will be with the waitress or the cashier.  If you want to know more about such people, you can check out the previous years' holiday suicide statistics.

So yes, it would be nice if the stores and restaurants were all closed on Thanksgiving Day.  But it would also be nice if there was no one alone that day.  Do you befriend people like that?  Do you open your home to them?  If not, then I'm not sure you have any right to tell them how or how not to spend the day.

Charles Hodge on the Limbus Patrum

Interesting thoughts from Charles Hodge's Systematic Theology (Volume III) on the Limbus Patrum, from some study I was doing on the subject recently. He tries hard to distance himself from it. But the things which he does allow for were surprising to me:

"The dead in the Old Testament are always spoken of as going to their fathers, as descending into 'Sheol,' i.e., into the invisible state, which the Greeks called Hades. Sheol is represeated as the general receptacle or abode of departed spirits, who were there in a state of consciousness; some in a state of misery, others in a state of happiness. In all these points the pagan idea of Hades corresponds to the Scriptural idea of Sheol. All souls went into Hades, some dwelling in Tartarus, others in Elysium. That the Hebrews regarded the souls of the dead as retaining their consciousness and activity is obvious from the practice of necromancy, and is confirmed by the fact of the appearance of Samuel to Saul, as recorded in 1 Samuel xxviii. The representation given in Isaiah xiv. of the descent of the King of Babylon, when all the dead rose to meet and to reproach him, takes for granted and authenticates the popular belief in the continued conscious existence of departed spirits." (pg. 717)

"Men may doubt and differ as to what Christ did during the three days of his sojourn in the invisible world. They may differ as to who the spirits in prison were to whom he preached, or, rather, made proclamation (ἐκήρυξεν); whether they were the antediluvians; or, the souls of the people of God detained in Sheol; or, the mass of the dead of all antecedent generations and of all nations, which is the favorite hypothesis of modern interpreters. They may differ also as to what the proclamation was which Christ made to those imprisoned spirits; whether it was the gospel; or his own triumph; or deliverance from Sheol; or the coming judgment. However these subordinate questions may be decided, all that remains certain is that Christ, after his death upon the cross, entered the invisible world, and there, in some way, made proclamation of what He had done on earth. All this is very far from teaching the doctrine of a 'Limbus Patrum,' as taught by the Jews, the Fathers, or the Romanists." (pg. 737)

Biblical Songs of Judgment

We see in the Old Testament a number of songs calling for and rejoicing in God's vindication of His people against their enemies - the Song of Moses, the Song of Deborah and Barak, the Psalms.  In these songs, God's people cursed the wicked and called for their judgment.  Many would say, dismissively, "but that's the Old Testament."  And yet when we get to the Book of the Revelation, we find in ch. 18 a song rejoicing in the judgment of Babylon the Great.  We see, in other words, a pattern of what type of worship music God recommends for us, songs of judgment as much as songs of rejoicing in the goodness of God (and the two overlap).  We say we are Biblical Christians.  Why don't we follow Scripture in this?

The Lord's Prayer in the Wilderness

I admire the young man who quoted the Lord's Prayer during his speech as valedictorian at his high school graduation.  We need more people, young and old, with that kind of boldness.  But we see acts like this every few weeks, celebrate them, and then pick up and carry on with our lives, without asking any deeper questions.  How rare is an act like this?  (Very rare.)  Why is it so rare?  We're celebrating it because it's an odd thing in the public schools.  Why is it odd?  It's odd because a pagan worldview runs the school system.  Here's one kid who made it through with his faith intact.  How many more don't?  We then send our kids to state-run colleges, where a pagan worldview governs everything, and even more kids who grow up in church lose their faith.  Why do we keep letting pagans do the educating?  Why do we keep sending kids to government schools?  For proms, sports teams, the "school experience", whatever that entails?  But isn't the purpose of school to educate a person?  And isn't it so often the case that what dictates our decisions in this, as in other areas of life, is our fear of looking weird to others?  "The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe" (Prov. 29:25).  We define our faith by our feelings and experience, rather than by the truth of Scripture - "you ask me how I know he lives - he lives within my heart".  It is no wonder then that what is most important to us otherwise is experience and feelings, not the content of what is taught in the classroom.  If we want to make a change in our communities and in our world, more foundational issues have to be dealt with.  Otherwise, we will keep doing little more than throwing a bucket of water on a raging wildfire, which is what acts like this largely amount to, admirable though they be.

On the Importance of History

It seems that in our mad rush toward progress and prosperity, we have become afflicted with a malignant contemporaneity.  We don't really have time or patience to ponder the lessons of our legacy.  We are too busy with the present to bother much with the past.  As a result of this morbid preoccupation with ourselves, and its resulting historical ambivalence, if not ignorance, we have virtually locked ourselves into a recalcitrant present.

Thus, the English author and lecturer John H. Y. Briggs has poignantly argued that a historical awareness is essential for the health and well-being of any society; it enables us to know who we are, why we are here, and what we should do.  He says "Just as a loss of memory in an individual is a psychiatric defect calling for medical treatment, so too any community which has no social memory is suffering from an illness."

Lord Acton, the great historian from the previous generation, made the same point, saying: "History must be our deliverer not only from the undue influence of other times, but from the undue influence of our own, from the tyranny of the environment and the pressures of the air we breathe."  The venerable aphorism remains as true today as ever: "He who forgets his own history is condemned to repeat it."

The fact is, history is not just the concern of historians and social scientists.  It is not the lonely domain of political prognosticators and ivory tower academics.  It is the very stuff of life. -- George Grant

The Goodness of God Revealed in Food

Bread is the mystery of our existence. That is why Christ teaches us to pray for our daily ration. One cannot imagine a more practical request. Without nourishment in the mystery of our existence, we die.

My reference is visible bread, smellable bread, chewable bread, bread that will become waste. All true mystery is a down-to-earth business. Only as we begin to appreciate our given metaphors for what they are in themselves do we begin to appreciate their corresponding realities. Sometimes we emphasize a theology of spiritual bread to the extent that we de-emphasize a theology of physical bread. We counter the nature of the Incarnation when we do. The worst of the blunder is that we exalt a lopsided Christ. Sad to say, we who believe in the Incarnation can be as tempted by abstractions as anyone else. Unless we return again and again in faith to the tangible edges of everyday mystery, we disrespect the substance of things not seen. -- Gregory Post & Charles Turner, "The Feast: Reflections on the Bread of Life", pp. 3-4

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A doctrine of bodily nourishment is rampant in Holy Scripture. The fact that the Lord feeds his people is demonstrated throughout both Testaments. The theme is easy to overlook because it seems so mundane. Having designed our bodies to require fuel, the Creator provides that necessity. His benevolence here is consistent with the pattern of grace in which the demands of his law are met by the provisions of his gospel. -- Post & Turner, "The Feast", pg. 4

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Nothing says "home" more appealingly than the earthy frankincense of bread fresh from the oven. A peasant comes home from the field and the promise reaches out through the open door. A stockbroker returns in the evening to his high-rise condo and finds it transformed by the same miracle of basic domesticity. The second example is less likely than the first but, thanks be to God, still possible. Mennonites tell us that the surest way to sell a house is to have bread baking in the kitchen when prospective buyers arrive. The aroma of bread triggers a mood of shelter and sanctuary. Perhaps that is why it welcomes so warmly those who are away from home, be they dinner guests from across town or wayfarers from a distant land. -- Post & Turner, "The Feast", pg. 5

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The goodness of God is not abstract when we sit down to eat.  It doesn't have to be Trout Margery at Galatoire's in New Orleans.  It can be a hamburger and fries at the local McDonald's.  It is visible and tangible.  It is tasty.

The Creator routinely meets us on a sensual level.  Food is provided for our pleasure as well as for our nourishment.  Pleasure, along with every gift that comes down from the Father of Lights, is holy - until indulged in outside his holy law, and then it becomes an end in itself and not an avenue for his glory.  There are warnings against gluttony, of course, just as there are warnings against that kindred selfishness called adultery.  But we trip into the ancient heresy of Gnosticism when we think of physical pleasure as having no spiritual substance.  It is precisely because of imbedded spirituality that rules and signals are necessary.  The Christian who thinks of all physical pleasure as "worldly" blunders as profoundly as the hedonist. -- Post & Turner, "The Feast", pp. 32-33

The Need for Les Misérables

Two "shames" with regard to Les Misérables:

1.) It is a shame that the average Evangelical/Fundamentalist Christian won't see it. They'll go see whatever the latest film pushed as a Christian film is, because it is advertised as a Christian film, pushed on Evangelical radio stations and in churches, and having all the trappings of a Christian film. But Les Misérables has a far richer and clearer presentation of the Gospel than the majority of "Christian" films, without the bad acting, heavy-handed moralizing, and shoddy story telling.

2.) It is a shame that the average man won't see it, because it is a musical. It is rare that we see on screen, or anywhere in media, such an example of what it is to be a good man, a godly man. Jean Valjean shows what it is to repent, to forgive, to live one's life as a defender of the weak, to live sacrificially, and to finish life well. These are things men rarely see at all, but which desperately need to be more visible in our time.

Ministers as Gloomy Gusses

Just ran across this interesting quote from Chuck Swindoll:

"My vocation is among the most serious of all professions.  As a minister of the gospel and as the senior pastor of a church, the concerns I deal with are eternal in dimension.  A week doesn't pass without my hearing of or dealing with life in the raw.  Marriages are breaking, homes are splitting, people are hurting, jobs are dissolving, addictions of every description are rampant.  Needs are enormous, endless, and heartrending.

The most natural thing for me to do would be to allow all of that to rob me of my joy and to change me from a person who has always found humor in life - as well as laughed loudly and often - into a stoic, frowning clergyman.  No thanks.

Matter of fact, that was my number-one fear many years ago.  Thinking that I must look somber and be ultraserious twenty-four hours a day resulted in my resisting a call into the ministry for several years.  Most of the men of the cloth I had seen looked like they held down a night job at the local mortuary.  I distinctly remember wrestling with the Lord over all this before He pinned me to the mat and whispered a promise in my ear that forced me to surrender.  'You can faithfully serve Me, but you can still be yourself.  Being My servant doesn't require you to stop laughing.'  That did it.  That one statement won me over.  I finally decided I could be one of God's spokesmen and still enjoy life." -- "Laugh Again", pg 13

Meditation on Psalm 139

I was looking at Psalm 139, and a good portion of it seems to be divisible according to the incommunicable attributes of God:  vss. 1-6, omniscience; vss. 7-12, omnipresence; vss. 13-16, omnipotence.  Vss. 17-18 turn back to God's omniscience, and the last line of vs. 18 God's omnipresence.  The Psalmist's meditation on these things aren't a consideration of God's attributes as if they were an abstraction, or divorced from history.  God is not distant to the psalmist, but His attributes have personal impact on the psalmist's life.  The reality of who God is is a source of comfort and worshipful contemplation for the psalmist.  God is one who acts in history, in the lives of the people He has created, and He acts savingly for those who trust Him.

But then the psalmist turns a direction we tend to be uncomfortable with - he identifies with God against His enemies.  Singing a melody common throughout the Psalms, the antithesis between the wicked and the righteous, he not only identifies with God, but expresses his desire that God might slay His enemies for their opposition to Him.  But it is on the basis of what comes before, the psalmist's whole-hearted identification with God, that he sets himself against the wicked.  Those who truly identify with God, and delight in Him, will hate the wicked, so long as this age continues.  To have the heart of God is to hate evil and those who do it.

Lastly, the psalmist further expresses his trust in God by opening himself to God's examination, and expressing the willingness to change those things in himself that aren't right.  The Christian life is one of life-long, ongoing repentance.  Contrary to those who think that radical grace means one can live his life however he wants, the true believer understands that identifying with God means conformity to the thoughts of God (vs. 17), even to the person of God.  Trust means openness and, not just any sort of change, but specifically change accordingly to the will and character of the one a person is drawing near to, is open toward.  Repentance, and therefore sanctification, is conformity to the character of God, to His communicable attributes.

It is worth noting, as well, that we see here that humility is not contradictory to hating the wicked.  We seem to often have the notion that the humble man will, rather than acknowledging the wickedness of the wicked, turn the attention quickly back to himself instead.  But this Psalm, as the rest of Scripture, shows this to be a false humility.  A righteous man will hate the wicked and their deeds, while at the same time keeping himself in constant check, lest he himself follow in their ways and so depart from the God he loves.

The Unnecessary Beauty of the Holy Eucharist

The joyful character of the eucharistic gathering must be stressed.  For the medieval emphasis on the cross, while not a wrong one, is certainly one-sided.  The liturgy is, before everything else, the joyous gathering of those who are to meet the risen Lord and to enter with him into the bridal chamber.  And it is this joy of expectation and this expectation of joy that are expressed in singing and ritual, in vestments and in censing, in that whole "beauty" of the liturgy which has so often been denounced as unnecessary and even sinful.

Unnecessary it is indeed, for we are beyond the categories of the "necessary."  Beauty is never "necessary," "functional" or "useful."  And when, expecting someone who we love, we put a beautiful tablecloth on the table and decorate it with candles and flowers, we do all this not out of necessity, but out of love.  And the Church is love, expectation and joy.  It is heaven on earth, according to our Orthodox tradition; it is the joy of recovered childhood, that free, unconditioned and disinterested joy which alone is capable of transforming the world.  In our adult, serious piety we ask for definitions and justifications, and they are rooted in fear - fear of corruption, deviation, "pagan influences," whatnot.  But "he that feareth is not made perfect in love" (1 Jn. 4:18).  As long as Christians will love the Kingdom of God, and not only discuss it, they will "represent" it and signify it, in art and beauty.  And the celebrant of the sacrament of joy will appear in a beautiful chasuble, because he is vested in the glory of the Kingdom, because even in the form of man God appears in glory.  In the Eucharist we are standing in the presence of Christ, and like Moses before God, we are to be covered with his glory.  Christ himself wore an unsewn garment which the soldiers at the cross did not divide; it had not been bought in the market, but in all likelihood it had been fashioned by someone's loving hands.  Yes, the beauty of our preparation for the Eucharist has no practical use. ~ Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World, pp. 29-30

On the Gospel of John

It just occurred to me recently, in studying the Gospel of John, that Jesus spends the book in either the synagogue or the Temple teaching, then run out of the Temple a few times, and then avoiding the city altogether until the week of his death. It all begins with him running people out of the Temple himself, accompanied by the allusion to himself as the Temple. In the middle of it all stands the man born blind who Jesus heals and who is thrown out of the synagogue. Comparisons and parallels with the Book of the Revelation should then follow. It's major things like that that you miss when you preach and read Scripture in an atomistic and moralistic frame.

"Radical Together", Sort of a Review

I had finished reading David Platt's first book "Radical" a few weeks ago, and was amazed at how little of substance the book had.  And since I had the sequel, "Radical Together", I thought I would go ahead and read it too.  Certainly it would flesh out more of what Platt was trying to say in the first book with more detail, I thought.  Alas, such is not the case.  Every once in awhile Platt says some good things.  But for the most part, this book, like its predecessor, is fairly vapid.  Adoption, which he promotes, is a great thing.  Missions is important.  But there is little actual Scriptural exegesis, and almost no theology to speak of.  He goes on and on about the importance of making disciples.  But I have yet to figure out from him what we are supposed to be teaching those disciples, other than that they are supposed to then go make disciples too.  Almost absent is any of the teaching actually found in Scripture.

I respect the way Platt has devoted himself to missions work, teaching, and preaching.  He has obviously been diligent in his service for God.  And maybe the place to find any substantial teaching would be in his sermons and the classes on Scripture he teaches.  But with the lack of clear thought I see in his books, I'm not too hopeful.  I can't for the life of me understand why some Reformed people have saddled up next to him the way they have.  Maybe there's more that I'm not seeing.  As far as his books go, there's just nothing there.

Doctrine in the Context of Community

It is true that doctrine divides. In a sinful world, that division at times is necessary. But it is also true that doctrine is meant to operate within the context of community, and when it functions outside of community, it creates unnecessary division, sinful division. Community becomes warped apart from doctrine; doctrine becomes warped apart from community. Bad doctrine is a community problem, and bad community is a doctrinal problem. It is worth considering that the lack of community in our day could be the cause, or a cause, of many of our doctrinal issues.

More on David Platt

I am currently reading David Platt's bestselling book "Radical Together", a follow-up to his book "Radical", for which I posted some notes a few weeks ago.  Like "Radical", while the book so far has some admirable qualities, it is lacking in sound theology, or, for that matter, any real theology at all.  A few things in particular stand out.  Platt, being a low church evangelical, seems to have no substantial ecclesiology.  This includes any real understanding of a Biblical doctrine of ordination and the clergy/laity distinction found in Scripture.  Since Platt is an Evangelical and a Baptist, this isn't entirely surprising.  Yet one would expect better from a pastor and former seminary professor.  He also lacks any solid notion of the Biblical doctrine of vocation.  Again, this isn't surprising from an Evangelical.  And the third thing that stands out, in connection with these other things, is his lack of Biblical understanding of the family.  The result of all this in real time is a church situation where all the people are constantly engaged in "ministry", using their jobs for saving souls rather than what they exist for, and neglecting their families for the sake of said "ministry".  It's a disastrous formula, one which has existed in the American church for some time, and which we have been reaping the benefits of, I believe, resulting in the dissolution of the Christian family, the dissolution of the organized Church, and, inevitably, the demoralizing of the State, as all these things are invariably connected.  It would be unfair to say the above doctrines, or lack thereof, have been solely responsible for the circumstances I just mentioned.  I would suggest nonetheless that they have been factors, and significant ones at that, at least in the Evangelical and Protestant community.

But I haven't finished the book, and I don't intend this as a full review.  Yet one small piece jumped out at me as I have been reading the book, which I'll put forward here.

Platt says, "We definitely do not have to construct buildings as houses of worship.  In the words of Stephen before he was martyred by the Sanhedrin, 'The Most High does not live in houses made by men'" (pgs. 62-63).  Platt misses the point that Solomon himself had acknowledged this in his prayer at the dedication of the Temple, to which Stephen was alluding (1 Kings 8:27).  And knowing this, Solomon built God a house anyway.  The point of Stephen's statement wasn't that houses of worship shouldn't be built.  It was that God would no longer be represented by one single house centrally located in Israel, that God would be worshipped from then on among all peoples of the earth, and that the Jewish people had not revered and worshipped the God that the Temple represented, which was bringing judgment upon Israel.

Platt seems to regard only two paradigms for church life - gigantic American megachurches, or emergency living in portions of the world where persecution from the government exists or where church life is simple due to poverty.  The former he rejects as unbiblical, the latter he idealizes.  He can't seem to acknowledge that there are other options, maybe wiser, more biblical options.  It would help if Platt had an idea of the maturity of the Church through history, and the development of Christian culture, evidenced in the spread of the Gospel since the establishing of the Church.  But as this is something that most Evangelicals fail to see in our day, despite regularly partaking of the fruits of Christendom, this isn't too shocking.

Mr. Platt has another book coming out the beginning of the year, one longer than what he's written so far, and hopefully it will be more substantial than what he's published up to this point.  Once again, this isn't to say that he has said nothing important.  But his books are largely so vapid that I have no clue what his foundational theological views are.  Where does he stand eschatologically, for instance?  This has an obvious impact on his conception of missions.  I wonder, though, if he even realizes that .  Perhaps Mr. Platt will begin to reflect more deeply on the various theological topics that have captured the Church over the past two thousand years, and he will use those things to examine his own beliefs and teaching.  This much I can say - from what I've read, these things are incredibly absent from his writings.

The Religiosity of State Education

Progressive education has two parents, Prussia and John Dewey.  The kindergarten was transplanted into the United States from Prussia in the nineteenth century because American reformers were so enamored of the order and patriotic indoctrination young children received outside the home (the better to weed out the un-American traits of immigrants).  One of the core tenets of the early kindergartens was the dogma that "the government is the true parent of the children, the state is sovereign over the family."  The progressive followers of John Dewey expanded this program to make public schools incubators of a national religion.  They discarded the militaristic rigidity of the Prussian model, but retained the aim of indoctrinating children.  The methods were informal, couched in the sincere desire to make learning "fun," "relevant," and "empowering."  The self-esteem obsession that saturates our schools today harks back to the Deweyan reforms from before World War II.  But beneath the individualist rhetoric lies a mission for democratic social justice, a mission Dewey himself defined as a religion.  For other progressives, capturing children in schools was part of the larger effort to break the backbone of the nuclear family, the institution most resistant to political indoctrination. -- Jonah Goldberg, "Liberal Fascism", pp. 326-327

The Nightmare of the Crucifixion

I read a piece of literature yesterday that described the crucifixion of Jesus as "the recurring nightmare of the church".  To reference it further or to quote it in context wouldn't make sense.  But I thought it was a brilliant, evocative image.  The cross is the ultimate nightmare, one that we rehearse over and over again - in our memories, in our deeds, in our words, and in our worship.  Imagine the worst possible thing happening to a person, and that is what stands at the center of our worship.  A man who, unlike us, truly deserves having no ill done to him.  Truly innocent of sin, and positively righteous in all he is and does.  Chased down by monsters and brutally killed, as in a horror story - the Psalms picture this repeatedly.  Like all good horror stories, absolute good exists, and wins in the end.  But this doesn't change the fact that the nightmare really is a nightmare, the horror story really is a horror story.

To worship God is to willingly descend again and again into sleep, knowing the nightmare awaits us.  Serving Christ entails being pursued by monsters.  To live in Christ is to participate in His nightmare, all the while knowing also that one day the nightmare will end for good, when we awake to sleep no more. 

Should We Favor Israel?

"For circumcision indeed is of value if you obey the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision. So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God." Romans 2:25-29. As taught here by Paul, as well as elsewhere in the New Testament, God is no longer working with the Jewish people as a people distinct from the Gentiles. Jew and Gentile have been brought together and made one new man - new, in contrast with the old, that is, the Old Covenant (Eph. 2 & 3). To think then that anybody, any politician, or any nation, should favor a country that today calls itself "Israel" (the real Israel having ceased to exist two thousand years ago), over any other nation, Christian or otherwise, is contrary to what is taught in the New Testament. In addition, how any Christian could support the idea of Jewish people returning to the ceremonies of the Old Covenant, in light of the clear teaching of the Book of Hebrews, is baffling to me. As Hebrews makes it clear, any person, of Jewish descent or otherwise, who turns back to those ceremonies, is denying Christ.

We Move Toward What We Love

We say we long to be around those with whom we can be ourselves.  But we all, in fact, adapt ourselves to those we are with.  It may be unconscious, but those who are being sanctified change out of the duty of love, at times moment by moment, as we try to read those we engage with.  Also, to say that we want to be ourselves suggests that we think we are static and unchanging.  But if we are Christians this can't be true.  We grow to love that which we surround ourselves with.  We move towards, grow towards, that which we commune with, that which we love.  To remain the same is not only not loving - to remain the same is death.

The Roman Catholic Church Created Protestantism

Luther's goal was to reform the church, but the church repudiated him and what he was trying to do.  It is often said that Luther split from the Roman Catholic Church.  That is not true.  He was thrown out of the Roman Catholic Church.  There is a huge difference.  Luther was no schismatic.  He did not start some new religion on his own authority.  He did not dream up some new theology.  He was trying to bring the church back to its true nature and its true message, as defined by the Word of God, which the church itself professed to believe.

The Roman Church, in turn, refused to take the concerns seriously, much less give them a genuine hearing.  The pope refused to address even the most flagrant abuses that were obvious to everyone.  Instead of listening to those who questioned its direction, the Roman Church tried to destroy them.  Thus the Roman Catholic Church created Protestantism. -- Gene Edward Veith

The Pastoral Affection of John Calvin

John Calvin displays a Pauline love for the church under his charge, even in exile after having been sent away by the Genevans, in contrast to the harsh tyrant he is often portrayed as having been:  "For though I am for the present relieved of the charge of the Church of Geneva, that circumstance ought not to prevent me from embracing it with paternal affection - God, when He gave it to me in charge, having bound me to be faithful to it for ever.  Now, then, when I see the worst snares laid for that Church whose safety it has pleased the Lord to make my highest care, and grievous peril impending if not obviated, who will advise me to await the issue silent and unconcerned?  How heartless, I ask, would it be to wink in idleness, and, as it were, vacillating at the destruction of one whose life you are bound vigilantly to guard and preserve?" (Calvin's Reply to Sadoleto)

Pros and Cons of "Radical", by David Platt

Pros:

1.) Platt has a deep understanding of human depravity.
2.) His critique of consumeristic Evangelicalism is good and quite needed.
3.) His emphasis on learning and understanding the entire Bible - not just the New Testament - is refreshing and very needed in our time.
4.) He seeks to promote a God-centeredness in the Christian life, in contrast to the self-centeredness so common today, even in the Church.

Cons:

1.) He pushes very heavily the idea that it is the duty of every Christian individual to be personally involved in international missions. And he pushes it to the point that he sees it as disobedience to Scripture and therefore sin not to do so. The problem is that the Bible doesn't say that, no matter how he spins texts to try to make them say it. Up until the past hundred years, with technological advances in travel, such wouldn't have even been possible for the average Christian through most of history. Should the average medieval Christian villager, poor beyond our conception, have spent his life in constant guilt because he couldn't leave his family behind and hop a boat to the next pagan continent? When addressing logical and Biblical arguments against his idea, Platt simply dismisses them, rather than dealing with them. That is because Scripture simply doesn't teach what he says it does.

2.) He tries to address worldwide poverty and American wealth in an overly-simplistic way. With the system he sets up, one is left feeling perpetually guilty for owning anything. But the Bible doesn't support his teaching. He notes the complications involved in politics, economics, and the like. But whereas such realities should make him stop trying to address the issue, he keeps going. In this and other matters, where true solutions only come holistically, he teaches a reductionistic approach that will only result in failure.

3.) Platt lacks a clear and Biblical theology of family. He seems to see attention to family as in competition with missions. As a solution to this, he is in great need of a Biblical understanding of a hierarchy of responsibilities. Parental neglect of the primary duties of family inevitably results in children abandoning the Church and Christianity. And this will be the result of Platt's approach.

4.) In connection with the above, he lacks a Biblical theology of culture. His goal seems to be to see how little you can live with, and give the rest away. As I addressed somewhat above, this results in all sorts of problems. Who would develop culture, leading to the technological advancements which Platt enjoys and takes for granted, and which furthers the missions he seeks to invest himself in? Not only does somebody have to put in the plumbing, there had to be somebody to invent plumbing. Then you need people working on advances in plumbing and other technologies, to further and improve human life. This requires capital. Platt, in all of this, seems, as sometimes happens with Reformed Baptist types, to fall into a sort of cultural Anabaptism. He fails to understand what the New Testament means when it critiques "the World", ending up in a sort of anti-Biblical Gnosticism. He makes a few occasional comments that seem intended to prevent such a conclusion, but he ends up there in practice anyway. To put it another way, he ends up in the same place that is common with Evangelicals - rather than Redemption being a Redemption of all of Creation, Redemption ends up swallowing Creation.

5.) For Platt, everything is extreme. In this regard, he is unknowingly mirroring the culture he tries to reject. He is in constant crisis mode. Everything is "radical" and "urgent". The tyranny of the immediate rules in Platt's theology. Platt would do well to return to the agrarian imagery of Scripture. True change comes like the planting of a seed and the harvesting of a crop. It takes time, often a long time. And to switch the metaphor a bit...there are times to work, no doubt. And there are real needs. But there is also a Biblical theology of Sabbath, which Platt seems to have overlooked. Less Revivalism, more Reformation.

6.) Platt ends the book with pushing the reader to pledge to "The Radical Experiment", a pledge to five points of radical commitment for the coming year. And of course, the point is that you then commit to continue this lifestyle long after the year is up. What struck me is how easily the book conforms to the very monastic vows the Reformation stood against. There is the vow of poverty, the clearest in Platt's book. Then there is the vow of chastity. Platt himself doesn't appeal to that, being a married man himself. And yet it is very clear in his theology that family takes a back seat to missions. It is only logical then that family should be a hindrance, and not something to be pursued at all, if one wants to be a true disciple of Christ. And then there is obedience to a rule, which Platt's book qualifies as. These are the means to being a saint, in medieval Roman speak - or Radical, in Platt's way of speaking. Evangelicals don't like to hear how similar they often are to Rome, in contrast with the Reformation. And yet here we have another example of how true that can be.

7.) Historical ignorance. Platt's basic thesis, bound up with the above, is that the American Dream is unbiblical. Yet the American Dream is a decidedly ambiguous matter to begin with. Platt seems to think it necessarily includes individualism, but I would strongly disagree with that. There is a pagan concept of the American Dream, which Platt is trying to address. But then there is a Christian approach to the American Dream, born out of Western Christendom and founded upon Scripture. Platt, like alot of popular contemporary teachers, doesn't seem to know the difference.

The inevitable end result of Platt's teaching, as history has proven, will be massive burnout and abandoning of the Christian faith. The only question is how massive it will be.

Platt is open that he doesn't know everything, and is learning as he goes. That is admirable, especially from a guy with two master's degrees and a Ph.D. And as much as I appreciate the positives in his book, neither they nor his degrees fix the problems in the book. It's just another example of the fact that, in our time, though bestsellers are what everybody is reading, they are what nobody should be reading.

On Love and Gratitude

Men turn to power when they believe love to have failed.

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Gratitude is by nature dependent on the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. If God is not sovereign over all things, then it is impossible for one to be grateful in all things.

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Worrying is, at its heart, to accuse God of being stingy.

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Complaining is the outworking of ingratitude. We complain, because we are ungrateful for what we've been given. And there is nothing we have that did not originate as gift. All things we have are things we have received - if not from another person, then directly from the hand of God Himself. It's amazing how infectious complaining is. "Bad company corrupts good morals." This is true no matter who our company is - friends, family, even people who influence us through the media, such as tv. But it is probably most perpetuated by authority figures. We imitate those who are in authority over us. And when authority figures maintain a habit of complaining, they create a spirit of ingratitude, and therefore of complaining, in those they are in authority over.

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Discontentment and ingratitude are of a piece. If we are discontented, it isn't because we lack any need, but because we lack gratitude.

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Gratitude and ingratitude shape one's vision.  Gratitude sees beauty, and reciprocates by creating beauty.  Ingratitude sees ugliness, and reciprocates vindictively by creating ugliness.  Gratitude beautifies and is constructive, ingratitude uglifies and is destructive.  As such, all art and aesthetics are moral in nature.

A. W. Tozer on Modern Church Practices

It is now common practice in most evangelical churches to offer the people, especially the young people, a maximum of entertainment and a minimum of serious instruction. It is scarcely possible in most places to get anyone to attend a meeting where the only attraction is God. One can only conclude that God's professed children are bored with Him, for they must be wooed to meeting with a stick of striped candy in the form of religious movies, games and refreshments. This has influenced the whole pattern of church life, and even brought into being a new type of church architecture, designed to house the golden calf. So we have the strange anomaly of orthodoxy in creed and heterodoxy in practice. The striped-candy technique has been so fully integrated into our present religious thinking that it is simply taken for granted. Its victims never dream that it is not a part of the teachings of Christ and His apostles. Any objection to the carryings on of our present gold-calf Christianity is met with the triumphant reply, "But we are winning them!" And winning them to what? To true discipleship? To cross-carrying? To self-denial? To separation from the world? To crucifixion of the flesh? To holy living? To nobility of character? To a despising of the world's treasures? To hard self-discipline? To love for God? To total committal to Christ? Of course the answer to all these questions is no. -- A. W. Tozer

Jesus the Judge

The Second Person of the Trinity, appearing pre-incarnate as the Angel of the LORD, stood at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, bearing a sword and bringing judgment upon Israel for King David's sin of numbering the peoples. David, at the command of Yahweh, purchased the threshing floor and offered up sacrifices to Yahweh, unable to access the Tabernacle as he was prevented by the Angel (1 Chron. 21; 2 Sam. 24). This same threshing floor became the location of the Temple; and it was again at this same Temple (rebuilt) that the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of David, Jesus, would later with a whip drive out the money changers for profaning the Temple.