Go to the Ant

Here's a photo of an ant, magnified 400 times, that you can zoom in on.

What an amazing creator we have!

And here's a collection of strange animal babies. Here's just one of them:


HT: Jonah Goldberg

Moore Videos on Adopted for Life

Introduction: Why I Wrote This Book

Chapter 1: Jesus, Adoption, and You

Chapter 2: Are They Brothers?

Chapter 3: Jesus of Nazareth vs. Planned Parenthood

Chapter 4: Don’t You Want Your Own Kids?

Chapter 5: Paperwork, Finances, and Other Threats to Personal Sanctification

Chapter 6: Jim Crow in the Church Nursery

Chapter 7: It Takes a Village to Adopt a Child

Chapter 8: Adoption is a Past-Tense Verb

Chapter 9: Concluding Thoughts

HT: Crossway Blog

Isaac Watts

Isaac Watts (the "Father of English Hymnody") was born on this day in 1674. In addition to being a hymnist, he was also a theologian and a logician.

Mars Hill has an overview of his life and the controversy surrounding his music:

Raising Kids in a Pornified Culture

Some good suggestions here by Zach Nielsen.

Godin on Gladwell on Anderson on Free

Seth Godin disagrees with Malcom Gladwell who disagrees with Chris Anderson, who wants us to see that Free wants to be free.

Restricting Medicaid Funding for Abortions Lowers Abortion Rates

A new literature review is out by abortion-choice research groups: “Restrictions on Medicaid Funding for Abortions: A Literature Review,” by the Guttmacher Institute and Ibis Reproductive Health.

Michael New summarizes:

Overall, the results indicate that there is a very strong consensus among both public-health researchers and economists that public funding restrictions lower abortion rates. The Guttmacher literature review contains citations to 20 academic studies documenting this. These studies analyze data from a range of sources including surveys and aggregate data from the federal, state, and local level. Conversely, Guttmacher identifies only about four studies which show that the effects of public-funding restrictions are inconclusive.

Read his whole post.

beFriended

Ray Ortlund:

I cannot listen to "My Song Is Love Unknown" . . . without being moved to the depths of my being that I have such a Friend. If you have him too, you know what I mean. If you don't have him, you can. Are you willing to be beFriended?

Willingness is all he asks.

Great Deal on Book on Poverty

I just heard from WTS Books that they are running a special for 48 hours (expiring at 5 PM EST on Saturday, July 18), selling When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself for $4.89 (67% off the retail price).

Here are a few more blurbs:

"From the early pages, where the authors promptly and humbly confess how they have "messed up" in their own efforts to alleviate poverty, to the last chapters where their vast experience and on-the-street wisdom show through so helpfully, this is a book that wonderfully combines heavy-duty thinking with practical tools. As a journalist, I appreciate the author's story-telling and descriptive abilities. As a churchman, I appreciate their zeal to root all strategies in the institution God has ordained to bring about His goals. No donor should invest another dollar in any kind of relief effort before digesting the last page of this important book."
 - Joel Belz, Founder and writer, World Magazine

"I confess to becoming irritated when I read something—such as When Helping Hurts—that makes me reconsider my methods and ministry, but am usually thankful when it helps me be more effective in serving the Lord. The authors struggle with an ambivalence that arises from the desperation of poor people around the world and the often stumbling efforts of those of us who try to help them. Poor people need help, but what is the best way to help them, and how do we keep from hurting them? These are the issues at stake.
  This book has wonderful stories that illustrate the dilemma faced by those who would do good. It may be a bitter pill to swallow that, having invested in a worthy cause, you hear that the results have caused damage to the very people you meant to bless. Please see this book as an encouragement to do things right and not as a condemnation of anyone's sincere motive to help the needy.
  Though the authors are men of education, knowledge, and experience, they confess their own struggles in the application of these principles. As someone who has once been poor, and has worked all of his years in ministry to help the poor, I encourage you to read and ponder the principles in When Helping Hurts"
 - Randy Nabors, Pastor of New City Fellowship, TN (PCA)

  "Corbett and Fikkert have done a masterful job integrating insights from Scripture, social science research, and community development practice to give readers sound, practical, and effective strategies for equipping people to have more effective ministry to the poor. In this excellent book you'll discover new ways of approaching short-term missions (that truly help the poor rather than hurt them) as well as new ways of providing long-term economic empowerment of poor people both in North America and across the world. When Helping Hurts should be required for all church leaders, academics and church members."
 - Steven L. Childers, President & CEO, Global Church Advancement; Reformed Theological Seminary

Salvation of Souls as the Great Western Heresy?

Richard Mouw:

In her opening address to the Episcopal Church's recent General Convention, the Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, the church's presiding bishop, made a special point of denouncing what she labeled "the great Western heresy"—the teaching, in her words, "that we can be saved as individuals, that any of us alone can be in right relationship with God." This "individualist focus," she declared, "is a form of idolatry."

Read Mouw's response.

Update: See also R. Scott Clark's response, correctly labeling her view as "over-realized eschatology." And in a bit of an understatement . . . :

It’s not self-evident how failing to keep the new law of the environmentalist left constitutes denial of the doctrines of the holy Trinity, the two-natures of Christ, the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ and or the doctrine of his bodily return.

An Interview with Nancy Guthrie

Ruth Moon writes:

Nancy Guthrie is no stranger to suffering. After her second child, Hope, died within a year of birth from Zellweger syndrome, a rare, fatal genetic abnormality, Guthrie began writing Holding On to Hope, a book about coping with loss and grief. She was in the final stages of writing when she became pregnant with a third child, Gabriel, who was also diagnosed with Zellweger. Gabriel lived for six months.

Ruth interviews Nancy about her new book, Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow (Tyndale, 2009).

You can read the first chapter of the book online for free.

An Interview with Martin Downes

Guy Davies blog interviews are always worth reading, and his latest with Martin Downes is no exception.

Powlison: "Fair-minded Criticism Is One of Life’s Best Pleasures"

David Powlison's article, "Does the Shoe Fit?" (Journal of Biblical Counseling [Spring 2002]: 2-14) is probably the best piece I've seen on how to think about criticism. (The article is not online, but is available on the JBC CD-ROM.) Here's an excerpt:

Fair-minded criticism is one of life’s best pleasures, an acquired taste well worth the acquiring. Someone who will take you seriously, understand you accurately, treat you charitably, and who then will lay it on the line is a messenger from God for your welfare (whether or not you end up completely agreeing). There is nothing quite like being disagreed with intelligently, lovingly, and openly: “Faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Prov. 27:6). If I only listen to my allies, or to yes-men, clones, devotees, and fellow factionaries, then I might as well inject narcotics into my veins. The people of God are a large work in progress. To engage and to interact with critics is to further the process—in both of our lives. We ought to offer to others the kind of criticism that is such a pleasure to receive.

Whenever we disagree with others our goal ought to be fair-minded, knowledgeable,
constructive criticism (tinged with mercy, attentive to perceived strengths as well as
perceived failings, openly receptive to reciprocal criticism). We all know this when
doing marriage counseling. Jesus’ log-and-speck analysis and His call to clear-seeing helpfulness dig to the roots of every marital conflict. But we often ignore the log-and-speck in other spheres of controversy—or when in the midst of our own marital conflicts! Whether we write, teach, or converse, we often either succeed or derail based on the manner in which we deliver the matter. May we do as we would like it done to us.

Critics, like governing authorities, are servants of God to you for good (Rom. 13:4). He who sees into hearts uses critics to help us see things in ourselves: outright failings of faith and practice, distorted emphases, blind spots, areas of neglect, attitudes and actions contradictory to stated commitments, and, yes, strengths and significant contributions. God uses critics to help us. Even if I think that a criticism is mistaken, I shouldn’t leap too quickly to the defense. Is there something I am doing or saying (or not doing and not saying) that makes that particular misinterpretation plausible? Am I too easily misunderstood? Do I leave implicit or understated something that needs to be made explicit? Does my attitude or tone or way of treating people send a mixed message? Do I ride my hobby horses? Am I not answering some important question that this person is asking? Am I not addressing some important problem that this person cares about? In my experience, the answer to these questions is usually Yes.

Alan Jacobs Reviews The Green Bible

Writing in First Things, Alan Jacobs offers an insightful review of The Green Bible:

Here's a taste:

The Green Bible presents us with a curious kind of natural theology: We start with things we know to be true from trusted sources—Al Gore, perhaps?—and then we turn to Scripture to measure it against those preexisting and reliable authorities. And what a relief to discover that God is green. Because we already know that it’s good to be green—what we didn’t know is whether God measures up to that standard.

Read the whole thing.

HT: Joe Carter

Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl Trailer

Nice intro to the book:

Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl trailer from Gorilla Poet Productions on Vimeo.

Sotomayor on the Empathy Test, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law

I assume Justice Sotomayor will be confirmed. If so, I hope she sticks with some of the things she's been saying in her hearings thus far:

KYL: Let me ask you about what the president said -- and I talked about it in my opening statement -- whether you agree with him. He used two different analogies. He talked once about the 25 miles -- the first 25 miles of a 26-mile marathon. And then he also said, in 95 percent of the cases, the law will give you the answer, and the last 5 percent legal process will not lead you to the rule of decision. The critical ingredient in those cases is supplied by what is in the judge's heart. Do you agree with him that the law only takes you the first 25 miles of the marathon and that that last mile has to be decided by what's in the judge's heart?

SOTOMAYOR: No, sir. That's -- I don't -- I wouldn't approach the issue of judging in the way the president does. He has to explain what he meant by judging. I can only explain what I think judges should do, which is judges can't rely on what's in their heart. They don't determine the law. Congress makes the laws. The job of a judge is to apply the law. And so it's not the heart that compels conclusions in cases. It's the law. The judge applies the law to the facts before that judge.

And:

GRAHAM: Do you believe the Constitution is a living, breathing, evolving document?

SOTOMAYOR: The Constitution is a document that is immutable to the sense that it's lasted 200 years. The Constitution has not changed except by amendment. It is a process -- an amendment process that is set forth in the document.

It doesn't live other than to be timeless by the expression of what it says. What changes is society. What changes is what facts a judge may get presented. . . .

HT: Power Line Blog

I don't harbor false hopes that she's a closet Scalia (!), but the above seems relatively surprising.

BTW, one liberal law prof is so upset at what she said that he now thinks she either perjured herself or is morally unqualified to sit on the SOTUS!

Wright Responds to The Episcopal Church Schism over Ordaining Gay Clergy

N.T. Wright:

In the slow-moving train crash of international Anglicanism, a decision taken in California has finally brought a large coach off the rails altogether. The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church (TEC) in the United States has voted decisively to allow in principle the appointment, to all orders of ministry, of persons in active same-sex relationships. This marks a clear break with the rest of the Anglican Communion.

Read his whole response in The Times Online.

Machen: False Ideas as Obstacles to the Reception of the Gospel

We'd all do well to ponder J. Gresham Machen's essay, "Christianity and Culture" (originally published in 1913 in The Princeton Theological Review under the title, "The Scientific Preparation of the Minister."

Here's an excerpt:

It is true that the decisive thing is the regenerative power of God. That can overcome all lack of preparation, and the absence of that makes even the best preparation useless. But as a matter of fact God usually exerts that power in connection with certain prior conditions of the human mind, and it should be ours to create, so far as we can, with the help of God, those favorable conditions for the reception of the gospel. False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel. We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or of the world to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion. Under such circumstances, what God desires us to do is to destroy the obstacle at its root. . . . What is today a matter of academic speculation begins tomorrow to move armies and pull down empires. In that second stage, it has gone too far to be combated; the time to stop it was when it was still a matter of impassioned debate. So as Christians we should try to mold the thought of the world in such a way as to make the acceptance of Christianity something more than a logical absurdity. . . . What more pressing duty than for those who have received the mighty experience of regeneration, who, therefore, do not, like the world, neglect that whole series of vitally relevant facts which is embraced in Christian experience -- what more pressing duty than for these men to make themselves masters of the thought of the world in order to make it an instrument of truth instead of error?

A Personal Liturgy of Confession

David Powlison writes:

When I counsel with people who struggle with deep feelings of shame, guilt, and regret, I sometimes suggest that they design a personalized liturgy. In what follows, I walk through the example of a woman who has had an abortion, and all that led up to that choice, and all that follows in someone whose conscience is alive. But you can tailor it to whatever struggle you or another person needs to deal with. Where is your struggle? Is it temper or bitterness? Sexual immorality? Amnesia toward God? Gluttony, laziness or greed? Judgmental words or thoughts? Gossip? Obsessive worrying? God welcomes all who are weary with sin.

Read the whole helpful piece--either on the web or as a PDF.

Revelation 12 and the Kingdom of Our God

Here's a worthwhile spiritual exercise: Read Revelation 12, then read the lyrics to this hymn written by D.A. Carson (from the album Shout with Delight):

The enemy is fearsome;
His fury terrifies.
His arrogance is loathsome;
His foul mouth vilifies
The Son of God in heaven,
The angels he installed,
The offspring of the woman—
The people God has called.

Our foe has been defeated;
He knows his time is short,
And far from being seated
In honor in God’s court,
His certain doom is looming
Like clouds before a squall,
And blind rage marks his booming
Attack upon us all.

He loves to foster warfare
Or peace with great deceit.
He aims to fill his death lair
With rebels; he repeats
His filthy accusations
To make us doubt the Lord;
He doles out tribulations
Of famine, plagues, and sword.

The father of all murder,
His passion is the lie;
In sin a tireless worker—
A tempter who will try
To dupe us with seduction,
Or persecute to death—
To challenge God’s election,
Deny the Spirit’s breath.

But we have overcome him by the blood of God’s own Lamb.
We silence accusations; on Christ’s death we take our stand.
The kingdom is advancing by the gospel we proclaim.
The truth to which we testify that frees from fear and shame.
We will not hide from danger, death, and other earthly loss,
For we are learning daily death, the pathway of the cross.
The devil fights with fury, with a cruel and bruising rod.
But we extol the triumph of the kingdom of our God.

To hear Dr. Carson unpack Revelation 12, you can listen to or watch his talk here on The Strange Triumph of a Slaughtered Lamb:

“The Strange Triumph of a Slaughtered Lamb” (Revelation 12)

“The Strange Triumph of a Slaughtered Lamb” (Revelation 12)

Arkes on the "Rule of the Strong" Hiding Behind Empathy

Hadley Arkes, writing in First Things:

We do not ordinarily think that people lose their standing as human beings, and as bearers of rights, when they suddenly become weak and vulnerable and dependent on the care of others. But for many who have absorbed the idea of a right to abortion, the dependence of the fetus in the mother’s womb has been taken as a sign quite sufficient that the child has no standing as a separate being, with a claim to the protection of the law. The laws on abortion mark the child now as a living thing under the unchecked power of the pregnant woman. Whether it lives or dies must depend entirely on her will, not to be reviewed or judged by any other standard.

It is this hopeless subordination of the child in the womb that works, in this inverted outlook, to extinguish its rights. When we strip away the fuzzy language of empathy, what stands revealed is a prettified version of the Rule of the Strong: The strong will rule the weak, and their power to rule confirms the rightness of that rule.

Read the whole thing for the application of the "empathy test" to the smallest and weakest members of the human race.

On President Obama's empathy test more widely considered, see this essay by Peter Berkowitz, who argues that the President has "abused empathy by politicizing it," making it practically "indistinguishable from the endorsement of progressive policy outcomes." The result, Berkowitz argues, is the promotion of arrogance and activism, and ironical constriction of empathy.

Augustine: Despise Not the Work of Thy Hands

Augustine, as cited by Calvin (Institutes 3.17.14):

I do not say to the Lord,

Despise not the works of my hands;
I have sought the Lord with my hands, and have not been deceived.

But I commend not the works of my hands, for I fear that when thou examinest them thou wilt find more faults than merits.

This only I say, this asks this desire,

Despise not the works of thy hands.
See in me thy work, not mine.
If thou sees mine, thou condemnest;
if thou sees thine own, thou crownest.
Whatever good works I have are of thee.

Glory Road: The Journeys of 10 African-Americans into Reformed Christianity

Doug Logan has a good review of the new book, Glory Road: The Journeys of 10 African-Americans into Reformed Christianity.

Here is the table of contents:

Preface
Introduction (Ken Jones)
1. A Plea for Real Answers (Reddit Andrews III)
2. From Mecca to the Messiah (Thabiti Anyabwile)
3. Clemson University Saved My Life (Anthony B. Bradley)
4. Doesn’t Everyone Believe the Same Thing? (Anthony J. Carter)
5. Grace and Greater Union (Ken Jones)
6. I Remember It Well (Michael Leach)
7. The Old Bait and Switch (Lance Lewis)
8. The Doors of the Church Are Opened! (Louis C. Love Jr.)
Sovereign in a Sweet Home, School, and Solace (Eric C. Redmond)
9. Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places (Roger Skepple)
Afterword: Black, Reformed, but Foremost Christian (Anthony J. Carter)
Appendix: A Reformed Theology Survey

And here are a few blurbs:

“This book is a wonderful encouragement to those who love the doctrines of grace. The ten men described are African Americans—but quite frankly, what their ethnicity is does not matter nearly as much as their common delight in Christ and his gospel. Their stories are sufficiently diverse that they cannot be reduced to a simplistic mold; they have enough similarity that together they bring us back to God’s sovereign goodness in the cross of his Son. Read this book and rejoice.”

D. A. Carson, Research Professor of New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

“Here we have readable, compelling personal histories that, at the same time, teach us more about God, Christ, and the Bible and give accounts of these men coming to Christ. I love reading people’s testimonies of conversion! What more do we want in a book? To be encouraged, instructed, and edified, read these stories.”
Mark Dever, Senior Pastor, Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington, DC

“A reading of Glory Road is a journey of sober rejoicing. The joy is in the taste of future glory where men and women from every tribe and language and people and nation will together worship the Lamb. We rejoice in the first fruits of that glory evident in the testimonies of these gifted African-Americans now in Reformed churches. We also weep that their testimonies are so few due to these churches’ long blindness to gospel priorities despite their historic commitment to doctrinal orthodoxy. May Glory Road lead to a new dawn, greeted with tears but leading to songs of joy before the day is done.”
Bryan Chapell, President, Covenant Theological Seminary

You can read the preface and introduction here.

"Jesus of the Scars"

A poem by Edward Shillito (1872-1948), a Free Church minister in England during World War I:

If we have never sought, we seek Thee now;
Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars;
We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow,
We must have Thee, O Jesus of the Scars.
The heavens frighten us; they are too calm;
In all the universe we have no place.
Our wounds are hurting us; where is the balm?
Lord Jesus, by Thy Scars, we claim Thy grace.
If, when the doors are shut, Thou drawest near,
Only reveal those hands, that side of Thine;
We know to-day what wounds are, have no fear,
Show us Thy Scars, we know the countersign.
The other gods were strong; but Thou wast weak;
They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds only God's wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.

Dever: "You Are in Sin If You Lead Your Congregation to Have a Statement of Faith that Requires a Particular Millennial View"

As more than one blogger has pointed out, both Tom Schreiner and Mark Dever have been recently preaching through the book of Revelation. Dever is amillennial. So was Schreiner--until he prepared to preach through Revelation 20 and became historic pre-mill! (I have hope that Schreiner will come back, though! Full disclosure: I'm a-mill; for a helpful article on the problems with pre-mill, see Sam Storms's Problems with Premillennialism.)

But...in Dever's sermon yesterday on Rev. 20, he made a provocative but helpful statement regarding millennial views and church unity. The transcript and the added emphasis comes from A.J. Gibson:

I think that millennial views need not be among those doctrines that divide us. . . . I am suggesting that what you believe about the millennium—how you interpret these thousand years—is not something that it is necessary for us to agree upon in order to have a congregation together. The Lord Jesus Christ prayed in John 17:21 that we Christians might be one. Of course all true Christians are one in that we have his Spirit, we share his Spirit, we desire to live out that unity. But that unity is supposed to be evident as a testimony to the world around us. Therefore, I conclude that we should end our cooperations together with other Christians (whether near-ly in a congregation, or more at length in working together in missions and church planting and evangelism and building up the ministry) only with the greatest of care, lest we rend the body of Christ for whose unity he’s prayed and given himself. Therefore, I conclude that it is sin to divide the body of Christ—to divide the body that he prayed would be united. Therefore for us to conclude that we must agree upon a certain view of alcohol, or a certain view of schooling, or a certain view of meat sacrificed to idols, or a certain view of the millennium in order to have fellowship together is, I think, not only unnecessary for the body of Christ, but it is therefore both unwarranted and therefore condemned by scripture. So if you’re a pastor and you’re listening to me, you understand me correctly if you think I’m saying you are in sin if you lead your congregation to have a statement of faith that requires a particular millennial view. I do not understand why that has to be a matter of uniformity in order to have Christian unity in a local congregation.

Notice that Dever also includes views of alcohol in this list. (Many do not know that though John Piper is a teetotaler and thinks this is the wisest course for all Christians, he put his ministry on the line at Bethlehem in his second year at Bethlehem in order to have an abstinence-only clause removed from the church covenant.)

Feel free to weigh in with your comments, but if you do, let's keep the discussion focused on the issues here (i.e., this is not a debate about whether it's wrong to divide fellowship based on views of baptism).

HT: Andy Naselli

Update: Andy is interviewed on the radio about this here: Are Millennial Views Essential?

Blogging the Institutes

For those interested, I'm back up to bat this week at Ref21, giving brief summaries of Calvin on justification, faith, and works.

Of interest, Calvin believes (rightly in my view) that "judgment/reward according to works" is referring to eternal life (not some extra heavenly rewards), and it describes what will happen to believers (it is not hypothetical or applied only to unbelievers). And yet, of course, he is a passionate advocate of sola fide.