Between Two Worlds

Those interested in Presbyterian denominational history may want to check out some recent blog posts on this topic by Sean Michael Lucas.

• Presbyterians in America, No. 1
• Presbyterians in America, No. 2
• Presbyterians in America, No. 3

It's the material that will go into Lucas's chapter in a forthcoming collection of historiographical essays on denominational history to be published by the University of Alabama Press. As background, see Lucas's post on the dearth of Presbyterian denominational history.

You could perhaps file this video under various categories, like "Think You're Having a Bad Day at Work?" or "Reading a Teleprompter Must Be Harder Than It Looks."

Enjoy:



Here is an interview that CBS later did with Brian Collins, where he explains the origin of his now legendary phrase, "boom goes the dynamite."

In 2007 Broadman & Holman will publish Perspectives on the Doctrine of God: Four Views, edited by Bruce Ware. Paul Helm will write on "Classical Calvinism," Ware will argue for "Modified Calvinism," John Sanders will defend "Openness Theism," and Roger Olson will expound "Arminianism."

Helm has now posted onto his blog a draft of his chapter.

For those with some background knowledge regarding middle knowledge, I'd be interested for your take on whether or not you think Ware's Calvinistic recasting of middle knowledge is "unstable," as Helm suggests.

(HT: Jeff Downs)

John Owen, Communion with God:

There is no man whatever, that has any want in reference unto the things of God, but Christ will be unto him that which he wants: I speak of those who are given him of his Father.

Is he dead? Christ is life.

Is he weak? Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

Has he the sense of guilt upon him? Christ is complete righteousness—“The Lord our Righteousness” [Jer. 23:6].

Many poor creatures are sensible of their wants, but know not where their remedy lies. Indeed, whether it be life or light, power or joy, all is wrapped up in him.

This, then, for the present, may suffice in general to be spoken of the personal grace of the Lord Christ:

He has a fitness to save, having pity and ability, tenderness and power, to carry on that work to the uttermost;

and a fullness to save, of redemption and sanctification, of righteousness and the Spirit;

and a suitableness to the wants of all our souls: whereby he becomes exceedingly desirable, yea, altogether lovely.

I've recently suggested that fellow bloggers consider taping a couple of quotes to their computer screens:

"The blogosphere is the friend of information but the enemy of thought."--Alan Jacobs

"There is no inherent virtue to instantaneity."--Joseph Rago

Here's another to consider:

"Willingness to wound, too intense and naked, becomes impotent to do the desired mischief."--C.S. Lewis

The quote comes from the chapter “At the Fringe of Language” in Lewis's book, Studies in Words. Tim Keller passed along the following excerpt, which repays careful reading:

Adverse criticism, far from being the easiest, is one of the hardest things in the world to do well. And that for two reasons. When we try to define the badness of a work, we usually end by calling it bad on the strength of characteristics we can find also in good work. . . . The novel before you is bad—a transparent compensatory fantasy projected by a poor, plain woman, erotically starving. Yes, but so is Jane Eyre. . . . An author betrays shocking indifference to all the great political, social, and intellectuals upheavals of his age; like Jane Austen. The solution of the problem is, I suspect, still far away. . . . The other difficulty lies within. . . . Reviews filled with venom have often been condemned socially for their bad manners, or ethically for their spite. I am not prepared to defend them from either charge; but I prefer to stress their inutility. . . . Automatically, without thinking about it one’s mind discounts everything [the venomous critic] says, as it does when we are listening to a drunk or delirious man. The critic rivets our attention on himself. When we get to the end we find that the critic has told us everything about himself and nothing about the book. Thus in criticism, as in vocabulary, hatred over-reaches itself. Willingness to wound, too intense and naked, becomes impotent to do the desired mischief.

Of course, if we are to be critics, we must condemn as well as praise; we must sometimes condemn totally and severely. But we must obviously be very careful. . . . I think we must get it firmly fixed in our minds that the very occasions on which we should most like to write a slashing review are precisely those on which we had much better hold our tongues. The very desire is a danger signal. . . . The strength of our dislike is itself a probable symptom that all is not well within; that some raw place in our psychology has been touched, or else that some personal or partisan motive is secretly at work. . . . If we do speak, we shall almost certainly make fools of ourselves. Continence in this matter is no doubt painful. But, after all, you can always write your slashing review now and drop it into the wastepaper basket a day or so later. A few re-readings in cold blood will often make this quite easy.

He so loved us that, for our sake,
He was made man in time, although through him all times were made.
He was made man, who made man.
He was created of a mother whom he created.
He was carried by hands that he formed.
He cried in the manger in wordless infancy, he the Word,
without whom all human eloquence is mute.
--Augustine, Sermon 188, 2

(HT: Christian Mind)

John Owen, Communion with God:

First, then, this is a duty wherein it is most evident that Christians are but little exercised — namely, in holding immediate communion with the Father in love. Unacquaintedness with our mercies, our privileges, is our sin as well as our trouble. We hearken not to the voice of the Spirit which is given unto us, “that we may know the things that are freely bestowed on us of God” (1 Cor. 2:12). This makes us go heavily, when we might rejoice; and to be weak, where we might be strong in the Lord. How few of the saints are experimentally acquainted with this privilege of holding immediate communion with the Father in love! With what anxious, doubtful thoughts do they look upon him! What fears, what questioning are there, of his goodwill and kindness! At the best, many think there is no sweetness at all in him toward us, but what is purchased at the high price of the blood of Jesus. It is true: that alone is the way of communication; but the free fountain and spring of all is in the bosom of the Father. “Eternal life was with the Father, and is manifested unto us.” (1 John 1:2). Let us, then—

Eye the Father as love; look not on him as an always lowering father, but as one most kind and tender. Let us look on him by faith, as one that has had thoughts of kindness toward us from everlasting. It is misapprehension of God that makes any [to] run from him, who have the least breathing wrought in them after him. “They that know you will put their trust in you” [Ps. 9:10]. Men cannot abide with God in spiritual meditations. He loses soul’s company by their want [=lack] of this insight into his love. They fix their thoughts only on his terrible majesty, severity, and greatness; and so their spirits are not endeared. Would a soul continually eye his everlasting tenderness and compassion, his thoughts of kindness that have been from of old, his present gracious acceptance, [then] it could not bear an hour’s absence from him; whereas now, perhaps, it cannot watch with him one hour.

The new 9Marks newsletter--focusing on friendship, fellowship, and hospitality--is now online at the 9Marks website (also available as a PDF).

From Al Mohler's blog:

Dr. Albert Mohler is recovering at Louisville's Baptist East hospital following abdominal surgery. Dr. Mohler was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday after experiencing abdominal pain. During a three-hour procedure, surgeons removed scar tissue from a 1980s operation. Dr. Mohler is expected to be released from the hospital next week and will continue his recovery at home. Dr. Russell Moore, dean of the School of Theology and Senior VP for Academic Administration at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, will host The Albert Mohler radio program until he is able to return to the air. Dr. Mohler's blog and commentary posts will resume as soon as he is able. Please join the Southern Seminary community in praying for Dr. Mohler's quick and total recovery.

Rick Phillips writes at the Reformation 21 blog:

Please pray for Dr. D. James Kennedy, his wife and daughter, and Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. Dr. Kennedy is in grave condition following a cardiac arrest last evening.

Jim's health has deteriorated markedly in the last several months, and he has manfully continued his ministry to the best of his ability. During all my interactions with him even during this trying time, he has exhibited his characteristic good cheer, charm, and force of mind. Along with being a man with great vision for the kingdom of Christ, Jim Kennedy is a true Christian gentleman. Please pray for God either to restore him or to give him grace as he passes from this life into the presence of his Lord.

I was thinking the other day about about a particular paragraph from Vern Poythress's review of Kevin Vanhoozer's Is There a Meaning in This Text? I just found it online and thought it might be worth reproducing here for your consideration:

A second tension arises from the book’s prolonged analysis of postmodernism in Part I. Christian readers are all too prone to ignore or rush through discussions of postmodernism, because they immediately see in it atheistic, relativizing, and nihilistic tendencies. Commendably, the book is patient in its analysis. And so it arrives at a positive result, in the form of a critique of “interpretive pride” (p. 184). But for the Christian reader, this final result, though satisfying, ought also to be disappointing. Should we not have known this all along? Do we really have to go through the painful, intellectually difficult analysis of Derrida and postmodernism to learn what the Bible has told us a hundred times? And of course, the Bible is far more powerful in exposing sin than is the frustrating mixture of insight and idolatry in secular postmodernist worldviews. “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, . . . discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb 4:12 RSV).

Those studying Hebrew may be interested in this site, where you can listen to the entire Old Testament in Hebrew (according to the Masoretic Text) via MP3.

Erik Raymond (of IrishCalvinist.com) writes:

The 37^th President of the United States died yesterday. Gerald Ford was 93 years old. In hearing the news I was immediately struck by the beauty of King Jesus. You may raise an eyebrow and wonder aloud as to how and why.

Read the whole thing.

R. Scott Clark is associate professor of historical and systematic theology at Westminster Seminary California, associate pastor of the Oceanside United Reformed Church--and now a blogger of The Heidelblog.

One of his early posts is on a subject of increasing interest to me: Calvin and Natural Law.

I encourage you to take a look.

My wife and I were married in August 1998. We went on a one-week honeymoon, then moved to Minneapolis, where I began an internship at Bethlehem Baptist Church.

On April 26, 1998 John Piper preached the first sermon in a series on the book of Romans. When we arrived in Minneapolis four months later, he had worked through about 18 verses.

We moved to Chicagoland in January 2006. At that time Pastor John was in the middle of Romans 15. So despite being at Bethlehem for seven and a half years, I heard neither the beginning nor the end of the series! In fact, despite the fact that we've been married for eight years now, John Piper has been preaching this series longer than we have been married.

This past Sunday (Christmas Eve, 2006) Pastor John preached the final sermon of the series. It is entitled Jesus Christ in the Book of Romans. It is not an ordinary sermon, however. The entire thing is framed as a prayer to Christ himself, in the tradition of Augustine's great Confessions.

You can read it, listen to it, or watch it online. When you do, give thanks to God for gifting John Piper to invest thousands of hours into studying and preaching this great book. And give thanks to God for inspiring the apostle Paul to pen these words that addressed particular theological and sociological questions of the day but still speak to us today. And most importantly, thank God for the gift of his Son, Jesus Christ.

8:31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
35 “Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”

36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

In Faerie Gold: Treasures from the Lands of Enchantment (a collection of classics for young readers), Kathryn Lindskoog and Ranelda Mack Hunsicker include a message to parents and teacher entitled "Why Do We Need Fairy Tales and Fantasy?" Here's the outline of their reasons:

1. They stimulate imagination and creativity.
2. They help readers empathize with others and develop compassion.
3. They carry readers beyond the restrictions of time and space and promote a sense of mystery and transcendence.
4. They satisfy the innate desire for communion with other living things.
5. They show how the small and powerless can triumph through perseverance and patience.
6. They awaken higher ideals without preaching.
7. They help readers envision a better society where intelligence, courage, and compassion prevail.

The classic case for fairy tales is J.R.R. Tolkien's On Fairy Stories (PDF [link fixed]). Highly recommended reading.

And here's a quote by C.S. Lewis on why he preferred fairy tales to "realism":

“By confining your child to blameless stories of child life in which nothing at all alarming ever happened, you would fail to banish the terrors, and would succeed in banishing all that can ennoble them or make them endurable. For in the fairy tales, side by side with the terrible figures, we find the immemorial comforters and protectors, the radiant ones; and the terrible figures are not merely terrible, but sublime. It would be nice if no little boy in bed, hearing or thinking he hears, a sound, were ever at all frightened. But if he is going to be frightened, I think it better that he should think of giants and dragons than merely of burglars. And I think St. George, or any bright champion in armour, is a better comfort than the idea of police.”
– “On Three Ways of Writing for Children”

(HT for the quote: Children's Hour)

Hugh Hewitt recently did a three-hour interview with Professor David Allen White on Handel's Messiah. You can listen online to Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

In these three lectures at the Wylciffe Summer School program, Alister McGrath explores the ways in which Christians can use literature to explain and defend the Gospel.

HT: Dan Cruver

Ravi Zacharias often cites Malcom Muggeridge's summary of the 20th century:

We look back upon history, and what do we see? Empires rising and falling. Revolutions and Counterrevolutions. Wealth accumulated and wealth disbursed. Shakespeare has written of the rise and fall of great ones, that ebb and flow with the moon. I look back upon my own fellow countrymen, once upon a time dominating a quarter of the world, most of them convinced, in the words of what is still a popular song, that the God who made them mighty, shall make them mightier yet.

I've heard a crazed, cracked Austrian announce to the world the establishment of a Reich that would last a thousand years. I have seen an Italian clown say he was going to stop and restart the calendar with his own ascension to power. I've heard a murderous Georgian brigand in the Kremlin, acclaimed by the intellectual elite of the world as wiser than Solomon, more humane than Marcus Aurelius, more enlightened than Ashoka.

I have seen America, wealthier and in terms of military weaponry, more powerful than the rest of the world put together, so that had the American people so desired, they could have outdone a Caesar, or an Alexander in the range and scale of their conquests.

All in one lifetime, all in one lifetime, all gone. Gone with the wind.

England part of a tiny island off the coast of Europe, threatened with dismemberment and even bankruptcy. Hitler and Mussolini dead, remembered only in infamy. Stalin a forbidden name in the regime he helped found and dominate for some three decades. America haunted by fears of running our of those precious fluids that keeps their motorways roaring, and the smog settling, with troubled memories of a disastrous campaign in Vietnam, and the victories of the Don Quixotes of the media as they charged the windmills of Watergate. All in one lifetime, all in one lifetime, all gone. Gone with the wind.

Zacharias then comments:

Behind the debris of these solemn supermen, and self-styled imperial diplomatists, there stands the gigantic figure of one, because of whom, by whom, in whom and through whom alone, mankind may still have peace: The person of Jesus Christ. I present him as the way, the truth, and the life.

"Infinite, and an infant.
Eternal, and yet born of a woman.
Almighty, and yet hanging on a woman's breast.
Supporting a universe, and yet needing to be carried in a mother's arms.
King of angels, and yet the reputed son of Joseph.
Heir of all things, and yet the carpenter's despised son."

-Charles Spurgeon

(HT: Josh Harris via Z)

The ESV Blog has a couple of helpful posts on one-year Bible reading plans: (1) Two New Bible Reading Plans for 2007; and (2) Visualizing One-Year Bible Reading Plans.

John Piper writes:

I read this letter from Pastor Sam Crabtree to our congregation on the evening of December 23, 2006. I tried to read it to my wife and was not able to finish it for tears. I called Sam and said, “Sam, this is a very powerful piece. I could not finish reading it without tears. May I share it with the folks who come to Desiring God?” He agreed.
Why was I so moved? I am not entirely sure. I think it was a mingled effect of four things: 1) the length of the list, 2) the surprise elements in it, 3) the combination of global and intimate, 4) and reference to the Mayans no longer sacrificing their children.

I believe you will want to read this list to your families on Christmas day and perhaps to your churches, with some tweaks to make it personal to your situation (for example, in my case, I am sure I would not exist if Jesus had not been born because he was at the center of my parents’ love affair.)

O that the world would awaken to the greatness of Jesus Christ! May God grant us the passion and the ability to make him look like what he really is, till he comes or until he calls.

Glory to God in the highest through Jesus Christ!
Pastor John

You can read Sam's letter here.

(HT: Eric Brandt)

Mark Dever explains why we should all eagerly anticipate Bob Kauflin's forthcoming book, Worship Matters.

Bob Kauflin, tall, humble & happy, classically-trained worship czar of Sovereign Grace ministries has been behind much good for Christ's church. (Get and listen to Sovereign Grace's new CD's Valley of Vision and Savior: Celebrating the Mystery of God Become Man.) Bob is now in the process of writing a new book on worship which promises to be good, readable, helpful, even by the standards of this regulative-principle, Calvinistic, hymn-loving Baptist reader. Bob is one of the best, most well-read, most pastorally-sensitive conversation partners on the whole topic of worship that God has ever given me. I have learned and do continue to try to learn from him.

Bob blogs at WorshipMatters.com. I highly recommend Bob's blog, even if you are not involved in leading or preparing corporate worship music (I'm certainly not--I sound bad even singing in the shower, and six years of piano lessons has left me with only the ability to play Keith Green's "Prodigal Son Suite" [until the key change]). His blog is invariably instructive and edifying.

Every blogger (especially those of us who hope that blogs can be a medium for thoughtful edification) should tape these two lines to their monitor:

"The blogosphere is the friend of information but the enemy of thought."--Alan Jacobs

"There is no inherent virtue to instantaneity."--Joseph Rago

The latter quote comes from an article in today's WSJ on blogs. It's worth reading (especially if you were really excited to have been named Time Magazine's Person of the Year!).

Here is an excerpt:

Every conceivable belief is on the scene, but the collective prose, by and large, is homogeneous: A tone of careless informality prevails; posts oscillate between the uselessly brief and the uselessly logorrheic; complexity and complication are eschewed; the humor is cringe-making, with irony present only in its conspicuous absence; arguments are solipsistic; writers traffic more in pronouncement than persuasion . . ."

The way we write affects both style and substance. The loquacious formulations of late Henry James, for instance, owe in part to his arthritis, which made longhand impossible, and instead he dictated his writing to a secretary. In this aspect, journalism as practiced via blog appears to be a change for the worse. That is, the inferiority of the medium is rooted in its new, distinctive literary form. Its closest analogue might be the (poorly kept) diary or commonplace book, or the note scrawled to oneself on the back of an envelope--though these things are not meant for public consumption. The reason for a blog's being is: Here's my opinion, right now.

The right now is partially a function of technology, which makes instantaneity possible, and also a function of a culture that valorizes the up-to-the-minute above all else. But there is no inherent virtue to instantaneity. Traditional daily reporting--the news--already rushes ahead at a pretty good clip, breakneck even, and suffers for it. On the Internet all this is accelerated.

. . . This element--here's my opinion--is necessarily modified and partly determined by the right now. Instant response, with not even a day of delay, impairs rigor. It is also a coagulant for orthodoxies. We rarely encounter sustained or systematic blog thought--instead, panics and manias; endless rehearsings of arguments put forward elsewhere; and a tendency to substitute ideology for cognition. The participatory Internet, in combination with the hyperlink, which allows sites to interrelate, appears to encourage mobs and mob behavior.

This cross-referential and interactive arrangement, in theory, should allow for some resolution to divisive issues, with the market sorting out the vagaries of individual analysis. Not in practice. The Internet is very good at connecting and isolating people who are in agreement, not so good at engaging those who aren't.

(HT: Robert McDowell)