Why do adult bookstores and strip clubs cover their windows? The obvious answer is so you can't see in. But is there more to it than that?
Listen to John Piper suggest why they really don't want windows--and then offer a way to defeat lust that you may not have thought of.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Why Porn Shops Don't Have Windows
I remember being moved by this meditation the first time I heard it years ago. Now it's featured on the DG blog page:
Business and Missions
The New Attitude blog interviews Jonathan and Daniel—founders of Access Partners—and asks them about their strategy for combining business with frontier missions.
See part 1 and part 2.
See part 1 and part 2.
"The Puritan Message"
Here's a bit of satire about John Owen. (I'm not sure if that sentence has ever been penned before!)
(HT: Andy Naselli)
(HT: Andy Naselli)
Monday, April 02, 2007
Powlison on Lusts of the Flesh: Question 15
David Powlison answers the final question on lusts of the flesh:
15. Can you change what you want?
Yes and Amen! This is central to the work of the Holy Spirit. You will always desire, love, trust, believe, fear, obey, long for, value, pursue, hope, and serve something. You are motivated when you feel desire. God does not anesthetize us; he redirects our desire. The Holy Spirit works to change the something, as he leads us with an intimate hand. The desires of the heart are not unchangeable. God never promises to give you what you want, to meet your felt needs and longings. He tells you to be ruled by other, different desires. This is radical. God promises to change what you really want! God insists that he be first, and all lesser loves be radically subordinate.
The best way to understand this is to think about prayer. Prayer means asking, and you ask because you want something. You ask God because you believe he has power to accomplish some desired Good. When Solomon prayer for a wise and discerning heart, God freely gave Solomon what he wanted (1 Kings 3). God was delighted that Solomon did not ask for a long life, riches, and success, the felt needs of most people in power. Solomon had not treated God as a genie in a lamp who exists to grand him three wishes. What we want by nature--the cravings of the flesh--expresses our sin nature. But Solomon had learned to know what he really needed. He had learned to pray according to the will of God, and it pleased God to answer him. The Lord changes what we want, and we learn to pray for what delights God, to want what he wants.
God challenges the things that everybody everywhere eagerly pursues (Matt. 6:32). What desires of body and mind (Eph. 2:3) do people naturally follow? Consider our characteristic passions: desires of the body include life itself, air, health, water, food, clothing, shelter, sexual pleasure, rest, and exercise. Desires of the mind include happiness, being loved, meaning, money and possessions, respect, status, accomplishment, self-esteem, success, control, power, self-righteousness, aesthetic pleasure, knowledge, marriage, and family. Must these rule our lives? They did not rule Jesus’ life. Can these cravings really be changed? The Bible says Yes, and points us to the promises of God: to indwell us with power, to write truth on our hearts, to pour out his love in our hearts, to enable us to say “Abba, Father.”
As we have seen, many of these things are not bad in themselves. The evil in our desires does not lie in what we want, but in the fact that we want it too much. Our desires for good things seize the throne, becoming idols that replace the King. God refuses to serve our instinctive longings, but commands us to be ruled by other longings. What God commands, he provides the power to accomplish: he works in us both the willing and the doing of his good pleasure (Phil. 2:12–13).
Can you change what you want? Yes. Does the answer to this question surprise you? It counters influential contemporary views of human motivation. Most Christian counseling books follow on the heels of secular psychologists and take your desires, your “felt needs,” as givens. Many leading Christian psychologists make the unchangeability of what we long for the foundation of their systems. For example, many teach that we have an “empty love tank” inside, and our craving for love must be met, or we are doomed to a life of sin and misery. Desires to feel good about ourselves (“self-esteem”) or to accomplish something meaningful are similarly baptized. This creates the psychological equivalent of the “Health and Wealth” theology, which similarly selects certain common desires and accepts them as givens that God is obligated to fulfill. The psychological versions of health and wealth miss that God is about the business of changing what people really long for. If felt needs are unchangeable, then it is impossible for us to learn to pray the way Solomon did. This reinforces our tendency to pray for our cravings. It reinforces a sense of victimization in those who were mistreated. It reinforces the tendency to press God into the service of our lusts.
The deepest longings of the human heart can and must be changed if mankind is to become all that God designed us to be. Our deviant longings are illegitimate masters; even where the object of desire is a good thing, the status of the desire usurps God. Our cravings should be recognized in order that we may more richly know God as the Savior, Lover, and Converter of the human soul. God would have us long for him more than we long for his gifts. To make us truly human, God must change what we want; we must learn to want the things Jesus wanted. It is no surprise that the psychologists can’t find any biblical proof texts for their view of human motivation. The Bible teaches a different view.
The Christian life is a great paradox. Those who die to self, find self. Those who die to their cravings will receive many times as much in this age, and, in the age to come, eternal life (Luke 18:29). They will find new passions worth living for and dying for. If I crave happiness, I will receive misery. If I crave to be loved, I will receive rejection. If I crave significance, I will receive futility. If I crave control, I will receive chaos. If I crave reputation, I will receive humiliation. But if I long for God and his wisdom and mercy, I will receive God and wisdom and mercy. Along the way, sooner or later, I will also receive happiness, love, meaning, order, and glory.
Every vital Christian testifies that the instinctive passions and desires of the flesh can be replaced with the new priorities of the Spirit. This reorientation is not instant and complete, but it is genuine and progressive. Two of the greatest books of practical Christian theology—Augustine’s Confessions and Jonathan Edwards’s Treatise Concerning Religious Affections—meditate on this transformation. And one assumes that Francis of Assisi meant his prayer: “O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love.” The craving to learn how to love and understand replaces the craving for love and understanding.
Those who hunger and thirst for such righteousness will be satisfied. We have Jesus’ word. We have no promise, however, that God will satisfy the instinctive cravings of the soul. The Bible teaches us to pray, to learn to ask for what we really need. Can we pray the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer and really mean it? Yes. Can we long for God’s glory, for his will to be obeyed, for daily material provision for all God’s people, for sins to be forgiven, for aid in warfare with evil? Yes.
A wise Puritan pastor, Thomas Chalmers, once wrote of the expulsive power of a new affection. New ruling desires expel lesser masters from the throne. What are the new and different motives that rule in renewed hearts? What changed objects of desire characterize the master motives of the new, listening heart? How does God change what people want? The Bible treats these matters everywhere.[1]
Idolatrous cravings hijack the human heart. Both the Christian life and Christian ministry are by definition about the business of accomplishing a transformation in what people want. Such transformations lie at the center of the Holy Spirit’s purposes in working his Word into our lives. The lusts of the flesh lead somewhere bad: dead works. The lusts of the flesh have a specific solution: the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which replaces them. “He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf” (2 Cor. 5:15). The desires of the Lord lead to somewhere good: good works. One key ingredient in reclaiming the cure of souls is to make this transformation central.
Note
The following passages get a start on this question. For each passage ask, “What does this person really want, long for, pursue, delight in?” Pss. 42:1–2; 63:1–8; 73:25–28; 80; 90:8–17; Prov. 2:1–6; 3:13–18; 8:11; Isa. 26:8–9; Matt. 5:6; 6:9–13, 6:19–33; 13:45–46; Luke 11:9–13; Rom. 5:1–11; 8:18–25; 9:1–3; 2 Cor. 5:8–9; Phil. 1:18–25; 3:8–11; 3:20–21; 2 Tim. 2:22; 3:12; 1 Peter 1:13; 2:2; Rev. 22:20.
Economic Lives of the Poor
Two MIT profs have produced an interesting international study on The Economic Lives of the Poor.
Abstract: "This paper uses survey data from 13 countries to document the economic lives of the poor (those living on less than $2 dollar per day per capita at purchasing power parity) or the extremely poor (those living on less than $1 dollar per day). We describe their patterns of consumption and income generation as well as their access to markets and publicly provided infrastructure. The paper concludes with a discussion of some apparent anomalous choices."
Slate has a summary.
(HT: World Mag Blog)
Abstract: "This paper uses survey data from 13 countries to document the economic lives of the poor (those living on less than $2 dollar per day per capita at purchasing power parity) or the extremely poor (those living on less than $1 dollar per day). We describe their patterns of consumption and income generation as well as their access to markets and publicly provided infrastructure. The paper concludes with a discussion of some apparent anomalous choices."
Slate has a summary.
(HT: World Mag Blog)
Powlison on Lusts of the Flesh: Question 14
David Powlison answers question 14 (of 15) on lusts of the flesh:
14. In counseling, do you just confront a person with his sinful cravings?
Wise counselors don't "just confront" anything. They do many different things to make confrontation timely and effective. Counselors never see the heart, only the evidences, so a certain tentativeness is often appropriate when discussing motives. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that counseling aims to illuminate the heart, to help people see themselves as they are in God's eyes, and in that to make the love of God as sweet necessity. Since counselors have the same package of typical lusts, we meet on common ground in our need for grace because of pride, fear of man, unbelief, and love of comfort and control.
We can and must tackle such issues. Second Timothy 3:16 begins with teaching. Good teaching (for example, on how Galatians 5 and James 1 connect outward sins to inward cravings) helps people examine and see themselves. Good teaching invites self-knowledge and self-confrontation. Experience with people will make you "case wise" to typical connections (such as the varied motives for immorality mentioned in Question 6). Probing questions--What did you want or expect or fear when you blew up at your wife?--help a person reveal his ruling lusts to himself and to the counseling.
In the light of self-knowledge before God's face (Heb. 4:12-13), the Gospel offers many promises: mercy, help, the Shepherd's care in progressive sanctification (Heb. 4:14-16). "The unfolding of Your words brings light" (Ps. 119:130). Repentance, faith, and obedience become vigorous and intelligent when we see both our inner cravings and our outward sin in light of God's mercies.
The patterns, themes, or tendencies of the heart do not typically yield to a once-for-all repentance. Try dealing one mortal blow to your pride, fear of man, love of pleasure, or desire to control your world, and you will realize why Jesus spoke Luke 9:23! But genuine progress will occur where the Holy Spirit is at work. Understanding your motivational sins gives you a sense for the themes of your story, how your Father is at work in you over the long haul.
Work hard and carefully both on motivation issues (Rom. 13:14: the lusts of the flesh versus putting on Jesus Christ) and on behavioral issues (Rom. 13:12-13): the varied deeds of darkness versus proper "daylight" behavior).
Theology Driven Ministry
Southeastern Seminary recently had a Theology-Driven Ministry Conference, featuring Paul Tripp and Sinclair Ferguson. You can access the audio here:
Here were the messages:
(HT: Jeremy Oddy)
Here were the messages:
- Your Walk with God Is a Community Project – Paul Tripp
- Progressive Sanctification and the Anti-Social Nature of Sin – Paul Tripp
- The Pastor’s Role in Sanctification – Sinclair Ferguson
- Colossians 3:1-17 – Sinclair Ferguson
- Sanctification in the Middle of the Messiness of Relationships – Paul Tripp
(HT: Jeremy Oddy)
Amid a Flood of Mortal Ills
Joe Thorn offers wise counsel on how to respond to the moral failings and falls of others.
McCullough on Reading and Writing
Al Mohler points to this Jefferson Lecture (2003) by David McCullough (text | audio) on history and reading.
Powlison on Lusts of the Flesh: Question 13
David Powlison answers question 13 (of 15) on lusts of the flesh:
13. How does thinking about lusts relate to other ways of talking about sin, such as "sin nature," "self," "pride," "autonomy," "unbelief," and "self-centeredness"?
These words are general terms that summarize the problem of sin. One of the beauties of identifying ruling desires is that they are specific and can therefore enable more specific repentance and specific change. For example, a person who becomes angry in a traffic jam may later say, "I know the anger is sin, and it comes from self." That is true as far as it goes. But it helps to take self-knowledge a step further: "I cursed in anger because I craved to get to my appointment on time. I feared criticism from the person waiting for me and I feared losing the profits from that sale." Repentance and change can become more specific when the person identifies these three lusts that expressed the lordship of self in this particular incident.
The Bible discusses sin in an astonishing variety of ways. Sometimes Scripture addresses sin at the general level: e.g., Luke 9:23-26 on self or Proverbs on the fool. At other times Scripture increases the microscope's power and treats a particular theme of sin: e.g., Philippians 3 on the pursuit of self-righteousness or 1 Timothy 6 on love of money. In still other places, the Bible speaks of sinful desires that lead to sin and invites us to make the specific application: e.g., James 1:14-15; 4:1-2; Gal. 5:16-21; Rom. 13:12-14. We could diagram this roughly as follows: (1) general terms, (2) mid-level typical patterns, and (3) detail-level specifics. (See the diagram here.)
Powlison on Lusts of the Flesh: Question 12
David Powlison answers question 12 (of 15) on lusts of the flesh:
12. Do people ever have conflicting motives?
Certainly. The conflict between sinful lusts and the Holy Spirit's desires is a given of the Christian life (Gal. 5:16-17). People often have mixed motives, some good, and some bad. Most preachers and counselors will acknowledge that loving Christ and people battles against love for success and human approval.
In other instances, two sinful cravings may conflict. For example, a businessman might want to steal something from a convenience store, but holds back in fear of what people would think if they found out. In this example, mammon worship and social approval present themselves as options for the flesh; the heart inclines to the latter.
People often prioritize their cravings, and arrange the priorities differently in different situations. For example, the man who would never shoplift because of the social consequences might cheat on his taxes because he's not likely to get caught, and no one who "matters" would know if he did. In this case self-will and mammon worship seize the steering wheel, and social approval moves to the back seat. The "broad way" has a thousand creative variants!
The Pursuit of Happiness
David Horner, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Biblical Studies at Talbot School of Theology (Biola), writes on The Pursuit of Happiness: C. S. Lewis’ Eudaimonistic Understanding of Ethics.
Interview with Eric Redmond
Thabiti Anyabwile interviews Eric Redmond, Senior Pastor of Hillcrest Baptist Church in Temple Hills, MD.
The Discipline of Discernment
Tim Challies writes about his forthcoming book, The Discipline of Discernment.
Sunday, April 01, 2007
God Debate in Newsweek
"Rick Warren is as big as a bear, with a booming voice and easygoing charm. Sam Harris is compact, reserved and, despite the polemical tone of his books, friendly and mild. Warren, one of the best-known pastors in the world, started Saddleback in 1980; now 25,000 people attend the church each Sunday. Harris is softer-spoken; paragraphs pour out of him, complex and fact-filled—as befits a Ph.D. student in neuroscience. At NEWSWEEK's invitation, they met in Warren's office recently and chatted, mostly amiably, for four hours. Jon Meacham moderated."
Here are some excerpts. Here is Meacham's overview.
(HT: Christian Mind)
Here are some excerpts. Here is Meacham's overview.
(HT: Christian Mind)
Powlison on Lusts of the Flesh: Question 11
David Powlison answers question 11 (of 15) on lusts of the flesh:
11. What about fears? They seem as important in human motivation as cravings.
Fear and desire are two sides of a single coin. A sinful fear is a craving for something not to happen. If I want money, I fear poverty. If I long to be accepted, I'm terrified of rejection. If I fear pain or hardship, I crave comfort or pleasure. If I crave preeminence, I fear being inferior to others. With some people the fear may be more pronounced than the corresponding desire, and wise counseling will work with what is pronounced.
For example, a person who grew up during the Great Depression might manifest mammon worship through a fear of poverty that shows up in anxiety, hoarding, repeated calculations of financial worth, and so forth. A wealthy entrepeneur might manifest mammon worship through unchecked consumer spending. With the former, address fear; with the latter, address greed. They are complementary expressions of cravings on earth.
Powlison on Lusts of the Flesh: Question 10
David Powlison answers question 10 (of 15) on lusts of the flesh:
10. Can desires be habitual?
Paul describes a former manner of life characterized by deceitful lusts. Peter tells his readers not to be conformed to their former desires. [Eph. 4:2 (cf. 4:17-19, which reinforces the notion of a characteristic lifestyle); 1 Pe. 1:14.] Like all other aspects of sin--beliefs, attitudes, words, deeds, emotions, thoughts, fantasies--desires can be habitual. You will counsel people who typically and repeatedly seek to control others, or to indulge in the pleasures of sloth, or to be seen as superior, or to be liked. Jesus' call to die daily to self recognizes the inertia of sin. God is in the business of creating new habitual desires, for example, an active concern for the well being of others before God.
Many counseling systems are obsessed with locating the reasons for current problems in the distant past. The Bible's wordview is much more straightforward. Sin emerges from within the person. The fact that a pattern of craving became established many years before--even that it was forged in a particular context, perhaps influenced by bad models or by experience of being sinned against--only describes what happened. For example, past rejections do not cause a craving to be accepted by others any more than current rejections cause that craving. The occasions of a lust are never its cause. Temptations and sufferings do push buttons, but they don't create those buttons. The brings huge hope for change in the present by the grace of God.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Powlison on Lusts of the Flesh: Question 9
David Powlison answers question 9 (of 15) on lusts of the flesh:
9. Doesn't the word lusts properly apply only to bodily appetites: the pleasures and comforts of sex, food, drink, rest, exercise, health?
People follow the desires of body and mind (see Eph. 2:3). Bodily appetites--the organism's hedonistic instinct to feel good--are certainly powerful masters unto sin. But desires of the mind--for power, human approval, success, preeminence, wealth, self-righteousness, and so forth--are also potent masters. The desires of the mind often present the most subtle and deceitful lusts because the outworkings are not always obvious. They don't reside in the body, but the Bible still views them as "lusts."
Friday, March 30, 2007
Powlison on Lusts of the Flesh: Question 8
I really do hope readers will be able to print out and meditate on these lusts of the flesh posts. There are gems buried here! For example, if we truly grasped lines like this--"motives are describable, even if inexplicable. There is no deeper cause for sin than sin"--both paradigms and lives would be changed.
Here Powlison answers question 8 of 15:
Here Powlison answers question 8 of 15:
8. Is it even right to talk about the heart, since the Bible teaches that the heart is unknowable to anyone but God? (1 Sam. 16:7; Jer. 17:9)
No one but God can see, explain, control, or change another person's heart and its choices. There is no underlying reason why a person serves a particular lust rather than God; sin is irrational and insane. And there is no therapeutic technique that can change hearts. But the Bible teaches us that we can describe what rules the heart and speak the truth that convicts and liberates. Effective biblical ministry probes and addresses why people do things, as well as what they do. Jesus' ministry continually exposed and challenged what people lived for, offering himself as the only worthy ruler of the heart.
For example, 1 Samuel 16:7 says that man judges by externals while God judges the heart. Yet a few verses earlier, we are told that Saul visibly disobeyed God for a reason: he feared the people and listened to their voice, instead of fearing God and listening to him (see 1 Sam. 15:24). His motives are describable, even if inexplicable. There is no deeper cause for sin than sin. Jeremiah 17:9 says that the human heart is deceitful and incomprehensible to any but God, but the same passage describes how behavior reveals that people trust in idols, themselves, and others, instead of trusting in God (see Jer. 17:1-8). Scripture is frank to tell us the causes of behavior: interpersonal conflicts, for example, arise because of lusts (see James 4:1-2). If anger and conflict come from a lust, the next and obvious question is, "What do you want that now rules you"
To search out motives demands no subtle psychotherapeutic technique. People can tell us what they want. The Israelites grumbled--a capital crime--when they had to subsist on boring food. Why? They craved flavor: fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic (see Num. 11:5). Later they grumbled when they got thirsty and no oasis appeared. Why? They craved juicy foods, or foods that demanded irrigation: grain, figs, vines, pomegranates, and water (see Num. 20:5). In each case the craving reflected their apostasy from God and expressed itself in visible, audible sins. When we see the God-substitutes that claim our affections, then we see how good and necessary the grace of Jesus is in subduing hijackers and retaking the controls.
A Simple Way to Pray
Melinda Penner points to a helpful summary of Luther's "A Simple Way to Pray"--a letter Luther wrote to his barber who had questions on prayer.
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