Living and Dying to Jesus

A brief Lutheran prayer of self-dedication to Christ, based on Rom. 14:7:

“O Jesus Christ, I live to you; I die to you; living or dying, I am yours. Amen.”

—Martin Luther, Luther's Prayers (ed. Herbert F. Brokering; Augsberg: Minneapolis, 1994), 71.

Gathering Together to Strengthen Marriages

This summer a group from our home church is getting together six Sunday nights to strengthen our marriages. Like caring for a glorious garden so it's not overrun with weeds, we're going to do a little planting, a little watering, and a little hoeing in community.

We'll be reading through Doug Wilson's For a Glory and a Covering: A Practical Theology of Marriage. I expect to do some blogging on the book along the way. Please feel free, especially if you're involved in the discussions, to interact and comment. If you're blogging on the book, I'll be sure to drop by and see what you're saying.

For those who'll be joining our jolly gatherings this summer (which Em and I are really looking forward to), I'm posting the marriage discussion schedule below. 

One more word about a word above. I say jolly gatherings, because "the joy of the Lord is our strength," and the strength of our marriages. And I say jolly, because I fully anticipate having a lot of fun with friends. 

Summer Reading Schedule for Marriage Discussion

June 10—Introduction and Part I: "Marriage and the Nature of God" 
                 (Chps. 1-5, xi - p. 26)

                 Discussion Focus: chps. 2 & 5

                 * Hosts: The Wencels 

June 24—Part II: "Marriage Is for Men and Women" 
                 (Chps. 6-8, pp. 29-53)

                 Discussion Focus: chps. 7 & 8

                 * Hosts: The Polenders

July 15—Part II: "Marriage Is for Men and Women"
              (Chps. 9-12, pp. 55-86)           
              Discussion Focus: chps. 11 & 12
              * Hosts: The Walters

July 22—Part III: "Marriage Is for Sinners" 
                (Chps. 13-16, pp. 89-108)

                Discussion Focus: chps. 14 & 16

                * Hosts: The Colberts

Aug 12—Part III: "Marriage Is for Sinners" 
                (Chps. 17-19, pp. 109-124)

                Discussion Focus: chps. 17 & 19

                * Hosts: The Wencels

Aug 26—Part IV: "Marriage Is Good" 
                (Chps. 20-23, pp. 127-149)

                Discussion Focus: chps. 21 & 23

                * Hosts: ?

An Awful Weapon in the Hand of God

“It is not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God.”—Robert Murray M’Cheyne

—Andrew Bonar, ed., Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M’Cheyne (Carlisle: Banner of Truth, 1995), 282.

A Minister’s Personal Holiness Paramount

“What my people need most is my personal holiness.—”Robert Murray M’Cheyne

—Andrew Bonar, ed., Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray M’Cheyne (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978), 258.

O Father, I Would Be Lost and Destroyed

 Luther offers a model prayer of contrition, confession, and childlike trust:

My dear Father, I always confess and you can see that as I walk or stand, every particle of my inner and out being, together with my body and soul, deserves hell and fire. When all is said and done, you, my Father, know that of my own accord there is not even a hair on my head, nor any other thing in me, that is good. Everything that belongs to me is hunted by the hated devil for the bottomless pit.

What can I say about it? In spite of who I am, I continue to pray to you, my dear Father. Do not stare and search me with your eyes, for I would be lost and destroyed, even if a hundred thousand worlds were mine! But I ask you to look at the face of your dear Son, Jesus Christ, your anointed one, my Mediator, High Priest, and Advocate; my Savior, Redeemer, and Benefactor. O my Father, be gracious and merciful for his sake, not mine. 

Grant me a happy end and a glad resurrection, for the sake of your dear Son, Jesus Christ. Help my body in this world, and my soul in the world to come, because of the crimson blood which he has shed on the cross for the forgiveness of my sins, and because of my many sins which cannot be named, which because of your righteousness you will not cover. I pray you now, my Father, because of your infinite mercy permit the blood of Jesus Christ your Son to accomplish its purpose in me. It was willed by you from eternity that the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ on the cross should pay for the forgiveness and remission of my sins.

So in whatever hour or moment by day or night you will come and knock to require my spirit which you have breathed into me, I pray you continually, dear Father, to permit this spirit, which is my soul, to be commended into your hands. I ask this because of the blood, sufferings, and death of your dear Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

—Martin Luther, Luther's Prayers (ed. Herbert F. Brokering; Augsberg: Minneapolis, 1994), 70-71.

Blog Break

The blog is on hold. The internet has been down at our place for days. I'm also now in the hospital getting testing for my heart, which has been acting up again. If you're here reading this, please pray for sweet fellowship with the Lord and restoration of health to serve the Lord with vigor and zeal.

Meekness Is not Weakness

"Meekness is not weakness, but is what you get when a powerful wild horse has been tamed (all the same power, but now under control)."

—N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 182.

Training Little Minds for Christ

Justin Taylor has labored in love to provide this reading list for children grades 1-8. Thanks, Justin!

Training Little Minds for Christ

Justin Taylor has now provided a reading list for sixth through eighth graders: follow this link. Follow this link for the list for fourth through fifth grade reading; and this one for first through third grade.

Some Did Count Him Mad

"A man there was, though some did count him mad,
The more he cast away, the more he had."

—John Buynan, Pilgrim's Progress (New York: Penguin, 2008), 265.

An Incomparable Treasure

Calvin tells us what he perceives to be the core of Colossians: "The principal object at which [Paul] aims to teach is that all things are in Christ, and that he alone ought to be sufficient and more than sufficient for the Colossians." I find this to be on the face of the instruction in Colossians, and pure and wholesome doctrine.

Then Calvin reasons why we should esteem this epistle as an "incomparable treasure":

All parts of our salvation are placed in Christ alone, that they [the Colossians] may not seek anything elsewhere; and he reminds them that it was in Christ that they had obtained all their blessings, in order that they might the more carefully make it their aim to retain him to the end. And, truly, even this one article is of itself perfectly sufficient to make us reckon this epistle, short as it is, an incomparable treasure; for what is greater in the whole of heavenly doctrine than to have Christ drawn to the life, that we may perceive his power, his office, and all the fruits that come to us from him?[1]

Let us then, with that great man of the Reformation, reckon this Pauline epistle according to its true worth as we perceive the wealth of Christ. I wouldn't trade it for all the estates and assets of both Bill Gates and Warren Buffett combined. Would you? More strongly, I wouldn't trade it for 10,000 worlds!

---

[1] John Calvin, The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians (eds., Torrance, David W., and Torrance, Thomas F; trans. Parker, T. H. L.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 298.

Training Little Minds for Christ

Justin Taylor provides a helpful reading list for fourth through fifth graders: check it out here. Look here for the link for first through third graders.

"Holy Delight"

Now that our parents know the sex/gender of our baby (my wife is seventeen weeks along in her first pregnancy), we're happy to announce we're having a little girl. Her name is Ariana Dalissa Wencel. Ariana is Greek in origin, and means "holy." Dalissa is English, from the Latin deliciae, which means "delight," or "pleasure." So her name means "holy delight."

It has a twofold significance. First, her name reminds us that our daughter is a delight from the Lord, and so one that should be holy, not idolatrous. She is a delight, but not an ultimate one. We will delight in her "in God" (à la Augustinianism). God alone is our supreme satisfaction, not this child.

Second, her name will serve to remind her that God is her holy delight, her pleasure above every pleasure, her all-satisfying infinite Delight and Treasure, even as he is her parents' all-satisfying infinite Delight and Treasure.

Cleverness in the Pulpit?

"No man can give the impression that he himself is clever and that Christ is mighty to save."—James Denney

—Quoted in John Piper, The Supremacy of God in Preaching (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 59.

O Lord, Fill My Empty Cup

Luther on the empty needing filling:

Look, Lord, an empty vessel that needs to be filled. My Lord, fill it. I am weak in the faith; strengthen me. I am cold in love; warm me and make me fervent, that my love may go out to my neighbor. I do not have a strong and firm faith. At times I doubt and am unable to trust you completely. O Lord, help me. Strengthen my faith and trust in you. I have insured all my treasure in your name. I am poor; you are rich and you did come to be merciful to the poor. I am a sinner; you are upright. With me there is an abundance of sin; with you a fullness of righteousness. Therefore I will remain with you, from whom I can receive but to whom I may not give. Amen.

 —Martin Luther, Luther's Prayers (ed. Herbert F. Brokering; Augsberg: Minneapolis, 1994), 67-68.

An Outcropping of Counter-Cultural Spirituality?

David Wells on the choice between love for God and love for the world:

The choice for God now has to become one in which the church begins to form itself, by his grace and truth, into an outcropping of counter-cultural spirituality. It must first recover the sense of antithesis between Christ and culture and then find ways to sustain that antithesis. It is, after all, only when we see what the church is willing to give up by developing this antithesis that we see what it is actually for. If it is for God, for this truth, for his people, for the alienated and trampled in life, then it must give up what the post-modern world holds most dear: it must give up the freedom to anything it happens to desire. It must give up self-cultivation for self-surrender, entertainment for worship, intuition for truth, slick marketing for authentic witness, success for faithfulness, power for humility, a God bought on cheap terms for the God who calls us to a costly obedience. It must, in short, be willing to do God's business on God's terms.

—David Wells, God in the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 223. 

Is this how you (or an outsider) would characterize the evangelical church today: an outcropping of counter-cultural spirituality? No such words would come to mind. God help us.

Training Little Minds for Christ

Justin Taylor provides a helpful reading list for first through third graders: check it out here.

Sooner Than Saying Anything Outright Barbarous

Since in recent months I've heard or read a number of people urging the reading of George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language," I recently read it. And I'll likely read it again. I can't say I agree with everything it says, but it would do much good no doubt if heeded. You can follow the link above to read the whole of it. Here I only want to reproduce the six rules that Orwell gives for one to decide whether or not to used a word or phrase.

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Convinced Sinners Seeking Comfort and Acceptance

In the quotations that follow, John Owen speaks wisely to how we approach the doctrine of justification. He's talking about our posture before God in this matter. And in this section from his book on justification, he's inquiring into the cause or reason a person may be acquitted of sin and accepted with God. It spans a few pages, and I pull out and place here pieces of a common theme cropping up again and again in this section, which theme I think is almost entirely missing today in our posture in relation to this doctrine. And this is not a good thing, in case you're wondering.

Whether it be any thing in ourselves, as our faith and repentance, the renovation of our natures, inherent habits of grace, and actual works of righteousness which we have done, or may do? or whether it be the obedience, righteousness, satisfaction, and merit of the Son of God our mediator, and surety of the covenant, imputed unto us? One of these it must be—namely, something that is our own which, whatever may be the influence of the grace of God unto it, or causality of it, because wrought in and by us, is inherently our own in a proper sense; or something which, being not our own, not inherent in us, nor wrought by us, is yet imputed unto us, for the pardon of our sins and the acceptation of our persons as righteous, or the making of us righteous in the sight of God. Which of these it is the duty, wisdom, and safety of a convinced sinner to rely upon and trust unto, in his appearance before God, is the sum of our present inquiry. . . . 

. . . Neither are we in this matter much to regard the senses or arguings of men who were never thoroughly convinced of sin, nor have ever in their own person "fled for refuge unto the hope set before them."  

. . . It is alone the relief of those who are in themselves . . . guilty before, or obnoxious and liable to, the judgment of God, that we inquire after. . . . 

. . . But, beyond what tends directly unto the guidance of the minds and satisfaction of the souls of men, who seek after a stable and abiding foundation of acceptance with God, we are not easily to be drawn . . . 

. . . That which alone we aim (or ought so to do) to learn in it and by it, is how we may get and maintain peace with God, and so to live unto him as to be accepted with him in what we do. To satisfy the minds and consciences of men in these things is this doctrine to be taught.

As I said, this feel is almost entirely missing in the present wranglings about justification. And it's a sign, if Scripture is to be the judge (and it is), that we're culpably overlooking what our posture must be as we approach God in this matter. Are we convinced sinners seeking relief? Or are we detached scientists studying a specimen?

—The Doctrine of Justification by Faith (vol. 5; Works, Banner of Truth), 8-10.

The Living Hope of New Testament Spirituality

In a chapter titled "Richard Baxter on Heaven, Hope, and Holiness," J. I. Packer expresses three convictions:

The first is that rejoicing in the "living hope" of "an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power"; and "set[ting] your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed" (1 Pet. 1:4-5,13) are integral elements in New Testament spirituality. And I see New Testament spirituality as the norm for all subsequent Christian belief. 

My second conviction is that a good deal of what is involved in being "alive to God" in this or in any age depends directly on having this "living hope" vivid in one's heart. I think here of the qualities of zeal, enterprise, energy, and persistence in well-doing for God; of loving, adoring worship as a daily habit; of meekness, sweetness, and selflessness under pain and disappointment; of a sense of proportion, a due appreciation of pleasure, and a realism about death.  

My third conviction is that we Western Christians, by and large, . . . are to our shame a sluggish, earthbound lot compared with our Puritan predecessors, and that lack of long, strong thinking about our promised hope of glory is a major cause of our plodding, lacklustre lifestyle. 

—J. I. Packer, Honoring the People of God: Collected Shorter Writings on Christian Leaders and Theologians (Vancoover: Regent College Publishing, 1999), 263-264.

Our Future-Oriented Salvation

Commenting on the salvation language of Rom. 5:9 in particular and Paul's writings generally, Doug Moo says:

This future-oriented use of σῴζω is quite usual in Paul. For while he sometimes uses the verb to denote the deliverance from the penalty of sin that comes at conversion (e.g., Rom. 8:24; Eph. 2:5, 8), he more often used the word (and its cognates; cf. Rom. 13:11) to depict the final deliverance of the Christian from the power of sin, the evils of this life, and, especially, judgment (e.g., 1 Cor. 3:15; 5:5; Phil. 2:12). Paul pictures the Christian as having been saved, as looking forward to being saved, and even as in the process of being saved (cf. 2 Cor. 2:15; 2 Thess. 2:10).

 —The Epistle to the Romans, pp. 310-311.

Preaching as a Dying Man to Dying Men

From Baxter's Poetical Fragments:

               A life still near to Death, did me possess
               With a deep sense of Time's great preciousness;

so that

               I Preach'd, as never sure to Preach again,
               And as a dying man to dying men.

—Culled from J. I. Packer, Honoring the People of God: Collected Shorter Writings on Christian Leaders and Theologians (Vancoover: Regent College Publishing, 1999), 266.

O Lord, Give More Light and Joy in Your Spirit

A Lutheran prayer for a right understanding:

Lord God, dear Father, through your Holy Spirit you have taught and enlightened the hearts of your believers. Through the same Spirit give us a right understanding, to be glad at all times in his comfort and power, through your Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

—Martin Luther, Luther's Prayers (ed. Herbert F. Brokering; Augsberg: Minneapolis, 1994), 66.

The Best Doctrine

"That is the best doctrine and study which maketh men better and tendeth to make them happy."

—Richard Baxter, culled from J. I. Packer, Honoring the People of God: Collected Shorter Writings on Christian Leaders and Theologians (Vancoover: Regent College Publishing, 1999), 29.

Thanatopsis

To him who in the love of nature holds
Communion with here visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And gentle sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart,—
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around—
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air,—
Comes a still voice—Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak 
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thy eternal resting place
Shalt thou retire alone—nor couldst thou wish 
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarch of the infant world—with kings, 
The powerful of the earth—the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre.—The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,—the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods—rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and poured round all,
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,—
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, 
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread 
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. — Take the wings
Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings —  yet — the dead are there,
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest — and what if thou shalt fall
Unheeded by the living — and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come,
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glides away, the sons of men — 
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron, and maid,
And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man, — 
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
By those, who in their turn, shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, that moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

—William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)