True Loyalty to the Lord

Commenting on Dan. 1:8–16, Sinclair Ferguson reflects:

Some Christians are heroes in their daydreams only. The characteristic mark of such heroism is imagining ourselves as faithful on great and public occasions and in rarefied atmospheres when others will be impressed. In stark contrast, true faithfulness in Scripture is first exercised in small things and in private. If we fail there, any faithfulness we show in public will be hypocrisy, a performance for the crowd and not an expression of loyalty to our Lord.

 —Sinclair Ferguson, Mastering the Old Testament: Daniel (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1988), 38.

We, Not Me

Commenting on Ecclesiastes 4, David Gibson says:

If you can live in this world in such a way that the person or people beside you—your friend, your spouse, your children, your brother, your sister, the people God has put in your path—are your waking concern and your dominant focus, then you will find happiness. If your head hits the pillow at night full of questions about how you might help and serve someone else, and how you can be a certain kind of person for them, then you will find a gladness and contentment that nothing else can match.

. . . I want you to know what the Preacher is not saying. You might expect him to say that if you live for others, then you'll be more spiritual. Or more godly. You'll be a growing Christian. It is certainly true that you will be all those things, but that is not the aspect of life that the Preacher is painting in this part of his book. You will be happier. The word he uses is "quietness" (v. 6). It simply means rest—peace of mind and calmness of soul. It's a word to capture the deep well-being of those who know their place in the world, content with the boundary lines of their life and able to enjoy the fruits of their labors with a cheerful heart. The way to arrive in that place of rest is to live for we, not me.

—David Gibson, Living Life Backward: How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in the Light of the End (Wheaton: Crossway, 2017), 65–66.

The Torah of YHWH in Psalm 1

So often so many, in my view, interpret wrongly the phrase “the torah of YHWH” (תוֹרַ֥ת יְהוָ֗ה) in Psalm 1. It is often taken simply to mean “the instruction of YHWH.” No one, to my knowledge, really doubts that the word “torah” (תּוֹרָה) does in fact often simply mean "instruction." That much is clear.

However, in Psalm 1, which sets the agenda for the whole Psalter, should we understand “the torah of YHWH” simply to mean “the instruction of YHWH”? I doubt it. I’ll not reproduce the argumentation of Mark D. Futato in his excellent handbook Interpreting the Psalms, but I will provide his conclusion, with which I joyfully concur in my inner being. He says:

So the תוֹרַ֥ת יְהוָ֗ה in Psalm 1 naturally refers to the Five Books of Moses. When we combine the sense of תּוֹרָה as ‘instruction’ with תוֹרַ֥ת יְהוָ֗ה as the Five Books of Moses, we conclude that the book of Psalms invites believers to meditate on the Five Books of Moses[1] as a source of instruction for experiencing the joy/blessings (v. 1) and prosperity/success (v. 3) held out in Psalm 1.

— Mark D. Futato, Interpreting the Psalms: An Exegetical Handbook (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2007), 61–62.

---

[1] Italics mine.

Responding to Criticism in Marriage with Gospel-Grounded Humility

Over at CCEF you'll find good counsel (as usual) from David Powlison on responding to criticism in marriage.

Unacceptable Answers in God's Universe

D. A. Carson on Job 40:8-14:

It is important to recognize that God does not here charge Job with sins that have brought on his suffering. He does not respond to the "whys" of Job's suffering, nor does he challenge Job's defense of his own integrity. The reason he calls Job on the carpet is not because of Job's justification of himself, but because of Job's willingness to condemn God in order to justify himself. In other words, God does not here "answer" Job's questions about the problem of evil and suffering, but he make it unambiguously clear what answers are not acceptable in God's universe. 

—D. A. Carson, How Long, O Lord? Reflections on Suffering & Evil (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), 172.

Innocent Suffering in Job and the Suffering Savior Substitute

I'm becoming convinced that one of the main reasons for the existence of the book of Job is to preserve a category in the world's consciousness for innocent suffering, not least prior to the coming of the Christ. Clearly Job's three "miserable comforters" (Job 16:2), or three stooges, as I recentlly heard a preacher call them, don't have any categories for innocent suffering, righteous suffering. No, their theological system is tight, tight, tight. For them, if you are suffering, and if God is just, then you must have sinned somehow to bring on God's just judgment. Sounds reasonably logical, doesn't it? But it's all wrong, as the book of Job makes crystal clear.

To steer us clear, then, of the error of these three stooges, God has given us the book of Job. And he's done this, I'm sure, in part at least, to preserve a category for innocent suffering in our minds, in order that we might make sense of the good news he'd be sending in his sinless Son. Having a category for innocent suffering is essential if we are to see and embrace the suffering savior substitute for who he is. He suffered the wrath of God. Yet he knew no sin (1 Pet. 2:22). He was cursed of God as he hung on that Roman tree (Gal. 3:13; 1 Pet. 2:24). But the curse was due us for sinning at the tree in Eden. He suffered innocently, suffered righteously, not unlike Job, at the hands of satanic malice, but in a way that goes way beyond Job's suffering and Job's righteousness. For Christ alone is the only true sinless sufferer, and Christ alone bears God's just judgment for us. And so he's the only true mediator between God and man, who can argue our case, standing in our place, pleading our cause, wearing our righteousness.

The Real Value of the Psalms

Lloyd-Jones:

The simplest description of the five books of Psalms is that they were the inspired prayer-and-praise book of Israel. They are revelations of truth, not abstractly, but in terms of human experience. The truth revealed is wrought into the emotions, desires, and sufferings of the people of God by the circumstances through which they pass. 

It is because that is such a true description of them that the Psalms have always proved to be a great source of solace and encouragement to God's people throughout the centuries—both the children of Israel and the members of the Christian Church. 

Here we are able to watch noble souls struggling with their problems and with themselves. They talk to themselves and to their souls, baring their hearts, analysing their problems, chiding and encouraging themselves. Sometimes they are elated, at other times depressed, but they are always honest with themselves. That is why they are of such real value to us if we also are honest with ourselves. 

—D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression (Hannibal: Granted Ministries), 9.

The Song of Songs Read Along the Bible's Storyline

Stephen Dempster on how to read the Song of Songs along the Bible's storyline:

In the light of the larger storyline and the prophetic commentary, notably Jeremiah and Hosea, the love between the two human lovers points to the relationship between Yahweh and Israel at the beginning: "I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me, and followed me through the desert, through a land not sown" (Jer. 2:2). . . . 

Short of its literary context, the song [of Songs] could be almost pornographic. But the context of the canon both restricts the meaning to the context of marriage and expands it to include the relationship between Yahweh and Israel. When reading this text, the reader hears Jeremiah's oracle, Ezekiel 16, and Hosea 1–3. There is the reminder of the passionate and fiery love that Yahweh had for his people before the crisis [of exile]. . . .

He concludes, quoting Karl Barth:

The little text of the Song of Songs looks to the end of the larger Text, of which it is a part, when "Yahweh and His people are together and are one flesh."

—Stephen G. Dempster, Dominion and Dynasty: A Theology of the Hebrew Bible (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2003), 207–208.

What Manner of Woman Is This?

The poise and ease with which my wife recently took care of a diaper gone bad (and I mean really bad) is a marvel of creation, almost otherworldly. 

I panicked. She performed. Flawlessly, seamlessly, promptly, as though she'd dealt with this dirty deed ten thousand times before. But I know she hadn’t. And she sang with cheer while going at the whole mess.

And by diaper gone bad, I mean as in defiling a great deal in its wake besides the diaper, leaving one usually delightful and cute little girl soiled and smelly, and toys and bed sheets and crib smeared with the unholy. 

What manner of woman I married is truly beyond mortal reckoning. But I know this: she is to be praised. May God “give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates” (Prov. 31:31). 

The Sweet Fear of the Lord Born of Love

The fear of God is rare nowadays. Teaching on it is scarce. And the living of it out is even more scarce. And, even where it is taught and where some try to live it out, perhaps it's often misunderstood.

The fear of God, whatever many might say of it, really does include the fear of God, and not just some sort of reverance or respect. There's a knee-knocking component to a true fear of the Lord. And given that it is the beginning of wisdom, and given that apart from it we cannot suppose ourselves to be participating in the faith once for all delivered to the saints, it behooves us to cultivate the fear of the Lord in our lives.

In order to cultivate the fear of God, one could do much worse than Buynan's Treatise on the Fear of God, from which I recently posted some instruction about where the fear of the Lord comes from. Today I want to focus on an important aspect of the fear of the Lord, with the help of Bunyan again, which I think some who focus on the fear of the Lord miss, but which is utterly essential for the fear to be healthy and biblical. And it is how the goodness, kindness, and love of God produce and shape that fear. Consider two points Bunyan makes in his treatise.

First, Bunyan says that this fear is a "son-like fear of God" that " flows from the distinguishing love of God to his elect" (56). That is, it is a filial fear born as each person is born into the world—that is to say, by the will of another. We didn't choose to be born into the world, nor do we choose to be born again unto a fear of the Lord. It is born of everlasting love (Jer. 31:3). Flowing from God's distinguishing, selective love for his own, the fear of God is placed within his children as a provision of the new covenant (Jer. 32:38-40). And so the covenant context of this fear, then, is divine love. It flows from God's fatherly particular love for his children. That love, therefore, must flavor the fear of the Lord as we seek to cultivate it. It is a sweet and pleasant fear.

Second, though there are many inducements for generating the fear of the Lord, there is one most potent. Buynan says it well, and I heartily agree with him, both because of the Bible's witness and because of experience. Referencing Ps. 130:3-4, he says:

This godly fear flows from a sense of the love and kindness of God to the soul. . . . Indeed nothing can lay a stronger obligation upon the heart to fear God, than sense of, or hope in mercy (Jer. 33:8-9). This begetteth true tenderness of heart, true godly softness of spirit; this truly endeareth the affections to God; and in this true tenderness, softness, and endearedness of affection to God, lieth the very essence of this fear of the Lord . . . (58).

Amen, Bunyan. This fear is my portion. It is a sweet and lovely and pleasant fear. And to it I want to submit sweetly all my days.

The Word Working on the Wencels in 2014

Every year Emily and I begin the new year with Psalm 1. This year is no exception. And this year, reflecting on the previous year and its shortcomings with respect to devotion to God's Word, Psalm 1 seems all the sweeter, all the more illuminating, and all the more urgent to heed.

Every year Emily and I also come up with some Bible reading scheme that gets us through the whole Bible at least once in the year. Given the presence of a toddler in our home now, and given other shiftings, we're shifting this year how we're going about reading the Word systematically. That we will read it systematically, both individually and as a family, that will not change. But how we go about this commitment is changing.

Whatever we might be doing as individuals in communion with God, as a family we're starting a three-year cycle of getting through the whole of Scripture together. Our individual reading plans will get us through the Bible the equivalent of every year, and our family reading plan will get us through the Bible every three years together. Because of their importance, we'll be reading Psalms and Proverbs every year together. And we'll also be doing more focused study on a given book or two together.

Here, then, is our three-year plan for reading all of Scripture together:

Old Testament

Year 1–Latter Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Book of the Twelve), Psalms, and Proverbs.
Year 2–Pentatuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), select Writings (Job, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Daniel), Psalms, and Proverbs.
Year 3–Former Prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings), select Writings (Ruth, Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, Esthter), Psalms, and Proverbs.

New Testament

Year 1–Matthew, Mark, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, and Jude.
Year 2–Luke-Acts, and Pauline epistles.
Year 3–John, 1–3 John, Revelation, and Hebrews.

So this year we're reading together the Latter Prophets, Psalms, Proverbs, Matthew, Mark, James, 1 Peter, 2 Peter, and Jude. And this year our focused study together will be in Isaiah and Mark, Isaiah for the first half of the year, Mark for the second half. We'll probably read these books several times each, listen to scores of sermons on these books, and study certain passages more closely together using helps and guides along the way (e.g., J. C. Ryle on the Gospels). Additionally, we're planning on memorizing some Psalms together (Pss. 32, 67, 103, 127, 128, 130, 131) and the book of Titus. 

Don't Boast about Tomorrow, for Your Life Is a Mist

I'm not sure why I've never made the connection before, because it now seems rather obvious: Jas. 4:13-17 appears to be an unpacking of Prov. 27:1.

God's Handing Over

The OT equivalent of the NT "handing over" in Rom. 1:24, 26, 28 appears in texts such as Ps. 81:11-12: "But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels."

God hands people over—even his own people!—"to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels," when they refuse to listen to him, that is, when they choose to worship and serve "the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen" (Rom. 1:25).

O YHWH, How Majestic Is Your Name in All the Earth!

Here's the congregational prayer at NCC from this past Ascension Sunday and Mother's Day, shaped by Psalm 8:

O YHWH, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth, the name above every name, the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Our Lord, you have exalted your holy majesty above the heavens.

Out of the mouth of children and infants you have established strength—the praise of your people. Because of your adversaries, O Lord, you produce this praise. You establish, through powerless children no less, this strength, this praise, and you do so to silence the enemy and the avenger.

So we praise you, O great God, for mothers who love your praise, for mothers zealous to pass on “the heritage of those who fear your name.” We praise you, exalted Lord, for mothers who labored in the trenches faithfully for years without concern for the world’s smiles and honors. We praise you, Father of the fatherless, for putting into mothers’ hearts the gospel longing to adopt the powerless and helpless for your praise. We praise you, our kind Maker, for our earthly mothers, who gave us bodily life and tenderly cared for us; for our heavenly mother the church, who gave us new life, and sustains that new life, all for your high honor.

As we think of your gift of life, O Giver of life, we think of the loss of life in this broken and fallen world. We think of those who’ve lost a little one, and the barren womb. Send the comfort of your presence, O God of all comfort, God of all grace. We praise you for the desire in the hearts of these women to want children to raise for your praise. And we pray that you would “fulfill every desire for good.” With the fingers that fashioned the stars, touch the womb with new life, O Lord—we ask this for the sake of your name!

                        O YHWH, our Lord, how majestic 

                        is your name in all the earth.

When we consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you put in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.

In subjecting all things to man, male and female, made in your image, you left nothing, O Creator, you left nothing not subject to man. But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him. But we see Jesus, born of a woman, made a little lower than angels; we see him crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, by the grace of God tasting death for everyone. We see Jesus, raised from the dead, exalted to the right Hand, above all rule and authority and power and dominion, above every name that is named. We see Jesus, all things under his feet, head over all things for us, the church, his body, reigning til we reign with him in a new heavens and new earth.

                        O YHWH, our Lord Jesus, how majestic 

                        is your name in all the earth.

So establish strength, almighty God, in the new humanity risen with Christ. In our weakness and the weakness of our children, establish strength, prepare praise. Help our mothers to press on in this greatest, highest calling of nurturing children for your praise. We pray, God Most High, for Christ-like mothers who humble themselves, stooping daily to take concern for the weak, lowly, despised things, offering up their bodies as sacrifices for your praise across the generations. Supply them with grace for this high and holy calling!

We, your children and your church—made for your praise!—we praise you, O Lord. We adore you! We adore your wisdom, we adore your power. What wisdom, what power, designed all this! Taking the weak, lowly, despised things of this world, to shame the strong, the high, the praised things of this world. Even taking children and their mothers and the cross to establish strength, the praise of your people—the praise of your great name! 

Blessed be that name above all names, the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, generation after generation, forever and ever.

O YHWH, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.

Amen, and amen. 

Outstanding Sermon Series on Ecclesiastes

If you were looking for a good sermon series on Ecclesiastes, look no further. Pastor Doug O'Donnell, senior pastor of my local church, wrapped up today a 17-part sermon series that will find its way in due course into the Reformed Expository Commentary series published by P&R.

Pastor O'Donnell demonstrates care and sensitivity with this difficult to interpret book, and provides many good contemporary applications from the wise words of "Pastor Solomon." As a man of literature, one of O'Donnell's great strengths is his sensitivity to the literary dimensions and devices of the sacred text. So his handling of Ecclesiastes models rather well how to preach the genre of wisdom literature for those who want to hear how it might be done.

Have a listen!

YHWH's Majestic Royal Voice

Here's trying my hand at translating Psalm 29. I've attempted to bring out something of the structure, flow, force, and poetics of the Hebrew, while maintaing an essentially literal translation.

A Psalm of David.

Give to YHWH, O sons of God,
     Give to YHWH glory and strength.
     Give to YHWH the glory of his name;
Worship YHWH in holy array.

YHWH's voice is over the waters,
     The God of glory thunders,
          YHWH, over vast waters;
YHWH's voice in power,
YHWH's voice in majesty;
YHWH's voice breaking cedars,
     YHWH shattering the cedars of Lebanon,
          making them skip like a calf,
               Lebanon and Sirion, like a young wild ox.
YHWH's voice hews flames of fire.
YHWH's voice cunvulses the wilderness,
     YHWH convulses the wilderness of Kadesh.
YHWH's voice brings birth pangs on does
          as it strips the forests bare,
               And all in his temple cry, "Glory!"

YHWH sat enthroned at the flood;
      YHWH sits enthroned, King forever.
YHWH grants strength to his people;
     YHWH blesses his people with peace.

The Crux of the Psalms

Dane Ortlund cites Calvin concerning the chief concern of the Psalms, namely, the cross. A choice quotation. Check it out.

The Scope and Sweep of the Psalms

Athanasius on the comprehensiveness and sufficiency of the Psalms:

Let whoever reads this Book of Psalms take the things in it quite simply as God-inspired; and let each select from it, as from the fruits of a garden, those things of which he sees himself in need. For I think that in the words of this book all human life is covered, with all its states and thoughts, and that nothing further can be found in man. For no matter what you seek, whether it be repentance and confession, or help in trouble and temptation or under persecution, whether you have been set free from plots and snares or, on the contrary, are sad for any reason, or whether, seeing yourself progressing and your enemy cast down, you want to praise and thank and bless the Lord, each of these things the Divine Psalms show you how to do, and in every case the words you want are written down for you, and you can say them as your own.

—St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation (ed. and transl. A Religious of C.S.M.V.; New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1993), 116.

The Psalter's Very Special Grace

From the Letter of St. Athanasius to Marcellinus on the Interpretation of the Psalms:

Among all the books [of the Bible], the Psalter has certainly a very special grace, a choiceness of quality well worthy to be pondered; for, besides the characteristics which it shares with others, it has this peculiar marvel of its own, that within it are represented and portrayed in all their great variety the movements of the human soul. It is like a picture, in which you see yourself portrayed and, seeing, may understand and consequently form yourself upon the pattern given. Elsewhere in the Bible you read only that the Law commands this or that to be done, you listen to the Prophets to learn about the Saviour's coming or you turn to the historical books to learn the doings of the kings and holy men; but in the Psalter, besides all these things, you learn about yourself. You find depicted in it all the movements of your soul, all its changes, its ups and downs, its failures and recoveries.

—St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation (ed. and transl. A Religious of C.S.M.V.; New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1993), 103.

"The Anti-Psalm"

David Powlison turns Ps. 131 into its opposite, the anti-psalm:

Self,
      my heart is proud (I'm absorbed in myself),
      and my eyes are haughty (I look down on other people),
      and I chase after things too great and too difficult for me.
So of course I'm noisy and restless inside, it comes naturally,
      like a hungry infant fussing on his mother's lap,
      like a hungry infant, I'm restless with my demands and worries.
I scatter my hopes onto anything and everybody all the time.

—"'Peace, be still': Learning Psalm 131 by Heart," The Journal of Biblical Counseling 18 (2000): 3-4.