Knowledge Precedes Love

Vanhoozer on the great command:

Note that it is only after Jesus says something about God's nature ("the Lord our God, the Lord is one" [Mark 12:29]) that Jesus then formulates the Great Commandment. The imperative (to love God above all things) follows from the indicative (God is above all things, and therefore most to be treasured.)

—Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Faith Speaking Understanding: Performing the Drama of Doctrine (Louisville: Westminster John Knox), xii.

Anger in Relationship to God

"Love to God is opposite to a disposition in men to be angry at others' faults chiefly as they are affected and injured by them; it disposes them to resent them more as they are against God."

—Jonathan Edwards, Ethical Writings (vol. 8 in the Works of Jonathan Edwards; ed. Paul Ramsey; New Haven: Yale University, 1989), 278.

No Room for Any Reserve

Commenting on Mark 12:30, Edwards says (italics mine for emphasis):

Here is contained in these words a description of a right love to God; and they teach us that they who love him aright do devote all to him, all their hearts, and all their souls, all their mind and all their strength, or all their powers and faculties. Surely, a man who gives all this wholly to God keeps nothing back, but devotes himself wholly and entirely to God. He who gives God all his heart, and all his soul, and all his mind, and all his powers or strength, keeps nothing back; there is no room for any reserve. All who have true love to God have a spirit thus to do. This shows how much a principle of true love to God is above a selfish principle. For if self be devoted wholly to God, then there is something above self which influences the man; there is something superior to self which takes self and makes an offering of it to God. A selfish principle never devotes self to another; the nature of it is to devote all others to self. They who have true love to God, love God as God, and as the supreme good; whereas the nature of selfishness is to set up self for God, to make an idol of self. That being which men respect as God, they devote all to. They who idolize self devote all to self, but they who love God as God devote all to him. 

—Jonathan Edwards, Ethical Writings (vol. 8 in the Works of Jonathan Edwards; ed. Paul Ramsey; New Haven: Yale University, 1989), 261–262.

How to Get Rid of Self

Lloyd-Jones:

There is only one way to get rid of self, and that is that you should become so absorbed in someone or something else that you have no time to think about yourself. . . . And as you become absorbed in the love of God you will forget all about yourself. "The spirit of love!" [2 Tim. 1:7] It will deliver you from self-interest, self-concern, and from depression about self, because depression results from self and self-concern. It gets rid of self at all points. So talk to yourself about this eternal, amazing love of God—the God who ever looked upon us in spite of sin and planned the way of redemption and spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all.

What then? Go on to think of the love of the Son in its breadth, its length, its depth, its height; go on to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. Think of him who came from the courts of heaven and laid aside the insignia of his eternal glory and was born as a babe, worked as a carpenter and endured the contradiction of sinners against himself. Think of him into whose holy face men spat and on whose brow they pressed a crown of thorns and into whose hands and feet the nails were hammered. There he is on the cross. What is he doing there? There he died for us, that you and I might be forgiven and reconciled to God. Think of his love, and as you come to know something about it, you will forget yourself.  

And then, love to the brethren. Think of other people, their needs, their concerns. Shall I go on? . . . Think of other people, look at those people perishing in their sins. Forget yourself. Cultivate love for the lost and love for the brethren in the same way, and love for the greatest and noblest cause in the world, this blessed, glorious gospel. . . . If you are consumed by this spirit of love you will forget yourself.

—D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Spiritual Depression (Hannibal: Granted Ministries), 103.

True Love for God

I'm enjoying thoroughly sitting at Professor Dan Block's feet in an exegesis class on Deuteronomy at Wheaton College. And one of the main reasons for this is Dr. Block's manifest devotion to YHWH— Father, Son, and Spirit.

Commenting on the significance of Deut. 6:4-9 for contemporary life, here are some applications Block gives that rejoice my heart:

True love for God is rooted in the heart, but it is demonstrated in life, specifically in a passion to speak of one's faith in the context of the family and to declare one's allegiance publicly to the world. This passage suggests that the very decoration of our homes should bear testimony to our faith, declaring to all guests and passers-by the fundamentally theological outlook of those who live within, and serving as reminders to residents to live in dependence on God and to realize that blessing is contingent on obedience.

—Daniel I. Block, Deuteronomy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2012), 189.

Shallow Reductionism and Homosexuality

D. A. Carson on popular discourse about homosexuality:

Not for a moment should anyone deny that the evidence as to what "makes" a homosexual is extraordinarily complex. Few have matched the care and objectivity of the study by Stanton L. Jones and Mark A. Yarhouse. In popular discourse, however, virtually none of that complexity is allowed to surface in the public square. It is everywhere assumed that people are simply born that way, and that's all there is to it. Even if that were the case—and the evidence simply will not allow such shallow reductionism—it would not in itself establish that the practice of homosexuality is a good thing, absent a number of other assumptions

 —D. A. Carson, The Intolerance of Tolerance (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 134.

Collective Bargaining

Here's a biblical take on collective bargaining from Doug Wilson.

Thinking for the Sake of Loving God and Others in God

The Desiring God national conference turned out once again to be invigorating.  My wife and I needed to be stirred out of dullness (especially me), needed to rethink thinking as a means of loving God more, needed to be reminded of some basics in this God-centered cosmos.  All of the speakers convicted us with their messages.  Even Rick Warren, to my pleasant surprise.  For instance, he said (as did my hero John Owen long ago in different language), you only know what you practice, only believe what you practice.  If we say we believe something and don't act on it, we don't really believe.  Sounds like James 2, doesn't it?  Faith without works is dead.

The highlight of the weekend was, oddly perhaps, the presentation of John Piper with a Festschrift by editors Justin Taylor and Sam Storms.  It moved me to tears.  John Piper is, by God's free grace, a truly great man.  Yes, warts and all.  (If we know how to value greatness, that is, in relation to the object of one's love.)  His influence under the sweet, mysterious movement of the Spirit is incalculable.  The man's God-centered, Christ-exalting, man-abasing, soul-stirring and soul-satisfying preaching has fed thousands upon thousands upon thousands.  It has slain God-belittling pride and man-centeredness millions of times over.  And it did so again for me this past weekend. 

As Piper approaches his last days of preaching and leading as a pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, we would do well to listen carefully to him.  He is one of the greatest preachers, not only of our time, but doubtless of all time.  And this, not because he has mastered all the books and advice and how-tos of the preaching sages (I doubt he even reads them), but because God in Christ has been supreme in that holy act, not the sermon.  The structure of the message, the expositor's prowess in navigating a passage, the rhetoric of the message, the hearers of that message, and so on—these have not been supreme.  God has!  God himself in Christ by the Spirit has been supreme.  Gloriously supreme!  And for this above all else John Piper has been a great preacher.  For this he is among the greats of all Christian history.  For this I love this man whom I've never met, to the bottom.  For it is in this that I and thousands upon thousands have been led to love God more.  So for this I bless and thank and praise and exult in God—from whom and through whom and to whom are all things.  To him be glory forevermore!

May God be pleased to raise up generations of preachers in the wake of Piper's legacy of God-centeredness to carry on and forward, without shame and without apology, openly and boldly, Piper's vision of God's supremacy in all things for the joy of all peoples.  The Church and world need nothing more than God-glorifying, Christ-exalting, man-abasing, soul-satisfying preaching.