The Choice

For the past little while, I've been noticing some areas of sin in my life which had hung around for a while. To be perfectly honest, that is at least in part because I haven't seriously been fighting against the sin in my life. This is why when I was reading Romans 6 today, the Holy Spirit had some select verses to bring to my attention.

Before we get to them though, a quick review of Romans 6 is in order. The overarching thrust of the chapter centers on the Christian's victory over sin. Specifically, the believer's current victory over sin. In the context of the rest of Romans, Paul is refuting the idea presented at the end of Chapter 5 that Christian's should sin freely to exult God's grace and forgiveness. For those of you who love theological terms, this relativistic Christianity is call antinomianism (literally No Law).

Paul's argument in Chapter 6 is that our sin nature died with Christ on the Cross. This means that instead of being freed to sin, the Christian is actually freed from sin. Indeed, to sin is to willfully ignore the effects of Christ's sacrifice for us.

While the whole chapter speaks to this issue, there were several verses which specifically jumped out with application for my life:

"Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace."
(Romans 6:12-14 ESV)

Paul's admonition isn't new. It was stated more concisely by Joshua back when Israel first entered Canaan:

"And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."
(Joshua 24:15 ESV)

The question of sin in our lives is not a question of whether we can stop sinning, but rather whether we will stop living in sin. Sin is not unbeatable, or inevitable. It is something that we can overcome through Christ's strength. This leaves us with one final question: will we choose to move forward in Christ's victory, or decide to remained a slave to our sin. There is no other option.

In the post above I briefly touched on the idea of antinomianism, which is one attempt to answer the question of how the Law relates to the Christian. What do you think Scripture says on this topic, and how should that affect our daily lives?

"As Weary Pilgrim"

Currently I am in the middle of an American Literature course. Today my studies found me reading Anne Bradstreet's poem "As Weary Pilgrim." Anne was part of the Puritan band who traveled with John Winthrop to found Boston. In the poem, Anne looks at the end of life from the backdrop of a pilgrim who has ended their travels. It echos some the cries of my heart (the final lines particularly this time) and reminds me to keep my focus on Heaven and Eternity. Hopefully you find the same encouragement in her words:

"As weary pilgrim, now at rest,
  Hugs with delight his silent nest,
His wasted limbs now lie full soft
  That mirey steps have trodden oft,
Blesses himself to think upon
  His dangers past, and travails done.
The burning sun no more shall heat,
  Nor stormy rains on him shall beat.
The briars and thorns no more shall scratch.
  Nor hungry wolves at him shall catch.
He erring paths no more shall tread,
  Nor wild fruits eat instead of bread.
For waters cold he doth not long
  For thirst no more shall parch his tongue.
No rugged stones his feet shall gall,
  Nor stumps nor rocks cause him to fall.
All cares and fears he bids farewell
  And means in safety now to dwell.
A pilgrim I, on earth perplexed
  With sins, with cares and sorrows vext,
by age and pains brought to decay,
  And my clay house mold'ring away.
Oh, how I long to be at rest
  And soar on high among the blest.
This body shall in silence sleep,
  Mine eyes no more shall ever weep,
No fainting fits shall me assail,
  Nor grinding pains my body frail,
With cares and fears ne'er cumb'red be
  Nor losses know, nor sorrows see.
What though my flesh shall there consume,
  It is the bed Christ did perfume,
And when a few years shall be gone,
  This mortal shall be clothed upon.
A corrupt carcass down it lies,
  A glorious body it shall rise.
In weakness and dishonor sown,
  In power 'tis raised by Christ alone.
Then soul and body shall unite
  And of their Maker have the sight.
Such lasting joys shall there behold
  As ear ne'er heard nor tongue e'er told.
Lord make me ready for that day,
  Then come, dear Bridegroom, come away."

In today's culture we seem to lean towards ignoring eternity and focusing on this present life. However, it can be quite easy to go to the other extreme and ignore this world entirely while focusing on heaven. How should we avoid these extremes? Does your focus need to be adjusted?

I'm Actually Impressed with the Israelites

We are forgetful people. This was impressed on me when my pastor asked us a month or so ago for the top 2 times we had seen God at work recently, in either our lives or the lives of those around us. I'm sorry to say, I couldn't think of a single instance. That isn't to say that God hasn't been at work, but it does say something about my memory of His workings.

Looking at this from a different perspective, my pastor took us to Exodus 14-15. In this passage the Egyptian army is drowned in the Red Sea, the people of Israel praise the Lord for his deliverance, travel through the wilderness for 3 days, and then begin complaining about the lack of water. Now I don't know about you, but I've always seen the Israelites as "The Complainers." They see God's miraculous works time and time again, yet still seem to be able to quickly slip into complaining. As my pastor pointed out though, they went three days before they started complaining. This was followed up with the question: How long do you go through life before you start complaining? Those three days of the Israelites is much more impressive now, isn't it?

As the sermon progressed, one specific way was highlighted to combat our forgetful tendency: Regularly attend corporate worship services with your local Body of Believers. One of the reasons we should gather to worship as a body on Sunday mornings is to remind ourselves of God's greatness and mighty acts from the past, present, and future. Because of our individual forgetfulness, we need to come together as a Church Body to help reorient our focus back on Christ and off our individual situations.

On the flip side of the coin, we should also look to actively share with others how the Lord has been working in our lives. This was impressed on me as while reading the Psalms for my personal Bible Study. Consider Psalm 35:18 and 28 (ESV):

"I will thank you in the great congregation;
in the mighty throng I will praise you....
Then my tongue shall tell of your righteousness
                and of your praise all the day long."

So the challenge to us is two fold: 1. Are we feeling down, and in a dry place in my walk with the Lord? We mustn't let that stop us from gathering with fellow believers. In fact, we probably need their insight and encouragement to help us to focus back on Christ. 2. Is the Lord working in our lives? Great! Who did we tell about it? We can't hold the good news to ourselves! On that note, here are some of the things that I have to be grateful to the Lord for, small and personal perhaps, but they are ways that I have seen His presence in my life--a decent grade on a paper which I didn't know whether the prof would agree with - peace in answer to prayer during a troubled moment last night - conviction of sin from Scripture reading.

What about you? How has the Lord been working in your life recently?

Weeds

My daily Bible study today had me reading Matthew 13, which contains quite a few parables related to the Kingdom of God. One of the more well know of these parables is the Parable of the Sower (verses 3-9, 18-23). In this parable, Christ describes 4 sets of seeds.

The first set are sown on hard ground. There is no potential for them to actually get into the soil and grow, so they just sit on the surface and are eaten by birds. The second set are sown in soil which is full of rocks, and they are unable to develop a root system deep enough to survive. The third set is sown in a plot of land full of weeds which keep the growing plants from receiving the nutrients and water they need. The forth and final set of plants is sown on good ground and they produce varying amounts of fruit. As Christ explains to his disciples later on, each of these sets of seeds represents different types of responses to the Word of God in the lives of people.

Why am I bringing this up? Well, frankly it is because my life has been in the weeds lately. I don't know about you, but I think I always had this idea in the back of my mind that the weeds were evil influences, sinful desires which crept in and stole away time from God's Word. What I've been seeing in my life though, is that these weeds can be good, or at least innocent, things. If I were to get down to brass tacks, some of the weeds in my life have included work, school work, Facebook, spending time with friends and reading outside of school for my own enjoyment and edification. Everything on the list (Facebook excepted) is as a rule rather wholesome and a necessary part of living a good life. However, by letting them all overcrowd my day so that I don't have time to study the Bible, they have turned into weeds which ultimately will choke my faith.

As has been pointed out many times before, the good is the enemy of the best. Important, necessary parts of the Christian life can never substitute for its foundation. If we are not going back to the Bible and re-centering our lives on Christ and His Word, our Christian walk will fall apart. At least I know that I can't live the Christian life without Christ's grace and strength.

Praise the Lord though, there is mercy and forgiveness for sinners like myself. The fact that weeds are in the garden doesn't mean that it needs to be given back to the wild. Instead, it means that there is an opportunity to claim ground for Christ and pull them out! So, let's go conquer some weeds!

What about you? Do you see yourself in one of the sets of seeds? What kind of weeds to do you see in your life? What have you found helpful in preventing/pulling out weeds in your life? Feel free to leave a comment and join the conversation!

Why Read Fiction?

Why read fiction?

I mean, why would one want to read a story that never really took place? Couldn't your time be much better spent reading what has actually happened (history) or thoughts on how the world actually works (theology, philosophy ect.)? That was certainly my thought once upon a time. Fiction was a pleasure that I rarely let myself indulge in, because I wanted to keep my mental muscles in tone, and reading something for the pleasure of the story would only make them flabby. Fortunately for me, one of my professors at Summit Semester helped me to see fiction in a completely new light. In his book, The Everlasting Man, G.K. Chesterton sums up this new perspective well:


"We know the meaning of all the myths.. We know the last secret revealed to the perfect initiate. And it is not the voice of a priest or a prophet saying, 'These things are.' It is the voice of a dreamer and an idealist crying, 'Why cannot these things be?'"

"Why cannot these things be?" Could this be why the fictitious stories in literature touch us in a way which is uniquely different from the facts of history or the abstractions of great thinkers? Couldn't it be because we know that the would ought to be different, and that what we experience in our lives are not really the experiences for which we were ultimately made?

Further on in The Everlasting Man, Chesterton muses on what the shepherds found when they were lead to Christ on the first Christmas Day. His thoughts highlight the importance which story can have in understanding our faith:

"The place that the shepherds found was not an academy or an abstract republic; it was not a place of myths allegorized or dissected or explained  or explained away. It was a place of dreams come true. Since that hour no mythologies have been made in the world. Mythology is a search"


In Christianity, the stories are made true. The Velveteen Rabbit comes to life. The things which the idealist wishes were, really are, and are in a much larger and fuller way than he could ever have imagined. As Chesterton puts it elsewhere in The Everlasting Man: "But in reality the rivers of mythology and philosophy run parallel and do not mingle till they meet in the sea of Christendom." In Christianity we find a unity between the logical abstractions of what is true about the world and the stories which attempt to paint the picture of those same truths.

So, again, why read fiction? One ought to read fiction to shake themselves awake from the stupor that comes from looking at the broken world in front of us and trying to make sense of it. One ought to read fiction to bring out the wonder and awe which only a picture of the truth can bring. One ought to read fiction to learn what questions need to be asked about reality. As God's reveled Truth, the Bible contains all the answers we will ever need in this life. However, sometimes in our day-to-day lives we can lose sight of what we were looking for in the first place. Dipping into the search of mythology can help remind us again of the object of our search: Jesus Christ Who is both The Word become Flesh and the Truth.

That is why I read fiction.

What do you think? Is this accurate? Have I overstated my case? Could it be a more nuanced? Leave a comment and join the conversation!

An Alternative to Egyptian Poetry

I really should be working on a paper for my Non-Western Literature class. However, analyzing the literary devices used in a selection of Egyptian poems does really get me super excited. So I'm going to jot some thoughts down here on the side about something else I've been reading recently...

Specifically, I've been working on reading C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy. At this point the first book, Out of the Silent Planet, is nearly finish. Of all the lines which jumped out at me, A particular section wanted to be written up in a blog post. Before we look at the section though, a little background is in order.

Out of the Silent Planet follows the adventures of Dr. Ransom as he is flown to a different planet and interacts with the various beings found there. The ruler of the particular planet where Ransom's story takes place is named Oyarsa. In the selection below, we find Ransom sharing the history of the earth with some of the inhabitants he has met. As these inhabitants react to Ransom's recounting, Lewis nails the problem of humanity:

"They were astonished at what he had to tell them of human history--of war, slavery, and prostitution.

'It is because they have no Oyarsa,' said one of the pupils

'It is because everyone of them wants to be a little Oyarsa himself,' said Augray."

"Everyone of them wants to be a little Oyarsa himself." The temptation to be a god, to decide for ourselves what is right and wrong, has been the problem of the human race since the Fall. For most people, it appears that this is a way to freedom. After all, if you are not taking orders from someone else, you are free to do as you want, right? It certainly sounds pretty good. Good enough in fact, that every person since Adam has bit on the idea. As Isaiah reminds us: "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way..." (Isaiah 53:6 ESV) 

However, this idea ignores a basic fact of human existence: we are all slaves. Paul pointed this out in his letter to the Romans: "Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?" (Romans 6:16 ESV) To put it another way, the world is caught up in a battle between good and evil, and there is no neutral ground. You are either on the side of good or the side of evil. By trying free himself from the rule of good, man has only given himself over to the rule of evil. Further, as all men are dead in their sins (Eph. 2:1), they will naturally continue to choose to be ruled by sin.

In the end, this analysis, so far as it is true, leaves me rejoicing. This rejoicing stems from how it demonstrates God's love for us, and mighty work on our behalf. Rather than destroy man, He has chosen to break the power of sin and raise us back to life in Him (Eph. 2:5-6). It also leaves me with a reminder to stay humble, for it is only in God's strength, given through Christ, that I can hope to actually live a life of righteousness. Finally, it also leads me to ask if there are areas of my life where I am trying to be a "little Oyarsa." Oswald Chambers has correctly pointed out that I cannot be on the throne of my life at the same time as God.

How about you? What thoughts does this picture of the human condition bring to your mind? How should it affect the way you live?

But I Want to Grow Up Now!

Have you ever had that inverse Peter Pan feeling? That sense that you ought to have arrived at what appears to be the next level of maturity already, or that you should be doing so much more with your life by now? I know that I have. To the degree that this feeling flows from a desire to a better follower of Christ, I think it is healthy. However, I know that I also need to be reminded that God is in control of History, not me, and true maturity and Christ-likeness comes from following his blueprint, not my wishes.

The following poem from John Milton tackles this subject. Compared to some of his peers, Milton was a late bloomer. He did not immediately jump into the public eye once he was finished with his education. In fact, his greatest accomplishment, the great English Epic Paradise Lost, was not written until closer to the end of his life. Needless to say, Milton had some experience on which he could draw to discuss this topic.

The following poem is written in the form of a Sonnet. This means that it is only 14 lines long. The first 8 lines usually present a problem or question, and the last 6 provide a solution or answer. Additionally, the words must follow as specific cadence of naturally stressed and unstressed syllables, and the poem must follow one of a few specific rhyme schemes. Writing a good sonnet  requires you to tackle life's questions in both a concise and precise fashion. Milton hits the nail on the head here, and I hope it brings both enjoyment and encouragement to your path!

Sonnet 7
How soon hath Time the subtle thief of youth,
 Stol'n on his wing my three and twentieth year!
 My hasting days fly on with full career,
 But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth,
 That I to manhood am arrived so near,
 And inward ripeness doth much less appear,
 That some more timely-happy spirits endu'th
Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,
 It shall be be still in strictest measure even
 To that same lot, however mean or high,
Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven;
 All is, if I have grace to use it so,
 As ever in my great Taskmaster's eye.

"to Christ I look, on Christ I call."

The following poem by G.M. Hopkins does a beautiful job of capturing the fact that our hopes must ultimately be placed in Christ alone, for He alone on earth possesses perfection. Hopkins did not name this poem, and so it is simply headed in my collection of his poetry as "16."

"Myself unholy, from myself unholy

To the sweet living of my friends I look –

Eye-greeting doves bright-counter to the rook,

Fresh brooks to salt sand-teasing waters shoaly: --

And they are purer, but alas! not solely

The unquestion’d readings of a blotless book.

And so my trust, confusèd, struck, and shook

Yields to the sultry siege of melancholy.

He has a sin of mine, he its near brother;

Knowing them well I can but see the fall.

This fault in one I found, that in another:

And so, though each have one while I have all,

No better serves me now, save best ; no other

Save Christ: to Christ I look, on Christ I call."

Foundation for Hope and Joy

As part of a Bible Study at my Church we are reading through the end of the New Testament and getting together once a week to discuss it. Currently we are working on 1 Peter. As I was reading it today, a couple sections reminded me of an insight shared in our Pastor's sermon about a month ago. It was (and is) rather challenging to me, so I wanted to share it with you. Oh, and if you are looking for a section of Scripture to camp out in for a while, 1 Peter is excellent! I'll have to devote some time in a future post to cover some of the main ideas which keep jumping out at me while I'm reading...but in the meantime, you ought to dive in yourself!

Back to the challenging idea. Our hope should stem from the Resurrection proof that Christ has won the victory over sin and evil. It should not be based in our circumstances being fixed up the way we want them. Peter touches on this idea at the beginning his first epistle: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead...In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." (1 Peter 1:3-7 ESV)


If this is true, if my hope should be based in Christ's victory over evil, then my joy should not flow from my present circumstances. Further, if my life were filled with misery from now to its end, I should still be able to hope and have joy in and through Christ. Right now I know that my hope easily ends up being placed on my present trials ending instead of Christ's Kingdom being fully established. That kind of thinking shows my pride. Me and my happiness are at the center of the universe, not God and His glory. Father, please keep directing my gaze back to You, your Kingdom and Your glory.

The Head of the Trail

Well, I’m taking the plunge here and beginning a blog. It has been on my to do list for a while, but the time to get an initial post out never quite materialized (until now). As we start this path (assuming you’ll travel a little with me) it would probably be helpful if I explain to you where we’re headed.

As you may have guessed from the title of the blog, the posts you will read will be primarily theological in nature. The title is a reference to Dr. Michael Bauman’s book “Pilgrim Theology.” In this book, Dr. Bauman encourages the reader to avoid resting in their current knowledge of God, and instead continue exploring deeper into what the Bible says about Him. In this sense, theology is much like a journey into God’s revelation of who He is. Whether you like it or not, because you are human this is a journey you are already on. The question is whether you will pursue the trail in earnest, or merely play at being a pilgrim. Dr. Charles Ryrie puts it this way:

“Theology is for everyone. Indeed, everyone needs to be a theologian. In reality, everyone is a theologian — of one sort or another. And therein lies the problem. There is nothing wrong with being an amateur theologian or a professional theologian, but there is everything wrong with being an ignorant or sloppy theologian.”

Hopefully this blog will serve as a log book of sorts for my journey. Sometimes the entries will be clear and the thoughts well defined. Other times, they will contain questions for which I have yet to find the answers. In either case though, I hope that these musings will serve to encourage you to press on your pilgrimage and not give up, even when the trail is rough. Who knows, they may even shed some light on your way! Conversely, I’m looking forward to hearing from you, and getting your insight into the Truth as we go!

What are we waiting for? Let’s hit the trail!