Some Right Wright

"It is quite an illegitimate use of all this to see 'experience' as a separate source of authority to be played off against scripture itself, though this move is now frequent, almost routine, in many theological circles ('Scripture says... tradition says... reason says... but experience says... and so that's what we go with").... (pg 101)

To speak of 'experience' as an authority, then, is to admit that the word 'authority' itself is being dismantled.... If 'experience' is itself a source of authroity, we can no longer be addressed by a word which comes from beyond ourselves. At this point, theology and Christn living cease to be rooted in God himself, and are rooted instead in our own selves; in other words, they become a form of idolatry in which we exchange the truth about God for a human-made lie...." (pg 101, 103).

"We could put it like this. 'Experience' is what grows by itself in the garden. 'Authority' is what happens whne the gardener wants to affirm the goodness of the genuine flowers and vegetables by uprooting the weeds in order to let beauty and fruitfulness triumph over chaos, thorns and thistles. An over-authoritarian church, paying no attention to experience, solves the problem by paving the garden with concrete. An over-experiential church solves the (real or imagined) problem of concrete (rigid and 'judgmental' forms of faith) by letting anything and everything grow unchecked, sometimes labeling concrete as 'law' and so celebrating any and every weed as 'grace.'" (pg 104)

The Spirit baptizes us into His own fruit

Following my sermon on baptism today, here is a good follow-up, just-to-make-sure-I'm-still-orthodox kind of thing. Wilson is explaining Galatians 5:18-26:

"Those who are baptized have been baptized into Christ, which means they have been baptized "into" the second list [the fruit of the Spirit]. But what if their life still matches the first list [of sinful living]? What does that mean? It means that, apart from repentance, they will not inherit the kingdom of God. Their baptism obligates them covenantally to be characterized by the second list, not the first. But unbelief within the covenant makes disobedience within the covenant possible. Baptism puts a man under the obligations of the covenant; it does not substitute for a life of obedience based on faith in Christ alone."

On turning the hearts of fathers

"We are prone to interpret the phrase 'turn the hearts of the fathers to the children' in various incorrect or incomplete ways. Some define this by coming home - leaving the corporate world to provide for the family in some home-based enterprise.....

Others define this as implementing strict obedience training modes in the home, with severe consequences for disobedience....

Others define this by adopting the 'patriarch' label, with little or no understanding of what that actually means. Some foolishly view this as bossing the wife and children around, in order to remind them who is in charge. Others take this stance solely as implementing and reinforcing strict gender differences in the household. While I heartily embrace unique gender roles in all areas of life, this doesn't get at the root of biblical patriarchy and it doesn't get anywhere near to fulfilling the prophecy in Malachi.

What is missing from the three scenarios I have briefly and roughly summarized above is the difficult work of pursuing the heart of our children.... seeking to tie strings of fellowship with his children, truly enjoying their presence, and letting his children know that he enjoys their presence.... [Our heavenly Father] loves to spend time in fellowship with us, to commune with us. When we understand the Lord's Supper properly, we see that He is tying the same strings of fellowship with us that we need to be tying with those under our care, and as His heart is turned to us, our hearts are turned to Him."

Jay Barfield
in Every Thought Captive, Sept/Oct 2007

Not the last word?

No, I don't agree with everything NT Wright says. Let's get that out of the way. Are some things helpful, though? Yes. Here is a sampling:

On the coherence of Scripture, contra rationalists and the overly-systemazing:
"Many of the accusations [from academia]... of flat contradiction [within Scripture] arise not from historical study proper but from the imposition on the texts of categories from much later Western thought (from, for instance, the sixteenth or the nineteenth century). Obvious examples include the idea that a book which teaches 'justification by faith' cannot also teach 'final judgment according to works,'... or that the proclamation of Jesus as 'Messiah' (a Jewish category) is somehow in tension with announcing him as 'Lord' (a Gentile category, supposedly)..... Just because some Western theologians cannot see how certain categories fit coherently together, that doesn't mean that those categories didn't fit in the first century." (pg 52).

This addresses the tendency of some to read too quickly and easily their doctrinal assumptions into texts. "We know it can't mean what it looks like, because that would mean..."



On the relationship between Old and New Covenants in Scripture:
"Heavy-handed schemes such as those of Marcion (the God of the Old Testament is a different God to that of the New) and the theologically cognate ones of some Reformers (a strict antithesis between law and gospel pressed into meaning that, as Luther once said despite his general awareness that things were not quite so simple, 'Moses knows nothing of Christ') do no justice to the sophisticated early Christian sense of continuing to live under the wholescripture, albeit in this multi-layered manner." (pg 57)

Here my point, with Wright, is that there is grace in the OT and law in the NT. The Law/Gospel divide is helpful at certain points of doctrine and/or, but messes you up if you make it an over-arching grid.



But Wright's main point is that Scripture's authority is the authority of God through Scripture. Here he gives away too much:
"Rather than moving toward something like the dynamic concept we are expounding, both the Reformers and their opponents were understanding 'authority' primarily in terms of 'the place where you could go to find an authoritative ruling.' This was quite natural, seeing that this was one of the main menaings of 'authority' at that time. But it does not help us very much in addressing the questions we have raised in this book, which have to do with the way in which scripture carries the dynamic, saving power of God." (pg 75)

This is just a nice, academic way of saying that the pre-modern idea of authority is nonsense and doesn't even deserve rebuttal - we all know it's crazy, so just forget it.

But I still believe it. Wright cannot just wave his hand dismissively at this idea, that the Bible is the final court of appeal for any dispute among Christians. The Spirit and the community interpret, yes, but the Spirit will not and the Church may not contradict Scripture. Wright leaves the door open for that to happen.

In some ways like Karl Barth, NT Wright rejects the liberal view in its outright rejection of authority, but doesn't get close of enough to an "under Scripture" for my comfort. Still, his ideas on the full-orbed Gospel as God's Kingdom are very helpful...

Poem of the day

When I Have Fears
by John Keats

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

Poem of the day

What Man May Learn, What Man May Do
by Robert Louis Stevenson.

What man may learn, what man may do,
Of right or wrong of false or true,
While, skipper-like, his course he steers
Through nine and twenty mingled years,
Half misconceived and half forgot,
So much I know and practise not.

Old are the words of wisdom, old
The counsels of the wise and bold:
To close the ears, to check the tongue,
To keep the pining spirit young;
To act the right, to say the true,
And to be kind whate'er you do.

Thus we across the modern stage
Follow the wise of every age;
And, as oaks grow and rivers run
Unchanged in the unchanging sun,
So the eternal march of man
Goes forth on an eternal plan.

Faith and works

This article, from En-Gedi, is the sort that gets you in trouble with the TR crowd(Truly Reformed - those who try to outdo each other in how Reformed and confessional they are) - I think it is right on, though, in pointing us to James (2:14-26) to see what kind of faith it is that alone justifies us.


Emunah
Faith and Faithfulness
Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. Gen 15:6

One of the most quoted verses about Abraham is Genesis 15:6. This is a key verse that is used in the discussion about being saved by faith apart from works — the central point of the Protestant Reformation. It was Abram's "believing" that gave him righteousness in God's sight. From this verse, Christians historically have emphasized the importance of believing God's promises, instead of working to earn our salvation.

But it is important to understand that the key word, emunah, which we translate "believe," has a different emphasis in Hebrew than we tend to hear. In English and in Greek (pistis), its primary meaning is to assent to a factual statement, to agree with the truth of certain ideas.

The word emunah does mean “to have faith,” but it has a broader meaning that has implications for what God calls us to as people of faith. It also contains the idea of steadfastness or persistence. Exodus 17 tells us that Moses raised his hands all day long until the Israelites won a key battle. It says that his hands remained steady (emunah) until sunset. In this sense the word means “steadfast.”

The word emunah is also used to describe God’s faithfulness:

Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful (emunah) God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands. (Deuteronomy 7:9)

If we look back at the verse about Abraham's emunah, it should tell us that Abraham believed God's promises and had a persistent commitment to God, which was displayed in his faithful life — waiting 25 years for a son, and then offering him back to God when he was asked to do so.

This has implications about what it means to be a Christian. I used to wonder why God saved certain people just because they decided to adopt one particular set of beliefs over another. But as James pointed out, Satan himself believes the truth about God and Jesus (James 2:19); and just knowing that doesn't redeem him! But while Satan may have the right beliefs, he cannot say that he has emunah — a committed faithfulness to the Lord. What God asks for goes beyond an academic decision to believe that a certain set of facts are true. He wants faith in his promises that results in steadfast faithfulness to him.

by Lois Tverberg

The basis of law

One of Douglas Phillip's latest essays on materialist assumptions behind modern law was very good. A quote:

"While many Christians resist formal acceptance of the evolutionary hypothesis, they have implicitly accepted the assumptions on which the theory rests.... For evil to triumph in the cultural battle, it is not necessary that the theory of evolution gain wide-spread acceptance, only that the assumptions behind the theory do."

I'll let him spell out those changed assumptions here.

Responses to a Federal Vision skeptic

Justification is God's reckoning one righteous, based on the obedience of Christ. His obedience is imputed to us when we believe in His saving work on the cross. The Father was well pleased with His Son, and places us in union with His Son, so He is also well-pleased with us. The faith we have is given to us by God - we could not believe on our own, being totally depraved. We are saved by God's grace alone, through faith alone.

Baptism is a sign and seal of our salvation, and admits us to the visible church. I'm probably most FV on baptism. Besides being a picture of the washing of regeneration, an assurance to the one baptized of all it signifies happening to him, it also ex opere operato places one in covenant and union of a sort with Christ. Joining the visible church, we are joined with Christ's Body in the John 15 sort of way. This union may not be a saving union, as Christ speaks of some branches being cut off, and we know that once regenerated and saved, one cannot lose that. This fits with the wheat and tares parable as well. In the church are some of each, but the church is defined by the baptized. So baptism places one in covenant with God, in which greater obligations, rewards and curses are promised (Heb 10:28-29).

There are instances in NT of delay b/t water and Spirit baptism, but I don't see this as normative today.

1 Pet 3: to continue the Scriptural picture, one could say Noah was saved from the flood, but still had to be faithful to God afterward (which faithfulness would have been a complete gift, not earning to keep your inheritance). It was not a final and ultimate salvation. Similarly infants baptized are saved from the flood of guilt of sin, too. Yet if faith is not evident later on, it becomes clear that the union with Christ was only formal and never saving. Objections to this to preserve the doctrine of the preservation of saints are also objecting to John 15:1-6; Hebrews 6:4-6; Hebrews 10:28; etc. A proper FV and Westminster understanding deals honestly with these texts without giving up anything in the doctrines of grace. Scripture often uses the words save, deliver, rescue in a non-ultimate sense (Judges saving Israel, e.g.)

Scripture also qualifies in 1 Pet 3 that salvation is not by the outward sign of baptism but by what it signifies: Christ's resurrection.

I follow the classic three-part def'n of faith: knowledge assent and trust. The object of one's faith must be Christ alone, believing He is who He says He is, that His work pleases the Father on our behalf. Faith is the sole instrument of our justification, but that faith must be a living faith (James 2:17), not a bare profession. Faith unaccompanied by works won't save, because it isn't true faith. This does not make works an instrument of justification, but only defines the faith that pleases God and justifies the believer. Faith alone justifies, but not a faith that is alone. We must be careful not to let the object of faith slip from Christ and His work alone to exhaustive or proper understandings of Him or His work. We are not justified by understanding justification by faith alone. That one doctrine is not the whole Gospel, though it is a key element of it.

I would encourage you to read for yourself some of the principals' own ecclesiastically accountable responses to the controversy before pre-judging. One example can be found here.

Please do not defame, remove fellowship from, or bear false witness against your fellow brothers in the Lord before doing so.

His Kingdom Spread from Shore to Shore

Delight in God. Receive from Him in worship.

"Weak worship is not [weak because] people are coming to get and not to give.... People ought to come to corporate worship services to get. They ought to come starved for God.... And it is my job as a preacher to spread a banquet for them.

"If the focus shifts onto our giving to God, instead of His giving Himself to us, one result is that subtly it is not God who remains at the center but, instead, the quality of our giving."

Technicolor Living Room

Since it's been ages since Steve posted anything, I'm stepping up. Remember me? I'm slowly surfacing from the deluge of boxes and piles of stuff resulting from our recent move. I love moving to new houses just for the decorating challenge. I love to decorate. Love it. It's a blank canvas, and let me tell you, our living room is the ultimate in BLANK canvas. Cream walls. Cream carpeting. Cream window sheers. Dreamy creamy.

Don't get me wrong - cream/ecru/off-white/beige, whatever you call it - is a great color. It has it's proper place. But not all over the place. My challenge is to put some color, zing into our home. That scares the hubby, I think. I painted our bedroom dark blue. His study is terra cotta with a burnt sienna ragged-off glaze. Mmmm. The boys, well, they got serviceable khaki just because they're boys and I'll probably need to repaint in two years. Those satellite rooms were easy decisions, but this living room, the heart of the home, open to all who pass through our door, it is essentially the defining essence of "Hemmeke." OK, not really, but I take color seriously. I collected about 50 different color chips just to select the three colors mentioned above!

So, what will it be? Neutral - khaki, chocolate, taupe; or something more daring - eggplant, goldenrod, salmon? I'm searching for that inspiration nugget that will set the creativity dancing. Stay tuned...

Poem of the day

The world is too much with us
by William Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; (1)
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, (2)
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus (3) rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton (4) blow his wreathed horn.


Not that I agree with the "I'd rather be a pagan" part. It's not as though you can say being a pagan is closer to being godly than being a materialist... or can you?

Kingdom as House

"[The devil] is waging war when he encourages us to spend our energies not pursuing the kingdom, but pursuing personal peace and affluence."

RC Sproul, Jr. in Tabletalk, July 2007, pg 59.

This one hit me pretty hard, as we are in the thick of a bunch of little decisions regarding personal peace and convenience in our new home. Is the devil winning, automatically, whenever someone buys, builds, or remodels their home?

I don't think so.

It is easy to end up there, where your only thought is your convenience. How do you keep furnishing a home from becoming an ungodly pursuit of personal peace and affluence? Two principles:

1. Raising children in a godly environment. Are they pointed to the one who is preparing rooms for us, even now (John 14:1)? Do they experience a family of joy and beauty, which is expressed in the physical home environment?

2. Hospitality. Are others who are brought in witnessing a well-thought-out environment with them in mind? Are they exposed to other-centered-ness, or self-centered-ness?

How will others be affected by the physical environment? Will it draw them to the God who dwells in the beauty of holiness (Psalm 96:9), or draw them into their sinful selves? Will it advance God's kingdom, or just our own fiefdoms?

Specific application here takes a great deal of wisdom...

Crummy Judah chosen

I don't think it dawned on me before reading through Tabletalk (a week or two behind schedule!) how crummy of a guy Judah was. Suggesting the sale of a brother to Egypt; marrying a pagan, like Esau; blaming Tamar for not providing sons; making her a promise he doesn't intend to keep; hypocritically condemning her immorality.

Yet Judah's scepter shall rule, not Joseph's. The latter is a poster-boy of righteousness and success, yet he is not to rule Israel.

God's grace and inscrutable providence at work, yet again.

Notice Judah deceives his father with a goat and coat (clothing), and is then deceived in the very next chapter by Tamar, with a goat and a cord (clothing) (Gen 37-38).