Three point sermon?

No problem.

Redhead that rocks my world

What could be sweeter - or more dangerous - than a 6 yr old boy? True to his redheaded nature, he's intense & passionate, whether he's buttering up mom or slaying the dragon (dad). He's a tough guy with a heart of gold. Amazingly, he's survived the first six years of his life without a single trip to the ER. Happy Birthday, bud!

Logic!

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, chapter 5.

Edmund "was becoming a nastier person every minute," and Peter sees and rebukes him for it. Lucy calls them all beasts, because they don't believe; the beasts in Narnia are more intelligent, because of their faith.

Peter and Susan think Lucy is either going liar or lunatic. They go to Professor Digory Kirke, who gets them to consider the third option: is she telling the truth? ("Why don't they teach logic at these schools?") It would require changing some assumptions about what is possible in this world of ours... I mean, God's. "If things are real, they're there all the time." "Are they?"

And besides, the gospel writers - uh, I mean, Lucy - couldn't have made up the part about the different time in that world.

So instead of torturing Lucy for the truth or a confession, why not mind our own business? This mades things bearable for Lucy.

But providence returns them all to Narnia: "or that some magic in the house had come to life and was chasing them into Narnia."

Turkish Delight

The witch, like Tumnus, knows about Adam. Even the devil believes, and trembles. Yet she claims Narnia as her "dominions." She is capricious and arbitrary, the opposite of Aslan, quick to insult and nearly kills Edmund on the spot. But instead she wins him to her side, applying her magical (spiritual) power to his own sinful desire for Turkish Delight. She also knows the prophecies about 4 humans sitting on 4 thrones restoring Narnia, and asks him about it. So she tempts him further, as Satan did with Adam and later with Jesus, not just with the physical desire for food but with power over Narnia and over his siblings. She drives off laughing and friendly, but her countenance surely turned to dreadful hatred and fear once out of sight. Lucy returns from Tumnus very jolly, while Edmund is sulky and short with her, the after-effects of sinful indulgence in temptation. She tells her view of the witch, and Edmund believes it deep down, but wants more Turkish Delight. So his sin also drives him to prideful disdain, not wanting to admit he is wrong, keeping secrets when he had no need to do so, and lying about how he feels. Indulging sin leads you to do some pretty rotten stuff, and we see more of it in the next chapter. Edmund is becoming like the witch: fearful of and hating the truth, but knowing it deep down, with the tension driving one to malice against all goodness.

Of outsiders and usurpers

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Chapter 3

I started this series three months ago then got distracted. Here are installments one and two.

As a metaphor for spiritual reality, Narnia is not seen by all. There are some who experience and see it and others who don't. When Lucy comes out of the wardrobe and insists to her siblings on her experience, she receives the same mix of reactions that Christians get from outsiders. Peter is patronizing, Susan says she's silly and off her rocker. They all think she is lying. Edmund is especially spiteful and mean about it. For a time, Narnia divides brother against sister.

As always the return to Narnia is providential, and not controlled by the children. Lucy goes off to find Tumnus and when Edmund enters a few moments later she out of shouting range. Edmund meets the witch, who is "beautiful" and "great," but also "proud, cold and stern." There are beings in the world with more power and beauty than humans, whom we are tempted to worship or follow (Scripture teaches against this tendency in Hebrews 1:4 and Colossians 1:16; 2:9-10). Like Satan, the white witch masquerades as an angel of light.

She also passes herself off as Queen of Narnia, but we'll come to that later. For now, the queen wants to know what Edmund is.

The Shack, Redux

Wrote this to a friend just now, who was asking:

I read the Shack last year and had mixed reactions. It moved me, and does draw one into the Trinity in some positive ways. It does some good things with the problem of evil. But it distorts God's attributes according to modern "touchy-feely" ideas too much. Makes God into one big empathizer with us in our suffering, instead of the one who conquers evil. Also interesting God the Father couldn't be a man.

I wouldn't say it's sinful to read it, just be careful of the way a book like this can re-fashion and distort our view of God, even unintentionally, while it claims to be drawing us TO Him.

Dressing for Worship

by Randy Booth

Pastor David Givler, from Christ Covenant Church in San Antonio, TX, offered some good counsel on the subject of how we should dress for worship. Here is a summary of what he had to offer:

We should ask “casual” worshipers what they would dress for since they don’t dress for church. Typical answers are funerals and weddings. Of course worship on Sunday is about the greatest wedding and the most important funeral, among other things. The things that they are willing to dress for are only derivatives. Why not dress for the real thing?

The worm of conscience gnaws away

Book One - Knowledge of God the Creator

Chapter 3 - The knowledge of God has been naturally implanted in the minds of men

Section 1 - The character of this natural endowment

It's unarguable that we all know of God.

We are self-condemned, because of it.

Even idolatry proves this knowledge: we'd rather lower ourselves to worship others than worship nothing.

Section 2 - Religion is no arbitrary invention

Men didn't invent religion to control the rest. It works too well:

men actually believe in God.

Those who defy God are most afraid of other things (Lev 26:36).

Atheists can't keep up the veneer for long.

Section 3 - Actual godlessness is impossible

We can't remove consciousness of God from our minds.

They laugh at God, but conscience gnaws away inside.

If we stay in this state, we descend to the level of brutes.

Even the pagans knew this (quotes Plato).

What distinguishes man from beast is worship [not just reason!]

Institutes of the Christian Religion

Preface to the reader - 1559

I did not expect the first edition to be so successful.

It was rumored I defected back to Roman Catholicism.

I wrote this to "prepare and instruct candidates in sacred theology for the reading of the divine Word" to understandit themselves, and help others to understand it, too.

My commentaries build on the foundation of doctrine you hold in your hands.

Subject matter of the present work - from the 1560 French edition

I translated it into French to help the less learned understand Scripture better.

Evaluate this book according to the Bible.

Belhar Confession

As I left the RCA, the liberal leadership was beginning a push to adopt the Belhar confession. It recently came up in my new circle of colleagues, and the new CREC moderator Jack Phelps offered this analysis:

"The Belhar Confession is of relatively recent origin (1986). It was formulated in South Africa by the Dutch Reformed Mission Church (now a component of the URCSA). Recently the PCUSA adopted a resolution urging all its congregations and presbyteries to study the Belhar with a view toward some level of adoption in the future. The specific reason given was that this confession would help the PCUSA further its efforts to combat racisim and promote unity.

"Unfortunately, the Belhar in its particulars makes unity the primary goal of the church and calls upon the church to avoid all actions that will disrupt unity. I don't suppose I need to spell out the horrific problems with such a postion. As you read it, you almost get the sense that it was written specifically to throw open the door to Sodomites. Actually I doubt that was the intent, given its origin, but it certainly would lend itself well to that purpose."

I guess I'll be labelled a rascist, hate-filled divider for this by some. I just want a church that is as pure in her sexual practice (1 Cor 6:9-11) as she is unified in her racial reconciliation and life (Rev 7:9). Adopting a confession is not needed to guide the church away from racism, but it sure would create a venue for misapplying the truth of welcoming diversity and reconciliation to those indulging in homosexual practice.

The drippy wife

The following is an excerpt from a weekly newsletter - "View from Virginia" - that I write for our friends and family.

Proverbs 27:15 - A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day
Proverbs 19:13 - the contentions of a wife are a constant dripping

The bible verses about a contentious wife being like a dripping roof have a whole new meaning to me since we came home to some water damage two days before Christmas. While vacuuming up gallons of water I had some time to reflect on dripping water.

The worst part about a dripping roof is not the water damage, that can be repaired easily enough. No, the worst part of a dripping roof (or complaining wife) is that it makes a horrid stench in the home which affects everyone, not just the person under the drip. A bad spiritual aroma in the home, created by a wife with a grouchy attitude or complaining heart, can spread to everyone and foul the air. Only by hacking out the moldy parts and dragging them out the front door and to the curb can the air be cleared. Sometimes the moldy items have personal value and have soured slowly, so we might not notice and are loathe to let them go, even to the point where we deny the stench or don't even smell it. These are the hardest to remove with our own will. Only the professionals can clean up that kind of mess; the professional cleaning team of the Trinity tears out the rot in our hearts and breathes a fresh air into our lives.

January = Craft "Plan-uary"

Instead of being quite random and impulsive about my small amount of free time for crafting, I have a plan! I hope this will help me to get things finished, instead of just started (I am a compulsive project starter; problem solving is much more intriguing to me than carrying out the solution.)

Here's the January goals:

KNITTING
finish Steve's birthday socks (his b-day was a month ago!)
finish Hemlock Ring cardigan (the season for wearing sparkly red garments is nearing an end)

SEWING
flannel nightgown for daughter
flannel PJs for boys #2 & #3
canvas log carrier
ironing board cover (not very inspiring, but much needed)
baby gift for new hobbit nephew (born on Tolkien's birthday, Jan 3)

Calvin's view of his adversaries

"For what is more consonant with faith than to recognize that we are naked of all virtue, in order to be clothed by God? That we are empty of all good, to be filled by him? That we are slaves of sin, to be freed by him? Blind, to be illumined by him? Lame, to be made straight by him? Weak, to be sustained by him? To take away from us all occasion for glorying, that he alone may stand forth gloriously and we glory in him [cf. I Cor. 1:31; II Cor. 10:17]? When we say these and like things our adversaries interrupt and complain that in this way we shall subvert some blind light of nature, imaginary preparations, free will, and works that merit eternal salvation, even with their supererogations.

"They think it of no concern what belief anyone holds or does not hold regarding God and Christ, if only he submit his mind with implicit faith7 (as they call it) to the judgment of the church. The sight of God's glory defiled with manifest blasphemies does not much trouble them, bprovided no one raises a finger against the primacy of the Apostolic See and against the authority of Holy Mother Church. aWhy, therefore, do they fight with such ferocity and bitterness for the Mass, purgatory, pilgrimages, and trifles of that sort, denying that there can be true godliness without a most explicit faith, so to speak, in such things, even though they prove nothing of them from God's Word?"

from the prefatory address to the King of France, in the Institutes

2009 reading, God willing

Well, after falling behind my Bible reading in October/November, I caught up and finished at 11:59pm last night. Maybe a little petty, but sure better reading about the spotless bride in Rev 21 than watching Bill and Hillary gawk at the ball in NYC.

I'm reading a chronological plan again this year, with a twist: OT and NT at the same time.

Here is my best electronic reading besides the Bible, roughly ordered by best value in my estimation (taking brevity, quality, and frequency into account, mostly). Besides finishing the books in the sidebar and others I'll post, this is what I'll be reading online this year c/o Google Reader. Addresses are included to paste into Reader, if you're interested.

Calvin's Institutes - whole book in a year, daily reading schedule

http://www2.ptsem.edu/ConEd/Calvin/

(See my blog for summaries - calvinreadings.blogspot.com)

George Grant

http://feed43.com/grantianflorilegium.xml

Doug Wilson

http://www.dougwils.com/

Steve Wilkins

http://auburnavenue.wordpress.com/

Randy Booth

http://feastofbooths.blogspot.com/

Tabletalk daily devotionals

http://www.huntersvillearp.org/tabletalk

Joost Nixon

http://bultitude.squarespace.com/blog/

World Magazine

http://www.worldmag.com/

Peggy Noonan

http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html

I win

I'm the first to blog this year! I win.

Yes, I'm for petty competitions. :)