Sit and Eat, says Love

Going through airport on the way home I saw a young man wearing a t-shirt that said, “Take me home and feed me.” This is what God has done for us. He has taken us home and fed us. Everything has been done for us: the Son was sent, the price is paid, the Spirit is sent, there is water to wash up, the dinner table is set. So come and sit.

George Herbert:
“Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.

"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.”

10/9/11

A Church, A Communion

We have had two name changes recently, one of our church to the word church instead of fellowship. We did this mainly to emphasize our appreciation for the visible church and her outward means of grace, the Word, Sacraments and prayer. The other change came at our denomination just a couple days ago, from the Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches to the Communion REC. This was to avoid people assuming our churches all support the Southern Confederacy, which has been a significant obstacle to ministering the Gospel with some places and people. And the word communion better emphasizes our spiritual unity together in Christ. We do believe in the communion of saints, we say in the creed, and we are called to share together in the common life and mission of the church.

10/9/11

Enemy in the Fort

Enemy in the Fort by Sarah Masters Buckey

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Decent historical fiction of French Indian war, depicting life in a frontier fort.
Does well showing Indian-English tensions, without being politically correct.
Explores themes of trust, kindness, and taking initiative.
Back cover says 10 and up, and that's about right. The story begins with a family's parents and baby brother kidnapped while the two sisters are hidden in the cellar. Rather mature content, but manageable, not graphic, and the rest is much tamer.



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A Lion to Guard Us

A Lion to Guard Us by Clyde Robert Bulla

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Decent historical fiction for kids, on Jamestown.
Not as well written as "Sword in the Tree" by the same author.



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To Train Up a Child

To Train Up a Child by Michael Pearl
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

To Train Up a Child, by Michael and Debi Pearl

I’ve finally gotten around to reading something by the Pearls who have quite a following in the homeschool movement as I’ve been given to understand. Overall this book is a mix of some really good counsel and some poor assumptions.

The first three chapters are heavy on training and consistency. They emphasize proactive training before discipline. Sinful anger in parents while disciplining poorly causes angry children. Really good stuff.

But bad assumptions lurk. Most foundationally, there is a messed up view of accountability in children. “The child is not a morally viable soul.” The idea being that you condition them behaviorally until they can make moral judgments. This is not helpful. We can and should talk about moral choices with our young children, to help them learn from an early age why certain actions are wrong. Their over-reliance on behavioral conditioning seems to come from other bad assumptions: that young kids are no different than animals in the training needed; that the technique of training, the outward method, will guarantee a good result; that correct and consistent discipline does not prevent all sin.

The Pearls wax eloquent about the power of the rod to restore and comfort, and overdo the positive effect of a spanking. (I write this having seen firsthand the positive effect of a spanking.) In reality spankings often are ineffective, because some other part of the correction and restoration process is gummed up, or because it is not fitting for the situation or the child’s makeup. But Pearl actually calls the rod a “magic wand” at one point. They counsel parents to constrain (physically) and discipline the child until they surrender with anecdotes of up to 10 spankings of 10 switches each. There are usually better ways to not let the child “win” a battle of wills than these prolonged sessions. This counsel assumes that external, physical force is going to correct the child on the inside, or that external conformity now is better than dealing with the heart. Bad assumptions. Ironically, given the Pearls’ anti-modern outlook, their child-rearing outlook is the modern, technique-based, approach. Five steps to your best life now, and only 3 steps to a perfectly behaved child. It just is not that simple. If you think it is, and you have well-trained children, I would re-consider if you have children with trained hearts, or just trained behavior. Good training can lead into good heart shepherding, but they should not be seen as the same thing. There is a lot of potential pride in being a good disciplinarian reflected in the anecdotes: “I just do this, and my kids snap to it.”

Mixed in with these problems, they offer excellent (inconsistent!) counsel, too. Here’s a sample.
Outward correction doesn’t help if there isn’t mutual respect between parent and child. A child’s repentance needs to register with and be respected by the parent, or it drives the child away. “If you will cultivate fellowship with your child, you will have such cooperation and compliance that you will forget where you last left the rod” (34). Your child comes to see God as they see their parents, whether permissive or severe or balanced. Reproof is not ranting. Parents need to use the rod and reproof, both (Proverbs 29:15). If a parent doesn’t respect his own rules and enforce them with the kids, the kid gets a negative view of law and of God as permissive. Don’t let a child obey one parent but not another; be on the same page in discipline. The chapter on training children to work and do household chores was very good. “If it isn’t fun for all, it isn’t fun;” when one sibling is offending another, point out to the offender that the offended wasn’t having fun. Training them to see the sin for what it is. Great stuff.


Conclusion
This is a book of extremes. The good stuff is really good. Discipline out of anger is not discipline. The bad stuff is really bad. “If you have to sit on him to spank him, do not hesitate.” Because of this it’s hard to give a 1-5 star rating. I would NOT recommend looking here for your primary guidance in parenting. But I was helped by it at points, by way of reminder.

My difference is partly one of emphasis. They say, “You have secret weapons: a plan, love, patience, reproof, THE ROD OF CORRECTION, endurance, and, the hope of reward promised in the Scriptures.” (Emphasis added by the author). I’d write it, “You have secret weapons: A PLAN, LOVE, PATIENCE, REPROOF, the rod of correction, endurance, and, the hope of reward promised in the Scriptures.” So this is partly an emphasis difference. Will complete consistency produce complete obedience? No, and they finally admit it in just a sentence or two, after several chapters of implying that it will, that weeds of sin do continue.

But my biggest critique is that forgiveness and grace are totally left out of the picture. Only about one-fourth of one page in the whole book addresses grace or forgiveness, and the gist is that “Strict enforcement gives the opportunity for demonstrating grace.”  But how is this so? In the middle of a great description of the Gospel, he says that children can’t understand Jesus dying for them, but they can understand the rod. This is atrocious! The rod is not given to purge guilt, as is implied, but to teach the awfulness of the sin. Regardless of the few qualifications offered, and the otherwise good counsel, the assumptions of the book are functionally Pelagian: If you work hard enough at being a consistently disciplining parent, then your children will behave, give you no grief, and turn out well. There is no foundation of the grace of Jesus Christ here. In a chaotic and licentious age, it is easy to train moral behavior and define ourselves against the immoral world. But our higher calling is to draw our children to walk in the righteousness and grace of Jesus.


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Communion as enthronement to rule

Musing on how the Lord's Supper shows us the suffering and glory of Christ, English minister Arthur Kay says,

"The whole sacrificial system teaches us that, for the sinner, ascension to glory can only be reached through blade and flame.

"Without Christ as our Substitute we would not get beyond the blade. For the church on earth suffering and glory, while distinct, are part of the same complex (e.g. Rom 8:17-18). In heaven the two are conflated and the marks of suffering are made glorious (compare the "Lamb as it had been slain" of Rev 5)....

"From this I think we can see that suffering and glory begin to be brought together in the earthly church not outside of us (by intinction of the elements) but in us (i.e. in the Body of Christ) when we have ingested both broken bread and poured-out wine and go out into the world as His witnesses. (Of course there’s a sense in which wine alone speaks of both suffering and glory too).

"The point I’m labouring to get to is that the table celebrates Christ's resurrection, ascension and enthronement (and ours in Him) as well as His substitutionary death. Wine is given to kings to judge by. The enthroned king's swirling and smelling, sipping and savouring, tasting and evaluating of the wine in his cup of divination speaks of the wisdom, discernment and judgement he brings to his judicial role. (See Matt 26:29; Luke 22:20,30). In doing this “till He come” we celebrate His present reign and the certainty of all creation being filled with His glory."

The Love of God Worldwide

Many branches of the church celebrate today as worldwide communion Sunday. This means they make a point of all celebrating the Lord’s Supper today. Since we partake of the meal every week, we might be tempted to shrug at this, but consider first. The church in Kazakhstan worshiped the Lord today, about 8 hours ago. They lifted a cup and proclaimed the Lord’s death, as we do. We sometimes get the idea that we are one of the few truly faithful, but it seems there are millions around the globe placing their faith Christ. We are all busy working in our own cubicle at our own desk. We need to stay diligent to our own calling, but we don’t want to have blinders on to what else is going on. It’s helpful to stand up and look around every now and then, and see the big picture of what God is doing. The love of God in Christ, which we have known and felt in our own hearts, has also gone to Karaganda, Kazakhstan, and to St Petersburg, and Belarus, and Romania, Hungary, Israel, Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, France, Ireland, Canada, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Mongolia, and China.

And Christ’s prayer will certainly not be denied – we will all be one, because the source of our unity is the love God the Father has for His Son, the glory God has given Him. Jesus has made this possible for us by His death on the cross, which we remember here.

10/2/11

Wisdom is available

Prov 1:20-21
Wisdom calls aloud outside;
She raises her voice in the open squares.
She cries out in the chief concourses,
At the openings of the gates in the city
She speaks her words: 

Wisdom is out in the open. She is not hidden away, or hard to find. Wisdom does not take rocket science to calculate or discern. One of our ruses to rationalize away our sin is to think that it’s just so complicated to obey God. It really is very simple. We hear her voice all the time in our conscience, in our Bibles, in our parents, our friends. God has made Himself and His ways plain. But still, we protest: “Lord, I didn’t know what you wanted of me.” Even though, deep in our hearts, we did know, but we didn’t want to listen. Let us heed lady wisdom’s call, without dissembling or protesting.


10/2/11

God's Family Acts

1 John 3: “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. ² Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. ³ And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”

It’s no accident that the sacraments the Lord gives us are homely actions. They are actions that only happen in families, with rare exceptions. Think of baptism: Only your parent gives you a bath when you are too young to wash yourself. Think of the Lord’s Supper: Only your mother feeds you from day to day. Being baptized and being given this bread and wine is a declaration that you belong to this family. And it is the family of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are His.

9/25/11

Companion of Fools

Proverbs 1:10-19

God warns young people to avoid those running after their own gain by hurting others. Sharing a common purse with the greedy is foolish – you’ll wind up with nothing. The prodigal son found this out. So maintain proper boundaries, even with good friends, and stay distant from Mr. Worldly wise. Bad company corrupts good character, so be discerning. Think not just about when you get to be with your friends again. Think about how you can pursue godliness WITH them. Do your friends generally pursue the Lord, or a laugh? Lasting things or fleeting things? Do you, do they, pursue service of others or the limelight for themselves? How are you seeking the good of your companions?

9/25/11

Don't Just Do It

The Nike slogan is Just Do It. But we learned in the sermon that that isn’t enough. Actions do speak louder than words. But if your heart isn’t in your works done for the Lord or for others, actions are just as empty. When we come to the Lord’s Table the pattern is the same. Just doing it, just partaking isn’t the point. We eat and drink in faith, remembering Jesus Christ and His redemption of us from the curse. Direct your heart, your thoughts, your affection to Him as you hold that wonderful cup.

9/18/11

Listen Up!

Prov 1:8-9

We need to listen to wisdom. Part of our sinful nature is to kick vs this, to just want to go our own way and not listen to otters. We want far more to be understood by others, than we want to understand others. Not only does this fail to love others, it gets us in trouble. We need to take heed, especially children to parents, but everyone to wisdom wherever we might find it. As children grow, the way we parent should change. Law and rules become counsel. But we all, children and adults need to be receptive to counsel, whether we are 12 or 20 or 50. Doing this brings beauty of obedience. Do you treasure wisdom from your parents or from others like you do your best things, like jewelry, a garland, a wedding tiara?

9/18/11

Grace

Toby J. Sumpter

One of the greatest dangers conservative parents face is giving our children the impression that obeying is the most important thing.

#grace

Heading for Rome, or stopping at Geneva?

Peter Leithart was recently put on trial in his PCA presbytery for not conforming doctrinally to the Reformed Confessions. He was exonerated on all counts.

Now, apparently the main prosecutor has left the PCA and is headed for Rome.

Weird. Sad.

Peter Leithart and Steven Wedgeworth have good things to say. The summary:
There are some similarities between Roman Catholicism and a certain way of thinking as a Reformed Protestant:
1. The search for absolute earthly authority, whether in a pope or in a confessional document.
2. Too strong a distinction into "two kingdoms" (church and civil) looks and feels a lot like Rome's nature/grace duality.
Are there systemic connections here? Probably not. But people with an imbalanced need for things God doesn't give us on earth can do strange things.

Leithart is intriguing:
"Along with many friends and colleagues, I have long advocated a sacramental, liturgical form of Protestantism. We talk a lot about the Eucharist, and actually use the word “Eucharist,” which can send shivers up the spines of some Reformed Confessionalists. We emphasize the efficacy of baptism, and many of us wear a white robe when leading worship. When I use the word “catholic,” I usually mean it positively. Schmemann, de Lubac, Congar are among my favorite theologians. At first taste, all that can seem a gateway drug to something stronger that is found only in Rome or Constantinople. But all the basic components of what we offer come from Wittenberg and Geneva. What I and my friends offer is the antidote to and not the cause of Roman fever."

Stories to teach our history

Great summer reading for kids!

Get 'em here.