I simply taught, preached, and wrote God’s Word… And while I slept, or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends…the Word did it all.
–Luther
Posted on May 15th, 2013Grab Your Water Wings
The learning curve for fathers of young children is steep. It’s like being in graduate school with long hours, deadlines and lots of pressure, but with the added responsibility of tending an ant farm that has no walls. The kids are bigger and theoretically less numerous than the ants, but their strength-to-body-weight ratio seems comparable. In addition to figuring out how to nurture small people and cultivate his marriage, a father of young children is usually laying the foundation of his career. He is likely training, gaining new skills, changing companies if not jobs every few years, and navigating the new economy to provide now and plan for the future. His professional life is as new and demanding as his home life, both requiring intense focus, and both easily overwhelming.
It’s for fathers in this stage that I’m writing a series of posts because this is where I am. I have four kids between eight years and six months old. These issue have been, some still are, and others no doubt will again soon be mine. In many parenting aspects a father’s role is less demanding than a mother’s. I am not with the kids throughout the day changing diapers (that is what evenings and weekends are for, right? Heh.). My wife is like the heart of our home, pumping grace and wisdom to the kids all the time. But in other ways the role of father is more demanding and greater in scope. He has less direct time with the kids, but the responsibility for their upbringing resides with him: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the education and exhortation of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). He is like the immune system, responsible to make sure all parts of the body are healthy, thriving, and protected. And of course he has to nourish and edify as well. He is like a quarterback and coach, responsible to serve, lead and oversee the team. If she is the master of the house (1 Tim. 5:14), he is the head of the household, responsible for providing, protecting, blessing in the here and now, and prudently planning for the future. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted on April 30th, 2013Lead Them to Love It
If you cannot get the kids to love the standard, then lower the standard. I am not talking about God’s commandments (His standards), which we have no authority to lower, but rather addressing the questions that surround what might be called house rules. Lower the standard to the point where everyone in the family can pitch in together This not actually lowering standards, but rather raising the parental standard, which is the real reason we don’t like it. Father must embrace the task of communicating, in a contagious way, love for the standard.
–Douglas Wilson, Father Hunger
Posted on April 26th, 2013Needless Love
In the meanwhile our inner fulfillment lies in loving obedience to the commandments of Christ and the inspired admonitions of His apostles. “It is God which worketh in you.” He needs no one, but when faith is present He works through anyone. Two statements are in this sentence and a healthy spiritual life requires that we accept both. For a full generation the first has been in almost total eclipse, and that to our deep spiritual misery.
–A. W. Tozer
Posted on April 24th, 2013Bring Them Both
It must not content us to take our bodies to Church, if we leave our hearts at home.
–J.C. Ryle
Posted on April 18th, 2013fathers like the Father
What are fathers called to? Fathers give. Fathers protect. Fathers bestow. Fathers yearn and long for the good of their children. Fathers delight. Fathers sacrifice Father are jovial and openhanded. Father create abundance and if lean times come they take the leanest portion themselves and create a sense of gratitude and abundance for the rest. Fathers love birthdays and Christmas because it provides them with yet another excuse to give some more to the kids. When fathers say no, as good fathers do from time to time, it is only because they are giving a more subtle gift, one that is a bit more complicated than a cookie. They must also inclue among their gifts things like self-control and discipline and a work ethic, but they are giving these things, not taking something else away just for the sake of taking. Fathers are not looking for excuses to say no. Their default mode is not no.
–Douglas Wilson, Father Hunger
Posted on March 26th, 2013Holy Week Rhythm
For those looking for a litte rhythm to Holy Week, here is routine we do after dinner. We have lots of small people, so the green eggs are plastic eggs they can open with some theme-related item inside. Voss refers to The Child’s Story Bible.
Palm Sunday Scripture: Psalm 24, Zechariah 9:9
Green Egg: Palm Branches
Vos: pg 311 (Jesus entering Jerusalem)
Toast: “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” “Hosanna in the highest”
Monday Scripture: Zechariah 11:10-13
Blue Egg: Silver (Judas and the thirty pieces of silver)
Vos: pg 313
Toast: “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” “Hosanna in the highest”
Tuesday Scripture: Exodus 12:12-16
Purple Egg: Bread and Wine
Vos: pg 314 Last Supper
Toast: “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” “Hosanna in the highest”
Wednesday Scripture: Psalm 41: 7-9
Orange Egg: Roman Soldier
Vos: pg 317 Jesus is arrested
Toast: “By His wounds,” “We are healed!”
Thursday Scripture: Zechariah 13:7-9
Egg: Rooster
Vos: pg 318 Peter’s Betrayal
Toast: “By His wounds,” “We are healed!”
Friday Scripture: Isaiah 53: 7-9
Egg: Lamb
Vos: pg 319 Jesus’s Trial
Toast: “By His wounds,” “We are healed!”
Saturday Scripture: Psalm 22:1-2
Egg: Cross
Vos: pg 322 Crucifixion
Toast: “By His wounds,” “We are healed!”
Easter Sunday Scripture: Psalm 16:9-11
Egg: Empty
Vos: pg 325
Toast: “He is risen!” “He is risen, indeed!”
One piece of candy by each spot Mon-Fri, no candy on Sat., tons of candy on Easter Sun.
Posted on March 25th, 2013Alright Then
The speculative learning of the theologians is altogether worthless. I have read Bonaventure on this, and he almost drove me mad because I desired to experience the union of God with my soul (about which he babbbles) through a union of intellect and will. Such theologians are nothing but fanatics. This is the true speculative theology (and it’s practical too): Believe in Christ and do what you ought.
Martin Luther, Tabletalk
Posted on March 25th, 2013Set the Graces Running
I’ve been devotionally making my way through Thomas Watson’s commentary on the Westminster Shorter Catechism, A Body of Divinity, for a few months. Watson is like that; like spiritual lembas, a little goes a long way. His section on faith is particularly good where he calls it the head of the graces. It set me thinking about faith and works and distinguishing truly good works from counterfeit morality.
Faith is the head not just at the beginning of a Christian’s spiritual life, but the means by which he continually grows and receives all the other graces. The head in this instance is like the head waters of an enormous waterway. Everything that enters the river must get in by this type of stream. The apostle Peter describes it this way: “But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love” (2 Pet. 1:6-7).
This is quite a list and there are many others like it in the New Testament. The end is love, the beginning is faith, and there is a lot between. We are apt to to think of a stack of holy characteristics like virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, etc. as strengths for the uber-advanced Bible student or the check-box ticking moralist. The good news is that all of these are the result of simple faith, faith that trusts and endures. “Thus faith is the master-wheel,” Waston says, “it sets all the other graces running.” Peter says “whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins” (2 Pet. 2:9). If a Christian forgets where he came from, he can’t see past his spiritual nose. But if he remembers the God he first trusted, then faith working by love comes naturally–by diligence, no doubt–like apples from an apple tree.
Biblical maturity and grace are never truly attained apart from simple and honest faith, from personal trust in the living God. This allows us to distinguish between morals and moralism, and reveals why moralism isn’t moral at all. It finds some other reason than God’s love to accomplish things. This is why Jesus told the disciples that their righteousness must exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, and why true goodness is always decked out in mercy and kindness. It comes from the same grace-bestowing person who gave faith in the first place. And he doesn’t stop giving.
Posted on March 4th, 2013Seed Glory
Sanctification and glory differ only in degree: sanctification is glory in the seed, and glory is sanctification in the flower.
–Thomas Watson
Posted on February 11th, 2013
