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
Archive for the ‘theology’ Category
Preferred Techniques of Reformation
Wednesday, May 15th, 2013Needless Love
Wednesday, April 24th, 2013In 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
fathers like the Father
Tuesday, March 26th, 2013What 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
Alright Then
Monday, March 25th, 2013The 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
Set the Graces Running
Monday, March 4th, 2013I’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.
Seed Glory
Monday, February 11th, 2013Sanctification and glory differ only in degree: sanctification is glory in the seed, and glory is sanctification in the flower.
–Thomas Watson
The Head of the Graces
Wednesday, January 30th, 2013Why is faith so valuable? Thomas Watson answers:
In its being the chief gospel-grace, the head of the graces. As gold among the metals, so is faith among the graces. Clement of Alexandria calls the other graces the daughters of faith. In heaven, love will be the chief grace; but, while we are here, love must give place to faith. Love takes possession of glory, but faith gives a title to it. Love is the crowning grace in heaven, but faith is the conquering grace upon earth. ‘This is the victory that ovecometh the world, even our faith’ (1 John 5:4).
In its being the grace which God honors to justify and save. Thus indeed it is ‘precious faith,’ as the apostle calls it (2 Pet. 1:1). The other graces help to sanctify, but it is faith that justifies. ‘Being justified by faith’ (Rom. 5.1). Repentance or love do not justify, but faith does.
Sometimes We Don’t Know
Monday, November 5th, 2012God’s ways of judgment are sometimes secret, but never unjust.
–Augustine
Straight Strokes with Crooked Sticks
Wednesday, October 24th, 2012For the faithful, trouble produces a crop. Thomas Watson said “He can make a straight stroke with a crooked sick”, and we can add that God makes a particular point of drawing this way. Call it a divine nouveau. This is counterintuitive because whenever we face hardships and sorrow, we feel like our faith and joy in the gospel is threatened, and in a sense it is–we have to grow to overcome it. But these are precisely the things God uses to draw us near to him and to further his kingdom. Moses notes Pharaoh’s plan to oppress the Jews: “Come, let us deal wisely with them,lest they multiply” (Ex. 1:10) And what resulted? “The more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad” (Ex. 1:12). I can imagine being a husband with newly pregnant wife just as the latest round of oppression came down the government pike. “Cheers Yahweh! Just what we need.” But it turns out, that’s exactly what they needed, more people to walk through the Red Sea and into the land. Many have heard Tertulian’s famous saying “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” Julian the Apostate’s is less known: “The showers of blood have made her more fruitful.” We should be nervous if we never have any problems.
Judge Not?
Thursday, September 6th, 2012One of most commonly quoted and misquoted passages in the Bible comes from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount where he says “Judge not, that you be not judged” (Matt. 7:1). This is routinely taken to mean don’t you ever take on someone ethically or stand against a person’s sins. Who do you think you are, God? Or what do you think you are, perfect?
First, we should always be eager to admit that we are not God, and only confront from a position of humility and love, knowing that God is gracious toward us in Christ loves us despite our many sins. But second, we should go on the next verse to see if this objection holds any water. “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you” (v2). Don’t use a standard for someone else that you are unwilling to meet yourself. An unrepentant thief can’t get in someone’s face about stealing or the kettle call the pot black. That’s what Jesus is saying. This is likely what is happening in John 8 when Jesus refuses to condemn the woman caught in adultery. The scribes and Pharisees caught her in the very act. Jesus says let those without sin cast the first stone. Really, can only those who have never sinned in any way stand against adultery? The text says “they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones” (Jn. 8:9). They were adulterous men who noticeably did not seem interested in the punishment of the guilty man involved. Their problem was not an over zealous desire for justice, but a deep hypocrisy that slowly dawned upon the eldest, the most experienced adulterers.
Jesus says not to apply a standard that you do not welcome to be applied to yourself. Far from drive us away from judging sin, he urges us to do so: “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your borther’s eye” (Matt. 8:5). Action item for the hypocrite: get the plank out, and then talk to your brother about his speck. Even log-sized sin doesn’t excuse someone from judging rightly. He repents before God, gets his eyesight restored, and then must help his brother. Far from being an advocate of not judging, Jesus actually requires right, clear-sighted and loving judgment. He forbids hypocrites from judging, but he also forbids them to remain hypocrites.
