Destroyers of what is

"Eisenhower warned the country against belief in quick fixes. Americans, he said, should never believe that “some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties.”He warned against human frailty, particularly the temptation to be shortsighted and selfish. He asked his countrymen to “avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow.”Echoing the thrifty ethos of his childhood, he reminded the nation that we cannot “mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage.”He warned, most famously, about the undue concentration of power, and the way unchecked power could lead to national ruin. He warned first about the military-industrial complex—“a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.”He also warned against “a scientific-technological elite,”a powerful network of government-funded experts who might be tempted to take power away from the citizenry. Like the nation’s founders, he built his politics on distrust of what people might do if they have unchecked power. He communicated the sense that in most times, leaders have more to gain from being stewards of what they have inherited than by being destroyers of what is there and creators of something new."

David Brooks - The Road to Character.


I'll have more to say about this book later.

John Calvin on Proof that Scripture is the Word of God

"For it is not to be accounted of no consequence, that, from the first publication of Scripture, so many ages have uniformly concurred in yielding obedience to it, and that, notwithstanding of the many extraordinary attempts which Satan and the whole world have made to oppress and overthrow it, or completely efface it from the memory of men, it has flourished like the palm tree and continued invincible. Though in old times there was scarcely a sophist or orator of any note who did not exert his powers against it, their efforts proved unavailing. The powers of the earth armed themselves for its destruction, but all their attempts vanished into smoke. When thus powerfully assailed on every side, how could it have resisted if it had trusted only to human aid? Nay, its divine origin is more completely established by the fact, that when all human wishes were against it, it advanced by its own energy. Add that it was not a single city or a single nation that concurred in receiving and embracing it. Its authority was recognised as far and as wide as the world extends - various nations who had nothing else in common entering for this purpose into a holy league. ....Again, with what confidence does it become us to subscribe to a doctrine attested and confirmed by the blood of so many saints? They, when once they had embraced it, hesitated not boldly and intrepidly, and even with great alacrity, to meet death in its defense. Being transmitted to us with such an earnest, who of us shall not receive it with firm and unshaken conviction? It is therefore no small proof of the authority of Scripture, that it was sealed with the blood of so many witnesses, especially when it is considered that in bearing testimony to the faith, they met death not with fanatical enthusiasm, (as erring spirits are sometimes wont to do,) but with a firm and constant, yet sober godly zeal. There are other reasons, neither few nor feeble, by which the dignity and majesty of the Scriptures may be not only proved to the pious, but also completely vindicated against the cavils of slanderers. These, however, cannot of themselves produce a firm faith in Scripture until our heavenly Father manifest his presence in it, and thereby secure implicit reverence for it. Then only, therefore, does Scripture suffice to give a saving knowledge of God when its certainty is founded on the inward persuasion of the Holy Spirit. Still the human testimonies which go to confirm it will not be without effect, if they are used in subordination to that chief and highest proof, as secondary helps to our weakness. But it is foolish to attempt to prove to infidels that the Scripture is the Word of God. This it cannot be known to be, except by faith. Justly, therefore, does Augustine remind us, that every man who would have any understanding in such high matters must previously possess piety and mental peace."

John Calvin - The Institutes of Christian Religion 

How Long, O Lord, Wilt Thou Forget?

Say Exactly That

CS Lewis was once asked “How would you suggest a young Christian writer go about developing a style?”

 Lewis responded: "The way for a person to develop a style is" (a) to know exactly what he wants to say, and (b) to be sure he is saying exactly that. The reader, we must remember, does not start by knowing what we mean. If our words are ambiguous, our meaning will escape him. I sometimes think that writing is like driving sheep down a road. If there is any gate open to the left or the right the reader will most certainly go into it."

Read More Books

There is no magic trick to reading more; you just have to make time. But, you would be surprised how much reading you can accomplish by being intentional about reading. Don't get into the mindset that you need a soft leather chair in the corner of an elegant home library that smells of old books, leather, and pipe tobacco in order to be a "reader". For example, a few years ago, I read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy on my breaks at work - about 7 minutes a pop. I read one of John Owen's works entirely on the Kindle app on my phone. Any time you have a few minutes, you can read a page or two, if you are prepared and have something to read. When you are going to the doctor, take a book. Instead of staring at the wall or reading a 3 year old Popular Mechanics magazine, you could use the time wisely.

 Or, waking up 15 minutes earlier every day with the dedicated purpose of reading a book that you have always wanted to work through is an exercise well worth the time and effort. Not a morning person? Stay up 15 minutes later - you get the idea. You don't need hours to read more, you just need to do it. 

You can read a lot in just a few minutes a day. John Piper does the math:

Now, I know what you are thinking: I don't have the time or the ability to get anywhere in books like that. So I want to show you something really encouraging. When this was shown to me about four years ago by my pastor, it changed my life. Most of us don't aspire very high in our reading because we don't feel like there is any hope. But listen to this. Suppose you read about 250 words a minute and that you resolve to devote just 15 minutes a day to serious theological reading to deepen your grasp of biblical truth. In one year (365 days) you would read for 5,475 minutes. Multiply that times 250 words per minute and you get 1,368,750 words per year. Now most books have between 300 and 400 words per page. So if we take 350 words per page and divide that into 1,368,750 words per year, we get 3,910 pages per year. This means that at 250 words a minute, 15 minutes a day, you could read about 20 average sized books a year! 

When I heard that, I went home, analyzed my day, and set aside the 15 minutes just before supper to read Jonathan Edwards' big book, Original Sin. And I did it in a couple of months. Then I turned to something else. I was absolutely elated: reading that I thought never could get done was now getting done in a 15 minute slot that would have been wasted anyway. Therefore, I encourage you, there is hope. Choose some classics that you've always wanted to read (St. Augustine's Confessions, or City of God; John Calvin's Institutes; Martin Luther's Commentary on Galatians, or Bondage of the Will; John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress; Jonathan Edwards' Religious Affections; etc.), and set aside 15 minutes, maybe just before you go to sleep, to read. You will not be the same person next year at this time. Your mind will be stretched, your heart enlarged, your zeal more fervent. Above all, you will have grown in wisdom. And it may not be long until someone says of you: "The words of his mouth are as deep waters; the fountain of wisdom is a gushing spring" (Proverbs 18:4).

Don't believe me or him? How long did it take you to read this blog post of now 600+ words?

Tuesday with Timothy #20: Because of Eve

1 Timothy  2:9-15  In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;  But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve.  And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.

Paul is backing up his reasoning for male leadership from scripture and giving a Biblical reason why there are not to be women preachers in the church and why the women are to be silent in the public worship. It is very interesting where Paul goes to make his point. He doesn't go to the Rabbi's. He doesn't proceed to the Levitical code. He doesn't go to current culture. He doesn't go the the synagogue tradition. He goes to Scripture, namely to Genesis. When Jesus was questioned about marriage, he did the same thing. Interesting how Western culture began to fall when Genesis was replaced with evolutionary thought and how foundational and important a belief in a literal reading of Genesis is. Along those lines, it is really no wonder why people don't like Paul. He believes in headship, he believes in creation and a literal, historical account of Genesis. He preached the exclusivity of Christ and God's sovereignty in salvation - all the things that you are not allowed to talk about if you want to be accepted in pleasant society.

Let's look at what creation has to do with women preachers.

First, God created Adam first, not Eve and this is important. God created Adam to be the head and he created Eve to be a help, suitable to him. Adam was formed out of the earth and Eve out of Adam. This was God's order in creation and God's order in headship. Also notice that this headship is not a result of the fall. It is not part of the curse that wives are to submit to their husbands and that men are to lead the church. God ordained this headship in creation, prior to the fall and said it was good. The headship of Adam over Eve was good. The curse is not headship, but that women do not, without Christs help, like the way God set it up.

As Gary McHale puts it "There was a difference in how the two genders came about. Man is created from the dust of the earth, which links him to the world, while the woman is crated from his side, which links her to the man." Paul makes the same argument when discussing the head covering in I Corinthians 11:12. Geoffrey Thomas notes "In Genesis 2 Adam names the animals, and then he names the woman. First in Genesis 2:23 naming her "woman" which means she was 'taken out of man' and then in Genesis 3:20 Adam names her "Eve' because she would become the mother of all the living." His point? Adam could only give Eve her name if he had the authority to do so. This doesn't belittle the woman, it just means that we have different roles in God's order. Men and women are both made in God's image, both equal before God but different in our God given roles.

God created Adam and Eve for different purposes. Eve's purpose was to be a suitable helper. This doesn't mean inferior, it doesn't me superior - it means suitable. Men and women are different and God has designed these differences to support and compliment one another. In this role, God has put Adam as the head and Eve under his authority. The help is not the head.

Next we see that Adam that was not deceived, but it was Eve and this is also very important.  God had given Adam the responsibility to protect and keep the garden and he failed. Adam rebelled, but he wasn't deceived in the transgression. Adam knew what was happening and did it anyway. Eve was deceived by Satan's words and Satan went after Eve because she was not the one God had created to defend the garden. When Eve heard the words of Satan and decided that his words were more reliable that God's, she went to Adam to tell him the "good news" of a way to become like gods. When she did, she forever disqualified herself and her daughters from the role of proclaiming "thus saith the Lord" in the public worship. Eve's failure was believing and then proclaiming the goodness of Satan's lie. Adam, when he fell, hid behind Eve and said "She gave it to me" but Eve's defense was "I was deceived." Men who sit under women preaching are recreating the scene of the fall - man abdicate his responsibility and hiding behind the women. Eve, lost the ability to stand and be a herald for God's truth and a teacher of God's Word. God delivering the punishment to Adam makes it clear. Gen 3:17  And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. It was because Adam listened to Eve and ate of the tree that he was cursed. Eve had preached a false gospel and Adam listened and followed, even though he knew better. God had given Adam the responsibility to keep and protect the Garden and with that comes authority. God gave Adam the law. God gave Adam, Eve. And when Satan tempted Eve, he did not step forward and protect - nor did he deliver God's truth. Because of this, women are not to be preachers in the house of God. It is not how God designed it and women preachers recreate the scene of the fall - rebellious and out of order. This is not to say that a man is to never listen to his wife. Only a fool would not heed the counsel of his wife and listen to her - but the man has the responsibility and will stand and fall with what God has said.

(15)  Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.

The last point Paul makes is a blessing and doesn't deal with speaking in God's house but how God is gracious. It was not the seed of Adam that man would be saved, but the seed of the woman. Though Adam brought the curse of sin and death, the woman has the blessing of bringing life into the world. She isn't, as Robertson notes saved by the function of motherhood but saved in the function. God has blessed the church, the woman, and humanity through the great task of childbearing. Women in the church must continue in faith, love, holiness, and sobriety and glory Christ in their role. This is how a woman can serve the Lord in the church, in the place that God put her. It is always best for the church and woman when she serves the church in her God ordained role instead of thinking that we know better than God. Humble submission to Christ and His Word is far more Christ honoring than thinking we know better. If Christ had wanted women preachers, He would have called them to the office. The very fact that a women thinks she should be a preacher and teach of men disqualifies her from being a teacher since she clearly doesn't know as much about the Bible as she thinks she does.

And to end this little series, let's throw in a twist.

Lord bless,
DPN

What a Friend

If you don't know the sad life of the man who wrote What a Friend We Have in Jesus, this article is well worth your time.

A Speaking God

"As preachers of God's Word, we should understand how important and amazing it is that our God is a speaking God. He didn't have to speak, at least not to us. When Adam and Eve sinned against Him in the Garden, He could have let His last words to them—for all eternity—be the curse He pronounced against them. "You are dust, and to dust you shall return," He could have said (Gen. 3: 19). And then silence. God could have left us in darkness and ignorance to live out our days as rebels and to die under His wrath, without ever knowing Him. Understanding that, it is a mark of the most amazing mercy and love that God continued to care for human beings after we rebelled against Him, that He continued to speak to us and to reveal Himself to us, especially in the person of His Son, Jesus."

Preach: Theology Meets Practice 
by Mark Dever  &  Greg Gilbert

None but Christ

"A believer who hath the eyes of his understanding enlightened, his judgment and apprehension is [that] God is the chief good and supreme happiness [is] an interest in God, a conformity to God, the enjoyment of God here and hereafter….As a covetous and an ambitious man, and a man given to carnal pleasure, will go through much difficulty to have their respective desires fulfilled; so will a believing soul suffer the loss of all, so he may win Christ. “None but Christ,”saith an illuminated believer. “Whom have I in heaven but thee, or in the earth I desire in comparison of thee?”There are many good objects in heaven and earth besides thee. There are angels in heaven and saints on earth. But, soul, what are these to thee? Heaven, without thy presence would be no heaven to me. A palace without thee, a crown without thee, cannot satisfy me. But with thee can I be content, though in a poor cottage. With thee I am at liberty in bonds…. [I]f I have thy smiles, I can bear the world’s frowns. If I have spiritual liberty in my soul that I can ascend to thee by faith and have communion with thee, thou shalt choose my portion for me in this world, “for in the multitude of my thoughts within me, thy comforts delight my soul.”This is the esteem a believing soul hath of divine objects. Christ is precious to him, because he seeth him and believeth in him."

Hercules Collins

Devoted to the Service of the Temple: Piety, Persecution, and Ministry in the Writings of Hercules Collins.  Edited by Michael A. G. Haykin & Steve Weaver

Bunyan's Bible

In the book “The Legacy of the King James Bible” Dr.  Leland Ryken shows how the King James Bible has been a blessing and still is a blessing for all of us English speakers. Though he doesn’t use the KJB, and from what I understand in listening to an interview he gave, hasn’t used it in decades. In fact, he is involved with Crossway and the publication of the ESV. Here is his bio from Wheaton College:

Dr. Ryken has served on Wheaton's faculty since 1968. He has published over thirty books and more than one hundred articles and essays, devoting much of his scholarship to Bible translations and the study of the Bible as literature. He served as Literary Chairman for the English Standard Version (ESV) of the Bible and in 2003 received the distinguished Gutenberg Award for his contributions to education, writing, and the understanding of the Bible.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is actually quite refreshing to read a book from someone that actually appreciates the King James Bible, and isn't ashamed of his appreciation. Even if you don't use or read the KJV, you should at the very least, acknowledge its beauty, longevity, and the impact this version has had upon the English speaking world.

One of the ways Ryken shows the KJV has impacted society is from the realm of literature. The language of the Bible was the language of the people.

This is an excerpt from chapter 13 Early Literary Influence of the King James Bible showing how John Bunyan's writing was influenced by his reading of the Bible.

"Beginning at the end of the seventeenth century and lasting for two centuries, the King James Bible and Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress were the two “best sellers” in evangelical Protestant households. In the popular imagination, these two books were regarded as being cut from the same religious and imaginative cloth. The fact that readers have found these two books a natural pair is more telling than occasional scholarly attempts, grounded in technical stylistic analysis, to show that Bunyan’s style often differs from the KJV. The Victorian literary giant Thomas Babington Macaulay offered the opinion that Bunyan “knew no language but the English, as it was spoken by the common people. He had studied no great model of composition, with the exception…of our noble [KJV] translation of the Bible.” 

It might be expected that as a Puritan Bunyan (1628-1688) would have used the Geneva Bible, but the evidence points to the King James Bible instead. This is easy to establish from the occasional direct Bible quotations in The Pilgrims’ Progress. For example, as Christian is engaged in a life-or-death struggle with Apollyon, he reached for his sword and says, “Rejoice not against me, o mine enemy; when I fall I shall arise.” This is verbatim from Micah 7:8 as found in the KJV, but not the Geneva Bible. In this same paragraph that narrates the battle between Christian and Apollyon, we hear Christian asserting, “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors though him that loved us.” This, too, is verbatim from the King James Bible.

“Read anything of [Bunyan], and you will see that it is almost like reading the Bible itself. He had studied our Authorized Version, which will never be bettered, as I judge, till Christ shall come; he had read it till his whole being was saturated with Scripture….Prick him anywhere; and …the very essence of the Bible flows from him. He cannot speak without quoting a text, for his soul is full of the Word of God.” Charles Spurgeon, Autobiography.

Once we know what translation Bunyan used, we can quickly asses how much he owed to the King James Bible. Through the centuries and continuing through modern scholarly editions, it has been customary to print The Pilgrim’s Progress with the marginal notes that identify the biblical source or allusion for a given passage. A glance at such an edition confirms historian Greens’ famous verdict that “so completely has the Bible become Bunyan’s life that one feels its phrases as the natural expression of his thoughts. He has lived in the Bible till its words become his own.”

What all did Bunyan owe to his King James Bible when he came to compose his masterpiece, which he stared to write while imprisoned for nonconformist preaching? Bunyan owes his master image and superstructure – a pilgrimage form this world to the heavenly city—to Hebrews 11:13 and 16: “these all died in faith,…and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth…they desire a better country, that is a heavenly…city.”….And as already noted, Bunyan wrote in a biblical idiom as if it were his native language. He himself called this idiom “the language of Canaan.”
The final verdict on Bunyan’s indebtedness to the King James Bible can be give to David Norton, who writes:

“The Pilgrim’s Progress, more commonly read by generations that any book but the KJB, helped to form a love for the language of the KJB itself…It is difficult to believe that Bunyan did not contribute to a literary as well as a religious sense of the KJB, and that he did not help show later writers ways they might use it.”