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Tuesday, December 13, 2005 posted by R.C. 9:14 PM link |
Plans to Give You Hope Though it is almost winter, and the harvest has already been brought in, and though this particular harvest will not come for several more years, visions of apple pies are dancing in my head. This morning, with the help of my friends Jon and Jordan Berkley, I finished planting fruit trees. Well, they look more like fruit twigs. The tallest of them is shorter than me. Their bases are protected by garden piping that has been painted white so as not to get too hot. So the front half of my property looks like a giant’s ashtray, with sixteen butts snuffed into the ground. I bought these from another friend, Tim Hensley, who runs a business called the Urban Homesteader. He sells not just young fruit trees, but heirloom trees, honest to goodness never-been-Frankensteined varieties of trees. Tim told me that we would see our first crop, “in three to five years, probably closer to five.” So why did I invest time, labor and money today for something that may or may not pay-off down the road? Because of the promises of God. Our father Noah stepped out of the greatest display of God’s destructive power the world had ever seen. And God promised “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth.” God promised that the seasons would follow in their pace, that the world would be ordered, that we could, in fact, make plans. True enough that I cannot be certain what tomorrow will bring. But I can plan. And I plan on eating the fruit of the land, on bearing much fruit, on seeing the end of my toil, and rejoicing in the grace of God. God will not send a flood to destroy the earth. He might, however, send blight, or canker, or drought or bitter cold. It may be that my trees could go the way of all chickens. But what is certain is that I will bear fruit. For there is but one great gardener, and He never fails. [comments] |
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Tuesday, November 22, 2005 posted by R.C. 8:50 PM link |
Giving Thanks Last week I was blessed with the opportunity to address a chapel service at Geneva College in western Pennsylvania. It is always a joy to go back home, and this was no exception. I had the opportunity to speak with the young men and women about how to change the world. I suggested that our grand plans, especially those involving our own fame and fortune, probably aren’t going to change much. God’s plan, always, is the fool’s way, and we would be fools indeed did we not agree with him. I explained that our resident students show up at our doors wanting to learn sound theology, sound apologetics, sound philosophy. We think if we will just learn the right things, everything will get better. But I tell me students when they arrive, “If you want to do great things for the kingdom of God, do this. Find a godly woman just like that one over there.” (And here, of course, I point to my wife.) Marry her, purify her and raise up with her godly seed. That’s the game plan for changing the world. I wasn’t given the time to discuss how it is that we purify our wives. When I get that opportunity, I try always to make this point—the second greatest thing you can do toward the sanctification of your wife, is to pursue your own sanctification. The greatest thing you can do toward the sanctification of your wife (and your children for that matter) is to pray. The temptation here, even if we get this right so far, is to pray through our grievances. “O Lord, as R.C. said, I’m here to pray for my wife. Please cleanse her from her nagging spirit. Please, O Lord, help her to be more submissive to me. Grant her O Lord, a more joyful heart. And please instruct her in the proper way to hang the toilet paper.” Here we practice the ancient art of grumbling and complaining, and invite God along to make it all so pious. It is wise and appropriate to bring before the Lord any weaknesses we might perceive. But better still, for our wive’s sanctification, for our own sanctification, and for the glory of God, if our prayers for our wives and children were suffused in and through with thanksgiving. We might be better off praying, “O Lord, thank you for blessing my wife and our home with such a spirit of diligence. Thank you for the energy you have given my wife, and her strength of character. Thank you for how well she runs our home, that even though she doesn’t know how to hang toilet paper, she always keeps plenty in the house.” Prayers such as this will remind you that it is God who wills in your wife both to will and to do His good pleasure. Prayers like this will encourage you toward a joyful and thankful heart. And they will in turn delight your wife, who delights to know that she is a delight to you. [comments] |
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Thursday, November 17, 2005 posted by R.C. 3:50 PM link |
Junior High Girls Some things we never quite leave behind this side of the veil. Try as we might to mature and to grow beyond this peculiar brand of foolishness, I’m afraid that at heart we are still junior high girls. Our problem isn’t, I trust, that we talk on the telephone too long, or that we go through life still having a crush on David Cassidy or some Back Street Boy. No, our problem is we think ourselves masters of motives. You remember either saying, or hearing someone say, “I was at the mall, and Susie was walking the other way. So then I smiled and waved and said, ‘Hey Susie,’ and she wouldn’t even look at me. She just walked on by. She is just so stuck-up.” We, I hope, wouldn’t say this anymore, but we still practice the same kind of foolishness. We conclude, for instance, that such and such a family never comes to pot-luck suppers because they think they’re better than us. We conclude that this other family bought a new car because the husband works too hard or charges too much for the work he does. We think the pastor preached the sermon he preached because he has assumed the worst about us, when he doesn’t even really know our situation. The root of this isn’t simply immaturity, but pride. The pride has at least two conduits through which it flows. First, we think ourselves far too clever. What we actually know is that family A doesn’t come to pot-luck suppers, family B has a new car and pastor C preached a sermon. There are equally plausible explanations for each of these events. Perhaps family A has one child with horrible food allergies, another child who will fall into a tailspin if he doesn’t get a nap, and a third child that doesn’t need an excuse to fall into a tailspin. Maybe family A, rather than thinking they are better than others, is actually ashamed of their family’s behavior in this kind of setting. Maybe they don’t come because they don’t think they measure up. Perhaps family B was given the new car by friends or family. Perhaps it’s a company car. Perhaps some other business cheated them, and with the settlement money they bought a car. Perhaps, and don’t let this shock you, God has prospered family B, and they bought a new car. As for the pastor, maybe he was preaching the next text, and in God’s providence it hit a sin you think others might perceive in you. (And if you think you have just struck the mother-lode, that now you know why I’m writing this, please go back to the beginning and try again.) There is a second way this folly flows from pride. Not only are these sinless explanations plausible, but it is likewise probable that these plausible answers have nothing to do with you. That is, we fall for junior high girl syndrome only when we begin to think the world revolves around us. We’re so vain, I bet we think this squib is about us, don’t we, don’t we? God, though He might very well be surprised by the existence of junior high schools, is not surprised by this existence of junior high girls. He has given us the antidote. The antidote is love. Love, God tells us, suffers long and is kind. It does not envy, nor does it parade itself. It is not puffed up, and does not behave rudely. Now these are all great things about love. But they are only tangentially related to our concern. But then comes these three- love does not seek its own, is not provoked, and thinks no evil. This first, does not seek its own, is rather more sophisticated than not wrestling for the television remote. It means spending less time thinking on how our loved ones have hurt us, and more time thinking through how we might help our loved one. “Is not provoked” doesn’t mean that we take our emotions and clamp them down to avoid a reaction. We do not, because so far we haven’t said anything about the record of wrongs we are keeping, pat ourselves on the back. We instead keep no record at all. We avoid being provoked simply by following the next injunction, thinking no evil. That is, if we practice a judgment of charity, which is rather easy to do once we have died to self, then it takes no effort to keep cool. It’s true enough that we are to be wise as serpents. There are bad guys out there who want our money, and will cheat to get it, who want our daughters, and will lie to get them, who want to borrow our reputation, and will manipulate to get it. But it may just be that the path to getting beyond junior high girls is to become elementary school girls. What we need is an innocence that simply believes that others love us, and want what’s best for us. What we need is an innocent trust that God will protect us and take care of us. May He give us the grace to grow younger as we grow closer. [comments] |
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Monday, November 07, 2005 posted by R.C. 8:52 PM link |
The Blogeopagus For those of you who have been out of the loop, who aren’t up on the latest developments, there’s a new hermeneutical principle in town. It has a great deal to do with identifying with others, but it’s not the federal vision. It is tightly connected with an important problem that Paul confronted amongst the Gentiles, but it’s not a new perspective. It must be understood in the context of contextualizing, but it’s not emerging from anywhere or to anywhere. Nope, it’s called “The R.C. Sproul Jr. Principle of Hermeneutics.” And it goes like this. Whenever you are reading in your Bible and you see someone therein doing something really stupid, do not say to yourself, “How can they be so stupid?” Instead, say to yourself, “How am I being that stupid?” A human propensity for particular sins then almost certainly suggests that we might have the same propensity now. Here’s one. Paul comes to Athens. He begins to speak about the resurrected Christ. His audience is intrigued, and he is brought to the Areopagus. Wouldn’t you have been encouraged, had they done this with you, and then said, “We wish to know therefore what these things mean.”? But then, as Acts tells us, we learn, “Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling and hearing something new.” Do you really think this problem died with the Athenians? I’ve belabored the point and been belittled for my trouble, but it is as true today as it was in Paul’s day – what we need is humility. It is pride that drives the hunger for being hip to the latest, which is exactly why this problem never goes away. Underlying all our yammering about getting beyond Enlightenment categories, all our whining about incipient or blatant Gnosticism, all our grumbling about the sin of certainty are Enlightenment notions of education as the great elixir, hubris that we are in the know because we studied Gnosticism, and a cocky claim to omniscience that knows for certain we cannot know anything for certain. To both us and to God the issue isn’t what the new thing actually is. We’re excited because it’s new. He’s concerned because we’re excited because it’s new. The thing itself, especially if it really isn’t new, may be fine. It could be some goofy new diet where you eat all your food raw, or it could be simple, separate and deliberate. What we really need to know isn’t esoteric knowledge that comes from reading only the most fashionable blogs, but plain facts that come from reading the decidedly unfashionable Bible. The Bible tells us this, that we had better stop worrying about new ideas, but and start worrying about old sins. The Bible tells us that there is nothing new under the sun. The Bible tells us that the heart is deceitful. The Bible tells us to get wisdom. And the Bible tells us that it alone is the source of wisdom. Wise men still seek Him, and they know where to find Him. Here is the application part of the R.C. Sproul Jr. principle of hermeneutics – After you figure out how you are being stupid, repent. You’ll find me there too, beating my breast. [comments] |
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Tuesday, November 01, 2005 posted by R.C. 8:56 PM link |
Thorns and Thistles It is yet another sign of the success of the serpent that we don’t understand the nature of work. Through his ministrations, and our failure we have now come to the point where we earn our bread by the sweat of our brow. The curse upon our labor too often has taught us not only to think that all labor is unpleasant, but that all that is unpleasant is labor. No, there are all sorts of unpleasant things that have nothing to do with work. Yesterday I took some time to take my youngest son to the doctor. There he had what some have the gall to call minor surgery. He weighed seven pounds going into the procedure, and just a hair under after the procedure. While it was unpleasant for me, I’ll never try that old saw with him, “This hurt me more than it hurt you.” When we get past this folly from the devil, however, we usually don’t make it all the way home. We seek to balance the thorns and the thistles with the joy of eating the bread of our hands. That’s a good thing, as far as it goes. The feeling of accomplishment that comes from a job well down is in fact a God honoring pleasure. But what we miss when we divide the pie this way, sometimes work is unpleasant, and sometimes work has pleasant ends, is that sometimes work is pleasant. Just about every Wednesday morning, a group of men gather together for breakfast at Bonnie’s restaurant, a fixture in Bristol, and home to the finest biscuits and gravy I’ve ever had (well, once I had better, but not in a restaurant. My friend Laurence made some one morning in a cabin we were staying in.) This meeting, by design, has no agenda. But because I am meeting, along with other elders, with several of the men of the church, it is work, but the most delightful kind. After breakfast, I spend a few hours with Jay Barfield, who is studying for the ministry. We talk about what’s going on in our respective parishes, about the hardships and joys of being a pastor, about his studies, about his sermons. It’s work alright, but it’s one of my favorite times of the week. I met with Jay this morning, but that will be the least joyful part of my workday. My calling at the moment is flying. Now many people don’t like to fly. I generally enjoy it, but always enjoy it when I’m with family. Beside me is my oldest son. When we get off the plane in San Antonio, I will serve as a speaker and a judge for the San Antonio Independent Film Festival. There too I will work. But what great work. I will spend time with my friends Doug Phillips, Geoff Botkin and Kevin Swanson, who are also judges. I will see old friends, including Friedrichs and Lintons. I will meet new friends that I have wanted to meet, like the Chancey family. I will introduce my son to fine and godly men, like the Phillips boys, and the Phillips patriarch, Howard Phillips. What did I do to get this job? The great news isn’t that I get to, for a few days, sneak off from work and do things I particularly enjoy. The great news is that on many days the things I particularly enjoy are my work. I guess the success gurus got one right, that we ought to do what we love, and love what we do. But it takes God’s grace to bring it to pass. For that, I thank Him. [comments] |