The "expulsive power of a new affection"

Iain Duguid is a new Old Testament professor at Westminster Theological Seminary. The school has released a pamphlet written by Duguid, that clarifies the WTS position on Christ in the OT. The reading below is an excerpt from this pamphlet, "Is Jesus in the Old Testament?" and deals with truth that the Gospel addresses our failures to live as we ought.

How do we address this gap between what we know and what we do? Sermons and Bible studies that focus on "law" (the demands of Scripture for our obedience), no matter how accurately biblical in content, tend to simply add to the burden of guilt felt by the average Christian. A friend of mine calls these sermons "another brick in the backpack"--you arrive at church knowing five ways in which you are falling short of God's standard for your life, and you leave knowing ten, doubly burdened.

In my experience such teaching yields little by way of life transformation, especially in terms of the joy and peace that are supposed to mark the Christian life. Focusing on the gospel, however, has the power to change our lives at a deep level. Through the gospel we come to see both the true depth of our sin (and therefore that our earlier feelings of guilt were actually far too shallow), while at the same time being reminded of the glorious good news that Jesus is our perfect substitute who removes our sin and guilt. He lived the life of obedience in our place and fulfilled the relentless clamor of the law's demands, and he took upon himself the awful punishment that our sin truly deserves. As the Holy Spirit enables us to grasp this gospel reality, he frees us from our guilt and refreshes us with a deep joy that motivates our hearts to love God anew. In this way, the gospel begins the slow transformative work of changing us from the inside out. This is what the nineteenth-century Scottish pastor Thomas Chalmers called the "expulsive power of a new affection": the fact that profound change in our behavior always comes through a change in what we love most, not through external coercion.

Amen.

Open Office Styles

Regarding Open Office and learning how to use it: if you already know how to use the basic functions of word processing in Open Office, there is one feature you should invest two or three hours learning, and learning well. That feature is Styles. There are character styles, paragraph styles, frame styles, page styles, and list styles. A style is like a pre-defined template which guides how your words go on the page, and sets things like tabs, line spacing, indents, italics, etc. If you don't know how to use styles you'll find yourself fighting against your computer rather than working with it--very frustrating. Sometimes with a few keystrokes you wind up inadvertantly changing the look of your entire document.

This explains why I have no hair. I did not know how to use styles and I was bumping into the power of the word processor without knowing what I was doing. Sort of like sticking your tongue in a light socket.

 Both Open Office and Word have styles. Once you learn how to use them properly, they are extremely powerful and very helpful. But until you learn to use them, it would be best to keep hammers, guns, and bricks in a separate room from your computer.

Invest the time. Read the helps. Play with a test document. Learn to use the styles. Especially learn what the "autoupdate" feature does. I can now change my plain-vanilla text manuscript into a highly formatted print-on-demand book in a couple of frustration-free hours, because of styles. Learn to use 'em - they're your friend.

Microsoft Office versus OpenOffice

Just had an outstanding illustration of why I abandoned MS Office a long time ago, and have never looked back and never regretted it. Spent five minutes just trying to figure out how to reveal hidden characters. Back when MS Office was a decent product, it was easy to find. But when MS began changing the user interface with each major release (sometimes radically changing it), the learning curve became simply ridiculous--and that was just to relearn stuff you already knew how to do.

Anyway, I have written countless sermons, four novels, and one non-fiction using OpenOffice. I have installed numerous major upgrades over the years, and not one time did I have to relearn the user interface--not once.

I was a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer, and an IT director at a graduate school, so I'm not exactly a newbie. But when MS started yanking around their customer base, I jumped ship. Have never regretted it.

OpenOffice is free, it's reliable, it's well-maintained, and it's user interface is stable. Once you invest the time to learn it (it's much like Word used to be), you will never have to make that investment again.

Okay, just needed to rant a little. I'm done. You can go back to searching your ribbon for stuff you used to know exactly where to find (while I return to my productivity).

Book Review: C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock

Reading Lewis is like peering through a freshly washed window into the depths of his soul. A rare communicator among great thinkers and writers, Lewis is able to put deep thoughts on the lower shelf, accessible to the man who has callouses on his hands and dirt under his fingernails.

God in the Dock is a compendium of Lewis’ essays, articles, letters, and a few transcripts of his speeches compiled by editor Walter Hooper, who served briefly as Lewis’ secretary during the illness that took Lewis’ life. Hooper has organized the volume into four parts. The first part contains essays that are “clearly theological,” the second “semi-theological,” and the third “ethics,” and the fourth is comprised of Lewis’ letters answering those who disagree with some point he has made.

If Lewis is a polemicist, he has two arguments to make: his primary argument is against unbelief, and particularly unbelief possessed by those who professed to believe: the liberal clergy and theologians of the post-war Church of England. His other great issue is more subtle: it’s an argument against unclear thought and language that befuddles rather than enlightens. Lewis contends that if a man is not able to translate a passage from an English volume of systematic theology into language that his gardener would understand, he should fail his ordination exam.

Modern conservative evangelicals are conflicted about Lewis. It seems to me that there are two reasons for the uncertainty. First there is a misunderstanding about the way Lewis uses the term myth. As a professor of literature, Lewis used the term to describe the rich stories of cultures such as the Norsemen or the Greeks. Lewis contended that, though historically false, such stories conveyed subtle evidences of transcendence—in other words, evidence of God, the True Joy. But he also used the term to describe Christianity, and that’s what makes modern Bible-believers nervous. It need not.

Unlike modern liberals, when Lewis uses “myth” in connection with Christianity, he is not speaking of something false or unhistorical. Indeed, Lewis was a strong force in his day arguing for the reality of the miracles of Scripture, and against the anti-supernaturalism that wound up destroying much of Anglicanism. Lewis uses the term myth in much the same way that “metanarrative” is used in popular culture: it’s the “big picture,” the “grand narrative,” the unifying story that ties together and explains a culture. For Lewis Christian myth is the true historical story of God’s grand plan of redemption through His Son Jesus Christ. It is the story (the only story) that explains the faith of the apostles and the two thousand years of history since. Theologians use the term “redemptive history” in almost precisely the way Lewis used the word myth to describe Christianity. Myth is not the denial of historicity for Lewis, rather it is the assertion of the grandness and majesty of The Story—the true story.

The second concern about Lewis regards his tendency to Universalism, the idea that all men—even Christ rejecters—will ultimately be redeemed. Lewis argues that we in time cannot now know what eternity bodes for the lost. See for instance the last two chapters of The Great Divorce. I think Lewis himself was conflicted about it—you can observe his conflict in places where he argues strenuously for the need of conversion before one faces God. Conservative evangelicals who are disturbed by this part of Lewis need to go back and read the first four centuries of church history—even Augustine believed things we would disavow today. The same can be said of the Reformers: for instance, they did not clearly separate civil from ecclesiastical authority—it took a couple more centuries for that to finally happen. We will do ourselves no favors judging Lewis by this one matter. Hooper says of him, “Lewis struck me as the most thoroughly converted man I ever met. Christianity was never for him a separate department of life. . . ” [12, emphasis his].

God in the Dock is an edifying and challenging sampler of Lewis’ thought in many different areas of life and theology. I recommend it highly.

Falcon Strike!

Time is running out . . .

Vanished. Eight western scientists and an Israeli military officer have disappeared without a trace, victims of a ruthless Soviet espionage program. USAF Major Jacob “Falcon” Kelly is the only American who knows where they are and why they've been taken.

 

Imprisoned. Suspected of treason by American intelligence, Kelly’s claims are dismissed and he is jailed by his own government. He finds himself in a deadly race to prove his innocence before Soviet assassins can shut his mouth—permanently.

 

Outwitted.  Entangled in a high-stakes game of intrigue with Soviet military intelligence, American operatives are duped by a masterful disinformation campaign in which Kelly is a pawn. As his captors play right into the hands of the enemy, Kelly knows the window to stage a daring rescue operation and thwart the Soviet endgame is rapidly closing.
 

The exciting conclusion to the Falcon Series, Falcon Strike will captivate readers as nonstop action and intrigue transport them on a thrilling adventure spanning the frozen coasts of Alaska, the suburbs of northern Virginia, and the snowy taiga of Siberia.

Available December 1st!

C. S. Lewis, the radical

I never realized what a radical C. S. Lewis was until reading his essays in God in the Dock. One of Lewis’s great concerns was the rise of the modern, technocratic welfare state. Lewis warned that the purpose of government is to protect individual liberties, not to transform society or to provide for its citizens. When a population forgets that limited role of government it is headed inevitably for tyranny.

Lewis writes, “. . . classical political theory, with its Stoical, Christian, and juristic key-conceptions (natural law, the value of the individual, the rights of man), has died. The modern State exists not to protect our rights but to do us good or make us good—anyway, to do something to us or to make us something. Hence the new name ‘leaders’ for those who were once ‘rulers’. We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils, or domestic animals. There is nothing left of which we can say to them, ‘Mind your own business.’ Our whole lives are their business.” [from the essay, Is Progress Possible? in God in the Dock, 314]

Lewis published this in 1958. Apparently we weren’t listening.

Observations from the Bible on Fear, Part 3

2 Timothy 1:7-8 (NASB) For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me His prisoner; but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God,

Fear doesn’t come from God. Rather, God offers in place of fear, power, love, and “a sound mind.” Why does Paul say “a sound mind” (KJV), or “self-discipline” (NIV), or “discipline” (NASB)? Paul uses these terms because fear militates against sound, disciplined thinking: fear expands itself irrationally when we give place to it.

This is an important point and one that recurs as you read the Bible’s passages on fear. Fear feeds itself, even to the point where we perversely begin to fear fear itself. But what God provides is a spirit of love (the most important key to conquering fear outright) and power (in His power we are not helpless but can chose to exercise faith in His goodness and sovereign control), and discipline. Discipline enables us to control the wild flights of fancy in our minds (2 Corinthians 10:5), so that we are not carried away with gusts of fear (as the spies were in Numbers 13-14). To yield to these imaginations is to give way to panic.

Paul has a real bell-ringer in 2 Timothy 1:8 in our battle against fear and panic. Notice that Paul did not advise Timothy to combat his fears by backing off his ministry. Paul didn’t give his young coworker a pass because Timothy was afraid. Rather, in verse 8 Paul says, “join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God.” Paul did not protect Timothy from suffering; he invited Timothy to embrace suffering with him for the sake of the gospel.

We are not accustomed to think of fear in terms of moral responsibility. But there is a significant moral component to our fears when we allow them to interrupt the responsibilities and ministries to which God has called us.

God desires that we confront our fears by not allowing them to turn us aside from our obligations. Rather than giving in to fear and retreating, we are invited by God to step out onto the edge and labor together with Him. It is uncomfortable—to be sure—but “God hath not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

Observations from the Bible on Fear, Part 2

Numbers 13-14 contains a remarkable story of the experience of the children of Israel at Kadesh. They have arrived at Kadesh at the southern border of Canaan, and are ready to enter the Promised Land. Moses sends spies into Canaan with the responsibility of bringing back a report on the land, the people, the fortifications, and so on.

Numbers 13:25-29 (NASB): When they returned from spying out the land, at the end of forty days, they proceeded to come to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation of the sons of Israel in the wilderness of Paran, at Kadesh; and they brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land. Thus they told him, and said, “We went in to the land where you sent us; and it certainly does flow with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Nevertheless, the people who live in the land are strong, and the cities are fortified and very large; and moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there. Amalek is living in the land of the Negev and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites are living in the hill country, and the Canaanites are living by the sea and by the side of the Jordan.”

There’s nothing wrong with the report so far; if you carefully examine what Moses asked them to do (13:17-20), the report indicates that they were quite thorough. The perceptions of the faithful and the perceptions of the fearful regarding the land were in agreement—so far. The majority report of Numbers 13:27-29 is not disputed by anyone.

It is in the reaction to the report that the trouble lies. Caleb tries to calm the people but to no avail. Fear began spreading among the children of Israel, and as is almost always the case, fear brings a distortion of reality.

Numbers 13:30-33 (NASB): Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “We should by all means go up and take possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are too strong for us.” So they gave out to the sons of Israel a bad report of the land which they had spied out, saying, “The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. “There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.”

Once the fearful had given way to their fears, the difficulties became distorted and magnified (vs 32-33). Yielding to their fear fueled it, and they wound up being dominated by it. Their fears became self-fulfilling.

Numbers 14:1-4 (NASB): Then all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. And all the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron; and the whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! “And why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become plunder; would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?” So they said to one another, “Let us appoint a leader and return to Egypt.”

Their fears also moved them to attack the character and purposes of God (why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword?). Their fears led them to distorted memories of the “good old days” in Egypt when they were in hard servitude (would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?).

Finally, what is most significant for our purposes is that, because they chose to follow their fear rather than their faith, God gave them over to their fears. Their fears became self-fulfilling in a tragic way. They feared falling by the sword of the Canaanites, their children becoming plunder.

And so they did fall, but by the hand of God Himself, not the Canaanites. They wandered for forty years until every last one over the age of twenty (at the time of the rebellion) died, except for the two faithful ones—Joshua and Caleb. Everyone else died.

The irony is that God faithfully brought their children—whom they feared would become plunder—into the Promised Land. Their children—who walked in faith, not fear—became under the hand of God an invincible military juggernaut, conquering kings and cities and alliances by the power of God. No one was able to stand before them (other than Ai, and that defeat was due to sin).

There are some important observations about fear we can draw from this text.

• Fear can distort reality.
• Fear feeds on itself.
• Fear can become self-fulfilling.
• Our fears can accuse God of either being inadequate to protect us, or of having evil motives. Sinful fear is ultimately a slander on the character of God.
• When we choose to live by our fears instead of our faith, God may give us over to them.

C. S. Lewis and Old Books

I'm reading through a book of C. S. Lewis essays, called "God in the Dock." Today's essay was from Lewis' introduction to a new translation of Athanasius' fourth-century work,  "The Incarnation of the Word of God."

Anyway, Lewis is making a case for reading the old books, the books of the past that history has shown to have weight and heft. One of Lewis' points is that modern authors, even when they disagree with one another, share in common a huge set of assumptions--some of which are bound to be wrong. As moderns reading modern books, we too will be blind to the wrongness of those assumptions--since we ourselves share them. The only way we have to extricate ourselves, Lewis claims, is to read books of the past--not that they are error-free, but that they are operating on a different set of assumptions than those of the modern age. I'll let Lewis speak for himself:

"None of us can fully escape this blindness, but we shall certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only modern books. Where they are true they will give us truths which we half knew already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books. Not, of course, that there is any magic about the past. People were no cleverer then than they are now; they made as many mistakes as we. But not the same mistakes. They will not flatter us in the errors we are already committing; and their own errors, being now open and palpable, will not endanger us. Two heads are better than one, not because either is infallible, but because they are unlikely to go wrong in the same direction" [202].

Fruit from my morning reading

Several interesting points from reading the Institutes this morning.

First, on the difference between the god of Islam and the True God.

Calvin makes the point that God is by necessity good, meaning that God cannot choose not to be good. To get the following quote, you must understand the way a philosopher or theologian uses the word, "necessary." Something that is necessary is something that must be due to the nature of things; it cannot not be. Here's Calvin: "The goodness of God is so connected with his Godhead, that it is not more necessary to be God than to be good; . . . " As I thought on this, I realized that it forms one of the most basic distinctions between the theology of Christianity, and that of Islam.

In a word, God does good things because God, in His essence, is good. God cannot fail to be good--it is His nature to be good, and God cannot contradict Himself.

However the god of Islam is arbitrary in his actions, sometimes doing good, sometimes evil. The god of Islam is only good when he decides to be so; his actions are not tied to his essence. This is one reason why Islam can justify any atrocity: Allah is not good, Allah is just what Allah determines to be at the moment.

The second interesting point comes from Calvin's discussion of free will and the bondage produced by sin. He quotes Augustine: "Man through liberty became a sinner [speaking of the Fall] but corruption, ensuing as the penalty, has converted liberty into necessity." Calvin then says, several sentences later, "Man, since he was corrupted by the fall, sins not forced or unwilling, but voluntarily, by a most forward bias of the mind; not by violent compulsion, or external force, but by the movement of his own passion; and yet such is the depravity of his nature, that he cannot move and act except in the direction of evil." [Calvin, Institutes, Book II:3:5]

This is why we need a Savior, and this is why He must take the initiative in salvation. We won't. We can't.