I gotta have my orange juice.

I learned this week that raw meat is not soaking in blood. What I have called blood is actually water and myoglobin rather than hemoglobin. This clarifies Acts 15 for me and I repent of having tried blood sausage once. (Seriously.)

Ahh, Steve:

Lots of county fairs cancelled too. The only one around here that I can find that hasn’t decided yet is the Lee Regional Fair, which I’m keeping my eyes on. Something tells me my new motto, “don’t stretch the curve into the next decade,” isn’t about to catch on.

I commented on the Summit’s 2020 meeting plans last week. Greear portrayed it as a return to a house church model. I’m skeptical this is just a further ecclesiological decline, but that doesn’t mean it can’t work. So: are they appointing elders? Are these elders leading each little body in weekly worship, including participation in the table? If not, then what you have is κοινωνία, which may be truly wonderful, but not ἐκκλησία. And if it is not church, you should be honest and admit that what you are conducting is really a famine or exile from the house and worship of God.

Hence the form of the Church appears and stands forth conspicuous to our view. Wherever we see the word of God sincerely preached and heard, wherever we see the sacraments administered according to the institution of Christ, there we cannot have any doubt that the Church of God has some existence. . . Wherefore let these marks be carefully impressed upon our minds, and let us estimate them as in the sight of the Lord. There is nothing on which Satan is more intent than to destroy and efface one or both of them. . . (Calvin, Institutes, Book 4, Chapter 1)

But equally:

How perilous, then, nay, how fatal the temptation, when we even entertain a thought of separating ourselves from that assembly in which are beheld the signs and badges which the Lord has deemed sufficient to characterize his Church! We see how great caution should be employed in both respects. . . we must in this case be no less careful to avoid the imposture than we were to shun pride and presumption in the other.

When we say that the pure ministry of the word and pure celebration of the sacraments is a fit pledge and earnest, so that we may safely recognize a church in every society in which both exist, our meaning is, that we are never to discard it so long as these remain, though it may otherwise teem with numerous faults. Nay, even in the administration of word and sacraments defects may creep in which ought not to alienate us from its communion. . . Our indulgence ought to extend much farther in tolerating imperfection of conduct. . . If the Lord declares that the Church will labor under the defect of being burdened with a multitude of wicked until the day of judgment, it is in vain to look for a church altogether free from blemish (Mt.13). (Calvin, Institutes, Book 4, Chapter 1)

I’ve always thought of serve in Joshua 24 as primarily meaning obey, and it certainly means no less. But it struck me freshly this week that the semantic range also includes worship (e.g., as in Exodus 10):

“Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” (Joshua 24:14–15 ESV)

As for me and my household, we will gather with my Lord and his people for his appointed covenant renewal feasts.

Wilson praises MacArthur fittingly. We just finished reading The Silver Chair out loud as a family, so the Puddleglum reference especially tickled me. It is a trenchant observation that our culture has a growing trend of leadership by smothering mothering. Recall this is just what Tocqueville prophesied. It is what I meant by “managerial” and “focus-group-tested” last week, and this “spirit of deep empathy” is widely praised in business today. (How is your employee engagement trending?) But as a primary strategy, this will backfire: we need fathers as well as mothers, especially if we are to mature; and this is in fact just another way of expressing Friedman’s powerful insights concerning dysfunction, anxiety, and maturation. If Wilson and Friedman and Tocqueville are right, unless we come to value and pursue genuine fatherly, masculine leadership, the families, churches, businesses, and cities that we are seeking to cultivate and preserve will ironically become more atrophied and immature and vulnerable.

As Friedman observes, those families, churches, businesses, and cities that resist motherfussing motherhenning may suffer short-term resistance from those who are seeking validation of their own anxieties, but will grow into long-term stability, fruitfulness, and maturity. They might remain small, but they will not be so fragile. As I said last week, the outlook for ordinary, small, faithful churches is bright, even if they stand to temporarily take a membership dip over the next couple years. (But I think any dip will be more than offset by a father-hungry exodus from the motherships.)

And, to be clear, God does not wish fathers or mothers to be anxious, fussy, or exhaustively empathetic. We are speaking here in a kind of shorthand of common distortions of godly femininity, which are kept in check, as Wilson observes, by godly masculinity. We live in such a time that it has become common wisdom that not only CEOs and presidents but even husbands and fathers should cultivate these distortions too.

By some of the responses I’ve read on my MacArthur post, Daniel should have prayed behind closed doors. (Gary DeMar)

This fellow had a great way of expressing Wilson’s insight that we are subject to manifold authorities, including paper ones.

I’m working through 1 and 2 Kings this week. Random things that stood out to me: (1) The queen of Sheba parallels the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts. Of course, both of them are from the same country; the eunuch in fact serves the queen of Sheba. Both of them are fulfillments of Solomon’s prayer in 1 Kings 8. The first queen is impressed with visible glory (this of course does not mean that she was not converted), while the eunuch is amazed at the sacrificial transfiguring glory of one who temporarily lacked form and majesty and beauty. (2) Elijah turns Ahab’s “troubler of Israel” back upon him. This reminds me of other serpent-accusers who deserved to be hoisted by their own petard: Pharaoh did harm to Abram; both Abraham and Isaac took wise and godly precaution with their respective Abimelechs precisely because of what might have been done to them; Esau sought to trick Jacob; Laban tricked Jacob with wages; and of course many others, including Haman. (3) Take courage; even today God has preserved thousands who have not bowed the knee to idols. (4) Speaking of idols, I’d like to find a politician who will say, “Former men have served scientism and libertinism a little, but I will serve them much.”