Archive for October 2021
Metábasis eis állo génos (2-44)
Camping and hiking in the Pisgah!
I have this idea for a Superman serum. I need you to take it and then I will become Superman.
We have seen that there are several ways in which we can speak of the day of the Lord. We have also seen that to participate in the Lord’s weekly service, especially the Lord’s supper, is to be taken up into the heavens, to be taken out of space and time. Psalm 73 links these two ideas together:
When I thought how to understand this,
It was too painful for me—
Until I went into the sanctuary of God;
Then I understood their end.
There is a kind of telescoping of the days of the Lord going on in worship. When we come to worship, we participate in a foretaste of the marriage supper. But we also participate in a prophetic foretaste of the end of the wicked, of their utter exclusion.
James Jordan writes:
The Church has always limped in history, and it always will. People look at the manifest weaknesses of God’s Bride, and they spit on her. Yet, while God avenges His saints, He still keeps them limping.
God told Satan in the beginning that the righteous One, Jesus Christ, would crush his head, but that in the process, the heel of the Lord would be bruised (Genesis 3:15). Thus, Jacob, the father of Israel’s twelve tribes, wrestled with God and prevailed, but limped ever after (Genesis 32:31). The limp was a sign of his victory in righteousness! The apostle Paul, father of the gentile Church, was given a thorn in his flesh (and since thorns grow on the ground, it was symbolically in his foot), which kept him limping in the eyes of men (2 Corinthians 12:7). Thus, in union with her Lord Jesus Christ, the Church limps through history, in apparent weakness, so that it is “with a scornful wonder, men see her sore oppressed, by schisms rent asunder, by heresies distressed.” Yet her victory is assured. How can that be? Because her enemies have had their heads crushed, and thus their resistance is short-lived.
Peter Leithart writes in a recent In Medias Res newsletter:
When “despicable” men rule (Daniel 11:21), the saints get mowed down—not for their sins but for their faithfulness. There are times when the saints’ hope isn’t rescue but resurrection.
For hundreds of millions of Christians, that time is now. Some estimate that two-thirds of all martyrs in the history of the church have been killed since 1900. Every day, brothers and sisters around the world face harassment, violence, and the real possibility of death.
Ask our Father to hear their cries and avenge the blood spilled in North Korea, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Iran, and that faithful U.S. ally, Saudi Arabia. Ask Him to shake the world until the despicable are thrown from their thrones.
Metábasis eis állo génos (2-43)
Asher’s been perfecting his cribbage board technique:
The NKJV has a clause in Ephesians 3 that is missing from the Alexandrian texts:
For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named. (Ephesians 3:14-15 NKJV)
This made me wonder about the referent of “whom.” But “family” is patria, so clearly it is the Father. Family is fatherdom.
On the Continent, the ship of State did not move on a sea of troubles such as faced the Englishman when he sailed the five oceans of the world. The object of the recurrent and never-ceasing care for a territorial ruler in Central Europe was the forest. After a thousand years of chopping and cutting, 27 per cent of the area of Germany is still covered by forests. More than one quarter of a country where every square inch has been “cultivated,” furrowed, turned, is covered by trees even today. Forestry was a national concern for the German rulers. The notorious word “Kultur” carries, to begin with, the notion of Landeskultur, cultivation of the soil. A German thinks of planting trees whenever he hears the word “Kultur.” Trees take a long time to grow. It is this long period of cultivation that constitutes the outstanding privileges of a government’s economic policy as against that of the individual. The far-sightedness of a paternal government has protected the German woods. “Paternal” means being unmoved by immediate profits; “paternal” stands for patience and indifference to the incentives of the day. Sports, movies, radio, newspapers, take advantage of our childishness. The German individual State was rigid and austere, its people unswayed by the demagogue; it was paternal because it took thought for a long future. It restored the chief wealth of the soil: its trees. For a poor, sandy, rainy and foggy land, it is the greatest of all services to foresee and discount the results of any waste far in advance. In a rich country waste is less disastrous. In a poor district, where tomorrow is as poor as today, any encroachment of today upon tomorrow leads to destruction. . . .
The likeness of man in all his dignity to a tree in the forest is an everlasting German concept. (Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Out of Revolution, 423-424)
The forest is an eternal task, never a garden, never a desert. It bears fruit, but never for the man who plants it. Always it asks for patience and thrift, and prays to be spared from greed, haste, or carelessness. (Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Out of Revolution, 426)
In Numbers 2 it is significant that God’s people constitute an army arrayed around him. But it is also significant that this army is constituted of households. The church is central, the one family that will endure forever; but the earthly family is part of what serves to guard it.
If everyone is special, then no one is special. That’s because to be special is a competitive thing, often fleshly. It isn’t nothing. But spiritual things are not zero-sum. If all God’s people are holy, then so they are.
Man is Adam, earth, dirt. I was listening to some old DC Talk this week and it struck me that the range of skin color and earth color is roughly the same.
Trust me, you should buy yourself every Jamie Soles album:
Evangelicals taught this trick to the world by our obsession with introspection and sincerity and humility. But salvation is by faith in king Jesus and not faith in our own sincerity; navel gazing is a fool’s errand:
Metábasis eis állo génos (2-42)
It seems to me that there are at least four strong lines of religious-conscience arguments against vaccination requirements that most people can embrace: my conscience simply does not allow me to participate in: (1) unethical and criminal behavior related to fetal cell use; (2) unethical and criminal approach to rapid approval of novel-experimental treatments; (3) leading to the great potential for personal debasement and self-harm; and (4) unethical and criminal mandates to participate in treatment.
The French word for doctor is medicin. The first gift of the healing arts is the Hippocratic healer himself. Let’s bring back a personal and individualized approach to medicine.
My pastor Duane Garner writes:
The Church has utterly failed to disciple this nation, and the chaos and calamity around us is the fruit of our failures. While I’m thankful for the bravery and fortitude of the airline pilots presently, that opportunity to stand strong was first presented to pastors who failed miserably. Rather than leading with a bold faith, they catechized their congregations in fear and capitulation, and we are still reaping the consequences. I’m thankful for deliverance from wherever the Lord chooses to send it, but boy did the Church drop the ball.
Reading through Leviticus this week, I’m struck by a few thoughts:
- Leviticus 24 — I’ve held in my mind the thought that bread, beer, wine used at the tabernacle were the work of Israel’s hands. But the oil and light being fruit of their labor strikes me here. We are to live lives of continual light-giving.
- Leviticus 25 — The rite of purification from death (Numbers 19) has a third day and a seventh day baptism. Back in Leviticus 19 we saw the land had three years of rest, and now there is a seventh year rest. Perhaps God is purging the land of the Canaanite death-filth. It’s also striking to me that God’s miraculous provision of manna (six days on, one day off) now continues in the fruitfulness of the land (six years on, one year of rest). As God’s people mature, his provision for them involves no less faith on their part, but more faith-filled work. Yet it is still His doing.
- Leviticus 26 — maybe we can make an argument for firstborn infant baptism here, which of course we extend to all of our children.
Numbers 10:35 is what happens when God’s people march out from his table:
So it was, whenever the ark set out, that Moses said:
“Rise up, O LORD!
Let Your enemies be scattered,
And let those who hate You flee before You.”
It’s interesting to me that, at least in the TR, Jude 1 speaks of the Father sanctifying us.
The Pugcast crew talked about pilgrimage recently. They missed a great opportunity to highlight the centrality of worship: the Lord’s weekly service is the great pilgrimage; the great fulfillment of the feasts; and the great time when the firmament does not merely grow thinnest, but we actually ascend up into it. This is all made possible because worship is in the Spirit. “You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels,” &c.
I got a kick out of this XKCD. But isn’t this true of most disciplines, for example, Tolkien studies and the Bible? To be honest, until today I did not know that the cats of Queen Beruthiel were not a cursed problem anymore. But I have just now discovered the vexed problem of knowing exactly how it was significant that there were nine black cats.
Too many good tweets to share this week. Instead I’ll simply say insist that, if you are reading this, you follow Jack Posobiec, Michael O’Fallon, and Boniface Option.
Metábasis eis állo génos (2-41)
Although the general employer mandate for vaccination has yet to be issued—and to my surprise it also seems that there is not yet a Medicare requirement against hospitals?—there is an executive order pertaining to federal contractors. My employer is a federal contractor and they are taking the simplifying measure of applying this to all US workers rather than just those who work “in connection with” a contract. I was provided only 350 characters in which to express my religious accommodation:
In accordance with Title VII, I invoke religious exemption from COVID vaccination & testing. I believe unwanted intrusion or tinkering with creation is sinful & degrading, especially in case of my body which is in God’s image (Gen 1) & is his temple (1 Cor 6). I request accommodation of continuing to work from home as I have for 18 months already.
If I had more room the first thing I would have added is a link to my denomination’s religious exemption statement, followed by a citation of Leviticus 19. I found these resources from The Healthy American helpful in focusing my writing: fact sheet, pitfalls to avoid.
Of course I have more reasons than this, but not less. I sincerely believe that there are massive moral-ethical breaches, lies, wickedness, and demonic involvement in what we have experienced over the past two years, from top to bottom. Berenson calls this moment our Chernobyl. The only thing I’m unsure of is the breadth of it, not the depth of it. Thus, I note Lew Rockwell’s team on Marburg and pray they are wrong.
Reading Leviticus this week for To the Word, I am struck by the fact that cleanness is required to come to worship (who may ascend the hill of Yahweh?) but also that cleanness is one of the things that worship itself supplies. Obviously we have to modulate that through the new covenant and definitive sanctification. Perhaps we can say:
- What good is being cleansed without persevering in it? We cannot come to God without Cleansing (once for all) but we also never come to him without needing cleansing (having something fresh on our conscience).
- What good is being cleansed without knowing it? In weekly worship God means to give us the most objective experience of being assured of his love for us that we have, apart from our baptisms.
- What good is being cleansed without going up the hill of Yahweh to enjoy it? We wash our hands and hearts so that we may sit together at table with Jesus and each other.
Wilson says that you shouldn’t ignore your instinct to say second grace.
Matthew Trewhalla’s talk at the County before Country conference was especially good.
Metábasis eis állo génos (2-40)
Obeying the second greatest commandment becomes a lot clearer when it moves from the realm of risk and anxiety to a clear and present need. The next year might give most of us the opportunity to swallow our pride and help someone in need—whether that means helping someone who lost their job for not taking the therapeutics, or helping someone else who suffered unexpected side effects because they did.
My friend John has been encouraging me to read Michael Heiser, and perhaps I will sometime soon. I enjoyed this interview with Heiser and also this interview with Christopher Kou where he briefly mentions Heiser. This statement from Heiser struck me:
Stop presuming that there’s a spiritual battle only when you see something bizarre. You are being duped. You are being trained to only take the spiritual world seriously when something strange blows up in your face, or when you see or hear some strange story. That’s a distraction.
I also appreciated this Theopolis episode with Ken Myers, where he refers eloquently to the “worldlessness of faith and godlessness of the world.” Make postmillennialism great again!
Girard describes the church as the “scapegoat of last resort.” This leads me to think that, in a way, the Christian is the peak of intersectionality: the one identity that is the derision of every other identity.
I finished this week Elsie Anne McKee’s Elders and the Plural Ministry. She set herself the task of understanding Calvin’s doctrine of eldership in the context of both preceding and subsequent teaching. She summarizes her findings as follows:
The idea of offices in Paul’s lists of charismatic leaders, and the idea that some of these gifts are no longer present or necessary in the contemporary church, seem to twentieth-century readers the most difficult problems in the Reformed claim to base a plurality of ministries on scripture. In fact, however, neither of these issues appears completely new or even particularly remarkable, in view of the preceding exegetical tradition. There is no doubt that Reformed theologians, influenced by other non-scriptural factors, developed and adapted tradition. The same is true of their (more creative) predecessors. The Reformed school of interpretation is more striking, though, because of its coherence and its use of exegesis to serve a clear theological purpose.
What is probably the most innovative aspect of the Calvinist exegesis of Rom. 12:6-8 and 1 Cor. 12:28 is the lay status of certain ecclesiastical offices. Although this is commonly recognized as one of the most important features of Reformed teaching on the ministry, very few seem to realize that this is also the really shockingly new factor introduced into the interpretation of their biblical texts by Reformed theologians. Innovation does not mean, however, that there was no basis in the tradition for interpreting certain offices as non-clerical. The exegetical tradition of Rom. 12:6-8 and 1 Cor. 12:28 included the possibility of interpreting some of the names in Paul’s lists as civil rulers or temporal tasks, although most leaders and functions were read as ecclesiastical. This is particularly true of Romans, but some similar comments are found in the exegesis of First Corinthians. (190)
Here are some quotes she cited. I believe most of the translations are hers:
Governors [1 Cor. 12:28] were, I believe, elders chosen from the people, who were charged with the censure of morals and the exercise of discipline along with the bishops. For one cannot otherwise interpret his statement, “Let him who rules act with diligence” [Rom. 12:8, cf. Vg.]. Each church, therefore, had from its beginning a senate, chosen from godly, grave, and holy men, which had jurisdiction over the correcting of faults. (Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 4.3.8)
For this purpose courts of judgment were established in the church from the beginning to deal with the censure of morals, to investigate vices, and to be charged with the exercise of the office of the keys. Paul designates this order in his letter to the Corinthians when he mentions offices of ruling [1 Cor. 12:28]. (Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 4.11.1)
What are these [helps]? The care of the weak. Is this, I ask, a gift (charism)? Certainly, to protect and to distribute spiritual things is a gift from God. Moreover he also clearly calls many of our excellent actions “charismata”, not wishing us to be discouraged, but showing that we always need the help of God, and instructing us so that we may be grateful, thus making us more eager, and exciting our feeling for these good deeds. (Chrysostom, MPG 61.266)
He said “helpers”, and he understands deacons of the poor, i.e., administrators, or all those who assist in ecclesiastical business. However, Ambrose has called gubernatores those “who serve as an example to men to restrain them in spiritual and moral matters”, such ones as elders, presbyters, supervisors of Christian discipline, moral censors. (Bullinger, Commentary on Paul’s Epistles)
What single person could fulfill all these various functions of a good pastor? From the beginning of the church, therefore, the Holy Spirit chose to add to the administrators of Word and Sacraments (namely, the chief presbyters and bishops) also other men chosen from the body of the church, serious and skilled in the gift of governing, who would help the ministers of the Word to care for individuals, and to restrain them and encourage them in the teaching of Christ, 1 Cor. 12:28 (Bucer, De Regno Christi, 5.15)
In the letter to Timothy, also [Paul] distinguishes two kinds of presbyters: those who labor in the Word, and those who do not carry on the preaching of the Word yet rule well [1 Tim. 5:17]. By this latter sort he doubtless means those who were appointed to supervise morals and to use the power of the keys. (Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1543 edition, 4.11.1)
We have already seen that St. Paul speaks of the elders who labor in the Word of God, and then he adds others, and says (of all of whom he speaks) that “they should preside well”. It follows then that there were elders who were not preachers, who did not have the office of teaching or announcing the Word of God. And what did they do? They watched over morals to rebuke those who sinned and to prevent public scandals, so that there might be an authority established on behalf of all the church. When there was some crime, such as tumult or quarreling or theft or fraud or violence or injury or fornication, these elders were to be vigilant to attend to such vices, as indeed the church had given them this supervision. Now seeing this is so, who among us will dare to oppose the order of the Holy Spirit? (Works of Calvin 53)
Let us note, as has been stated before, that it is an honorable office to govern the church of God. . . What then is this dignity? It is not the way of presiding which princes and lords have, but it is like a service. Let us glory then in serving the flock committed to us, because (as I have already mentioned) it is impossible for us to serve God unless we dedicate ourselves to the service of His people. But we must also know that honor is joined with this service. (Works of Calvin, 53)
To govern well His church, God wished there also to be people to govern, and that those should be elected who were of good and holy life, who had already acquired some authority and also had prudence to equip them for such a charge. (Works of Calvin, 53)
For God does not work the way men do. We on our side can elect one to hold the office of magistrate, another to be a preacher, but we cannot give them what is necessary (to do the job). For we do not create a new person of the one we raise to honor; he always remains what he was, as far as we are concerned. And when there is an election, each person votes. So, the one chosen is in office, but nevertheless he always remains the person he was. It is the same with pastors; we can well elect a man who will be more a beast. For we cannot make him be formed as he ought to be. But when elections proceed from God, and He presides over them, then there are gifts joined by an inseparable bond to the tasks. (Works of Calvin, 51).
Best Nextdoor post ever: I know this isn’t a copperhead.
I gotta have my orange juice. 