Baptisms
We know that all Israel, from infant to adult, was baptized into Moses at the Red Sea (1 Corinthians 10:1ff), being spiritually inducted into what we might call the “body of Moses” (in conjunction with Jude 1:9 and Zechariah 3:2), the Old Testament church; just as we are baptized into the body of Christ. They were not drowned in the waters like Pharaoh and his army, but were sprinkled (Psalm 77:17ff).
There are many other such baptisms. When Jacob and his family re-entered the land after their exile with Laban, he and all his household crossed the river Jabbok (Genesis 32). Another example is Israel’s crossing the Jordan river to enter the land; this was even connected with a circumcision (Joshua 3-5). Baptism is a sign of salvation, resurrection and even ascension (as though passing through the waters above the firmament), while circumcision is a sign of sacrifice and priesthood; these two are joined together in Jesus (the greater Joshua), so that our baptism unites us to his circumcision (Colossians 2:11-12).
We see a double baptism when Absalom attacked David. When David fled Jerusalem, attention is called to the fact that he and all his people crossed the brook Kidron (2 Samuel 15) as they went to the wilderness. Among those who were thus baptized into David’s exile-death are the Philistine convert Ittai (from the city of Gath) and “all his men and all the little ones who were with him” (v. 22). Then, on David’s return into the land, he and all who were with him crossed the Jordan river (2 Samuel 19). This passage indicates that the elders of Judah made a seemingly unnecessary but very symbolic trip across the Jordan in order to bring David back (vv. 15ff), signifying that their own restoration-resurrection depended not only on their repentance but also on their baptism into David and his exile-death and exodus-resurrection.
This is partly what is meant by the author of Hebrews in saying that we should “go to [Jesus] outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured” (13:13). In context, the author is saying that we are freshly joined to Jesus’s death and resurrection when, week by week in worship, we partake of Jesus’s body and blood in the Lord’s supper. But if the Lord’s supper is a weekly renewal of our union with Jesus, then baptism is our initial and definitive union with him, crossing the heavenly waters in a symbolic exile and exodus.
See also Unbelievers.
Patience, again
I wrote earlier of how the fig tree and mountain of Mark 11 were spoken and written to indicate God’s judgment upon faithless Israel, and to encourage the early church to persevere in prayer for deliverance from persecution. Quoting Mark Horne:
Jesus is discussing the prayers which the early Church will have to pray in the face of opposition from the Temple Mount. . . . Jesus is not speaking of mountains in general. He has made a point of saying which mountain will be cast into the sea by believing prayer. . . . Just as Jesus cursed the fig tree, so will God deliver the Church through the prayers of the saints.
Understanding this gives us insight into the timeframe Jesus was implying when he said that “it will be done for” the one who has such faith. The persecution of Saul began as early as the year of Jesus’s death and ascension, AD 30. There was a “near” deliverance for the church in the conversion of Saul. Fourteen years later, James the brother of John was killed by Herod Agrippa, and there was another “near” deliverance in the death of Agrippa in AD 44. Then the church continued to struggle with persecution. The final removal of this mountain did not come until AD 70 when Rome destroyed Jerusalem.
Counting backwards, the church’s prayers for deliverance continued for 26 years from the death of James, and 40 years from the death of Stephen. When the church prays, we are to have this manner of persistent and patient faith. Not every fig tree withers overnight.
See also: Patience.
Chronological tidbits
One of the things I appreciate about James Jordan is his careful attention to Biblical chronology. This gives us a deeper understanding of Scripture, in ways far beyond dating creation.
For example, we learn that Jacob was 77 years old when he and Rebekah deceived Isaac into repentance, and when Jacob fled to Paddan-Aram to find a wife. His twenty years of service to Laban were from the age of 77 to 97. And Joseph was almost certainly sold into slavery before his brother Benjamin was born, so that the first time he heard of Benjamin was when he overheard his brothers in Egypt.
We learn of contemporaries: Abraham was still alive when Jacob and Esau were born. Isaac died just before Joseph was released from prison, reminding us of the death of the high priest that sets people free (Numbers 35:28, 20:28; Joshua 24:33; 1 Samuel 4:18; Jesus). Samson, Samuel, Jephthah, and Jephthah’s daughter (who almost certainly served at God’s tabernacle rather than being put to death) most likely ministered at the same time, so that Samson’s death in Judges 16 was almost at the same time as the defeat of the Philistines at Mizpah in 1 Samuel 7.
Saul was close to or beyond 40 years of age when he became king, since his son Jonathan was a capable fighter at this time. This adds greater depth to the virtual adoption of Saul by Samuel in 1 Samuel 10:11-12; even as a 40-year-old, Saul was to heed the voice of Samuel his father. This also underscores Samuel’s grief over Saul’s fall (1 Samuel 15:35). If Jonathan was at least 20 years old at the start of Saul’s reign, and Saul reigned for 40 years (Acts 13:21), and David was 30 at the end of Saul’s reign (2 Samuel 5:4), then we see that Jonathan must have been David’s senior by at least 30 years. Jonathan was a truly humble and godly man.
But we gain sad insights as well. For example, we would like to think that the Song of Solomon, possibly written to the daughter of Pharaoh (1 Kings 3:1), was written to his first wife. For theological reasons, the book of Kings stresses that Solomon began running his race well. But we learn later that Solomon was married to Naamah before the daughter of Pharaoh (1 Kings 14:21 taken together with 1 Kings 11:42). So we see that even at his accession, the seeds of Solomon’s sin and fall (Deut. 17:17, etc.) were being planted.
Cube
While growing up there were a few issues of technical magazines that really captured my imagination. In the basement of the music store where I took flute lessons, there were some old Byte magazines. I remember being captivated by an article about OS/2 and Taligent, asking permission to take the issue home with me. Byte also sparked my interest in NeXT. For better or worse, this had the ultimate result that I was inspired to huddle over my PC for months to write a graphical file manager for the QNX platform. I’m not sure that anyone ever used it, but it’s still available for download.
Often we would go to the Hershey public library’s annual library sale. Several times I scooped up batches of Scientific American issues. The March 1981 issue occupied many hours of my time. In this issue, Douglas Hofstadter’s “Metamagical Themas” column addressed the Rubik’s cube, and I was hooked.
Hofstadter’s article was a brisk introduction to cubology. But instead of giving a quick how-to on solving the cube, he described the underlying concepts and patterns for manipulating the cube. No solutions: only a framework for building a solution piece by piece. But this only whetted my appetite to struggle on to understand what he had to say about group theory. Hofstadter did teach me how to disassemble and reassemble the cube, which was a great help as I stumbled along. (This is not only less destructive than peeling stickers, but is actually much easier.)
Hofstadter introduced a notation for operations on the cube. Each face had a letter: F, B, L, R, U and D for front, back, left, right, up and down. Any operation on the cube could be expressed in these terms, with exponents to indicate repeated turns of the same face (positive exponents for clockwise turns, prime symbol indicating a counter-clockwise turn). So, for example, to go from Start to a simple cross pattern on each face, you could execute F²B²L²R²U²D². Another pretty pattern, which Hofstadter calls “Dots,” can be reached from Start with BF’UD’LR’BF’.
My first excited discovery was a move that swapped two pairs of edge pieces: F²U²F²U²F²U², alternately (F²U²)³. From this one operation I was eventually able to derive all of the operations I needed to solve the cube.
These are not the shortest operators by a long shot, but these are the ones I came up with. I use Hofstadter’s notation for the cubes that are affected by each operator. These rather awkwardly tend to focus on solving the bottom face; I may take the time eventually to rewrite them in terms of the upper face. And thus we come to my motive in writing this post: I can never find my “cheat sheet” when I want it.
- Edge operators
- Double edge pair swappers
- (dr,dl)(df,db) — L’RDF²D²F²D²F²DR’L
- (dr,dl)(df,db) — F²D²F²D²F²D’F²D²F²D²F²D
- (fr,fl)(dr,dl) — F²D²F²D²F²D²
- (fr,fl)(br,bl) — F²D²F²D²F²B²D²B²D²B²
- Double edge flippers
- (dl)+(dr)+ —
F’L’R’B’FD’F’LF’D²F²D²F²D²
F’L’FDF’BRLF’D²F²D²F²D²
- (dl)+(dr)+ —
- Three-cycles of edges
- (dl,df,dr) — L’DLF²D²F²D²F²D²L’D’LF²D²F²D²F²D²
- (df,dl,db) — F²B²DR’LF²RL’U²D’F²B²
- Double edge pair swappers
- Corner operators
- Double corner pair swappers
- (dlf,drb)(drf,dlb) — L’RDF²D²F²D²F²DR’LD²
- (dlf,drb)(drf,dlb) — F²D²F²D²F²D’F²D²F²D²F²D’
- (dlf,drb)(drf,dlb) — L²R²D²L²R²U²DL²R²D²L²R²U²D
- Meson makers (quarkscrews)
- (drf)+(dlb)– —
F’UFU²F’U²FL’RDF²D²F²D²F²DR’LD²
F’U²FU²F’U’FL’RDF²D²F²D²F²DR’LD²
- (drf)+(dlb)– —
- Three-cycles of corners
- (dlf,drb,drf)+- (introduces a quark) —
RUR’BLB’L’RDF²D²F²D²F²DR’LD²
BL’B’L’RDF²D²F²D²F²DR’LD²RU’R’ - (dlf,drb,drf) —
R²DF²D²F²D²F²DR’LD²R’D’R²DUL’UL
RDF²D²F²D²F²DR’LD²L²U’LU’D’R²DL’
- (dlf,drb,drf)+- (introduces a quark) —
- Double corner pair swappers
Hofstadter’s article inspired me to put in the effort to read his fascinating book Goedel, Escher and Bach. It is not an exaggeration, as I do here, to describe it as a romp through a variety of fields. Perhaps second only to my high-school programming mentor, I owe Hofstadter my interests in math and computer science.
If you’re interested in Hofstadter’s article on the cube, you can order a digital edition from Scientific American.
Famine
I’ve appreciated what Doug Wilson has had to say about contemporary food idolatries. His latest post is a little oblique, but good. Pulling out some punchy sound bites (and completely glossing over the necessary caveats):
I believe that some wives, in the way they pursue “healthy” menu choices for their home, are inadvertently trying to teach their husbands and children how to cheat. . . .
A school district in New York just recently dropped the First Lady’s school lunch program because the kids were hungry all the time. What happens in a family where the first lady there has implemented a similar regime and does not have buy-in from her husband and kids? One of the obvious things is that the husband often has the resources to fix things at lunch with a greasy burger, after obtaining a vow from his co-workers to “not tell a soul.”
. . . [A] man should not work to put food on the table, his own table, and then come away from that table hungry. . . . [I]t is crucial that the home not become a place of tight-fisted denial, where wives become the governess of no, instead of the mistress of yes.
I have no idea how common this is. But I want to sidestep that question and take this in a different, but related, direction. There is one marriage, one family, one house and one table that will endure into eternity. These are the archetypes for our marriages, families, houses and tables. So, what kind of table do we believe that Jesus provides for his own bride? And what kind of table is Jesus’s bride setting for him? Is it a famine or a feast?
I’m referring to the Lord’s supper, the new covenant’s one food law and the fulfillment of all old-covenant feasts. We eat this meal together with Jesus at his table in his house. As his bride, we should adorn the table and prepare a kingly feast. And as priests to the king, we have the privilege and responsibility to serve at his request as his royal chefs. There are no more animal sacrifices, of course; we now offer ourselves and the work of our hands, however imperfect, for his evaluation and approval.
Grain and grapes are the Bible’s repeated image of the fruit of the blessed land. Transformed by man’s week-day labor into bread and wine, God uses them again and again to picture the food of the seated and reigning Messiah-king. Because we are seated with him, Jesus gives us a physical taste of his new kingdom; and it is the actual eating and drinking of real bread and wine that is sacramental, rather than merely reflecting on the idea of bread and wine. The Lord’s supper should, as much as possible, convey the greatness, goodness and richness of Jesus’s kingdom. Wherever possible, it is fitting for the church to enjoy the Lord’s supper weekly and to do so lavishly, with rich bread and good wine.
See also: Pig out, Sabbath, The Lord’s table.
Cold-brew coffee
We’ve started making cold-brew coffee to enjoy on weekend afternoons. What they say is true — it has little of the bitterness of normal coffee, so that it tastes almost sweet. Cold-brew coffee very nearly fulfills the promise of coffee’s aroma.
Here’s how we make it:
- Measure the usual amount of coffee grounds you would use and place it in a French press
- Pour room-temperature water over it; use half the amount of water you would use if you were making a hot brew
- Let it steep for twelve hours
- Press (and optionally filter) the coffee and store it in the fridge
- When you’re ready to drink it, add to it an equal portion of either water or milk
Enjoy! It’s worth the inconvenience of having to prepare well in advance.
Patience
Patience is a fruit of the Spirit:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, . . . — Gal. 5:22
Patience and faith and wisdom and maturity are all bound up together. Consider Abraham’s faith and patience:
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. — Heb. 11:8-10
From the time of God’s promise to Abraham, it was over four hundred years before his descendants were freed from Egyptian slavery. It was a thousand years before Solomon dedicated God’s palace in what was once Melchizedek’s Salem on Mount Moriah. It was another thousand years before Jesus the new Melchizedek inaugurated the New Jerusalem of his church.
Sometimes the patience that the Spirit wants to forge in us is a thousand-year patience.
What would it look like if we were to have a thousand-year patience in our dreams and visions for God’s church?
That is not to say that we should be complacent, or work with any less fervor. It is simply to recognize that God’s kingdom grows like yeast or like a tree. We see this in our own lives, too: while there are great seasons of spring-like growth, over the long haul maturation and glorification is largely a matter of plodding self-sacrificial faithfulness. While the kingdoms of men might rise and fall quickly by the compulsion and cowing of the sword, God’s kingdom flourishes by the nurture (Eph. 5:26) and cutting (Eph. 6:17) of the sword of the Spirit — the word of God.
But this also expands our horizons: what would it look like to dream thousand-year dreams and pray thousand-year prayers for God’s church? If God intends to bless his people to a thousand generations (Ps. 105:8), as his own personal name attests (Ex. 34:6-7), then things might only just be starting to warm up after another thousand years.
See also the future of Jesus.
Unbelievers?
Bob Kauflin interviewed Marty Machowski, the author of the Gospel Story for Kids Sunday-school curriculum, here. There’s a lot to appreciate about what Machowski has to say, but he makes a shocking statement:
Our children, meeting in classrooms during our Sunday worship services represent the largest group of gathered unbelievers across the world.
From time to time I hear parents expressing similar sentiments — “they’re all unregenerate [or heathens],” “we can’t expect that of him; he’s not saved,” or “her problem is just that she needs to be saved.” Overwhelmingly we speak of evangelizing our children rather than discipling them. We wring our hands over the possibility of giving them false assurance, but we are almost entirely unconcerned about the danger of creating millstones of false doubt.
God does not speak of or relate to our children in this way, and it is dangerous for us to do so. It is dangerous because it trains us and our children to doubt and test the promises of God rather than believing and acting upon them. This is how God speaks of our children:
- He addresses them with commands and encouragements as part of the body of his elect “saints” (e.g., Ex. 20:2, 12; Eph. 1:1, 6:1; Col. 1:2, 3:20)
- He requires their presence in worship (Ex. 10:8-11, Ps. 96:7) and feasts (Deut. 16:9-15). He receives their worship (Matt. 21:16) as a potent spiritual warfare to silence his enemies (Ps. 8:2).
- They trusted in him before they were born (Ps. 71:6) and as infants (Ps. 22:9)
- He is their God (Gen. 17:8, Ezek. 37:21-28, etc.)
- He has promised the Holy Spirit to them (Isa. 59:21)
- He regards them as holy (1 Cor. 7:14)
We ought to speak of and think about our children in the same way that God does. This will not leave us complacent, but will instead motivate us to go about the work of parenting rightly, with full confidence in God’s being already at work in them. Instead of leading our children to the way, we will train them in the way (Prov. 22:6). What we once called evangelism must become full-orbed discipleship. Our children need the gospel, but in just the same way we do — to be continually reminded of the promises and goodness and nearness of God and to be growing in repentance and faith.
See also
- Other posts on parenting
- Vern Poythress’s helpful article, Indifferentism and Rigorism
Sabbath
Some commentators suggest that the structure of the middle section of Deuteronomy follows the ten commandments. Moses, having meditated on the law over the course of thirty-eight years in the wilderness, preaches an inspired sermon to Israel reflecting on the greater meaning and application of the law. There is some minor disagreement as to the exact boundaries within this part of Deuteronomy, but one possibility is given by James Jordan in his book, Covenant Sequence in Leviticus and Deuteronomy:
- First commandment: Deut. 6-11
- Second commandment: Deut. 12-13
- Third commandment: Deut. 14:1-21a
- Fourth commandment: Deut. 14:21b-16:17
- Fifth commandment: Deut. 16:18-18:22
- Sixth commandment: Deut. 19:1-22:8
- Seventh commandment: Deut. 22:9-23:14
- Eighth commandment: Deut. 23:15-24:7
- Ninth commandment: Deut. 24:8-25:3
- Tenth commandment: Deut. 25:4-26:19
This is in keeping with other places such as Proverbs and Matthew 5-7, where we see further wisdom drawn from reflection upon the law: Moses, Solomon and Jesus are all inspired commentators on the ten commandments. This also supports the church’s practice of striving to read and apply the commandments with maximum breadth. For example, Calvin writes that “in almost all the commandments, there are elliptical expressions, and that, therefore, any man would make himself ridiculous by attempting to restrict the spirit of the Law to the strict letter of the words.” He concludes that, “thus, the end of the Fifth Commandment is to render honour to [all] those on whom God bestows it” (Book II, Chapter 8, Section 8), since the Bible understands the term “father” quite broadly. In just the same way, the Westminster Shorter Catechism states that the fifth commandment requires us to bestow honor and perform duties “belonging to everyone in their several places and relations, as superiors, inferiors, or equals.” Paul himself seems to make this application of the fifth commandment in Ephesians 6, if we consider all of verses 1-9 to be joined together. And Moses does likewise in Deut. 16:18ff as suggested above.
This observation lends us an interesting bit of help in understanding how the Sabbath commandment can be transfigured in the new covenant from Sabbath to Lord’s day, from last day to first. In the fourth-commandment section (Deut. 14:21b-16:17), Moses mentions three of the seven feasts that God gave to Israel. We see the full list of feasts spelled out in Leviticus 23, beginning with the weekly Sabbath feast and culminating in the feast of booths. The three feasts that Moses lists here in Deuteronomy are the ones that God required to be celebrated at his house. Reading through the entire section, Moses’ application of the fourth commandment establishes the following principles:
- We obey the fourth commandment by bringing a tithe to God’s house
- We obey the fourth commandment by showing generosity and granting rest to others
- We obey the fourth commandment by keeping God’s appointed feasts at his house
These principles help us to understand how Saturday’s Sabbath is transfigured to Sunday’s Lord’s day in the new covenant. God’s house is the gathering of his people before him in worship, and in the new covenant all of the feasts of Leviticus 23 are fulfilled in one feast, the Lord’s supper. Connecting this to Moses’ application of the fourth commandment, we see that the Sabbath itself is fulfilled in the Lord’s supper. Certainly there is much more that needs to be said, but we can say this: when Jesus’s church gathers in his house to celebrate his feast with him and to bring him tribute, there the fourth commandment is being kept.
This also lends support to the practice of weekly communion.
The picture above was painted by my friend, the very talented Jermaine Powell.
Worship is the foundation of righteousness
The first foundation of righteousness undoubtedly is the worship of God. When it is subverted, all the other parts of righteousness, like a building rent asunder, and in ruins, are racked and scattered. What kind of righteousness do you call it, not to commit theft and rapine, if you, in the meantime, with impious sacrilege, rob God of his glory? or not to defile your body with fornication, if you profane his holy name with blasphemy? or not to take away the life of man, if you strive to cut off and destroy the remembrance of God? It is vain, therefore, to talk of righteousness apart from religion. Such righteousness has no more beauty than the trunk of a body deprived of its head. Nor is religion the principal part merely: it is the very soul by which the whole lives and breathes. Without the fear of God, men do not even observe justice and charity among themselves. We say, then, that the worship of God is the beginning and foundation of righteousness; and that wherever it is wanting, any degree of equity, or continence, or temperance, existing among men themselves, is empty and frivolous in the sight of God. We call it the source and soul of righteousness, in as much as men learn to live together temperately, and without injury, when they revere God as the judge of right and wrong. — Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, book 2, chapter 8, section 11
I gotta have my orange juice. 