Posts Tagged ‘Christianity’
Hospitality
Peter Leithart writes of hospitality:
Feasting and care for the poor have been polarized in contemporary culture. If you’re a “conservative,” you’re in favor of free trade, consumption without guilt, festivity without concern for those who can’t join you, who probably deserve their poverty anyway. If you’re a “liberal,” you renounce festivity because other people are hungry and how dare you eat when someone else isn’t.
The Biblical prophets combine a promise of festivity with severe denunciation of greed, luxury, and oppression. But they combine the two seamlessly by emphasizing hospitality. The promise is a feast like the feasts of the Pentateuch, where the widow, stranger, and Levite are not forgotten but included as welcome guests.
Against both “conservative” indifference and liberal asceticism, the Bible presents the ideal of the hospitable society.
Better
“God has better plans for you than an easy life and victories to follow victories.” — Daniel Baker
Sanctification's dying
Everything worth keeping, it comes through dying.
— Caedmon’s Call, “Ten Thousand Angels,” Overdressed (Limited Edition)
The one thing that is “not good” in the original creation is Adam’s loneliness. And how does God go about addressing that imperfection? He puts Adam into deep sleep, tears out a rib from his side, closes up the flesh, and builds a woman from the rib. The solution to what is “not good” is something like death, and something like resurrection.
That’s always the solution. When God sees that something is “not good” in us, in our life situation, He tends not to ease us into a new stage. He kills us, in order to raise us up again. That has to happen, because it is a universal truth that “unless the seed go into the ground and die, it cannot bear fruit.”
— Peter Leithart, “Radical Solution”
Luther on changing diapers
Gene Veith quotes Luther on the Christian’s view of parenting. Reproducing it in full, including Veith’s parenthetical remarks:
In working on an article about vocation, I was looking for the source of Luther’s famous saying about the holiness of changing diapers. I found his sermon “The Estate of Marriage” (1522) posted online here. A priceless excerpt:
Now observe that when that clever harlot, our natural reason (which the pagans followed in trying to be most clever), takes a look at married life, she turns up her nose and says, “Alas, must I rock the baby, wash its diapers, make its bed, smell its stench, stay up nights with it, take care of it when it cries, heal its rashes and sores, and on top of that care for my wife, provide for her, labour at my trade, take care of this and take care of that, do this and do that, endure this and endure that, and whatever else of bitterness and drudgery married life involves? What, should I make such a prisoner of myself? O you poor, wretched fellow, have you taken a wife? Fie, fie upon such wretchedness and bitterness! It is better to remain free and lead a peaceful. carefree life; I will become a priest or a nun and compel my children to do likewise.”
What then does Christian faith say to this? It opens its eyes, looks upon all these insignificant, distasteful, and despised duties in the Spirit, and is aware that they are all adorned with divine approval as with the costliest gold and jewels. It says, “O God, because I am certain that thou hast created me as a man and hast from my body begotten this child, I also know for a certainty that it meets with thy perfect pleasure. I confess to thee that I am not worthy to rock the little babe or wash its diapers. or to be entrusted with the care of the child and its mother. How is it that I, without any merit, have come to this distinction of being certain that I am serving thy creature and thy most precious will? O how gladly will I do so, though the duties should be even more insignificant and despised. Neither frost nor heat, neither drudgery nor labour, will distress or dissuade me, for I am certain that it is thus pleasing in thy sight.”
A wife too should regard her duties in the same light, as she suckles the child, rocks and bathes it, and cares for it in other ways; and as she busies herself with other duties and renders help and obedience to her husband. These are truly golden and noble works. . . .
Now you tell me, when a father goes ahead and washes diapers or performs some other mean task for his child, and someone ridicules him as an effeminate fool, though that father is acting in the spirit just described and in Christian faith, my dear fellow you tell me, which of the two is most keenly ridiculing the other? God, with all his angels and creatures, is smiling, not because that father is washing diapers, but because he is doing so in Christian faith. Those who sneer at him and see only the task but not the faith are ridiculing God with all his creatures, as the biggest fool on earth. Indeed, they are only ridiculing themselves; with all their cleverness they are nothing but devil’s fools.
Notice that in Luther, for all of the late medieval era, it is the FATHER who is dealing with the baby’s diaper.
Douglas Wilson takes on the new atheism
In recent months, Doug Wilson has wielded his pen against the new atheism in several ways:
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Wilson wrote a series of posts on his weblog in response to Sam Harris’s book, Letter to a Christian Nation. These posts are no longer available for reading online; they have been collected into the book Letter from a Christian Citizen.
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He has similarly reviewed and responded on his blog to Christopher Hitchens’ book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. These posts are still available on his blog and you can read them here: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapters 7 and 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18 and Chapter 19.
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He also had the opportunity to debate Christopher Hitchens online, courtesy of Christianity Today. Their debate is in six parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6.
Wilson makes two apologetic moves that you should watch closely. First, he consistently and very deftly pieces apart the atheist’s small little world and shows it to have no foundation, and therefore no meaning, and therefore no force or life or joy. This is well-played presuppositional apologetics. Second, and more importantly, in his personal interaction with Hitchens it is clear that Wilson does not see apologetics as an end in itself. Rather, he repeatedly uses apologetics as a means of disarming his opponent so that he can preach the gospel. It is vital that our practice of apologetics always points to Christ.
Fear the LORD
Fear the Lord, for:
Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways! You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord. The Lord bless you from Zion! May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life! May you see your children's children! Peace be upon Israel! -- Psalm 128
J. C. Ryle on denying yourself
Joshua Harris quotes J. C. Ryle on self-denial:
Are you making any sacrifices? Does your religion cost you anything? I put it to your conscience in all affection and tenderness. Are you, like Moses, preferring God to the world, or not? Are you willing to give up anything which keeps you back from God, or are you clinging to the Egypt of the world, and saying to yourself, “I must have it, I must have it: I cannot tear myself away”? Is there any cross in your Christianity? Are there any sharp corners in your religion, anything that ever jars and comes in collision with the earthly-mindedness around you? Or is all smooth and rounded off, and comfortably fitted into custom and fashion? Do you know anything of the afflictions of the gospel? Is your faith and practice ever a subject of scorn and reproach? Are you thought a fool by anyone because of your soul? Have you left Pharaoh’s daughter, and heartily joined the people of God? Are you venturing all on Christ? Search and see. —J.C. Ryle, Holiness
Living by faith alone
Man now had to learn to live by faith: our sin and the misery in the world had made it appear that man could expect no favor from God. To be sure, man had also lived by faith in Paradise, but then his belief made perfect sense. After the fall, man had to live by faith alone. God drove man out of Paradise and appointed an angel to guard the way to the tree of life. At that point the trials of life by faith alone began. All the same, man still enjoyed the privilege of faith in God’s continued favor.
— S. G. de Graaf
Sin blinds our eyes to the Lordship and goodness of our Savior. Consequently, faith is not a natural way to think, and while it is a precious gift from God, we must also battle to see with eyes of faith.
HT: wedgewords
Christ our mediator
“If, then, we should seek for another mediator who would be favorably inclined toward us, whom could we find who loved us more than He who laid down His life for us, even while we were his enemies?” — The Belgic Confession, Article 26
HT: Nathan S
I gotta have my orange juice. 
Conviction and the cure
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My pastors have been preaching through Exodus, and just finished ten weeks in the ten commandments. They have done an incredible job of helping us to feel the weight and glory of God’s holiness; but without letting us forget that the law sits on the bedrock foundation of the gospel (“I am the Lord your God, who brought you . . . out of the house of slavery”), and that our reading of the law absolutely must be infused with gospel hope.
Yet it is still so tempting for me to hear such a message and nurse my conviction, without really going any farther. Perhaps I resolve to change some things, but in reality my ears are tuning out the very gospel hope and power that are the only way I can possibly move beyond conviction. Mark Lauterbach critiques his sermons on this point, but we should also critique our listening — are our ears tuned in to savor conviction, or savor the gospel:
We want to welcome the Holy Spirit’s conviction, and repent, but we shouldn’t get off the bus there. Our conviction should drive us to look upward to our Savior rather than inward on our sin; the gospel is our only hope and power for forgiveness and for real change.
How do we make that something more than a mantra? How can we practically seize this gospel power to change? Here are some regular practices that can strengthen our faith and empower our obedience; please comment to add more:
Crossposted to Reflections on Upchurch
Written by Scott Moonen
February 26, 2007 at 5:48 am
Posted in Commentary, Quotations
Tagged with adopt, adoption, application, C.-J.-Mahaney, Christ, Christian-living, Christianity, commands, Commentary, cross, ethics, Father, fatherhood, fatherhood-of-God, forgiveness, God, goodness-of-God, gospel, gospel-centrality, grace, gratitude, holiness, Holy-Spirit, Jerry-Bridges, John-Piper, joy, justification, law, lordship, love, Mark-Lauterbach, mediator, mercy, new-creation, obedience, quotation, redemption, righteousness, salvation, sanctification, sin, spiritual-disciplines, ten-commandments, thankfulness