This weekend, my wife and I took a night away from the kids. It really felt like a mini-vacation. For today’s blog, I want to share a few things (not necessarily spiritual) about our experience.
Getting away is good – It is funny how much one night away can do to relax parents. I love my kids very much, and really enjoy being around them. I also love my wife very much, and it is very nice to be around her without us needing to watch out for the kids.
Priceline rocks – We decided, on a whim, to see about getting a hotel for our night away. So, the night before, we put in what we thought was a ridiculously low bid of $50 for a four star hotel. Our bid was accepted, and so we were able to stay at a very nice hotel just a few blocks from Busch Stadium. (Also note, nice hotels are good things.)
Ballgames – Sitting in the ballpark actually opens up lots of opportunities for conversation with your spouse.
Bratzels – At the ball park, I ate a bratzel. Imagine a bratwurst wrapped up in a pretzel. This is a good thing, though it does not lend itself to all the traditional bratwurst toppings. So, all-in-all, I am glad I tried a bratzel, but I won’t have it next time.
Sluggies – If you decide to go to the ballpark on Sluggie night, get there early. Fans were lined up for a long time in order to make sure that they got their little Cardinals blankies with sleeves. Sluggies are spiffy, but if it is Sluggie night, get there early.
People’s language surprises me – In the ballpark as well as around the city, I found myself regularly surprised by the constant stream of profanity that flows so freely from the mouths of folks. My time spent so often around Christians made this kind of language really stand out to me. If you are given to the use of foul language, let me say to you that you sound very empty-headed to those who are not accustomed to hearing it. And, Christians, if you do not notice the profanity of the world around you, why not? Are you hearing foul language so much in your entertainment that it no longer gets your attention?
Guys on cell phones at the ballpark can be really annoying – The guy sitting immediately to my right at the game spent three full innings on the phone with a friend who was also in the park. They were trying to see if they could see each other. So, for a full third of the game, I heard this genius saying things like, “No, look at the tarp. I’m in the second section back from the end of the tarp. . . You can’t see me? Oh, did you see where that foul ball landed? I’m one section over from that. . . OK, stand up. No, I don’t’ see you.” For the love of baseball and for fans everywhere, I want to say to anyone tempted to do this, “Watch the game!”
Storms – Our game was delayed at the middle of the sixth inning due to rain. Before the stoppage, we experienced a lot of lightning with accompanying thunder. Thunder sounds really fascinating when you are in a full stadium. Lightning is a better light show than fireworks. But it is creepy when you are in the park and you realize that you’ve been listening to the tornado sirens for the last five minutes. Yep, we were in an open-air stadium with tornado warnings all around us. Oh, and I have discovered that wearing a poncho is better than fighting with an umbrella.
Chipotle is not as good as Qdoba – We went to a Chipotle for lunch. I love big burritos. Qdoba is simply better than Chipotle in every way. Qdoba has better flavor and more options. So, if you want a big burrito, look for the Q.
Linder Chocolate Truffles – We picked up a bag of these little treats at Target. They are yummy.
Well, there you have it. I hope you now feel enlightened.
Duncan on Systemmatics
Have you ever heard someone put down the study of theology? Have you ever heard a church member say that they want preaching instead of teaching? Have you ever heard someone put down doctrine as if doctrine or theology is something for a classroom on a seminary campus and not for the average church member? Perhaps if you have, the following quotes from Ligon Duncan will encourage you to stick with the study and teaching of doctrine, regardless its general popularity.
From: T4G – J. Ligon Duncan III. Proclaiming a Cross Centered Theology. Wheaton: Crossway, 2009.
“I want to convince you that everyone is a systematic theologian (whether they admit it or not—especially those who protest most loudly that they don’t believe in systematic theology). The only question is whether we will be biblical in our systematic theology or make it up as we go along” (19)
“The Bible itself, in the Old Testament and the New, makes clear that doctrine is for living. The study of doctrine is not (or at least ought not to be) an arid, speculative, impractical enterprise. Doctrine is for life! If the truth does not mold the way we live and minister, if it does not inform our speech, our relationships, our prayer, our worship, and our ministry, then the truth has gone bad on us—no matter how true the truth is. Biblical truth is meant to be expressed in our experience and practice, if we truly understand and believe it” (20).
“A wise, old, conservative Jewish professor of mine once told us with a twinkle in his eye, ‘A liberal Protestant, a liberal Catholic, and a liberal Jew can agree on almost everything, because they believe almost nothing!’” (24).
“When a congregation member comes up to you and says, ‘Pastor, tell me, what does the Bible say about angels?’ he doesn’t want a storied narrative. He wants a brief, biblical summarization that takes into account the shape of all the teaching of Scripture on that particular topic. That’s what systematic theology does. You do it all the time as a pastor” (34).
“He is praying specifically that his disciples would understand that he is leaving them and going to the Father, and that they would be built up in the truth of the Word of the Father that he had been speaking to them, so that his joy would be fulfilled in them. Jesus is saying that truth is for joy. Doctrine is for delight, the Lord Jesus says. If you denigrate doctrine, you denigrate what Jesus says is necessary for joy. You are a killjoy if you are against doctrine, because the Lord Jesus says truth is for joy” (39).
“We need to meet this postmodern uncertainty, this postmodern aversion to truth and doctrine, by celebrating truth and doctrine and by unashamedly asserting and declaring theology. I want to urge that your preaching, which ought to be expositional, ought also to be robustly theological. We need to be joyfully and emphatically doctrinal and theological in our ministry. I don’t mean that we ought to bring the vocabulary of the seminary into our pulpits (that’s not what we need to do); but I do mean that we need to bring the substance of the Bible’s theology into our preaching and bring our people into contact with it. We need to see the value of truth, doctrine, and theology, and we need to out-live and out-rejoice and out-die the critics of theology and doctrine” (44).
“Have you ever thought that refutation of false doctrine encourages the brethren? Well, that’s what Luke says. It strikes me as I think of it that the most enduring and edifying legacy of the early post-apostolic church is found in their polemics. When they were arguing against false teaching, they almost always got it right. When they were not, they were theologically hit-or-miss” 948).
“‘You did not choose me, but I chose you’ (John 15:16), Jesus says in the upper room. He is going to die in a matter of hours for the sins of the world, and he is teaching them about election. Why was it so important for Jesus to teach his disciples about election here, that he had chosen them rather than them choosing him? It was important because, as Matthew tells us, they were all going to abandon him that night (Matt. 26:31). Not just Judas, but all of them. If they were going to have one shred of assurance left, it would not be based on the fact that they had chosen him or followed him or remained faithful to him, because everything about their actions that night and the next day would scream into their hearts and consciences that they had no part of him. That is why they had to hear the Master say, ‘Friend, I knew everything in you, I knew all you’d ever done and all you’d ever do, and I chose you anyway. I chose you and nothing can take you away from me.’ The doctrine of election is for assurance. Doctrine is for assurance” (54-55).
Eisenhower, Peace, and the Kingdom of Christ
While reading a biography of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, I was struck by the words of his “Chance for Peace” speech delivered in 1953. Eisenhower grasped that the necessity for nations to spend money and resources on arms necessarily deprives citizens of the world of the things that would improve life for all people. Eisenhower was not an unrealistic pacifist. He understood that militaries were required for the safety of the nation and the world. But he rightly recognized that we should, as a race, long for peace and its benefits.
As a believer, I find Eisenhower’s words as an interesting secular spur toward praying for the coming of the kingdom of the Lord in full. Only when Christ reigns without opposition will we truly see a world at peace that will reap the benefits of peace for all. Of course, this is a conquest of the world which must come without military means. This is a conquest of the world that must happen as the Lord turns the hearts of men to himself as his servants take the gospel to the nations.
Eisenhower spoke of the chance for peace. I can speak of the certain hope of future peace. Jesus will reign. The Lord’s kingdom will be consummated. May we, the people of God, be about taking the gospel of Christ to the nations and giving our all to this cause until that glorious Day when Christ is hailed as Lord by all to the glory of God the Father (Phil 2:10-11).
The following is from Eisenhower’s speech:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. These plain and cruel truths define the peril and point to the hope that comes with this spring of 1953.
. . .
The peace we seek, founded upon decent trust and cooperative effort among nations, can be fortified, not by weapons of war but by wheat and by cotton, by milk and by wool, by meat and by timber and by rice. These are words that translate into every language on earth. These are needs that challenge this world in arms.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, “The Chance for Peace,” speech delivered to the American Society of Newspaper Editors on April 16, 1953 (Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission) [on-line]; accessed 5 Mar 2010; available from http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/speeches/19530416%20Chance%20for%20Peace.htm; Internet.
Something is Missing in this Logic
A recent article reports that Nebraska lawmakers are considering a law banning certain types of abortions on the grounds that the fetus may feel pain during the procedure. As one might imagine, this is sparking a great deal of noise on both sides of the debate.
While I am certainly in favor of laws that will put an end to the willing murder of unborn children, can I simply say that the logic of this law is missing. Pain is not the primary factor here; death is. Killing a baby in a humane way verses killing a baby in an inhumane way still ends up with the same result. Whether the fetus feels pain or not, a human life, a child made in God’s image, has been dismembered by another human being.
Again, I’d probably vote for the law if I had it before me as a means of curbing the abortion industry’s reign of death. However, this kind of law will not ultimately make the difference in our society. Until our people grasp that taking the lives of babies for the sake of the mother’s convenience is a horrible sin, we will not get this issue right.
No, by the way, I am not a graceless, merciless, abortion Dr. murderer. Christ’s grace is big enough to cover the sins of all who will come to him. But this does not change the fact that abortion is pure evil, and we must pray that God will bring this practice to an end.
You Can’t Pray without the Word
In Nehemiah 9, the people give themselves to the reading of God’s word and to prayer. Below is what H. A. Ironside had to say about the need for the word to prompt prayer:
The first quarter of the day is spent in hearing the Word. Then the next quarter is given up to prayer: “They confessed and worshiped the Lord their God.” It is unwise, and may be hurtful, to reverse this order. The Word and prayer should ever go together—but it should be the Word first; then prayer follows intelligently. The believer should be a man holding the even balance of learning from the Word and cultivating the spirit of prayer. We need to hear God speaking to us that we may speak rightly to God.
One who gives himself pre-eminently to the Word, neglecting prayer, will become heady and doctrinal—likely to quarrel about “points,” and be occupied with theoretical Christianity to the hurt of his soul and the irritation of his brethren. On the other hand, one who gives himself much to prayer while neglecting the Word is likely to become exceedingly introspective, mystical, and sometimes fanatical. But he who reads the word of God reverently and humbly, seeking to know the will of God, and then gives himself to prayer, confessing and judging what the Scriptures have condemned in his ways, and words, and thoughts, will have his soul drawn out in worship also, and thus grow both in grace and in knowledge, becoming a well-rounded follower of Christ. Apart from a knowledge of the Word, prayer will lack exceedingly in intelligence; for the objective must ever precede the subjective, but not be divorced therefrom.
H. A. Ironside, Notes on the Book of Nehemiah. (New York: Loizeaux Bros., 1913), 97.
A Significant Date in History
Two things of major significance happened on this date in history. According to a post I recently read, it was February 18 when the wonderful Christian allegory, Pilgrim’s Progress, was published. This book has impacted millions all over the world, and still stands as one of the great works of literature that every student, Christian or not, should read.
But there is something even more significant that happened on this date. IT was ten years ago. On February 18, 2000, Mitzi agreed to marry me. The story is a cute one that I might tell someday. It involves a cleverly concealed ring, a fancy dinner, several surprises, and sappy songs on guitar. But, we’ll leave that for another post.
What I wrote in this post on our 9th anniversary is very much still true. God has blessed me with a godly woman who is willing to serve, to share, to sacrifice, to give, to work with me regardless the cost. Mitzi has shown me a great devotion to God, to me, to our children, and to the work of the ministry. She is a genuine helper and a person that people simply want to be around. I have absolutely no hesitation in saying that Mitzi is the one of us that people like and keep liking, even if I don’t always have that effect on people.
Yes, I know that Pilgrim’s Progress is one of the most widely-read works of literature in history. I know that it is a book that can dramatically open the eyes of people who have a difficult time understanding very important things. And with that said, I still know that, in my world, the far more significant February 18 occurred when my wife-to-be finally told me “yes.”
What Do You Think of Your Church?
From Joshua Harris, Stop Dating the Church, 58-59.
I’ve come to believe that our generation’s biggest obstacles aren’t problems in the church, but problems in us. We have absorbed attitudes and assumptions from the world around us that have negatively affected what we expect from church and how we approach our role in it.
For example:
· We’ve adopted self-centered attitudes. We’ve believed the lie that we’ll be happier the less we sacrifice or give of ourselves and our time. But the more we clutch our time, money, and comfort and selfishly refuse to give to our church, the less we receive back.
• We’ve let proud independence keep us uninvolved. This can be pride that says, “I don’t need other people in my life.” Or it may be pride that says, “I don’t want other people to see me for who I really am.” Both forms cut us off from the blessings and benefits of community in the local church.
• We’ve adopted a critical eye toward the church. We’ve believed that by complaining or logging our church’s faults, we are accomplishing something. But God calls us to repent of our critical spirit and pick up one of concern instead. Genuine concern is what happens when we see a problem and we care. That kind of concern leads to positive changes for us and our church.
Recently my friend David from New York told me how he’d been going to church as a “consumer,” focused on comparing and critiquing. He realized he needed to become a “communer” who goes to meet God and express His love to others. God has helped him change from a person who left church each week with a list of complaints to an active servant. “The beautiful part of all this,” David said, “is that I’m a lot happier as a communer than I was as a consumer.”
Thundercats Ho!
So, we’ve finally managed to put up video of Josiah singing the theme song to the old cartoon Thundercats. I find it totally hilarious. I don’t know how to embed video in the post like the cool guys, so, to see Josiah going totally 80s, click here.
Sproul: The Pelagian Captivity of the Church
RC Sproul, well-known exponent of reformed theology, writes a provocative challenge for Christians to ponder regarding the issue of God’s sovereignty and man’s salvation. Sproul argues that a view which exalts man’s free will ultimately exalts man to an inappropriate level. If you are a Sproul fan, you will find this to be classic Sproul, worth citing. If you dislike Sproul or reformed theology, you will probably hate the article. If you are trying to better grasp the arguments that are made regarding the issues of free will and predestination, this is probably worth your perusal.
From the article:
And as long as semi-Pelagianism-which is simply a thinly veiled version of real Pelagianism at its core-as long as it prevails in the Church, I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I know, however, what will not happen: there will not be a new Reformation. Until we humble ourselves and understand that no man is an island and that no man has an island of righteousness, that we are utterly dependent upon the unmixed grace of God for our salvation, we will not begin to rest upon grace and rejoice in the greatness of God’s sovereignty, and we will not be rid of the pagan influence of humanism that exalts and puts man at the center of religion. Until that happens there will not be a new Reformation, because at the heart of Reformation teaching is the central place of the worship and gratitude given to God and God alone.
Challies Reviews the Trellis and the Vine
I recently skimmed the book The Trellis and the Vine and will be reading it with some fellow ministers next month. I found the book challenging and helpful, and will certainly look forward to a more thorough look at its concepts. Tim Challies writes a nice introductory review of the book in case you are interested.
Pastor Travis Peterson 