And Can It Be

The Christian faith has produced myriads of great hymns, and one of my favorites is “And Can It Be” by Charles Wesley.  I hope this song is sung at my funeral.  The third verse is one of my favorite verses of any song I know:

Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night
Thine eye diffused a quick’ning ray
I woke the dungeon flamed with light
My chains fell off my heart was free
I rose went forth and followed Thee
Amazing love, how can it be
That Thou my God shouldst die for me?

Everyone who is in Christ has a unique testimony of how God “has delivered us from  the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins,” (Col 1:13-14), but at the core we all have the same story, and this verse of “And Can It Be” articulates it about as well as one could hope.

 

 

The Message of the Bible

Anything that aids in understanding the story of the Bible is worth highlighting.  Here are two things that do that.  The first is a nice summary of the Bible’s message in 221 words from D.A. Carson.  It’s from For Such a Time as This: Perspectives on Evangelicalism, Past, Present and Future, and I found it over at the DG Blog.

D. A. Carson:

God is the sovereign, transcendent and personal God who has made the universe, including us, his image-bearers. Our misery lies in our rebellion, our alienation from God, which, despite his forbearance, attracts his implacable wrath.

But God, precisely because love is of the very essence of his character, takes the initiative and prepared for the coming of his own Son by raising up a people who, by covenantal stipulations, temple worship, systems of sacrifice and of priesthood, by kings and by prophets, are taught something of what God is planning and what he expects.

In the fullness of time his Son comes and takes on human nature. He comes not, in the first instance, to judge but to save: he dies the death of his people, rises from the grave and, in returning to his heavenly Father, bequeaths the Holy Spirit as the down payment and guarantee of the ultimate gift he has secured for them—an eternity of bliss in the presence of God himself, in a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.

The only alternative is to be shut out from the presence of this God forever, in the torments of hell. What men and women must do, before it is too late, is repent and trust Christ; the alternative is to disobey the gospel (Romans 10:16;2 Thessalonians 1:8; 1 Peter 4:17).

The second one is a 3-minute video from the folks at The Gospel Project that also gives the story of Scripture using some beautiful artwork:

Um…like…ya know?

Say what you will, but I occasionally read the blog The Art of Manliness.  They recently had an article on the value of being well-spoken, giving special attention to the filler in our speech:

Filler consists of empty, extraneous language that pads your sentences without adding any additional meaning. It’s like empty calories – it’s there, but it doesn’t nourish. Examples of fillers include words and phrases such as “I mean,” “sort of,” “ya know?” “well,” and of course, “like.”  But the most famous fillers of all — the type that comes in for the most attention and disdain – are “uh” and “um.”

One of the reasons they cite for the filler epidemic is a lack of confidence in what we say.  This might seem obvious, but one wonders when it became cool to speak with such uncertainty.  This type of speech is the subject of this funny and perceptive clip:

What We Miss

Tim Challies mused a few days back on our impulse to capture and record moments rather than simply experience them.  I’m guilty of this at times, so perhaps that is why it resonates.  There’s certainly nothing wrong with taking pictures or video, but it’s worth thinking about.  Here’s the crux:

I wonder how many beautiful moments we miss because we are afraid we will miss them. Instead of living fully in the moment, enjoying the music or the sunrise or the games with our children, we fall into this strange habit of recording it all. We experience the sunrise through the lens of an iPhone instead of just basking in it, we tinker with focus and angles recording quality instead of just enjoying the music. When all is said and done, we’ve recorded an experience that we missed out on, and the replay is just never as good.

God Is Still God, and God Is Still Good

I will never forget the first time I watched this video.  It tells the story of Zac Smith, and it’d be well worth your time to watch it.  I hope you are stirred to love and good works and encouraged to live in light of the things that matter.

Philippians 1:21 – For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

Book Bits: Douglas Wilson’s Wordsmithy

This book on writing was a lot of fun. The guy knows how to write. If I included all of his helpful insights and catchy phrasing it’d make for a long post, so here’s a handful.

1.  “When people are focusing on your rhetoric…it means that you are failing in your rhetoric” (19).

2. “The most contagious form of teaching is when an instructor loves his material in the presence of others – whom he also loves.  We have all heard someone tell a joke before when the joke wasn’t all that funny, but the joke teller was wheezing, trying to get through it.  Chances are that his audience was caught up in the experience too, enjoying the enjoyment that the joke teller had in his joke” (26).

3. “If you ‘write by rule’ only, then, as Quintilian once put it, you will come up something that is equally free of both vice and virtue, like a verbal tapioca pudding made with skim milk.  Our world already has too much verbiage in it that comes off like it was written by a committee or a computer – or maybe a committee of computers” (32).

4. “Most of what is shaping you in the course of your reading you will not be able to remember.  The most formative years of my life were the first five, and if those years were to be evaluated on the basis of my ability to pass a test on them, the conclusion would be that nothing important happened then, which would be false.  The fact that you can’t remember things doesn’t mean that you haven’t been shaped by them” (34).

5. On receiving criticism: “You have to have that rare combination of thick skin and a tender heart” (87).

10,000 Reasons by Matt Redman

Great song here by Matt Redman.

Psalm 103.

Kyrie Irving = Uncle Drew

Perhaps it’s because I’m a fan of Duke basketball, but this is awesome.

Church Membership: The Metaphors of the Church

There are a number of metaphors for the church in the New Testament: flock (Acts 20:28), household (1 Tim 3:15), temple (1 Cor 3:16), and body (1 Cor 12:12-31), for example.  Each image implies that we can identify who belongs and also that survival depends on belonging.

Identity
Each of these metaphors contains a clear delineation between inside and out.  Sheep belong to a flock, family members to a family, body parts to a body, and these metaphors assume that it’s clear who is and is not a part.  There is no confusion about who is wearing the jersey of your team or another.

Survival
Neither sheep nor body parts survive on their own; they need to be connected in order to thrive.  There is safety in the flock, and there is mutual dependence in the body that benefits each member.  Yet these benefits depend on mutual commitment.  How do you know to which believers you are to be connected and committed?  Church membership seems a good place to start.  Be willing to put on the jersey.

“When a person becomes a Christian, he doesn’t just join a local church because it’s a good habit for growing in spiritual maturity. He joins a local church because it’s the expression of what Christ has made him—a member of the body of Christ.”
-Mark Dever, What is a Healthy Church?

Church Membership: The Structures of the Church

Perhaps we’re scared of commitment.  Maybe we’re allergic to authority.  Certainly we’re weary of any insider/outside distinction.  Whatever it is, a lot of people are skeptical about church membership.  Is it really necessary?  Is it really biblical?

The New Testament assumes church membership and implies its necessity in a few ways, and this post is focusing on the structures of the church, namely its leadership and discipline.

Leadership
Hebrews 13:17 – “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to  give an account.  Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.”

The words “obey” and “submit” are heavy, and nobody should go around obeying and submitting indiscriminately.  But how do we know where to direct our submission if it’s not clearly defined?  Submission requires formality, or at least an acknowledged arrangement (e.g. children to parents, wife to husband, citizen to state).  Or, as a leader, how do you identify the souls for which you will give an account (before God!) without clear boundaries that define who is and is not under your care?  Church membership clears the fog: members obey and submit to their leaders, leaders are accountable for the care of their members’ souls.

Discipline
1 Corinthians 5:2 – “Let him who has done this be removed from among you.”
1 Corinthians 5:12 – “For what have I to do with judging outsiders?  Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?”

The Apostle Paul urges the Corinthians to remove this man from the church on account of his conduct.  He then reminds them that they are to judge those inside the church, not outside.  Judgment is not to be exercised lightly (hence the instructions of Jesus in Matthew 18:15-20), so the church had better know precisely who is on the outside and who is on the inside.  How could they put this man outside if he had never been inside?  Paul is assuming that the boundaries are clear, and they are made clear for everyone by church membership.