Thursday August 11th 2022

6:20PM | Themes in Psalm 119

p>I hope these two themes in the longest Psalm are encouraging and inspiring, as you read them and perhaps meditate on them.

I. I am a stranger and pilgrim on the Earth, and need God's law to direct me and show me how to live

v.19
I am a stranger in the earth;
Do not hide Your commandments from me.

v.54
Your statutes have been my songs
In the house of my pilgrimage.

v.73
Your hands have made me and fashioned me!
Give me understanding, that I may learn Your commandments.

II. I obey and delight in God's law despite worldly opposition

v.22-24
Remove from me reproach and contempt,
For I have kept Your testimonies.
Princes also sit and speak against me,
But Your servant meditates on Your statutes.
Your testimonies also are my delight
And my counselors.

v.31
I cling to Your testimonies;
O Lord, do not put me to shame!

v.38
Turn away my reproach which I dread,
For Your judgments are good.

v.44-47
So shall I keep Your law continually,
Forever and ever.
And I will walk at liberty,
For I seek Your precepts.
I will speak of Your testimonies also before kings,
And will not be ashamed.
And I will delight myself in Your commandments,
Which I love.

v.51
The proud have me in great derision,
Yet I do not turn aside from Your law.

v.61
The cord of the wicked have bound me,
But I have not forgotten Your law.

v.69
The proud have forged a lie against me,
But I will keep Your precepts with my whole heart.

v.87
They almost made an end of me on earth,
But I did not forsake Your precepts.

v.95
The wicked wait for me to destroy me,
But I will consider Your testimonies.

v.109-111
My life is continually in my hand [in danger],
Yet I do not forget Your law.
The wicked have laid a snare for me,
Yet I have not strayed from Your precepts.
Your testimonies I have taken as a heritage forever,
For they are the rejoicing of my heart.

v.157
Many are my persecutors and my enemies,
Yet I do not turn from Your testimonies.

v.161-163
Princes persecute me without a cause,
But my heart stands in awe of Your word.
I rejoice at Your word
As one who finds great treasure.
I hate and abhor lying,
But I love Your law.

v.165
Great peace have those who love Your law,
And nothing causes them to stumble.



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Saturday May 7th 2022

9:52AM | Thoughts Inspired by Psalm 35

salm 35 talks about how the Psalmist is wrongfully pursued and plotted against by his oppressors. This aggression is unprovoked: whenever those who are his enemies were sick or in trouble, the psalmist would pray for them and mourn with them. He would genuinely and earnestly wish for and seek their good, interceding for them.

My attitude, and Christians' attitude, should be the same to those who persecute us, trouble us, or who are not counted among us. Our mind should be that of Christ's, who when he was reviled did not revile in return (1 Peter 2:23).

We are not to return evil for evil (1 Peter 3:9) or avenge ourselves (Romans 12:19). It is God's office to avenge (Deuteronomy 32:35)) , and the Bible testifies that the wicked and evil are given over to foolishness and in will fall in their own traps that they have laid (Psalm 35:8; Psalm 81:12; Romans 1:24) . Their doom is sure (Luke 20:43; 1 Corinthians 15:26).

We are not to adopt the attitudes of and imitate the wicked, no matter how cathartic this may feel or apparently effective: those attitudes are anti-Christ. We are to be set apart, holy like God (Leviticus 11:44; 1 Corinthians 6:20).

We can pray for the wicked, for their well-being, for their health, for deliverance when they are in calamity. This can happen at the same time as praying that their foolish plans - those that are not in line with the will of God - will be thwarted.

The Bible also warns against boasting against the wicked when they fall (Proverbs 24:!7-18). Our boasting should not be against anything, but in something: the Lord who rules, delivers, and saves us (Jeremiah 9:24; 1 Corinthians 1:31).

In our fallen state, it is easy to get caught up in cycles of returning evil for evil, at trying to tear each other down trusting in our own strength. May the Lord grant us the wisdom, strength, and peace for relying on Him, looking to His words and His Word as our guide, so that we may love our enemies and those who mistreat us.

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Sunday January 16th 2022

10:36AM | Calvin, Rushdoony, Hodge, and Jordan on Romans 13

rackets and emphases are mine.

The biblical doctrine of civil government, as summarized in Romans 13:1-7, denies that the state has any right to represent the people: it must represent God.
(R.J. Rushdoony: The Politics of Guilt and Pity, p.336)


In commenting on Romans 13:1, John Calvin noted, "He calls them the higher powers, not the supreme." (John Calvin: Commentaries on Romans, p.400)

The means to office were various, but the same principle applied: their authority was of God in the discharge of their office, to be a terror to evildoers. Every de facto government has this duty, and the Christian has an obligation to be obedient to it as long as it fulfils in some sense this function.
(Rushdoony: op cit. p. 337)


Charles Hodge noted on Romans 13:2, along the same line of thought:

It was to Paul a matter of little importance whether the Roman emperor was appointed by the senate, the army, or the people; whether the assumption of the imperial authority by Caesar was just or unjust, or whether his successors had a legitimate claim to the throne or not. It was his object to lay down the simple principle, that magistrates are to be obeyed. The extent of this obedience is to be determined from the nature of the case. They are to be obeyed as magistrates, in the exercise of their lawful authority. When Paul commands wives to obey their husbands, they are required to obey them as husbands, not as masters, nor as kings; children are to obey their parents as parents, not as sovereigns; and so in every other case. This passage, therefore, affords a very slight foundation for the doctrine of passive obedience.
(Hodge: Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, p.641)


Rushdoony concludes:

To obey the state, therefore, when it enters into the domain of the church, whether to deny or to grant it the right of life, or of liberty of worship, or merely to regulate its existence, is to disobey God and to render to Caesar what belongs to God. This the early church refused to do. To obey the state when it enters into the domain of the family, school, business, and other like areas [other "governments"], is again to disobey God and to make a god of the state.
(Rushdoony: op cit. p. 337)


The Christian has certain duties towards civil government. First, he must esteem and respect civil magistrates as God's ministers (1 Pet. 2:13,14; Titus 3:1). The despisers of authority are denounced (2 Pet. 2:10; Jude 8). Second, this respect requires obedience in all lawful things (Rom. 13:1,2; Titus 3:1; 1 Pet. 3:13,14; 1 Tim. 2:1,2). Third, he must render service, military or tax, where service is due (Rom. 13:7). Fourth, he must pray even for hostile officers (1 Tim. 2:1-3), that they be blessed in their faithfulness and cursed in their lawlessness. Fifth, where a situation requires it, he must obey God rather than man (Acts 5:29).
/ (Rushdoony: op cit. p. 338)


In Primeval Saints, James Jordan write about rights and duties to the civil government:

The pagan stands his ground, guarding his own rights, but the Christian guards only the rights of God and, in doing so, he is willing to give up his own things in order to preserve peace.
(Jordan: Primeval Saints, p.11)


Respect for established order and authority is one of the cardinal keys to dominion.
(Jordan: op cit., p.53) [Jordan then goes on to cite the 5th commandment]


Rebellion and revolution against established order and authority is the quickest road to slavery ... Rebellion leads to slavery, and as the generations go by the slavery worsens ... As the centuries went by, the Canaanites' enslavement to sin became progressively worse until finally God destroyed them.
(Jordan: op cit., p.54)


This does not mean passive obedience, when the the wicked rule wickedly or usurp their area of sovereignty, i.e. rebel against God:

...the intensified curse mediated through the ground carried with it an implication that Cain's line would be sickly and weak because of sin. Why was Cain's line strong, then? How were they able to dominate the world - so much so that God determined to destroy it? By intermarrying with the mighty line of Seth! The Bible is teaching us that the wicked do not have strength in themselves. Only when the godly foolishly lend their strength to the wicked are the wicked able to prosper.
(Jordan: op cit., pp.45-46)


What then for Christians today, who are ruled by the ungodly in an ungodly society? A word of hope:

The story of Noah is a comfort for Christians today. Face with ungodliness on every side, we do not have rule or dominion. We live in a time of prophecy and Ark-building, warning the wicked and building the Church. In time, however, God will destroy the wicked, either through plague or conversion, and give rule to His people. The wine we drink in Holy Communion and the robes our church officers wear are our pledge that this is so. Like Noah, we must never shrink from our duty.
(Jordan: op cit., p.50)


Finally, Rushdoony again in condemnation of the anti-Christian totalitarian state usurping its place under God:

In the anti-Christian perspective, the function of the state, first of all, is to represent men rather than God. The state denies the sovereignty of God and, in the name of the people, it asserts its own sovereignty. Second, the modern state declares itself to be a human institution whose function is to promote human welfare. With this pretension that human welfare in the broadest sense is the state's concern, the state usurps the right of man to govern himself under God. The state becomes the totality of government, human and divine. Third, justice is now defined as meeting man's needs and wants. From the days of the Roman Empire to the present, the road to statism has been the assertion that "the health of the people is the highest law." In the name of the general welfare, the state institutes general tyranny and slavery. Justice is denied to the citizen and subject in the name of social justice meeting the needs of men en masse.
(Rushdoony: op cit. pp.338-339)

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Thursday December 30th 2021

8:34AM | Why I Won't Be Roman Catholic (Or Mormon, etc.)

his may seem over-simplistic (and caustic, but the contact initiated and cheap methods used by the proselytizers is galling), but I do not think it needs to be complicated. As a Christian, by God's mercy and grace I have been taken hold of, redeemed, and transformed by the saving atonement of Christ, and through the faith in God given to me by Him and through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit I am - remarkable to say - a child of God and am being sanctified and have been given a mandate here on earth to be a faithful steward and help apply Christ's kingdom in my little area of responsibility. My eyes have been opened to my sin, my need of Christ as Savior, and the efficacy of Christ's justification in His obedient life, death, and resurrection in which the Lord regards me. I look forward to the blessedness of eternal life in the presence of my Savior and God.

Roman Catholicism and Mormonism have nothing to offer me of Christ that I do not already have. Certainly at least, those who attempt to proselytize - whether cage stage Catholics or Mormon missionaries at my door - do not talk about Jesus because they have nothing to offer me in that regard. Instead they talk obsessively about the papacy, or Joseph Smith, or their church. Never about Jesus. Never. He is not presented as being primary. Why, conceivably why, would a proselytizer think they can or want to entice with me something lesser? This is cult activity, and not in the "cultus" context of that word. I am not suggesting that a Catholic or Mormon by default does not love Jesus (or their misconceived perception of Jesus for Mormons) or even perceive Him as primary in their thoughts or devotion, but that is not what is presented when they talk to me.

To illustrate the ridiculousness, it would be like me only ever extolling or attempting to entice by talking about Peter Leithart or Doug Wilson, rather than the good things they have to say about God.

Yes, God works through the Church on earth - His stewards and agents on earth, His bride and body - but always that body must acknowledge and give primacy to the head - Christ, not some earthly head no matter how exalted - and that Church must always be faithful, obedient, and subject to the will of Christ alone.

My next gripe for a future blog will be about Christians' "spiritual journeys", by which I mean their tradition hopping and subsequent telling of the story and attempting to persuade others to come along to that tradition. It is great to to study, learn, grow, and change your mind when fully persuaded, but when the focus is all about you and your journey, it is not as interesting or praiseworthy as you might think. Your attempts to proselytize on each stop after the second stage in your journey are hard to take seriously. Do not despise the mundane, small things or a long slow faithfulness in one direction. Always keep the focus on God, rather than yourself.

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Saturday November 6th 2021

9:02AM | A Dietary Case for Infant Baptism

postle Paul, in 1 Timothy 4:1-5 warns that some people in the church will depart from faith, teaching false doctrines and lying words, such as: "forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer."

In the Old Testament, the common man did not have direct access to God: worship, repentance, and supplication, during the time of the Mosaic law, for the ordinary man on an ordinary day was mediated through the priesthood. This was because humanity was fallen, not yet redeemed, and people had to go through purification rituals to be made clean and to approach the sanctuary, and offer sacrifices for forgiveness and worship.

After Christ's atoning death and resurrection, those who have been saved are now the body of Christ and have direct access to God through the indwelling Holy Spirit. As the body of Christ, our great high priest, Christians are priests: offering sacrifices of obedience, praise, and thanksgiving.

Christians purify or set things apart, applying a reversal of the curse of the fall as they obey God and act in accordance with His will. 1 Timothy 4:5 describes this priestly work of purifying, sanctifying, and setting apart for God when we receive food - of a type which would have been unclean under the Mosaic law - with thanksgiving and prayer.

Previously unclean foods are now both permissible and sanctified by the faithful recipients thanksgiving and prayer, an extension of the ultimate reconciling work of Jesus Christ.

God's priests purified or pronounced the ritual cleanliness of both people and places (e.g. the tabernacle, prescribing the law for purifying leprous buildings and judging/pronouncing clean or unclean based on the efficacy of the methods). Similarly, the equivalent scope of our priesthood is not less under our greater High Priest and this victorious era of redemption through Christ's blood and faithfulness.

As priests, we purify and set things apart through through obedience and of offering things up to God (such as through prayer or offerings) with the acknowledgement that they are His.

Our children are not excluded or excepted from these sanctifying effects, and certainly not from our sphere of responsibility. The Bible does not except them, and in fact positively says in 1 Corinthians 7:14: "For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your children unclean; but now are they holy." A faithful Christian is a person who is obeying God, offering things up to Him with thanksgiving (thanksgiving acknowledges that those things are His in the first place), and performing His reconciling work (2 Corinthians 5:18-19). Our offspring are not excepted.

Christians purify or set things apart: the body of Christ purifies and set things apart for God. As the body of Christ, the Church, we have been given baptism to which we have the joyous privilege of submitting ourselves and our children. So go, as Jesus commanded (Matthew 28:19) and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Start in your own house.

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Sunday April 25th 2021

7:25PM | Acts As Genesis

henever I have the privilege of reading or hearing Dr. Peter Leithart, my mind is down paths of symbology in and connections between various parts of the Bible. This past weekend my church hosted a Theopolis Institute regional course where Dr. Leithart spoke on how Christians should worship God, and today on Sunday he preached a sermon: a pre-Pentecost sermon on a Pentecost theme. That sermon inspired these thoughts.

Acts bears many thematic similarities to Genesis, so much so that it might be consider a new Genesis for a newly initiated creation. The similarities are not just in starting out by recounting a new beginning, a new creation immediately following Christ's triumph over death, his perfect substitutionary sacrifice fulfilling the demands of justice and righteousness, his resurrection, and the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, but in several of the themes of the overall story. Here are some that spring to mind in succinct, undeveloped form.

Acts begins with the Spirit moving over the face of the waters (in the Bible, one of the things "waters" often symbolically represent Gentiles, or the nations of the world) at Pentecost. The disciples receive the Holy Spirit and Jews from all nations hear prophetic word in their own native language. The Church in Acts is continuing Jesus's creative-redemptive work of separation and re-creation such as turning people and places from darkness to light.

In Acts, in Peter's rooftop lunchtime dream, we read about all kinds of animals enclosed in a sheet or some sort of vessel: you might say an ark, though they are not enclosed in an ark of judgment but an ark of redemption. The sheet bearing all kinds of animals - specifically of kinds forbidden for food in old covenant law - coming from heaven, their created goodness is being returned to the Earth and re-affirmed in the new creation.

Acts recounts stories of otherworldly powers and humans sinfully interacting in the magic of Simon Magus and the Ephesian fortune teller.

In Acts we see a father of many nations, of sons more innumerable than the stars in the sky or the sand of the seashore, thanks to Paul's entrusted mission of bringing the gospel to the Gentiles and bringing many more sons into the Kingdom of God's Son.

Paul - Saul - is somewhat like a new Joseph. He starts as a favored son of Israel: a Jew of the Jews, zealous for the law, raised in the strictest tradition of the Pharisees. We are first introduced to Saul receiving the coats of Stephen's murderers: coats of many colors. Acts ends with Paul, having been sold over by his brethren the Jews to the most powerful nation of the time, holding court in the nation of that dominant foreign power, receiving Jews and Gentiles and proclaiming life and good news to them.

Is symbology such as this circumstancial? Do associations like these mean anything, especially in a world where there is nothing new under the sun? God does not waste words. He communicates in signs and symbols. All things were created by God, were created by His word and so are endued with His language: sometimes distorted by the corrupting misues of sin, sometimes not seen or heard due to blindness of the eyes or dullness of the hearing. Even if a particular perceived symbology is tenous at best, its beauty, richness, and wonder delight us and enhance our joy in the receiving of God's Word, like good and beautiful poetry.

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Saturday March 20th 2021

8:49AM | Serendipitous Bible References

hat I am about to describe happens at least a couple times every year, and every time it happens I feel like telling people about it because I find it neat.

It is delightful when reading the Bible - not following a set plan but some pattern of my own choosing - when I read a chapter in, let's say, some book of the Old Testament and then I read a chapter in a gospel that references a verse in that Old Testament chapter that I had just read. There is nothing of significance about this; I just, as I said, find it delightful.

An example from this week is that on Thursday I was reading Jeremiah 51. On this day, a storm of rare severity was forecast for the area where I live. Therefore, verse 16 stood out:

When He utters His voice--
There is a multitude of waters in the heavens.
He causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth;
He makes lightnings for the rain;
He brings the wind out of His treasuries.
I found it striking that the NKJV uses the word "treasuries" to describe the source of the winds that God causes to blow on the Earth. The connotation provides an unusual perspective on thinking about wind of the stormy intensity.

Today, two days after Thursday, I read Psalm 135. Verse 7 says:

He causes the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth;
He makes lightnings for the rain;
He brings the wind out of His treasuries.
I felt like I had read that recently: did I glance ahead when reading previous psalms, did someone refer to this passage in a blog article I read this week? No, I remembered that this was quoted in Jeremiah.

The storm never arrived where I live: it passed by to the north. A reminder of God's mercy and deliverance!

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Saturday February 20th 2021

10:17AM | Interpreting the Beatitudes

urrently I am reading Dallas Willard's The Divine Conspiracy. Many good things can be said about this book, and I will likely write about some of those things after I finish reading the book.

However, today I started reading Willard's first discussion of the Beatitudes, which he will refer to throughout the book. Dallas Willard argues that the Beatitudes of Matthew 5 and Luke 6 are not prescriptions of "how to be" in order to win God's favor: they are not conditions for attaining or becoming worthy of eternal life. He says that the conditions that are blessed are not conditions for people to try to attain. Willard also points out that if this were the case, then we should expect the list of conditions on the Beatitudes to be complete, and any condition not on the list is excluded.

Willard's interpretation is that in the context Jesus is speaking to the crowd - which Willard assumes is full of the spiritually destitute and spiritually incompetent - to proclaim the good news that Jesus's kingdom is accessible to them: not based on their merit, but that God is graciously making His kingdom accessible to them. Jesus is not proscribing a list of works for achieving salvation; if He was, then perhaps He would not even be necessary in the picture.

Acknowledging that the list of conditions in the Beatitudes is not complete, that the good news of the gospel is that access to God and salvation is available to all regardless of condition or merit, and that works are not required or a factor in salvation - which cannot be earned, I disagree with the extreme of Willard's interpretation in that I would not go so far as he tends to go in dismissing common interpretations of the Beatitudes as Jesus blessing certain attitudes, attributes, or conditions.

Dallas Willard says (my comments in brackets):
The Beatitudes, in particular, are not teachings on how to be blessed. They are not instructions to do anything. They do not indicate conditions that are especially pleasing to God or good for human beings. (106)
I can appreciate that Willard's main goal is to promote the truth that God's kingdom is now here on Earth, accessible to us, not something reserved for a future Millennium or heaven. I agree with Willard that the Beatitudes (yet amongst other purposes, in my opinion):
They single out cases that provide proof that, in him, the rule of God from the heavens truly is available in life circumstance that are beyond all human hope. (106)
I agree that the Beatitudes are not a new legalistic list of "how-to's" for achieving blessedness.

I suggest that the Beatitudes are a kind of "and also" list, and, as Jesus was constantly at odds with the Jewish religious establishment of the day, a rebuke and rebuttal of what traits appeared to be or were presented as holy. Jesus was telling the crowd that you don't have to be knowledgeable, spiritually competent, educated, strong-willed and articulate like mature Christians might seem to be: the kingdom and salvation is also for the meek, the spiritually immature and spiritually destitute, the persecuted, people who are mourning and do not seem to have it all put together and are certainly not in power. Jesus was contradicting the opposites that appeared in the Jewish religious establishment of the day (the Luke 6 version particularly makes this clear), and which might have been incorrectly relied upon for favor with God. Jesus was telling the people that you don't need to be like "that" which the current Jewish tradition may have implied: you have to be re-born and your mind and assumptions transformed. Jesus will mercifully and lovingly tear you down so that you can be built up in a better way because it is the true, gracious, and God-given way. Along the way you will pick up and manifest new attitudes as you imitate Christ. Jesus specifically called out and blessed these conditions and attributes because no one else authoritative was doing so, hence "and also": God can and will bless people who seem to have it all together and also - as there is a time and season for everything: sometimes joy and sometimes mourning, sometimes prosperity and sometimes difficulties - even those who are downtrodden or who do not appear or feel "blessed".

Put together with the rest of Christ's teachings and the rest of the Spirit-inspired epistles (e.g. Col. 3:12), we can see that these attributes in the Beatitudes are encouraged: meekness over proud self-reliance and failure to cede control to God; not giving in and remaining steadfast, faithful and trusting even when facing persecution; being spiritually poor in the sense of full reliance on the mercy of God and approaching Him with child-like faith, even as we mature and grow in knowledge and experience as Christians in our period of "new" life here on Earth where we are never fully perfected and always being sanctified and prepared as a bride for Christ, and never relying on our own spiritual knowledge and theological competence; poor instead of seeking wealth for the sake of wealth or, if wealthy, rather than hoarding for ourselves (James 5:1-6) distributing to those in need and to the work of the Church because that is where our priorities and first love are, recognizing that we are stewards of what is God's and has been given to us in trust; mournful over sin and fallenness, knowing that there is a time and place for this and a time and place for joy. These are non-intuitive conditions and not usually desired - when following secular standards or the impulses of fallen nature.

Willard does cite examples of how the Beatitudes contradict common assumptions or presumptions of Jesus's day about God's favor, and we are in agreement there. Speaking of the rich young ruler in Mark 10:
So being rich does not mean that one is in God's favor-which further suggests that being poor does not automatically mean one is out of God's favor. The case of the rich young ruler corrects the prevailing assumption, shocking the hearers but making it possible to think more appropriately of God's relation to us. (108)
So we may be in agreement there. It is the wholesale dismissal of the conditions/attitudes being blessed as being something to pursue where we seem to disagree. Yes, if we are pursuing those attitudes as legalistic how-to's thinking that they earn us God's favor, then we are wrong. However, pursuing those attitudes should not be dismissed entirely, as some are attributes of a sanctified life.

Moving on from conditions or attitudes already mentioned, other conditions in the Beatitudes are more obviously attitudes that Christians should pursue, though by no means do they earn salvation and in every case they are Spirit-enabled gifts from God: blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the pure in heart, blessed are the peacemakers.

All of these conditions or attributes were displayed by Jesus ("poor in spirit" might be the most difficult to argue for here, especially depending on interpretation, but I suggest that this was displayed, for example, when Jesus prayed his agonized prayer in Gethsemane or that the temptations in the wilderness were real temptations since Jesus took on human nature, though he rejected those temptations and such an outcome should never be in doubt since Jesus is also fully God): as followers of Christ who will - as he commanded - take up His cross and follow Him, and live as His disciples, we should expect these attributes to develop in our own lives to various degrees based on the sufficiency of the distribution of gifts and graces by God (1 Cor. 12:11).

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Monday February 15th 2021

3:04PM | Excerpts from The Bruised Reed by Richard Sibbes

ichard Sibbes was a Puritan theologian who has been given the nickname of the "sweet dripper", because he was known for extolling the goodness and kindness of God toward His children, using words of comfort and gentleness to strengthen and encourage believers.

The Bruised Reed is a small book offering comfort to the bruised reeds or dimly flickering wick ("the smoking flax") of Isaiah 42:3 - "A bruised reed He will not break, And smoking flax He will not quench". Here Sibbes identifies the bruised reed as Christians who are new believers, suffering, poor in spirit, discouraged or weary in the struggle of combat with sin. He also speaks about how our attitudes can mirror Christ's to such people. I appreciate this book because I think this is an attitude toward fellow-believers to be worth striving for, and is a rightly ordered manner as we pursue Christlikeness, since as Psalm 34:18 says "The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit."

Sibbes makes on observation concerning instances of weak and small beginnings of grace, that:
"Christ will not quench the smoking flax. This is so for two principal reasons. First, because this spark is from heaven: it is his own, it is kindled by his own Spirit. And secondly, it tends to the glory of his powerful grace in his children that he preserves light in the midst of darkness, a spark in the midst of the swelling waters of corruption." (20)
In another place Sibbes offers words of advice on bearing with a fellow believer who might be a bruised reed, as Jesus bore the infirmities of the weak in his ministry on earth and for humanity on the cross:
"Men should not be too curious in prying into the weaknesses of others. We should labour rather to see what they have that is for eternity, to incline our heart to love them, than into that weakness which the Spirit of God will in time consume, to estrange us. Some think it is strength of grace to endure nothing in the weaker, whereas the strongest are readiest to bear with the infirmities of the weak." (33)
Further:
"He that pronounces them blessed that consider the poor will have a merciful consideration of such himself." (45)
When Sibbes speaks of not prying into weaknesses, he is not advocating excusing or overlooking sin, or avoiding pastoral care. In other places he says quite the contrary:
"...all comfort should draw us nearer to Christ. Otherwise it is a lying comfort, either in itself or in our application of it."  (68)
And in another place:
"True peace is in conquering, not in yielding." (72)
And again:
"There can be no victory where there is no combat." (118)
As to our own selves when we strive and grow weary in our efforts to live as disciples of Jesus, Sibbes urges:
"Let us not be cruel to ourselves when Christ is thus gracious. There is a certain meekness of spirit whereby we yield thanks to God for any ability at all, and rest quiet with the measure of grace received, seeing it is God's good pleasure it should be so, who gives the will and the deed, yet not so as to rest from further endeavors. But when, with faithful endeavor, we come short of what we would be, and short of what others are, then know for our comfort, Christ will not quench the smoking flax, and that sincerity and truth, as we said before, with endeavour of growth, is our perfection." (52)
In closing, the following words from Sibbes on grace:
"It is one thing to be deficient in grace, and another thing to lack grace altogether. God knows we have nothing of ourselves, therefore in the covenant of grace he requires no more than he gives; but gives what he requires, and accepts what he gives." (36)


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Friday February 5th 2021

10:04AM | Thoughts on Biblical Masculinity

trendy topic in church circles in at least the last decade has been masculinity: whether lamenting the apparent effeminateness of Christian men particularly in liberal churches, on the one hand, or examples of "toxic masculinity" in other evangelical churches - whether extreme examples that are mis-cast as characteristic of the whole, or more subtle examples of a masculinity that is controversial to some, but not universally obviously "wrong". There is also the complementarian vs egalitarian debate about gender roles. My purpose is not to provide examples: if you cannot think of any off hand, they are well documented and easily found elsewhere.

Instead, my purpose is to share some thoughts about Biblical masculinity in the hopes of stirring you up to think with me about the subject.

Any thinking about, discussion about, or pursuit of masculinity - for honest, well-intentioned Christians - should start with, I think, these questions:

Who is defining the masculinity that you pursue, and what is the philosophical basis of their recommendations? Are they in accord with what the Bible says?

What is the goal and purpose of your consciously pursuing masculinity? If you dismiss the question with a vaguely pious answer that it is to honor God by performing the gender role He has given you, how are you making sure that your understanding of your role and your exercising of your masculinity is honoring God by obeying Him, seeking His glory and not your own?

You might then move on to thinking about what biblical masculinity is not, and then what God positively asserts about masculinity. Just a few examples of the former, to get our thoughts moving:

1. Biblical masculinity is not lording it over other people (Matthew 20:25-26). My church has this enshrined in its constitution: elected officials (elders including the pastor; deacons are non-authoritative) are not to lord it over the congregation. They are to lead, to admonish and correct out of a spirit of love and truth pursuing peace and reconciliation with God and each other, and they are to be appointed because they have the temperament and have exhibited the requisite graces to achieve this difficult work. Similarly, at home and in life, all men pursuing biblical masculinity are not to lord it over other people. This is because men who pursue biblical masculinity are...

2. ...not full of self-aggrandizement, unwilling and unable to recognize the contributions of others or acknowledging their own limitations and the benefit of the wisdom of others (Proverbs 15:22), or of the dignity of other people and their opinions (James 1:19). Putting people down and shutting people down might be acceptably masculine to secular society (in some eras), but what is biblical about that as a habit of personality? On the other side of self-aggrandizement, winning friends and influencing people is nice, but is that where your chief end is supposed to be directed?

3. Biblical masculinity is not a facade: not confined to physical characteristics or outward impression (1 Samuel 16:7; Matthew 15:11).

Another thought about what masculinity is not, before moving on to what it might be: being masculine does not require being physically intimidating or being an alpha male. Some men do look intimidating or are alpha male type leaders, which is fine but not a pre-requisite. You are not off the hook for pursuing masculinity just because of how you look or feel about your image.

Yet negatives do not affirm anything and are not convincing. A couple thoughts about what true masculinity is, in which I hope to alleviate concerns you might be feeling that I am proposing some soft, non-offensive, unambitious personality type as somehow being biblically masculine:

1. A biblically masculine male will take the lead, in his domains, without seeking to dominate others (especially those he is called to love and protect).

2. A biblically masculine male is able to defend himself and his own and prepared to fight for that purpose, but does not pursue such capabilities or use such capabilities for the sake of aggression, the enjoyment of indulgence in violence, or bloodlust

3. Biblical masculinity requires understanding your calling, and recognizing the time and place for all things (Ecclesiastes 3:1). This enables there to still be exceptional George Washington types who arise to meet the needs of the era. Christians have the Holy Spirit to help guide and inspire for recognizing and meeting such times (Luke 12:12). God may or may not work through you in particular as a leading star character in such historical moments.

In summary, concluding these non-comprehensive thoughts, biblical masculinity will be first and foremost channeled to God's purposes and subject to Him.

Perhaps it might be easier to think in terms of nobility rather than masculinity. As co-heirs with Jesus, we (including females, but I am calling men to nobility here) are called to nobility. Not the nobility of kings of the world (taking multiple wives, cutting off heads of people who displease you, expecting people to bow to you) but nobility of character in justice, righteousness, faithfulness, truth, courage, and serving and looking after the needs of others. Subject to God. Our nobility is received by grace, certainly not of our deserving. We are representative of God in how we conduct our noble masculinity.

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