Category Archives: Quotes & Excerpts

When you’re a control freak (and you just now realize it).

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“Hi. My name is Jeff and I’m a ‘control freak.’ I haven’t tried to assume autonomous control of every aspect of my life for at least the past 30 minutes.”

Urban Dictionary says a control freak is: “Someone who has a compulsive need to control all aspects of his or her own life…”


Nathan Bingham writes:

If we’re honest, there’s a little control freak in all of us. Some have tamed the beast better than others, but every now and then it lurks its ugly head.

I’ve been thinking about what I observe to be man’s almost insatiable desire to control. How should Christians stand apart in this area from the world? As I reflected, I thought of 3 ways in which Christians can crush their “inner control freak.”

Nathan continues:

Remember the Gospel

If you remember the gospel, you’ll crush your inner control freak.

Remember, the bad news of the “gospel” is that you cannot save yourself. You are guilty before a holy God and are without hope within yourself. Redemption is totally outside of your control. However, the good news of the gospel is that another, God Himself, has taken control of redeeming a people for His glory. God is the One who is active in sending His Son to redeem a people. Jesus is the One active in the sense of willingly living, dying, and rising to redeem a people. The Holy Spirit is the One active, like the wind which “blows where it wishes” (John 3:8), drawing a people to the Father.
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Thou shall not commit logical fallacies.

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When it comes to logical fallacies, each of us is part of the problem, or part of the solution.

As the old adage goes, check yourself before you wreck yourself.

From yourlogicalfallacyis.com:

A logical fallacy is usually what has happened when someone is wrong about something. It’s a flaw in reasoning. They’re like tricks or illusions of thought, and they’re often very sneakily used by politicians and the media to fool people.

Don’t be fooled! This website and poster have been designed to help you identify and call out dodgy logic wherever it may raise its ugly, incoherent head.

If you see someone committing a logical fallacy, link them to the relevant fallacy to school them in thinky awesomeness and win the intellectual affections of those who happen across your comment by appearing clever and interesting e.g. yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman.

Logical fallacies covered: Continue reading →

 

The problem of sitting quietly.

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“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

…

“Let it not be imagined that the life of a good Christian must be a life of melancholy and gloominess; for he only resigns some pleasures to enjoy others infinitely better.”

—Blaise Pascal

This weekend grab a good book (or The Good Book), and let it shape your imagination, leading you to renewal and then creativity.

Ask yourself: Do the things I tend to put before my eyes and feed my mind restore my soul and embolden me with courage to face life?

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Photo by jordanchez on Instagram, in our home

 

LOVE: What kind of tolerance are we aiming for?

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In part three of the series The Difficulty of Sharing Our Faith, on GospelCenteredDiscipleship.com, Jonathan Dodson writes on Tolerance. (Parts 1 & 2 dealt with not wanting to be “preachy,” or think sharing our faith must wait until we have a deeper relationship with someone.) Dodson begins part 3:

It can be difficult to share our faith. Sometimes when opportunities arise to share our faith, we shrink back because we don’t want to be intolerant. We don’t want to come across as demeaning of other’s beliefs or exclusivist in our own beliefs. This can be very positive concern, though it has some shortcomings too.

Tolerance as Christian Love

Tolerance can be either an expression of Christian love or intellectual and relational carelessness. How do you know if your tolerance is loving or careless? It depends on what we mean by tolerance. In The Intolerance of Tolerance, D. A. Carson helpfully clarifies the meaning of tolerance. He points out that there are two types of tolerance: old and new.

The old tolerance is the belief that other opinions have a right to exist. This is a very Christian notion. Jesus taught us to love our neighbor, and even our enemy. The Christian ethic of love should compel disciples to tolerate other beliefs and religions. We ought to grant others the right to believe whatever they desire to believe. After all, what people believe is a deeply personal and profound matter. It isn’t like picking out a ripe banana at the supermarket. Our beliefs require much more thought and investment. Love values people and respects the things they hold dear. Since Christians are to love God, neighbor and even enemy, tolerance (believing that people have the right to hold different opinions) can be very loving and respectful. Christianity shouldn’t be coercive or proselytizing; it should be loving and tolerant.

Christianity shouldn’t be coercive or proselytizing; it should be loving and tolerant.

Continue reading →

 

Walking in newness of life, for we’re no longer dead.

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1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?  3Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
—Romans 6:1-11 (ESV)

What does it mean we “died to sin”?
The moment we become Christians, we are no longer under the “reign” or
“ruling power” of sin. This is the same as saying (6:14) that sin does not have the “mastery” over us because we are “under grace!” This is the same as saying (6:12) that we no longer have to obey sin, and thus it no longer reigns. “Let not sin reign…that you obey its evil desires.” Paul has just said in 5:21 that, “Sin reigned… so also grace might reign.” In other words, sin still has power, but it no longer can force its dictates on you. In 1:18-32 Paul says that outside of Christ we are “given up” to our sinful desires. Previously, those sinful desires so reigned and ruled over us that we could not see them as sinful, and thus we could not resist them. We were completely under their control. Now however, sin no longer can domineer us. We have the ability now to resist and rebel against their dictates.

“Our ‘old man’ is the old self or ego, the unregenerate man in his entirety in contrast with the new man as the regenerate man in his entirety.” —John Murray

 

How can we believe that He saves others when He can’t get off that bloody cross?

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On that wretched day the soldiers mocked him,
Raucous laughter in a barracks room,
“Hail the king!” they sneered, while spitting on him,
Brutal beatings on this day of gloom.
Though his crown was thorn, he was born a king—
Holy brilliance bathed in bleeding loss—
All the soldiers blind to this stunning theme:
Jesus reigning from a cursed cross.

Awful weakness mars the battered God-man,
Far too broken now to hoist the beam.
Soldiers strip him bare and pound the nails in,
Watch him hanging on the cruel tree.
God’s own temple’s down! He has been destroyed!
Death’s remains are laid in rock and sod.
But the temple rises in God’s wise ploy:
Our great temple is the Son of God.

“Here’s the One who says he cares for others,
One who says he came to save the lost.
How can we believe that he saves others
When he can’t get off that bloody cross?
Let him save himself! Let him come down now!”—
Savage jeering at the King’s disgrace.
But by hanging there is precisely how
Christ saves others as the King of grace.

Draped in darkness, utterly rejected,
Crying, “Why have you forsaken me?”
Jesus bears God’s wrath alone, dejected—
Weeps the bitt’rest tears instead of me.
All the mockers cry, “He has lost his trust!
He’s defeated by hypocrisy!”
But with faith’s resolve, Jesus knows he must
Do God’s will and swallow death for me.

—Source: D.A. Carson, Scandalous, pp. 36-37.

 

Children’s book review: Simon and the Easter Miracle.

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Simon and the Easter Miracle: A Traditional Tale for Easter, a hardcover children’s book written by Mary Joslin, and illustrated by Anna Luraschi [Kregel].

About the book: The gospels tell of Simon of Cyrene—”a man coming in from the country”—who was ordered to carry Jesus’ cross. Over the centuries, his story has been woven into a Polish folktale. In the tradition of The Three Trees this folk tale gives a fresh perspective on the Easter story. When Simon the farmer brings his wares to market, little does he expect how he will be involved in the events of that very special day, nor how his items—bread, eggs, and wine—will become important symbols of Jesus’ passion and resurrection, remembered throughout the ages. (Intended for ages 5-7.)

The book arrived in February, and so we read it together one evening last month during family story (and “snuggle”) time. This week we picked it back up and the kids instantly recalled the whole story.

Our kids (five and three) became really interested in the story of Simon and the implications for Easter. Last night they asked to read it again. This morning our son (a bibliophile; it runs in the family) sounded out the words on the cover during breakfast, and was especially interested in the name “Simon,” which led to a discussion on the differences between Simon of Cyrene and Simon Peter the Apostle. The value in this book is revisiting it, more than getting through it one time. (Connection and communication is as important as content in teaching your children.) This is true of all Gospel stories. We shall never grow tired of discovering the true of Jesus.

The illustrations are masterfully done, realistic and inviting. Each scene highlights actions accompanying the narrative. (See and read an excerpt [PDF]).

20120330-101350.jpg Continue reading →

 

Talk or Walk: Do we love with words or with works?

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What is the relationship between evangelism and social justice? 

Should Christians talk more about the good works of Jesus, or demonstrate their own good works? I’m convinced it is BOTH/AND, not just either/or, for Jesus came proclaiming the Good News (Gospel) He embodied in His whole life (see Luke 4:14-21).

Skye Jethani (editor at Christianity Today and Leadership Journal) points us to John Stott to help us navigate the ongoing evangelism/social justice divide:

“Atonement-only advocates demand that advocates of social justice justify their efforts. And justice advocates demand atonement-only advocates justify their emphasis on gospel proclamation. But, using Stott’s logic, if evangelism or social activism is flowing from a heart of love and compassion, than neither must be justified. Love is its own justification. As you engage this issue in your own community, do not get snared by the false dichotomy that declares either evangelism or social justice must be superior. Instead, let’s affirm whatever work God has called us to, whether that be proclaiming reconciliation or demonstrating it, as long as his love is found to be fueling it.”

 

I will add that evangelism that cares only for the eternal safety of another’s soul but not for that person’s flourishing in this life is not truly motivated by the love of Jesus. Let’s talk and walk at the same time.

[HT: Tim Høiland]

 

[in]complete: Ways & Means so we don’t end up as slaves of a de-souled culture.

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Continuing from yesterday and the day before …

The prevailing ways and means curricula in which we are all immersed in North America are designed to help us get ahead in whatever field of work we find ourselves: sales and marketing, politics, business, church, school an university, construction, manufacturing, faming, laboratory, hospital, home, playground, sports. The courses first instruct us in skills and principles that we are told are foundational and then motivate us to use these skills so that we can get what we want out of this shrunken, dessicated “world, flesh, and devil” field. And of course it works wonderfully as long as we are working in that particular field, the field in which getting things done is the “end.”

When it comes to persons, these ways of the world are terribly destructive. They are highly effective in getting ahead in a God-indifferent world, but not in the community of Jesus, not in the kingdom of God. When we uncritically accept these curricula as our primary orientation in how to get on in the world, we naively embrace the very temptations of the devil that Jesus so definitively vetoed and rebuked.

Warnings are frequently and prominently posted by our sages and prophets to let us know that these purely pragmatic ways and means of the world weaken and enervate the community of the baptized. The whole North American ways and means culture, from assumptions to tactics, is counter to the rich and textured narrative laid out for us in our Scriptures regarding walking in the way of righteousness, running in the way of the commandments, following Jesus. In matters of ways and means, the world gives scant attention to what it means to live, to really live, to live eternal life in ordinary time: God is not worshiped, Jesus is not followed, the Spirit is not given a voice. …

Jacques Maritain, one of our more prescient and incisive prophetic voices from the twentieth century, continues to call on all of us who have taken up membership in the Christian community to be vigilant and active in what he called “the Purification of Means.” He saw this as urgent work, about which we should not procrastinate if we are to follow Jesus in the freedom where he leads us, and we are not to end up as slaves of a de-souled culture.

—Eugene Peterson, The Jesus Way: a conversation on the ways that Jesus is the way, 2-4.

 

[in]complete: Ways & Means in everything.

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Continuing from yesterday …

In this matter of ways, the how of following Jesus and taking up with the world cannot be depersonalized by reduction into a how-to formula. We are involved in a highly personal, interrelational, dynamic way of life consisting of many elements — emotions and ideas, weather and work, friends and enemies, seductions and illusions, legislation and elections — that are constantly being rearranged, always in flux, and always in relation to our very personal and holy God and our very personal (but not so holy!) brothers and sisters.

Ways and means permeate everything that we are in worship and community. But none of the ways and means can be compartmentalized into functions or isolated as concepts apart from this comprehensive biblical Trinitarian world in which we follow Jesus. They permeate everything we are and do. If any of the means we use to follow Jesus are extraneous to who we are in Jesus — detached “things” or role “models” — they detract from the end of following Jesus. Do our ways derive from “the world, the flesh, and devil” of which we have been well warned for such a long time? Or do they serve life in the kingdom of God and the following of Jesus in which we have been given, historically and liturgically, a long apprenticeship?

—Eugene Peterson, The Jesus Way: a conversation on the ways that Jesus is the way, 2.

(More tomorrow…)

 

Do I tend toward religious performance or living by the Gospel of grace?

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A few years ago a friend introduced me to a helpful way to examine my heart and see if I am living in God’s righteousness, or asserting my own self-righteousness. The simple chart shown below was adapted from Tim Keller’s talk “Preaching the Gospel.” I found it at a time when I felt far from God’s will (vocationally), but desired to live more deeply in His will (personally). Since then I’ve walked through it personally with many, each time rejoicing in the Gospel truth.

While the chart is useful for instructing others, we must begin by filtering our own heart through it:

Do I tend toward religious performance (acceptance based on obedience) or living by the Gospel of grace (obedience flowing from acceptance)? 

To this I would add: we are saved by works. Yet these works are not our own; we are graciously saved by the works of Jesus, who lived the life we should live — in perfect submission to God’s will — but haven’t, and died the death we should die, but won’t have to, if we trust in Him.

RELIGION

GOSPEL

  Scripture
In religion one says, “I obey — therefore I’m accepted.” In the Gospel one says, “I’m accepted — therefore I obey.” Ephesians 2:8-10
Motivation is based on fear and insecurity. Motivation is based on grateful joy. 1 John 4:7-11
I obey God in order to get things from God. I obey God to get to God—to delight and resemble Him. Isaiah 53:6; Romans 3:23
When circumstances in my life go wrong, I am angry at God or my self, since I believe, like Job’s friends that anyone who is good deserves a comfortable life. When circumstances in my life go wrong, I struggle but I know all my punishment fell on Jesus and that while he may allow this for my training, he will exercise his Fatherly love within my trial. Psalm 23:4; John 16:33; Phil. 4:11-14; Hebrews 12:1-13
When I am criticized I am furious or devastated because it is critical that I think of myself as a ‘good person’. Threats to that self-image must be destroyed at all costs. When I am criticized I struggle, but it is not critical for me to think of myself as a ‘good person.’ My identity is not built on my record or my performance but on God’s love for me in Christ. I can take criticism. That’s how I became a Christian. Romans 10:4; 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Peter 3:18
My prayer life consists largely of petition and it only heats up when I am in a time of need. My main purpose in prayer is control of the environment. My prayer life consists of generous stretches of praise and adoration. My main purpose is fellowship with Him. Philippians 4:4-7
My self-view swings between two poles. If and when I am living up to my standards, I feel confident, but then I am prone to be proud and unsympathetic to failing people. If and when I am not living up to standards, I feel humble, but not confident-I feel like a failure. My self-view is not based on a view of my self as a moral achiever. In Christ I am simul iustus et peccator—simultaneously sinful and lost yet accepted in Christ. I am so bad he had to die for me and I am so loved he was glad to die for me. This leads me to deeper and deeper humility and confidence at the same time. Neither swaggering nor sniveling. Romans 10:4; 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Peter 3:18
My identity and self-worth are based mainly on how hard I work. Or how moral I am, and so I must look down on those I perceive as lazy or immoral. I disdain and feel superior to ‘the other.’ My identity and self-worth are centered on the one who died for His enemies, who was excluded from the city for me. I am saved by sheer grace. So I can’t look down on those who believe or practice something different from me. Only by grace I am what I am. I’ve no inner need to win arguments. Phil. 3:8-9; Mark 10:45; Phil. 2:1-11
Since I look to my own pedigree or performance for my spiritual acceptability, my heart manufactures idols. It may be my talents, my moral record, my personal discipline, my social status, etc. I absolutely have to have them so they serve as my main hope, meaning, happiness, security, and significance, whatever I may say I believe about God. I have many good things in my life—family, work, spiritual disciplines, etc. But none of these good things are ultimate things to me. None of them are things I absolutely have to have, so there is a limit to how much anxiety, bitterness, and despondency they can inflict on me when they are threatened and lost. 1 John 5:11-14; Psalm 73

(Scripture references added)

Keller says he got the idea of contrasting Religion and the Gospel from reading C.S. Lewis’ short essay, “Three Kinds of Men,” in which he says there are not merely two ways to live (God’s way and man’s way), but three: religion, irreligion, and according to the Gospel of grace.