1. I get to go to Bethlehem Baptist Church and hear John Piper preach every Sunday.
2. My walk to church is shorter than the walk down Ho Plaza.
3. I get to hang out in the BBC book store, which is basically what I’m always secretly hoping Borders will be every time I walk in.  Imagine (almost) every good Christian book, in one room.  (Not too many very dead guys, though there is a good number.)  I will probably come home with ~$500 of new books.
4. I get to go to real old-people Sunday School, which is something I’ve never gotten to do before in my life.
5. I get to go to BBC’s prayer meetings and evangelism times.  Last Tuesday we went street-EV’ing downtown, and we think a handful of people got saved!
6. I get to work at Desiring God.
7. I get to work at Desiring God whenever I want to, since they gave me keys .
8. DG gives us free Mountain Dew.
9. I get to work doing web programming, which is basically what I do with my free time during the summers anyway.
10. Job == Hobby => amazingness
11. I get to work with a team of godly Reformed Christian Hedonistic men and women wiser and more mature than I who treasure Jesus and the Bible and are working tirelessly for your joy and mine for the sake of the Gospel.
12. I get to work with Daniel and hang out with Joe and Liang, who are also here with me.
13. I get to meet and hang out with and learn from people who are doing things I want to be doing eventually, like going to TBI, planting churches, doing campus ministry, etc.

The project I’m working on is simultaneously very exciting and very daunting.  Objectively, it’s very clearly one of those “if this succeeds at all, it’s completely by God’s grace” things.  It can consume whatever time I’m able to throw at it, which so far has been a lot.  Like I said above, they’ve given us keys to the building, so we’ve been going home later and later each day.  Soon we’ll be keeping I-Banker hours.  Pray that the work would be done in active reliance on Jesus for wisdom and strength, and hope and joy in Jesus, not simply pretty code or solved problems.

There is one project that I can talk about – our accountability web application.  I’ll talk more about it in a later post.  Daniel’s been hard at work for the last few days writing it while I’ve been learning Ruby On Rails (he already knew it) and working on some administrative/environment stuff.  I thank God for him, the heart God’s given him, and his willingness and ability to serve the Body of Christ in building this tool.

I’ll give a more subjective analysis later.  Maybe I’ll get back into the habit of blogging often.  We’ll see…

-Ben

A few first observations: it’s easy to read, it’s short (160 small pages), Ensor writes in the first person and shares many of his own experiences, he relies heavily both on the Bible and on other poets and authors, most notably Shakespeare.  It seems to me to be doctrinally sound – nothing he said made me cringe.  On the back, it’s endorsed by Tim Challies (a prominent blogger of good repute) and CJ Mahaney, a pastor I trust.  He quotes John Piper several times and references the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womenhood.

Very simply, Doing Things Right seeks to define biblical manhood and womanhood, with the lens of “how does this apply to marriage relationships.”  Quoting Ensor’s quoting of Piper (from Piper’s What’s the Difference?) on page 75:

He writes of manhood:

At the heart of mature manhood is a sense of benevolent responsibility to lead, provide for, and protect women in ways appropriate to a man’s differing relationships.

He writes of womanhood:

At the heart of mature womanhood is a freeing disposition to affirm, receive and nurture strength and leadership from worthy men in ways appropriate to a woman’s differing relationships.

That is, a biblical view of manhood and womanhood affects all male-female relationships – not just marriage relationships.  But having a proper understanding of proper gender roles is crucial in marriage.

Being a Christian Hedonist, the chapter that stuck out to me/resonated with me most was chapter 14 – “He Seeks His Happiness in Hers…. She Seeks Hers in His.”  That is, what should make us most happy is our spouse’s happiness.  But beyond that (something that Ensor didn’t really get into, as he wasn’t making an attempt to explain Christian Hedonism),  what should make us most happy is our spouse’s happiness in Christ.  This can be said about any relationship – our desire should be to point/encourage one another to know Christ more, because He is most satisfying.  And that should apply in marriage too.

Ensor does sort of hit on that theme, though, in this quote that ends that chapter:

Love is basically seeking your own happiness in the well-being of another.  It may be more than that, but it will never be less.  Selfishness, the deadly enemy of love, is not “seeking your own need.”  Selfishness is seeking your own need separately from the needs of others, or at the expense of others, or apart from God.  This is the kind of self-seeking that is condemned (Romans 2:8).  The opposite of selfishness is not selflessness.  That is often the lofty language of altruistic idealism run amok.  The opposite of selfishness is self-fulfillment in the holy joy and well-being of others.  This is doable.

Seek your happiness in the holy happiness of the other.  Sacrifice and submit to that end, and you can no more be divided than you can go out to dinner and leave your stomach at home.

With that, I’ll say that I enjoyed this book, and learned a lot from it.  It helped put many random ideas that I’ve had/been learning into a framework, so that my thinking can be structured, and brought up many “obvious” things that I hadn’t thought of before.

I would recommend it to everyone (even those with the gift of singleness….)

-Ben

First, let me commend to you this post by Piper on Desiring God’s blog and give you the following snippet:

Have you ever wondered how you will do in the hour of final trial? The gunman has you in his sights and asks, “Are you a Christian?” Here is a strong word to give you hope that you may do better than you think.

“If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” (1 Peter 4:14).

This encouragement from Peter says that in the hour of unusual threat (whether insult or death) there will be “a Spirit of glory and of God resting on us.” Doesn’t that mean that God gives special help in the hour of crisis to those who suffer because they are Christians? I don’t mean he is absent from our other sufferings. I just mean that Peter went out of his way to say to those who suffer “for the name of Christ” will experience a special “resting” on them of “the Spirit of glory and of God.”

This may account for some of the astonishing testimonies of martyrs.

Second, look at where that link he has points.  To Google Book Search.  More specifically, to a complete version of a book by a dead guy (Baxter) on Google Book Search.  And it has a downloadable PDF to go with it.

So yeah… go play with it.  I just found:

• The Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin
• Selections from the Unpublished Writings by Jonathan Edwards

-Ben

Rom 1:8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.

1Co 1:4-8 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge– even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you– so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Eph 1:15-16 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers,

Php 1:3-5 I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.

Col 1:3-5 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.

1Th 1:2-3 We give thanks to God always for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

2Th 1:3 We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.

To pull out some highlights from those verses, Paul is thankful TO GOD for the believers in these churches because of:

• The faith in Jesus that has been produced in them by the Holy Spirit (salvation)
• The spread of their faith (the Gospel) around the world (missions/disciplemaking)
• The grace that God has displayed in changing their lives (sanctification)
• Their love for each other
• The good work that is spurred on by the faith in Jesus and love for God and others
• The steadfastness and perseverance that comes from hope in Jesus

And so I want to publicly thank God for some of the believers that he has placed in my life. This isn’t to put them on a pedestal and proclaim how great they are, but to proclaim to you how great their God is, using sinners like them to encourage a sinner like me, and to offer some encouragement, as Paul encourages Timothy: “But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”

I’ll start with my parents, since it was my conversations with them that spurred this post. I thank God for their love for me and the grace that He has given them to display to me, that despite my pride, arrogance, callousness, apathy, they still love me and care for me unceasingly, giving me a glimpse of how my Heavenly Father loves me and cares for me completely unconditionally and unceasingly.

I thank God for the guys in Crusade, who have strengthened and encouraged me by continually pointing me to Christ despite my desire to point towards me, who have placed their faith in Jesus and their hope in His sovereignty.

I thank God for Cru’s Small Group leaders, who work every week to strengthen and equip Crusade with the truth found in God’s Word, so that we might be able to “teach, rebuke, correct and train in righteousness.”

I thank God for Cru’s Praise Team, which works every week to contextualize the Gospel to believer and nonbeliever alike, making the truth of God come alive to us through song.

I thank God for the Freshmen in Crusade, who have been more and more desiring to get involved in bringing the Gospel to Cornell through loving service and evangelism.

I thank God for my co-shepherds – past and present – who have show me grace I certainly don’t deserve, loved me by pointing me to Jesus, and fought steadfastly alongside me in the work that God has prepared for us to do, reminding me daily that God is sovereign, I am not, and He will work all things out for His glory and our joy.

I thank God for men like John Piper, Mark Driscoll, and Tim Keller, by whose teaching of the Bible I have grown immensely.

I thank God for Liang, for the years of friendship, the tears, the patience, the necessary rebukes – gentle and harsh, the vision of God he’s helped me attain – a Sovereign God who pursues His own glory for His joy and ours, and the unity that’s by God’s grace stood firm, despite the storms that might destroy it.

This list is far from comprehensive – there are many more people, entities, and programs that should be here than I could possibly list, or even name, right now. God has blessed me with much, and has allowed me to be witness to much. Seeing lives change – my own, my friends’, and total strangers’. Seeing people realize that giving up everything to follow Jesus is the easiest decision to make because Jesus is that satisfying and that real and that worth it. Seeing people see God in new ways – marvelous ways that brings light to their eyes and joy to their hearts as they glimpse and understand something new and glorious. Seeing repentance and forgiveness and redemption and reconciliation – in my life and in my relationships.

By the grace God has given you, press on!

-Ben