If We've Only Got One Life…

Instruments In The Redeemer’s Hands

I started reading Paul Tripp’s book Instruments In The Redeemer’s Hands yesterday.  Its subtitle is, “people in need of chnage helping people in need of change” – basically an attempt to explain to the layperson how to counsel people, and why they should.

The sticker on the back puts it in the “Psychology” category.  This is not your average Christian Psychology book.  Some quotes (bolding mine):

The sad fact is that many of us are simply not biblical in the way we use the Bible!  Being biblical does not mean merely quoting words from within its pages.  Being truly biblical means that my counsel reflects what the entire Bible is about. The Bible is a narrative, a story of redemption, and its chief character is Jesus Christ.  He is the main theme of the narrative, and he is revealed in every passage in the book.  This story reveals how God harnessed nature and controlled history to send his Son to rescue rebelious, foolish, and self-focused men and women.  He freed them from bondage to themselves, enabled them to live for his glory and gifted them with an eternity in his presence, far from the harsh realities of the Fall. - page 27

It is because our sin problem is so pervasive and so deeply ingrained that we need more from Scripture than insight, principles, understanding, or direction.  An encyclopedic, problem-solving approach to Scripture is totally inadequate for the true depth of our need.  We need something that will change us from the inside out – we need Christ!  Only his person and work can free us from our slavery to self and our tendency to deify the creation. - page 27

From the rise and fall of governments to tomorrow’s weather to the exact location of every human being, the universe is under God’s control.  He has the power and authority to do exactly what pleases him, andwherey he chooses to do it.  God’s sovereignty is not only about power and position, but also about a plan.  Scripture clearly teaches that God has a plan for his world and the people in it.  God is calling a people to himself, forming them into his likeness, and preparing them for an eternity with him.  This is his overarching plan of the ages, revealed in history, present in current events and in the lives of everyone who has ever lived.  At any moment in time, the right answer to the question, “What is God doing?” is, “Accomplishing his plan.” - page 29

But the story of Scripture is the story of the Lord’s glory.  It calls me to an agenda that is bigger than myself.  It offers me something truly worth living for.  The Redeemer has come so that glory thieves would joyfully live for the glory of Another.  There is no deeper personal joy and satisfaction than to live committed to his glory.  It is what we truly need. - page 35

-Ben

Posted in Book Reviews | 3 Comments »

Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor

I just finished reading D. A. Carson’s biography of his father, Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor.  It’s very good.  If you are or think you might become a pastor, church planter, missionary, or husband, you should read it.

Tom Carson planted churches in French-speaking Canada, a Roman Catholic stronghold.  His son documents his life, his work, and his struggles.  Struggles through discouragement and controversy and disapproval and loss – and that are meant to be met with utmost assurance that God is in control and knows what he’s doing.  Read and watch Tom do that.

A lot stuck out to me, but I’ll simply give you one journal entry from two weeks after his wife died that gives a glimpse into his theology and priorities and values and view of God:

Monday, Jan. 15, 1990
On my knees I am often crushed.  David said, “My sin is ever before me.”  And mine are ever before me…. My wife was a magnificent woman: she rested utterly in the absolute assurance that God had fully forgiven all her sins: “What need I fear when thou art near / And thinkest, Lord, of me?”  And I found rest in meditating on Psalm 51.

I guess that isn’t how I usually see people described as “magnificent”: “she rested utterly in the absolute assurance that God had fully forgiven all her sins.”

When you’re describing someone as “magnificent” or “awesome” or “amazing”, what do you mean?  What should you mean?

Posted in Book Reviews | 3 Comments »

Lecrae at MHC

Mars Hill Church recently hosted a 116 Clique concert.  Lecrae and Red Letter (a MHC band) wrote and performed a new version of “Send Me.”  Download it here.

(Check out the album version and lyrics here.)

-Ben

Posted in Music/Videos, Recommendations | 1 Comment »

ESV Study Bible, Ben-Has-A-Sample Edition

(see my first post on the ESV Study Bible here)

I got my copy of the ESV Study Bible Gospel of Luke today.  Crossway sent a bunch over to DG, so we all got copies.  BBC Bookstore also has a handful out on display.

This thing is really pretty amazing.  I now understand why Driscoll couldn’t wait to talk about it once he got his hands on it.  And why BBC has brochures for it EVERYWHERE.  And churches all over the place are selling preorders.

Once you see it, you’ll want one.

There are very low-tech ways to do the Bible – just present the text, the verse numbers, the headings, and maybe some translational footnotes and/or crossreferences.  Those have their place – they allow you to study the text on your own without footnotes forcing their interpretation on you.

And there are varying levels of non-low-tech Bibles, with different types of notes, maps, charts, etc.  I’ve owned an NIV Life Application Study Bible, an NIV Study Bible, and the ESV Literary Study Bible… This blows them out of the water.

This is the Google of Bibles. (Can I say that?)

People did search before Google… then Google came and changed the way you thought of search.  People did webmail before Google… then Gmail came and changed the way you thought of webmail.  This will change the way you think of study Bibles.

The intros are long, helpful, and meaningful – you’ll want to read them.  The diagrams are BEAUTIFUL – the inside of my sample copy has rendering of “Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus”, with markers detailing and explaining where all sorts of important features/locations are.  There are supposedly over 200 little full-color maps inline with the footnotes – how often do you actually flip to the back of your Bible to look at the maps there?  I never have.  Hopefully this will teach me the importance of location location location.  The footnotes are also full of charts with titles such as “Parallels in the Ministries of Jesus, Peter, and Paul in Luke-Acts”, “Predictions, Reminders, and Proofs of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke”, and “Jesus and Prayer in the Gospel of Luke.”

Crossway has the book’s introduction online here.  You can check out one of the diagrams here.  Learn about lots more features at the ESV Study Bible website.

Why is this all important and worth getting excited over?

God tells us about Himself in His Word by telling us Truth.  Ultimately, what we want is more of God – seeing Him and knowing Him (not just knowing about Him) more clearly and more fully and more deeply.  This will help that, I believe, for many people, as the notes and the articles and the maps and the diagrams explain things of God through the Word and the Holy Spirit opens eyes to understand and marvel at who God is and what He has done.

All the cool new features that this Bible has are worthless if they don’t teach you more about Jesus and cause you to treasure Him more.  Treasure the Giver and be thankful for the gift that helps us treasure the Giver more!

-Ben

Posted in Book Reviews | 2 Comments »

Does Author’s Intent or Reader’s Perception Matter More?

Everybody wants to be understood.  When you’re misunderstood, whose fault is it?

Could be you.  Could be your listener.  Right?

Posted in Commentary | 7 Comments »

What does it mean to “Trade My Sorrows”?

How many of you have sung the song Trading My Sorrows at church or youth group or camp or some conference somewhere?

I was thinking about it today, and I believe this is one of the most confused, potentially damaging songs that Christians use in corporate worship.

Why?  It’s teaching bad theology.  The bridge and the chorus are from the Bible (though a bit out of context, perhaps), but the verse certainly isn’t:

I’m trading my sorrow
I’m trading my shame
I’m laying it down for the joy of the Lord
I’m trading my sickness
I’m trading my pain
I’m laying it down for the joy of the Lord

For some reason the author got caught up in the word “trading”.  Trading has very clear connotations – I have something, you have something, and we trade.  Thus, I get what you had and you get what I had.

Look how that works here: I trade with God, giving him my sorrow and He gives me His joy.  In one sense, using one narrow definition of “give”, that works.  And perhaps the song is trying to point to that with the words “laying it down” – I trust God to deal with my sorrows, and trust Him to give me joy.

But that requires too much inference and interpretation.  There is a more simpler, more blatant meaning, that we all know is false but are constantly hoping is true because we don’t know how to handle it. The song is telling us that  sorrow and joy are mutually exclusive.  You get rid of sorrow, and you’ll get a lot of Joy.  More than that, you need to get rid of sorrow to get joy.

WRONG!

America doesn’t know how to suffer.  We don’t know how to deal with being pressed and persecuted and struck down.  We barely know the meaning of sorrow.  But, did you know it’s something that the Bible says you should cultivate at times?

Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. – Romans 12:15

You will ALWAYS know someone who is mourning, just as you will ALWAYS know someone who is rejoicing.  See the implication Paul is drawing?  Not only is it possible to be rejoicing and mourning at the same time, but we should always be both rejoicing and mourning!

Paul helps us by making this more clear.  In 2 Corinthians 6:10 he describes himself as “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.”  And that is key.

We go through life trying to avoid sorrow, avoid pain, avoid sickness, avoid shame, when the Bible doesn’t call us to any of those.  The NORMAL Christian life is meant to be one filled with suffering for the sake of the Gospel.  Second Timothy 3:12 tells us that “everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”  As the song says, we are blessed beyond the curse, for God’s promise will endure… and this is one promise, that does lead to blessing, that will endure!  “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me” says Matthew 5:11.

We flee sorrow, pain, suffering, persecution… and we flee blessing.  And we flee Jesus, because He is the ultimate blessing.

Why do we keep singing it?  To borrow a phrase from a friend, CCM (Contemporary Christian Music) like this can give us “shameless emotional rides”.  We like the rhyme, and the rhythm, and the “Yes Lord!” chorus is upbeat and exciting.  But songs are not just noise – they are words, and words communicate truth… or lies.  And humans believe them.  And that belief affects our living, and we become unable to have either joy or sorrow in their proper form.

Joy is not happiness in sorrowlessness.  Joy is happiness in God!

-Ben

Posted in Commentary, Theology | 31 Comments »

Prayer & Bible Reading

From When I Don’t Desire God (page 151), on how to pray over your Bible reading:

I—(Incline!) The first thing my soul needs is an inclination toward God and his Word. Without that, nothing else will happen of any value in my life. I must want to know God and read his Word and draw near to him. Where does that “want to” come from? It comes from God. So Psalm 119:36 teaches us to pray, “Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain!” Very simply we ask God to take our hearts, which are more inclined to breakfast and the newspaper, and change that inclination. We are asking that God create desires that are not there.

O—(Open!) Next I need to have the eyes of my heart opened so that when my inclination leads me to the Word, I see what is really there, and not just my own ideas. Who opens the eyes of the heart? God does. So Psalm 119:18 teaches us to pray, “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” So many times we read the Bible and see nothing wonderful. Its reading does not produce joy. So what can we do? We can cry to God: “Open the eyes of my heart, O Lord, to see what it says about you as wonderful.”

U—(Unite!) Then I am concerned that my heart is badly fragmented. Parts of it are inclined, and parts of it are not. Parts see wonder, and parts say, “That’s not so wonderful.” What I long for is a united heart where all the parts say a joyful Yes! to what God reveals in his Word. Where does that wholeness and unity come from? It comes from God. So Psalm 86:11 teaches us to pray, “Unite my heart to fear your name.” Don’t stumble over the word fear when you thought we were seeking joy. The fear of the Lord is a joyful experience when you renounce all sin. A thunderstorm can be a trembling joy when you know you can’t be destroyed by lightning. “O Lord, let your ear be attentive to . . . the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name” (Neh. 1:11). “His delight shall be in the fear of the LORD” (Isa. 11:3). Therefore pray that God would unite your heart to joyfully fear the Lord.

S—(Satisfy!) What I really want from all this engagement with the Word of God and the work of his Spirit in answer to my prayers is for my heart to be satisfied with God and not with the world. Where does that satisfaction come from? It comes from God. So Psalm 90:14 teaches us to pray, “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”

-Ben

Posted in Quotes | 3 Comments »

Make War

I’ve been reading through 1 Kings for the last few weeks.  Today I came across something that struck me as odd… and then it’s oddness struck me as odd.  Let me explain.

First Kings 18 is the famous story of Elijah vs. the Prophets of Baal… The prophets pray all day for fire and don’t get it.  Elijah prays a very simple prayer for fire and God sends fire that incinerates everything.  Pretty sweet story.  If you want to read something that might get you excited about reading the OT again, read this one.  First Kings 19 is Elijah running away from Ahab’s angry wife Jezebel, and ends with Elijah finding Elisha, who will eventually succeed him.

Chapter 20 is what struck me as odd.  Ahab is the King of Israel.  He’s fighting with the king of Syria.  Ahab was a wicked king who did not love God.  The king of Syria gathered together a bunch of other kings to go attack Ahab at Samaria.  They threaten Ahab then do something really stupid – get drunk in their tents.  So Ahab goes out after the kings, killing a bunch of people and causing the rest to flee.

Like any semi-intelligent commander, the king of Syria and his servants debrief what happened during the battle.  Here’s their diagnosis – fitting with their pagan, superstitious nature and not all that odd to us:

²³ And the servants of the king of Syria said to him, “Their gods are gods of the hills, and so they were stronger than we. But let us fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they. ²⁴ And do this: remove the kings, each from his post, and put commanders in their places, ²⁵ and muster an army like the army that you have lost, horse for horse, and chariot for chariot. Then we will fight against them in the plain, and surely we shall be stronger than they.” And he listened to their voice and did so.

See their solution: their god is a god of the hills, so fight them next time in the plains instead.  A few verses later, we see that this line of thinking leads to their destruction:

²⁸ And a man of God came near and said to the king of Israel, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Because the Syrians have said, “The Lord is a god of the hills but he is not a god of the valleys,” therefore I will give all this great multitude into your hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord.’ ”

That shocked me. It shouldn’t, but it did.

My thinking goes like, “these people are sinners.  And they’re not even Israelites.  They worship Pagan gods, they always have, and they probably always will.  This response is their natural, default response.  If I were in their position, I would probably come to the same conclusion.  It make sense.”

God’s thinking goes like, “these people are sinners.  With their every breath, they glorify things other than me.  This may be their default, but their default is sinful and thus deserves wrath.”

The difference?  God takes sin – each sin – much more seriously than we do. God takes us treasuring things other than Him seriously.  Every single instance of it.  He “gave over” a King and a “great multitude” because of a sin as simple as this, and it was completely just.  But we reduce it to “oh, that one action isn’t that bad.  I’m dealing with other sin right now.”  Or worse, like the Syrians, we think “there’s nothing wrong with this.  This is right and good and natural and consistent and normal,” blind to our own blindness.

Posted in Theology | 2 Comments »

Firefox 3 and Google Gears

Firefox 3 came out today. If you don’t use Firefox, you should give it a try. Why? Apparently it’s supposed to be up to 7 times faster than Internet Explorer.  And if you do have Firefox 2, you should upgrade – this is supposed to be ~3 times faster.  Learn about it and download it at getfirefox.com.

To go along with that, you should install Google Gears.  Gears lets you run certain web applications offline – most importantly Google Docs!  Now you can have all of your Documents, Spreadsheets, and Presentations available and editable from anywhere.  You could probably live without MS Office or OpenOffice installed now.  Other significant Gears-enabled apps include Google Reader (an RSS reader) and Remember The Milk (a todo list application with a gmail plugin) – I use both and find both very helpful.

If you have any questions or need any help, let me know.

-Ben

Posted in Web Applications | 4 Comments »

We Work With You For Your Joy

“The most God centered 3 minutes on YouTube.”  Also, this is the framework through which I view ministry at Cornell…

-Ben

Posted in Music/Videos | 4 Comments »