Merry Christmas

No blogging this week as I'm spending the next several days with family here in Wheaton.

Rutherford's Theology

Here's a fascinating-looking book about someone I know next to nothing of (HT: Ref21).

The Incarnation: Blasting Our Expectations

And the word became flesh and dwelt among us . . . -John 1:14

In his opening prologue, John upends both Greek and Jewish core worldview assumptions. Greek thought assumed anthropological dualism--division between body (bad) and soul (good). Jewish thought assumed theological monotheism--one God, the Creator, who stands above creation, never to dirty himself by getting too close to it. John blasts both the Greek view of man and the Jewish view of God.

To Greeks, John says: the word became flesh. The old lines drawn between the inferior material and the superior immaterial are forever abolished. D. A. Carson comments:

If the Evangelist had only said that the eternal Word assumed manhood or adopted the form of a body, the reader steeped in the popular dualism of the hellenistic world might have missed the point. But John is unambiguous, almost shocking in the expressions he uses: the Word became flesh.

To Jews, John says: This fleshly man was somehow, himself, Yahweh. Here's how C. S. Lewis puts it:

Among the Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if he was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says he has always existed. He says he is coming to judge the world at the end of time. Now let us get this clear. Among Pantheists, like the Indians, anyone might say that he was a part of God, or one with God: there would be nothing very odd about it. But this man, since he was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. God, in their language, meant the Being outside the world who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else. And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.

It is Christmas, our celebration of the incarnation. What tired old ways of thinking about God is it time for you and me to shed this year? Have we tamed God over the course of time? Perhaps it is time to let the lion out of the cage again in our heart--to frighten us when he roars at us, to melt us when he dies for us. After all, as that erudite theologian Mr. Beaver puts it, 'he's not safe--but he's good.'

Google Books

Looks like Google Book Search, which I use incessantly, is getting a facelift.

Mourning for Sins Begins at Home

"You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye." -Matt 7:5

In passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. -Rom 2:1

And tonight I read this:
It will be but mere mockery to pretend to humiliation for the sins of the land and nation if we all the while hold our own sin as a sweet morsel under our tongues and hug it as a dear friend in our bosom. Mourning for sins begins at home. -Jonathan Edwards, p. 200 of this volume of sermons

One manifestation of pride in my life is a marked internal disparity between the speed with which I note the faults of others and the slowness with which I note my own faults. As the gospel continues to sink in, one result I want to see more of is slowness in noting the faults of others and haste in seeing my own. I am quick to note evidences of grace in my life and sins in others; I am slow to note evidences of grace in others and sin in my life.

This doesn't mean to consider others faultless. Jesus admitted my brother does indeed have a speck in his eye. But the log is the issue. When I see the sins of others, I too often remind myself how typical it is, congratulate my own avoidance of such a thing, place myself over them, put it in my mental spotlight; in truth, I rejoice at it. When I see my own sins, I excuse it, emotionally compensate for it with what I deem to be my strengths, stifle it.

In 2009 I want to be quicker to mourn my own sins and to note evidences of grace in others, and slower to note others' sins and evidences of grace in myself.

Fernando Ortega: Still Beside Me

"If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there." -Ps 139:8

Two People I Love

"Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God." -Heb 13:7

" . . . honor such men." -Phil 2:29

Today I give thanks to God for my pastor and his wife, Chris and Karen Hodge. Chris and Karen moved to the Chicago area two years ago when Chris took the helm at Naperville Presbyterian Church. Their stated mission at NPC is to help us "infect all people with joy in God's glory and passion to become like him." (Can you improve on that?)

I am grateful for Chris because he understands and loves the gospel; he has a big vision of God; he loves his people; he preaches God's Word rather than his own ideas; he is not a people-pleaser but a people-lover and a people-challenger. All praise to God.

I am grateful for Karen because she is able to engage others' worlds in ways most of us fail to do; she has determined that she will rejoice in the Lord whatever the circumstances; she has loved my wife in remarkable ways; she has courageously used her teaching gifts in the local church and around the country. All praise to God again.

So, Stacey and I were on a date last night and reflecting on how grateful we are for Chris and Karen, and it gives me joy to share our thankfulness for them with anyone who might stumble across this blog today.

Together for the Gospel Live

Just got the Together for the Gospel Live album, on this recommendation. Wow.

The first link above gives samples of all tracks and three free downloads.

The Power of the Cross

O to see the dawn
Of the darkest day:
Christ on the road to Calvary.
Tried by sinful men,
Torn and beaten, then
Nailed to a cross of wood.

This, the pow'r of the cross:
Christ became sin for us;
Took the blame, bore the wrath—
We stand forgiven at the cross.

Oh, to see the pain
Written on Your face,
Bearing the awesome weight of sin.
Ev'ry bitter thought,
Ev'ry evil deed
Crowning Your bloodstained brow.

Now the daylight flees;
Now the ground beneath
Quakes as its Maker bows His head.
Curtain torn in two,
Dead are raised to life;
"Finished!" the vict'ry cry.

O to see my name
Written in the wounds,
For through Your suffering I am free.
Death is crushed to death;
Life is mine to live,
Won through Your selfless love.

--Keith and Kristyn Getty

The Key to Luke

This week in a class at church we're looking at Luke, and I hope to show that the key to this Gospel is the surprising way, possible only in the cross ('he set his face toward Jerusalem'), outsiders become insiders and insiders outsiders. Scribes, Pharisees, lawyers, teachers of the law: out. Women, gentiles, lepers, tax collectors, younger sons: in. It's all over the place. In reading G. B. Caird's little commentary, I found this helpful section:

All [Jesus'] tenderness of heart and mastery of description are called into play as he presents to us the cavalcade of witnesses who can testify to the presence of the kingdom because they have discovered in Jesus the friend and champion of the sick, the poor, the penitent, the outcast, of women, Samaritans, and Gentiles. 'Blessed are you poor'; 'bring quickly the best robe'; 'this man went down to his house justified'; 'her sins, which are many, are forgiven'; 'salvation has come to this house'; 'he gave him to his mother'; 'ought not this woman . . . to be loosed from this bond'; 'he had compassion and bound up his wounds'; 'now he was a Samaritan'; 'not even in Israel have I found such faith.' (p. 37)

We'll be focusing on the deliberate contrast between Zechariah and Mary in Luke 1-2. Both have an angel appear to them and tell them they'll be having a kid shortly. Both have reason to be surprised, as Elizabeth, Zechariah's wife, is old, and Mary is a young virgin. But Zechariah responds in disbelief, and Mary with (puzzled) faith.

The surprise is that we would have bet on Zechariah to come through as the faith-filled one every day of the week and twice on Sunday: he was a man, married, and a priest (of the Aaronic line no less), a grizzled old saint and servant who had served God all his life. And the angel met his in the temple! Mary was a woman, young, and unmarried. On top of that, for Zechariah to have a kid would have been great news. For Mary to have a kid meant disgrace, as it would appear to be the result of immorality. The insider is out, the outsider is in.

Good news for Dane Ortlund--in my best moments, I see that I, in my sin, am an unmitigated outsider, turned, in Christ, to become an insider.