Only One Thing Can Makes Me Break My March Blogging Fast

Barbara Parrish talking about my favorite church in the world.

HT: David McLemore

Out of the Blogging Saddle for March

See you April 1.

I sign off with my favorite Edwards quote, first discovered December 17, 2004, in "Miscellany ff."

By virtue of the believer's union with Christ, he doth really possess all things. That we know plainly from Scripture. But it may be asked, how doth he possess all things? What is he the better for it? How is a true Christian so much richer than other men?

To answer this, I'll tell you what I mean by "possessing all things." I mean that God three in one, all that he is, and all that he has, and all that he does, all that he has made or done--the whole universe, bodies and spirits, earth and heaven, angels, men and devils, sun, moon and stars, land and sea, fish and fowls, all the silver and gold, kings and potentates as well as mean men--are as much the Christian's as the money in his pocket, the clothes he wears, the house he dwells in, or the victuals he eats; yea more properly his, more advantageously his, than if he could command all those things mentioned to be just in all respects as he pleased at any time, by virtue of the union with Christ; because Christ, who certainly doth thus possess all things, is entirely his: so that he possesses it all, more than a wife the share of the best and dearest husband, more than the hand possesses what the head doth; it is all his. . . .

Every atom in the universe is managed by Christ so as to be most to the advantage of the Christian, every particle of air or every ray of the sun; so that he in the other world, when he comes to see it, shall sit and enjoy all this vast inheritance with surprising, amazing joy.

1 Corinthians 15

The Lord Will Provide

Dogmatics, Exegesis

That the term dogmatician has nothing to do with dogs does not, I trust, need saying. But when exegetes and dogmaticians get together it is noticeable that they tend to sniff suspiciously at each other, as dogs do, uncertain whether they can be friends. 

--J. I. Packer, "The 'Wretched Man' Revisited: Another Look at Romans 7:14-25," in Romans and the People of God: Essays in Honor of Gordon D. Fee on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday (ed. Sven Soderlund and N. T. Wright; Eerdmans, 1999), 70

You Never Had Peace

Matt Smethurst in an excellent piece at TGC, on all the hoopla surrounding Michael Jordan turning 50:

"How can I find peace away from the game of basketball?" the aging legend asks.

Michael, you never had peace. Triumph and fame, yes, but not peace. James Naismith invented a game that brought you a sense of purpose, of value, of calm. But it was only that—a sense, a counterfeit of the real thing. You will never find life outside the game for the same reason you never found life in it. It's not there.

The peace you seek isn't available on a basketball court or a golf course but on a little hill outside Jerusalem. There, Yahweh incarnate hung in the place of sinners—wannabe Yahwehs like you and like me.

You've gained the world and found it lacking, Mike. Don't lose your soul.

How to Die

Sobering and moving and satisfying recounting of my grandfather's death. Worth pondering.

I wish you could have met him.

Here's the bit about his last sermon ever, 6 months before he died.

In the last six months of his life, Ray periodically had 10 – 15 minute emergencies when he fought desperately to get air. “When those periods were over, more than once he said, ‘This is God’s gift to me.’”

In January 2007, Ray was invited to preach his final sermon at a church on the verge of a split. “The pastor had gone into heresy and he invited people to follow him after he was kicked out,” Anne recalls.

Ray, concerned about his breathing and physical stamina, told Anne, “Pray I won’t cough when I’m preaching.”

In the service, Ray climbed the stairs as soon as his introduction began, so he could regain his breath before he began to speak.

“It was a powerful sermon about love in the body,” Anne recalls. “The Lord was so kind. He never coughed once and nobody left the church. The Holy Spirit used that sermon to convict them that they needed to stay together.”

HT: Eric Ortlund

The Right Answer

In the 1960s, Dr. Francis Schaeffer taught college students about Christianity at his L’Abri center in the mountains of Switzerland. Once during a discussion at a meal, someone asked Dr. Schaeffer, “What will happen to those who have never heard of Christ?” Everyone was eager to hear what this noted theologian would say in response to that important question. No answer came. In a moment everyone realized Schaeffer had bowed his head and was weeping silently. 

--Michael Allen Rogers, What Happens After I Die? (Crossway, 2013), 103

All the Poor and Powerless

Why Are We So Lost in Darkness Sometimes, Even as Christians?

One possible reason, from the Westminster Confession of Faith, 5.5:

The most wise, righteous, and gracious God doth oftentimes leave, for a season, His own children to manifold temptations, and the corruption of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled; and, to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon Himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for sundry other just and holy ends.

'to raise them.'