Quotes of Note

Each Monday, we share quotes we found encouraging, convicting, thought-provoking, or all of the above.

Persis:

This is a quote from Forbearance: A Theological Ethic for a Disagreeable Church by James Calvin Davis. I wanted to read this book because of the question that opens the preface:

What happens when we approach theological disagreement not as a problem to solve or a crisis to endure, but as an opportunity to practice Christian virtue? ... Of course, some Christians may be concerned that a call for forbearance sounds like I am asking us to soften or abandon our commitment to what we think is right and true... To the contrary, forbearance invites us to believe, to defend our convictions, and to pursue what we think is right and true in God's eyes. But it invites us to do all of that good work with a certain character and attitude, so that our pursuit of justice and truth itself is reshaped by the practice of forbearance.

This practice of forbearance intrigues me because disagreement between Christians has become more divisive of late. Thus I am curious about what the author has to say.


Rebecca:

God's omnipotence and his care for us go together, writes Matthew Barrett in None Greater. The lives of Sarah and Hannah are examples of this:

Though women like Sarah and Hannah were embarrassing to society—barren and cursed—they were God's instruments of salvation, through which the seed of Genesis 3:15 would come to crush the serpent's head. The point is, the wisdom of God's power is displayed in our weakness. His wise omnipotence shines bright in our darkest hour.

One of my favorite truths is that God is accomplishing his wise purposes in our suffering. But I don't think I'd put it together quite like this before: As God works his plan through our weakness, his wisdom and power are revealed. His glory shines bright in a way it would not otherwise.

This is one universal good purpose for every bit of suffering we endure.

Quotes of Note

Each Monday, we share quotes we found encouraging, convicting, thought-provoking, or all of the above.

Rebecca:

On the relationship between the kingdom of God and the cross from The Kingdom of God and the Glory of the Cross by Patrick Schreiner:

At times an emphasis on the kingdom [of God] displaces or at least shifts attention away from a theology of the cross. It seems that we are prone to speak either of the kingdom or of the cross, unintentionally driving a wedge between the two. However, it is precisely in Jesus’s announcement, “The kingdom of God is at hand,” that he presupposes the kingdom will be accomplished by his death. The kingdom is not a higher or more important theme than the cross. These two realities are forever joined; separating them is an act of violence.

If the kingdom is the goal, then the cross is the means. But this does not mean that the cross simply falls between the ages. Rather, it is the wheel that shifts one age into another; it is the great transition piece, the turn of the ages for the people of God seeking their place. Martin Luther said that the cross must be the test of everything, and that includes a biblical theology of the kingdom. Jesus becomes King through the cross.

Persis:

Here's another quote from None Greater by Matthew Barrett which is fitting since my pastor preached yesterday from Romans 3.

[T]he just God has not compromised his holy character by passing over sins but has put forward his own Son as a propitiation. He has not given grace at the expense of his righteousness, but his righteousness itself has produced grace. Christ is the perfect sacrifice, the holy substitute, whose spilled blood satisfies divine justice itself. The cross is the way - the only way - God can remain righteous and just yet legitimately justify guilty sinners, like you and me. At the cross, justice and mercy kiss. For God is both “just and the justified of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

Kim:

Grant Osborne, in his commentary on Matthew, talks about chapter 5 verse 20:

The problem is inherent in all legalistic movements: certain patterns are identified with holiness, but they are too easily external (acted out) rather than internal (truly believed and lived). The result is hypocrisy (see Matt 23). Therefore, a mere righteousness by fiat is insufficient. The lifestyle God demands of the heart, lived out in daily actions.

Quotes of Note

Each Monday, we share quotes we found encouraging, convicting, thought-provoking, or all of the above.

Persis:

From None Greater by Matthew Barrett:

Sin against an infinite God cannot be atoned for by a Savior who has emptied himself of his divine attributes. No, it is his divine attributes that qualify him to make atonement in the first place. Sin against an infinite God can be met only by a Savior who is himself deity - and all the perfections identical with that deity - in infinite measure.

Rebecca:

Well! My chosen quote is from None Greater by Matthew Barrett, too. This not surprising, really, because this book is full of quotable bits.

While we may long for that day [the day we see our Savior face-to-face] with great expectation, we do not look for it as those who have not tasted of it here and now. While the banquet may be yet to come, already we have tasted its firstfuits. We may await the new heavens and earth, but on this earth, this side of glory, the Spirit is with us and within us. Every guarantee of that future day is assured in the ongoing, persistent, and unrelenting presence of the Spirit in our daily Christian lives. Every little victory over indwelling sin and every little desire to love others as Christ has loved us is a sign that the Spirit is at work in us, preparing us for that final day. The Spirit truly is a gift through whom we, as his little temples, enjoy fellowship with our Triune God . . . .

Kim:

And while I've purchased None Greater, my quotation is not from that book :)

From Paul Tripp's Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands:

If we want to know what people really want, we have to learn about their emotional life. Happiness is the result of getting what my heart craves. Discouragement is the emotional response of my heart when a thing I live for moves farther away from me. My heart is filled with fear when I suddenly lose what I am convinced I need. In short, our emotions reflect what we worship.

Quotes of Note

Each Monday, we share quotes we found encouraging, convicting, thought-provoking, or all of the above.

Persis:

I'm rereading All That's Good by Hannah Anderson with a group of women from church. The whole book is great, but the last chapter sums up the reason for discernment. A reason that is just bigger than my individual Christian life. It's for the healing of the Body of Christ.

Here's the hard truth: If you are entrusted with a certain gift, most of the people around you won't be similarly gifted. They won't be able to see as clearly because God has not equipped them to. But being gifted with discernment does not give you permission to be spiteful, arrogant, or judgmental toward them. It is your responsibility to help the community by raising uncomfortable questions, and then waiting patiently while it struggles with them. And more than likely, you'll have to wait much longer than you want... you will have to remember that you are part of the Body, you are part of something bigger than yourself. You will have to remember that the clarity you enjoy is not for you alone. It is for the healing of the Body of Christ.

Rebecca:

The simplicity of God can be hard to understand. That God is simple means that he is not made up of parts. Or to put is another way, he is not a composite being. Still, we list God's attributes (love, righteousness, and power, for instance), and consider them separately, although we know God is truly one undivided essence.

In None Greater: The  Undomesticated Attributes of God, Matthew Barrett illustrates simplicity this way.

What I love best about traveling is seeing old churches. Churches that are several hundred years old typically have stained glass. Back then, churches would hire a craftsman to fashion biblical scenes using the colorful glass. Stepping back from the glass, one could see the entire story of the Bible pictured. The beauty of stained glass is seen most when one sunbeam hits the glass and several different colors are portrayed on the inside of the glass—yellow, red, blue, and so on. That imagery pictures simplicity in a way. God is one, and his attributes are identical with one another. Yet when God's undivided essence is revealed to humanity, it shines in various ways. Nevertheless, it is the same, single ray of light that radiates. God's attributes, says the Puritan George Swinnock, "are all one and the same; as when the sunbeams shine through a yellow glass they are yellow, a green glass they are green, a red glass they are red, and yet all the while the beams are the same."

As finite creatures, we can't know God in his infinite simplicity, but we can see him as he "shines through glass," so to speak. From our human viewpoint, we see various perfections, and with each perfection, we can understand another aspect of God's one undivided essence.

Kim:

From Grant Osborne's commentary on Matthew:

Jesus is never called "Immanuel" (1:23) as a proper name; rather, the term is a metaphor for the fact that in Jesus God is present "with" his people in a whole new way. There are four stages biblically: (1) God is present via his "Shekniah," or dwelling via the pillar of fire and cloud in the exodus and his throne at the midpoint where the wings of the seraphim meet above the ark, i.e., in the Most Holy Place throughout the OT. (2) God is present via his son, who was in a sense a walking Most Holy Place during his life on this earth. (3) God is present via the holy Spirit during the church age. (4) God is present physically and in full reality throughout eternity (Rev. 21:1-22:5).

Quotes of Note

Each Monday, we share quotes we found encouraging, convicting, thought-provoking, or all of the above.

Persis:

This is a quote from You Are What You Love by James K.A. Smith which may be one of the most eye-opening books I have read this year.

Christian worship, we should recognize, is essentially a counterformation to these rival liturgies we are often immersed in, cultural practices that covertly capture our loves and longings, miscalibrating them, orienting us to rival versions of the good life. This is why worship is the heart of discipleship. We can't counter the power of cultural liturgies with didactic information poured into our intellects. We can't recalibrate the heart from the top down, through merely informational measures. The orientation of the heart happens from the bottom up, through the formation of our habits of desire. Learning to love (God) takes practice. (pg. 25)

Rebecca:

In None Greater, Matthew Barrett writes that God's aseity—that he "has of himself all that he has"—

is wrapped up in . . . his role as Israel's covenant Lord and Savior. When God enters into a covenant relationship with Abraham and later on with Israel, he does so as the God who is independent. His independence entails his possession of (rather than his dependence on) all things. As the God who is sovereign over all things, he can give to Abraham and Israel a great and prosperous land and make them a nation that will bless all nations. 

What's more, the gospel depends on God's aseity:

If God were not life in and of himself, if he were not independent of us, then he would not be . . . able to save us . . . .  If God were not a se, then he would be weak and pathetic, for he would be needy and dependent to. He would need saving, just as we do . . . . 

[I]t is precisely because God is free from creation that he is able to save lost sinners like you and me (Ephesians 1:7-8). If God were a needy God, he would need our help just as much as we need his. What good news it is, then, that the gospel depends on a God who does not depend on us.

Quotes of Note

Each Monday, we share quotes we found encouraging, convicting, thought-provoking, or all of the above.

Persis:

This was a convicting quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the "Ministry of Listening" in his book, Life Together:

The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists of listening to them. Just as love to God begins with listening to His Word, so the beginning of love for the brethren is learning to listen to them. It is God's love for us that He not only gives us His Word but also lends us His ear. So it is His work that we do for our brothers when we learn to listen to him...

Brotherly pastoral care is essentially distinguished from preaching by the fact that, added to the task of speaking the Word, there is the obligation of listening. There is a kind of listening with half an ear that presumes already to know what the other person has to say. It is an impatient, inattentive listening, that despises the brother and is only waiting for a chance to speak and thus get rid of the other person. This is no fulfillment of our obligation, and it is certain that here too our attitude toward our brother only reflects our relationship to God. 

Kim: 

I am really enjoying Ed Hirsch, Jr.'s Validity in Interpretation. It's not a Christian book, but it is about hermeneutics in general. It really gets to the heart of what meaning and interpretation are. And that can only be helpful when applied to Biblical texts.

Hirsch reminds us that interpretation is an art:

A translation or paraphrase tries to render the meaning in new terms; an explanation tries to point to the meaning in new terms. That is why interpretation, like translation, is an art, for the interpreter has to find means of conveying to the uninitiated, in terms familiar to them, those presuppositions and meanings which are equivalent to those in the original meaning. 

Even as I think about this in the context of teaching (which relies on paraphrase), I realize that finding ways which draw on the student's presuppositions and pre-understandings is something very challenging.

Quotes of Note

Each Monday, we share quotes we found encouraging, convicting, thought-provoking, or all of the above.

Persis:

This is a quote on love for our neighbor in Body Broken by Charles Drew:

Zeal for the coming Christ and love for people go together. Our practice of public goodness aims not to put people down but to win people to him before it is too late. What our culture needs these days is a vibrant, plausible, winsome Christianity. Intellectual and philosophical arguments are important and good, but they cannot stand alone. They must come from lives of people who have evidently been changed for the better by the God they profess. Do we love people enough, we must ask, to showcase - by how we talk, how we do business, how we do politics, how we treat people, and how we as Christians get along with each other - something of the goodness, justice, loyalty, beauty, and love of our true home?

Rebecca:

If we know anything about God, it is because he has chosen to make it known; revelation is a gift. In that light, our task cannot be speculation. Our response to his revelation concerning himself is not to demand knowledge of that which he has chosen to conceal. 

Instead, Christian humility requires us to receive with gratitude what he has spoken and to limit ourselves to what he has said and done, rather than pine after what he has not said and those works he has left unperformed.

 [Matthew Barrett in None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God]

Kim:

From Herman Bavinck's Reformed Dogmatics: God and Creation.  Bavinck has spent time discussing the arguments for the existence of God:

Faith attempts to give an account of the religious impressions and feelings that we humans receive and carry with us in our soul. That faith also exerts its influence on the intellect, which in turn seeks little by little to introduce some order in that chaos of impressions and notions. It classifies them and reduces them to a few categories. Impressions come to us from the world of ideas (the ontological argument); from the world of finite contingent, and mutable things (the cosmological arguments); from the world of beauty and harmonious design (the teleological argument); from that of moral order (the moral argument); from the speech of history of all humankind (the universal consent and the historical argument). However, although these impressions may be so classified, no one should ever think that these six proofs are the sole, isolated testimonies God sends us. On the contrary; to the believer all things speak of god; the whole universe is the mirror of his perfections. There is not an atom of the universe in which his everlasting power and deity are not clearly seen.

Quotes of Note

Each Monday, we share quotes we found encouraging, convicting, thought-provoking, or all of the above.


Kim:

My Greek professor, Wayne Baxter, has written a book We've Lost. What Now? Practical Counsel from the Book of Daniel. It deals with the issue of coping as Christians in culture when we have become marginalized:

God knew that the Western church would eventually lose its footing in society and be shoved into the periphery. And yet, God is still there for us. In the midst of the mockery and the animosity that we so often attract, we can still humbly turn to God with confidence, knowing that he has not excused himself from the scene. Though sometimes feeling abandoned, he has not left us as orphans (Isa. 49:15). Therefore, although we live in exile we should never live with a sense of despair over our circumstances, simply biding time until Jesus "calls it" and finally returns for his church. For not only can we count on God's abiding presence, he has also given us unique gifts to equip us in our exile in order to enable us to speak prophetically, through word and deed, to a watching world so that we can witness more effectively to our community.

Persis:

We just finished a Sunday school class on John Owen's Mortification of Sin. Here is an encouraging quote on who supplies the wherewithall to mortify sin.

Christ is the fountain from which the new man must draw the influence of life and strength, or he will decay every day. If we are 'strengthened with power ... in [our] inner being', it is by Christ's 'dwelling in [our] hearts through faith' (Eph. 3:16-17).

That this is not to be done without the Holy Spirit we have already considered. You might ask: 'Whence, then, do we expect the Spirit? From whom do we look for Him? Who has promised Him to us? Who has secured His aid for us?' Is not the answer to all these questions, Christ alone?

Quotes of Note

Each Monday, we share quotes we found encouraging, convicting, thought-provoking, or all of the above.

Persis:

I just finished reading Disruptive Witness by Alan Noble. It's one of the most thought-provoking books I have read this year. This is quote on how Christian witness during times of suffering can be counter-cultural.

Virtually every force in our culture mitigates against us contemplating our mortality and its implications. Rather than a traditional period of mourning as we find in other cultures and times, American culture encourages us to cope and move on. We can offer a disruptive witness merely by weeping with those who weep, giving them space and dialogue to experience sorrow and to contemplate mortality, suffering, and evil. Our presence and openness to the weight of tragedy will itself be a witness to God's compassion and the significance of each human life. (pg. 168)

Rebecca:

All week long, as I read I kept my eye open for a suitable quote for the Quotes of Note, but I found nothing. So how about a little poetry?

Here are the last two verses of Christina Rosetti's poem The Offering Of The New Law, The One Oblation Once Offered:

Sacrifice and Offering
None there is that I can bring,
None, save what is Thine alone:
I bring Thee, Lord, but of Thine Own— 

Broken Body, Blood Outpoured,
These I bring, my God, my Lord;
Wine of Life, and Living Bread,
With these for me Thy Board is spread.

Now go read the whole thing.

Quotes of Note

Each Monday, we share quotes we found encouraging, convicting, thought-provoking, or all of the above.

Persis:

We were blessed to have Dr. William Vandoodewaard speak at my church's theology conference this past weekend. This quote is from his book on the Marrow Controversy and contains a quote from Thomas Boston on the mystical union of Christ and the believer.

Boston describes the two parts of "the mystical union betwixt Christ and believers" as begun and sustained by the work of "the Spirit on Christ's part, whereby he apprehendeth, taketh, and keepeth hold of us" and the subsequent "faith on the believer's part" whereby "the believer apprehends, takes, and keeps hold of Christ," Boston states, "This faith is that true one, whereby a sinner rests on Christ for all his salvation.... [This] faith is the only mean on our part.... a self-emptying and creature-emptying grace.... The soul having faith wrought in it by the Spirit actually believes and receives Christ, putting forth the hand of the soul to embrace him."  pg. 83

Rebecca:

Here's another quote from F. F. Bruce's commentary on The Epistle to the Hebrews.

It calls for an exceptional effort of mind on our part to appreciate how paradoxical was the attitude of those early Christians to the death of Christ. If ever death had appeared to be triumphant, it was when Jesus of Nazareth, disowned by the leaders of his nation abandoned by his disciples, executed by the might of imperial Rome, breathed his last on the cross. Why, some had actually recognized in his cry of pain and desolation the complaint that even God had forsaken him. His faithful followers had confidently expected him to be the destined liberator of Israel; but he had died—not, like Judas of Galilee of Judas Maccabaeus, in the forefront of the struggle against the Gentile oppressors of Israel, but in evident weakness and disgrace—and their hopes died with him. If ever a cause was lost, it was his; if ever the powers of evil were victorious, it was then. And yet—within a generation his followers were exultingly proclaiming the crucified Jesus to be the conqueror of death and asserting, like our author here, that by dying he had reduced the erstwhile lord of death to impotence. The keys of death and Hades were henceforth held firmly in Jesus’ powerful hand, for he, in the language of his own parable, had invaded the strong man’s fortress, disarmed him, bound him fast, and robbed him of his spoil (Luke 11:21f). This is the unanimous witness of the New Testament writers; this was the assurance which nerved martyrs to face death boldly in his name. This sudden change from disillusionment to triumph can only be explained by the account which the apostles gave—that their Master rose from the dead and imparted to them the power of his risen life.

This is written specifically in regards to Hebrews 2:14, but you don't even need to know the context to see that this is a powerful paragraph. Commentaries don't have to be boring!

Kim (Chiming in late; it was a busy weekend!):

The book Creation and Blessing: A Guide to the Exposition of Genesis, is one my professor recommended to me for my paper on Genesis 15. This is a short paragraph, but I believe it is important. The author, Allen Ross, is discussing the need to develop the theology of a passage:

In the final analysis the narrative unit has something to say theologically. It may include theological motifs and statements, but together they will express a unified theological idea. Accordingly, the exposition should develop the theology of the passage; failure to do so will inevitably leave the exposition on the level of storytelling, historical inquiry, or Bible trivia. (emphasis mine)

Quotes of Note

Each Monday, we share quotes we found encouraging, convicting, thought-provoking, or all of the above.

Persis:

A quote from Devoted to God by Sinclair Ferguson:

If we are to understand the nature of sanctification and successfully pursue it, we must immerse ourselves in appreciating the grace of God expressed to us in Jesus Christ and applied in us by the Holy Spirit. Our response is dependent on it and motivated by it. This alone empowers us to grow in the kind of holiness of which Paul is here speaking. [Rom. 8:3-4] Justification, forgiveness, acceptance, and union with Christ, are the logical and actual grounds for sanctification and obedience - not the other way round. (pg. 35)

Kim:

I'm researching for a paper on Genesis 15, and my professor recommended the book Kingdom Through Covenant. He suggested I read the pertinent sections, but I began reading from the beginning, and found helpful this passage about the link between systematic theology and biblical theology:

Systematic theology involves a twofold task. First, in order to apply Scripture properly, we must interpret Scripture correctly. This requires the doing of biblical theology, namely, as related above, describe for us how God's plan unfolds. This is why biblical theology provides the basis for theologizing and doctrine, since we are not drawing proper theological conclusions unless we first correctly understand all that the Bible teaches in the way the Bible presents it. Yet our reading of Scripture presupposed theological commitments consistent with Scripture and orthodox theology.  Second, systematic theology is more than just the mere repeating of Scripture or the doing of biblical theology since it involves the application of Scripture to all areas of life. Systematic theology inevitably entails theological construction and doctrinal formulation, which is grounded in biblical theology and done in light of historical theology but which also includes interacting with all areas of life -- science, psychology, ethics, and so on.

I remember when I took systematic theology two years ago, I was struck by the truth of that last sentence: that it touches on all areas of life. The systematic theologian has to be a very diverse thinker.

This looks to be a great book. So far, I'm learning a lot about the difference between dispensationalism and covenant theology, something I've long been wanting to do.

Rebecca:

In the Greco-Roman world, the idea that anyone divine would have any relationship with suffering was shocking. To associate himself with suffering seemed beneath a perfect God. The author of Hebrews, then, felt it necessary to explain that it was right for God to cause Jesus to suffer:

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering (Hebrews 2:10 ESV).

We may not find this particular concept counterintuitive, but still, we need to be careful not to presume we know what God ought to do. In F. F. Bruce's commentary on this verse, he reminds us that

[t]here are many who are ready to tell us confidently what would and what would not be worthy of God; but in fact the only way to discover what is a worthy thing for God to do is to consider what God has actually done. The person who says, "I could not have a high opinion of a God who would (or would not) do this or that," is not adding anything to our knowledge of God; he is simply telling us something about himself. We may be sure that all that God does is worthy of himself . . . .

Quotes of Note

Each Monday, we share quotes we found encouraging, convicting, thought-provoking, or all of the above.

Persis:

In Sunday school this week, one of the elders taught the lesson on Chapter 6 in the Mortification of Sin. He quoted from Holiness by J.C. Ryle which inspired me to take a look at it again. This quote is from the introduction.

That a life of daily self-consecration and daily communion with God should be aimed at by everyone who professes to be a believer --that we should strive to attain the habit of going to the Lord Jesus Christ with everything we find a burden, whether great or small, and casting it upon Him--all this, I repeat, no well-taught child of God will dream of disputing. But surely the New Testament teaches us that we want something more then generalities about holy living, which often pierce no conscience and give no offence. The details and particular ingredients of which holiness is composed in daily life, ought to be fully set forth and pressed on believers by all who profess to handle the subject. True holiness does not consist merely of believing and feeling, but of doing and bearing, and a practical exhibition of active and passive grace.

Rebecca:

I'm going to quote some of Tom Schreiner's comments in his book Spiritual Gifts: What They Are and Why They Matter, but first, here are the verses from Romans he's commenting on:

[6] Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; [7] if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; [8] the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. (Romans 12:6-8 ESV)

One of the points Schreiner takes from this text is that we should focus our time and energy on the particular gifts we have been given.

In verse 7-8 Paul lists three gifts and says that believers should concentrate on the gift one has. For instance, those who have a gift of service should concentrate on serving. Those with a gift of teaching should center their ministry on their teaching, while those who have a gift of exhortation and encouragement should devote themselves to encouraging others.

What Paul says here applies to all the gifts and is immensely practical. We should pour our energy into the gifts we have. Of course, we must be careful and avoid an overreaction. We must not say, "I won't serve because I have the gift of teaching," or, "I don't do evangelism because I don't have the gift of sharing the gospel with others." On the other hand, life is short, and God has designed the body so that it functions best when we concentrate on the gifts we have. We are to spend our time maximizing the particular gift God has given us. To do such is not unspiritual or selfish but wise. [1]

I will admit to being frustrated sometimes when other Christians don't share the particular passions I have. But I think our passions tend to follow our gifts, so it's exactly right for us, because we are gifted differently, to be passionate about different aspects of service to the church. It's not necessarily unspiritual for another believer to not share my specific interests or to not be passionate about the same causes I am.

"Life is short," as Schreiner says. Maximize the particular gift God has given you. Or, to put it another way, "Give yourself completely and joyfully to the work God has given you to do."[2]

---

[1] pages 66-67.
[2] page 68.

Quotes of Note

Each Monday, we share quotes we found encouraging, convicting, thought-provoking, or all of the above.

Persis:

The foundations on which sanctification is built from 1 Peter 1 in Devoted to God by Sinclair Ferguson. (pg. 29)

1. God the Holy Trinity, is devoted to it;
2. God the Holy Father has commanded us to pursue it;
3. Christ the Holy Son has died to effect it;
4. The Holy Spirit works in us to bring forth the fruit of it;
5. God sends trials into our experience in order to produce it;
6. Heaven itself is a world that is full of it.

Kim:

I have been reading Simonetta Carr's book Broken Pieces and the God Who Mends Them. I'm swamped with school work at the moment, but I've been sneaking moments before bed to read it. It's gripping. Simonetta's experience is extreme, but not uncommon. Despite her situation with her son being more difficult than most, her words about motherhood in this passage are true. We never stop learning to mother:

I pat him on the leg to show that I'm happy he is coming with us. The mellowing effect of the medications causes his muscles to relax, and he doesn't react. He once told me he doesn't like to be hugged or touched, so I try not to do it, but once in while I sneak a light pat on his leg or shoulder, or a soft kiss over his head on the tip of his dreadlocks. It feels so good, and I want it so much, but I have to remember that I don't need it -- not if he doesn't want it. The only way to accept it is to keep my eyes on the Lord and to get my satisfaction from him. I thought I was done learning most of my lessons about motherhood, but no . . . 

Quotes of Note

Each Monday, we share quotes we found encouraging, convicting, thought-provoking, or all of the above.

Kim:

For my Pentateuch class, we're reading a book called Who Shall Ascend to the Mountain of the Lord? by Michael Morales. It is a biblical theology on Leviticus. I have read other books from this series, and they were excellent.

In the second chapter of the book, Morales, in the context of discussing the seventh day of creation,  emphasizes that humans were created in the image of God for the purpose of being in the presence of God:

The human being is regarded as God's counterpart on earth, the "You" who is addressed by God, and the "I" who is responsible to God. Until this wonder sets in deeply, that the Potter has crafted a vessel with whom he can interact and engage relationally, understanding the image of God will be limited to the goings on of the first six days. Humanity, nevertheless, is not the culmination of creation, but rather humanity in the Sabbath day communion with God. This engagement with the divine is what -- and what alone -- can fulfill the purpose and potential for the image of God, not merely as a keeper of the lower creation, but as a lover of the fathomless Uncreated; in this way and for this purpose the image of God itself becomes the wonder of creation. In short, humanity was created for the heavenward gaze, the human soul for a life of prayer.

Persis:

This quote is from Devoted to God by Sinclair Ferguson. When we think about the term "holiness" or "holy," it is often described as "to be separate from" or "to be cut off from." But Ferguson asks whether we are beginning at the wrong place. These definitions are from the point of view of the creature and sinner, which may not give the entire picture.

Any description we give of what God is like in himself - in technical terms, describing his 'attributes' - must meet a simple test. For anything to be true of God as he is in himself it must be true quite apart from his work in creation, quite apart from our experience or even the existence of angels, archangels, cherubim and seraphim. It must be true of God simply as he always existed in the eternal Trinity. But in that case, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit had no 'attribute' that involved separation...

What then is God's holiness? What do we mean when we say 'Holy Father' and 'Holy Son' and 'Holy Spirit' and 'Holy Trinity'?

We mean the perfectly pure devotion of each of these three persons to the other two. We mean the attribute in the Trinity that corresponds to the ancient words that describe marriage: 'forsaking all others, and cleaving only unto thee'  - absolute, permanent, exclusive, pure, irreversible, and fully expressed devotion. (pages 1-2)

Rebecca:

Here's how Graeme Goldsworthy summarizes his study tracing the theme of "Son of God" (which is not the same as "God the Son") through the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation:

As Son of God, [Jesus] is the new Adam, the new Israel, the new humanity. All the promises of God made to his people are fulfilled in Jesus: he is the new creation, the new Promised land, the new Jerusalem, the new temple, and the new people of God. Thus, his resurrection signals the fact that he is the Son of God (Romans 1:3-4) by demonstrating that he fulfills the promises of the Old Testament (Acts 13:32-33). Jesus as the Son of God defines our salvation as part and parcel of the renewal of all things: the new heaven and earth. Jesus as the Son of God, declared to be so by his resurrection, shows that our salvation is not merely the saving of our soul but the redemption of our whole being—body, mind, and soul—through our own resurrection. Jesus as the Son of God, by his death and resurrection, was putting the whole universe back together from the futility to which is has been subjected because of the human rebellion against the Creator (Romans 8:19-23). The consummation of this total regeneration is described in the book of Revelation as resurrection and the new heaven and earth. The dwelling place of God with his people is envisaged as a new Jerusalem let down from heaven to the new earth. The coming again of Jesus, our resurrection, and the renewal of all things is our certain expectation based on the fact that Jesus is the Son of God.

From The Son of God and the New Creation.

Quotes of Note

Each Monday, we share quotes we found encouraging, convicting, thought-provoking, or all of the above.

Persis:

This is quote from The Whole Christ by Sinclair Ferguson on assurance and a "frowning providence." This is my second rereading of the book, and it gets better each time.

We are not the best interpreters of divine providence. Nor is our conviction of the Father's love for us grounded in his providential ways with us. The fatal mistake here is to base our assurance of grace and salvation on the fact that "God is blessing my life." When we do so, we have no anchor if life turns sour. No, God anchors us to himself in Christ. He has demonstrated his love to us specifically on the cross - "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." From the crucified Christ, now risen, ascended, and reigning, we must never allow our eyes to be diverted nor view providence except through cross-shaped lenses. (pgs. 215-216)

Kim:

My term paper on Apologetics deals with the problem of evil. One of the books I have been using for my research is The Many Faces of Evil, by John Feinberg. Feinberg's wife was diagnosed with Huntington's Chorea, and that experience has shaped his understanding of evil and suffering. In this passage, he reminds us that living the Christian life is a battle, and battles bring injury:

Yes, we are engaged in a spiritual war. But did you think you could go to war, even be in the front lines of the battle, and never get wounded? 

I did. At least, I never expected a wound like the one we got. But I have come to see that this was unrealistic. The enemy is very real, and has many ways of attacking those who would follow God. Knowing that there will be attack and battle wounds doesn't mean the wounds don't hurt. But it does help us assess more accurately what has happened. One may wish exemption from the battle, but that isn't possible. One may even contemplate changing sides as many do when confronted with tragedy, but that option isn't the answer to our problems for either time or eternity. 

Quotes of Note

Each Monday, we share quotes we found encouraging, convicting, thought-provoking, or all of the above.


Deb

A common refrain in contemporary discussions of gender roles asserts that the concept of complementarianism was invented in the 1980's by a para-ministry. However, several historical sources cite the philosophical and theological seeds of the concept to the early church, through Aquinas, and in other scholastic writers. Formally, Prudence Allen documented how the terminology was coined in the early 20th century:

"With the development of quantum physics, the naming in 1927 of the principle of complementarity by Niels Bohr, and the application of complementarity to the married relation of a woman and a man by Dietrich von Hildebrand in 1929, integration of the history of the concept of woman reached a new high point. The simultaneous relation of equal dignity and significant difference now had a  name: complementarity." - Prudence Allen, The Concept of Woman, Volume 3: The Search for Communion of Persons, 1500–2015.

Persis

This is another quote from Simonetta Carr's Broken Pieces and the God Who Mends Them:

As a wise friend explained to me, the best thing is to lay open our hearts to God, admit that we don’t know how to resolve the situation, and pray that in his providence he would direct events so that our children can get help without hurting themselves in the process.

With that in mind, I kept praying my bumbling prayers, trusting that God would, by his Spirit, decipher the cry of my soul (see Rom. 8:26). As the Heidelberg Catechism teaches, “It is even more sure that God listens to my prayer than that I really desire what I pray for.” God’s answer was not always what I wanted to hear, but I knew it was according to his will, and he always supplied me with sufficient comfort and strength.

Prayer is one of the great privileges that Christ has purchased for us with his blood—it gives us the ability to go to our Creator and call him Father, and it is in itself a comfort in the midst of all the thorns and thistles that have filled our lives since Adam’s sin. In fact, Christ is constantly interceding for us in heaven, even when we forget (or are too lazy) to pray. He will never leave us or forsake us (see Deut. 31:6; Heb. 13:5; see also Matt. 28:20).

Rebecca

I'm still reading Can We Trust the Gospels by Peter J. Williams, but I'm almost finished. Here's a quote from the last chapter, Who Would Make All This Up?:

There are many particulars in the Gospels that the authors would be unlikely to have invented. Although one can usually think of complex reasons why someone might invent them, those are not the simplest explanations. The simplest explanation is that these reports are true.  

The most obvious example is the shameful death of Jesus through crucifixion, which of course was the Romans' way of showing that they were in charge and the one crucified was a defeated failure. However, the Gospel writers record this event and many others that could seem embarrassing to their cause. All four Gospels tell of the leading disciple, Peter, three times denying that he knew Jesus. In all four Gospels the disciples are portrayed as lacking understanding and as disloyal at the key moment of Jesus's arrest. 

It's hard to envisage why either the disciples themselves or anyone who looked to them for leadership would make up such stories. It is also hard to see why anyone would write a Gospel that implies its dependence on the disciples for information and then invent such things about them. And this is not the limit of the difficulty. Passages critical of disciples are found in different sorts of Gospel material. For the core texts of Christianity to contain so much material critical of the first Christian leaders is unusual when considered against other religious or political movements. A simple interpretation is that the critical accounts of early leaders signal the trustworthiness of the sources.

Quotes of Note

Each Monday, we share quotes we found encouraging, convicting, thought-provoking, or all of the above.

Kim:

I'm taking Apologetics this semester, and we are expected to read John Frame's Apologetics: A Justification of Christian Belief. I was really excited when I saw it on the syllabus. I have read quite a bit of John Frame's writing, and I have always found his arguments compelling. Frame argues from what is known as a presuppositional view. That means the idea of a purely neutral view is rejected. Classical apologetics works to prove God's existence by rational arguments. R.C. Sproul was a classical apologist.

In the opening chapter, Frame articulates his view that neutrality is not possible. Because we hold to the truth that Jesus is Lord, it will determine how we argue:

To tell the unbeliever that we can reason with him on a neutral basis, however that claim might help to attract his attention, it is a lie. Indeed, it is a lie of the most serious kind, for it falsifies the very heart of the gospel -- that Jesus Christ is Lord. There is no neutrality. Our witness is either God's wisdom or the world's foolishness. There is nothing in between. Even if neutrality were possible, that route would be forbidden to us. . . .  When I oppose neutrality, what I oppose is appealing to something other than God's revelation as the ultimate source of truth.

Persis:

This quote is from Broken Pieces and the God Who Mends Them: Schizophrenia Through a Mother's Eyes by Simonetta Carr. The book will be released in February, and Lord willing, I will write a review here.

Almost mindlessly, the fatigued soldiers follow their king, step after step, their eyes still low. The fight is over, but walking back is still an arduous task. And yet it’s a task they can take on, step after step, as they remember that everything— the battle, the victory, the journey back and the prospects ahead—is not about them. Everything is for God’s glory. There is a larger story, much larger than any human plan and conjecture, as gripping and absorbing as these may be.

So I do the same. As impossible as letting go seems at this moment, I walk on, doing what I know God wants me to do right now—what he has always wanted me to do: trust him, worship him, and help others in the limited sphere of my ordinary life. And it’s there, in the ordinary steps of daily living, that I feel sustained. Doing dishes, cleaning floors, giving rides, teaching and translating, singing and worshiping with other believers on Sundays. This is all God is asking right now, and, by his grace, this I can do.

Rebecca:

Here’s an interesting tidbit from Can We Trust the Gospels by Peter J. Williams:

According to the Gospels, Jesus spent much of his time by the Sea of Galilee. Sea is, of course, a rather grand word for a body of water just twenty-one kilometers (thirteen miles) in length, but from the perspective of any local Galilean who had not traveled far, this was the sea and did not need further description.

Williams goes on to tell us that Matthew used the word sea twelve time to refer to the Sea of Galilee. Mark used sea for the Sea of Galilee seventeen times, twice calling it specifically the Sea of Galilee, but

[o]therwise, it is simply “the sea.” This is what we would expect if Mark’s Gospel were written on the basis of information supplied to Mark by the fisherman Peter, for whom this would have been the sea par excellence.

But Luke?

Luke is rather different. It uses the word sea only three times and never in reference to a particular body of water. If, as is traditionally thought, Luke came from Antioch on the Orontes, not far from the Mediterranean, he certainly would not have thought of the tiny Sea of Galilee as the sea. He just calls it “the lake.”

Quotes of Note

Each Monday, we share quotes we found encouraging, convicting, thought-provoking, or all of the above.

Kim:

In her book Advent, Fleming Rutledge talks about the significance of the combination of royalty stooping down to meet with her people.

Elizabeth I was a great monarch in part because the people knew that she loved them, and her processions through the countryside were specifically designed to allow them to love her in return. . . If it is true that there is unique power in the combination of royalty and stooping, then there has never been anything comparable to the errand of the Son of God. In Jesus Christ we see the One "who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be clutched at, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave' (Phi. 2:6-7). The problem with much of our Christology nowadays, it seems to me, is that we have concentrated so much on the stooping that we have lost sight of the royalty. More than half of the biblical message is thereby eliminated, for it is the combination that counts. Thus we read in Exodus 3, "Moses his his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Then the Lord said, 'I have seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and heard their cry because of their taskmasters; I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them.'"  

The God who is so terrifying that we must hide our faces from his resplendence is the same God who has come down to deliver his people in their extremity.

Persis:

My pastor started a sermon series on Leviticus, so I picked up From Paradise to the Promised Land by T.D. Alexander off the shelf. It's hard to comprehend how much blood had to be shed day after day, year after year at the Tabernacle and the Temple. I also wonder what it was like for the early believers to realize that Jesus Christ's sacrifice was once and for all.

By emphasizing that Jesus Christ as God's unique son, provided the sacrifice necessary to atone completely for human sin, the New Testament highlights two important aspects of God's character: his justice and his love. Motivated by love, God provides the sacrifice necessary to meet the demands of his own justice. It is God, in the person of his own son, who pays the price of forgiveness for human sin. (pg. 226)

Rebecca:

Graeme Goldworthy on why the Old Testament is relevant Christian scripture:

Jesus claimed that the whole of the Old Testament was about him. It has been estimated that the New Testament contains some sixteen hundred direct quotes from, or recognizable allusions to, the Old Testament. If we are interested in the New Testament's testimony to Jesus, we cannot avoid the implications of its preoccupation with the link between Jesus and the Old Testament Scriptures. The idea that the Old Testament deals with the rather irrelevant Jewish background to the Christian gospel is detrimental to the New Testament's exposition of the gospel. Jesus is declared to be the fulfiller, but we won't understand what this means if we don't understand what it is that he is said to fulfill. 

[The Son of God and the New Creation, page 37.]

Quotes of Note

Each Monday, we share quotes we found encouraging, convicting, thought-provoking, or all of the above.

Persis:

This is a quote from Reader, Come Home by Maryanne Wolf. She is a neuroscientist and reading specialist who is concerned with what screen-reading is doing to our ability to read deeply. This in turn affects our thinking and our empathy. I don't know about you, but I have definitely seen a change in my ability to concentrate when I am reading from a print book.

Do you, my reader, read with less attention and perhaps even less memory for what you have read? Do you notice when reading on a screen that you are increasingly reading for key words and skimming over the rest? Has this habit or style of screen reading bled over to your reading of hard copy? Do you find yourself reading the same passage over and over to understand its meaning? Do you suspect when you write that your ability to express the crux of your thoughts is subtly slipping or diminished? Have you become so immured to quick precis of information that you no longer feel the need or possess the time for your own analysis of this information? Do you find yourself gradually avoiding denser, more complex analysis, even those that are readily available. More importantly, are you less able to find the same enveloping pleasure you once derived from your former reading self? Have you, in fact, begun to suspect that you no longer have the cerebral patience to plow through a long and demanding article or book? What if, one day, you pause and wonder if you yourself are truly changing and, worst of all, do not have the time to do a thing about it? (pg. 96)

Rebecca:

Nancy Guthrie's Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus, a collection of short essays on Christmas topics by various authors, concludes with a piece by Joni Eareckson Tada. We think of Christmas a promise fulfillment—and it is—but, as Joni writes in A Christmas Longing, Christmas is still a promise, too, even for those who live on this side of the first Advent.

Yes, the Savior has come, and with him peace on earth, but the story is not finished. Yes, there is peace in our hearts, but we long for peace in our world. 

Every Christmas is still a “turning of the page” until Jesus returns. Every December 25 marks another year that draws us closer to the fulfillment of the ages, that draws us closer to … home. 

When we realize that Jesus is the answer to our deepest longing, even Christmas longings, each Advent brings us closer to his glorious return to earth. When we see him as he is, King of kings and Lord of lords, that will be “Christmas” indeed!

Christmas calls us to celebrate a glorious event from the past, but it also calls us to celebrate a  glorious event that is yet to come.

Quotes of Note

Each Monday, we share quotes we found encouraging, convicting, thought-provoking, or all of the above.

Kim:

I am almost at the end of the final volume of the selected journals of Lucy Maud Montgomery. I read from it before bed. This entry is at the end of 1937, a year when her husband's mental illness had some very serious re-occurrences, and her son Chester made mistakes which caused her heart sickness.

December 31, 1937 

This has been a fitting close to a year of hell. Today I had another dreadful cup of disillusionment to drink in many ways the worst yet. What can be the end of this? Can there be any end? Will it not go on thus all my life? 

Nineteen hundred and thirty seven is ended. Oh, what a year! How can I have lived through it? And how can I live through 1938? If anyone tomorrow wishes me a happy New Year I shall shriek in his face. There has never been any happiness in this house -- there never will be.

While Montgomery had to deal with a lot (her husband was only the tip of the iceberg; her extended family often turned to her in times of struggle, financial and otherwise), some of her problems were made more unbearable because her own heart. By 1937, she had become very bitter. She often worried more about what people would think than she did about the actual people involved. But she was a desperate woman. It is so sad that she found little solace in Christ.

Deb:

Michael Kruger writes about the power that "deconversion stories" have on people like Jen Hatmaker, Rob Bell, Peter Enns, and Bart Erhman:

De-conversion stories are designed not to reach non-Christians but to reach Christians. And their purpose is to convince them that their outdated, naïve beliefs are no longer worthy of their assent. A person simply shares his testimony of how he once thought like you did but have now seen the light.

He details the pattern of the deconversionist playbook and relates it to recent accounts in this article and this interview.

Rebecca:

In his Commentary on Hebrews, Tom Schreiner sums up the prologue of Hebrews (1:1-4) like this:

Jesus is the culmination of God’s revelation. The OT Scriptures point to him and are fulfilled in him. We see in the introduction of Hebrews that Jesus is the prophet, priest, and king. He is the prophet, for God’s final word is spoken by him and in him. He is the priest by whom final cleansing of sins is accomplished. He is the king who reigns at God’s right hand. The last days have arrived in Jesus and the final word has been spoken, and hence there will be no further revelation until Jesus’ return. The great revelatory events have taken place in Jesus’ ministry, death, resurrection, and exaltation. Believers do not need any other word from God for their lives. They are to put their faith in what God has revealed in and through Jesus the Christ.

Have you been taught that you should read and study a passage thoroughy on your own, and then—only then—should you check out a commentary to see what it says about the passage? I break this rule all the time. I love to read commentaries for their own sake, and paragraphs like the one quoted above is one of the reasons.

Persis:

I thought this was a helpful explanation of systematic theology found in The Son Who Learned Obedience by D. Glenn Butner, Jr. (pgs. 7-8)

Systematic theology stands one step further removed from the Bible than does biblical theology. Biblical theology attempts to explain synthetically the meaning of the biblical text in continuity with the meaning intended for the original audience, but it extends this meaning through redemptive historical analysis. Systematic theology draws on the Bible directly and on the conclusions of biblical theology to explain questions that are often foreign to the biblical authors and even the canon as a whole, questions which can nonetheless be answered with confidence given the scope of the Bible. Systematics treats the Bible in terms of the "comprehensive whole", the "overarching story"in which we are called to participate. It seeks not only to explain the logical connection between the explicit or intended meaning of various passages of Scripture, but also to uncover implicit meanings evident in the broad biblical witness but never elaborated in any detail in a single passage.