“Their amusements bore them . . . their devices for saving time have banished leisure from their country.”

In C. S. Lewis’s Pilgrim’s Regress, a character who serves as a Guide tells the characters John and Vertue of a modern-like country. This quote may be a bit confusing, especially at first, since I’m pulling it out of the midst of a specific context (what happens when people do that with the Bible?), but if you stick with it, you will see its wisdom. Note especially how Lewis describes the irony of the modern machine. Vertue wonders if these modern-like people can ever return from their “radical change,” and the Guide assures his auditor that there is no inevitability about the modern situation. There is much else to love in this citation, and in the book itself, which I heartily suggest you add to your reading list.

There’s nothing like C. S. Lewis for dispelling the myths of the Enlightenment and Scientism.

“The same things is happening all over the plateau and in Mammon’s country: their slaves are escaping further north and becoming dwarfs, and therefore the masters are turning all their attention to machinery, by which they hope to be able to lead their old olife without slaves. And this seems to them so important that they are suppressing every kind of knowledge except mechanical knowledge. I am speaking of the sub-tenants. No doubt the great landowners in the back-ground have their own reasons for encouraring this movement.”

“There must be a good side somewhere to this revolution,” said Vertue. “It is too solid–it looks too lasting–to be a mere evil. I cannot believe that the Landlord would otherwise allow the whole face of nature and the whole structure of life to be so permanently and radically changed.”

The Guide laughed. “You are falling into their own error,” he said, “the change is not radical, nor will it be permanent. That idea depends on a curious disease which they have all caught–an inability to disbelieve advertisements. To be sure, if the machines did what they promised, the change would be very deep in deed. Their next war, for example, would change the state of their country from disease to death. They are afraid of this themselves–though most of them are old enough to know by experience that a gun is no more likely than a toothpaste or a cosmetic to dot he things its makers say it will do. It is the same with all their machines. Their labour-saving devices multiply drudgery; their aphrodisiacs make them impotent: their amusements bore them: their rapid production of food leaves half of them starving, and their devices for saving time have banished leisure from their country. There will be no radical change. And as for permanence–consider how quickly all machines are broken and obliterated. The black solitudes will some day be green again, and of all cities that I have seen these iron cities will break most suddenly.” — C. S. Lewis, Pilgrim’s Regress, 239-40.

George Whitefield on baby dedications (err…infant baptisms)

When the itinerant preacher George Whitefield came to America in 1740, he believed that the religion in Boston was lethargic. He had this to say:

Boston is a large, populous place, and very wealthy. It has the form of religion kept up, but has lost much of its power. I have not heard of any remarkable stir for many years. Ministers and people are obliged to confess, that the love of many is waxed cold. Both seem to be too much conformed to the world. There is much of the pride of life to be seen in their assemblies. Jewels, patches, and gay apparel are commonly worn by the female sex. The little infants who were brought to baptism, were wrapped up in such fine things, and so much pains taken to dress them, that one would think they were brought thither to be initiated into, rather than to renounce, the pomps and vanities of the world.*

——–

*A Documentary History of Religion in America to 1877, eds. Edwin S. Gaustad and Mark A. Noll (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 162.

He “abhorred moderation in religion”

Michael J. McClymond observes this about Jonathan Edwards:

“Edwards abhorred moderation in religion. In an early entry in the Miscellanies, he went so far as to say that a saint would be ‘no less useful even in this world’ if his devotion were ‘to keep him all his lifetime in an ecstasy.’ The earlier examination of Edwards’s spirituality showed just how painstakingly he sought after ecastsy. A cool acquiescence in the abstract validity of religion was to him as good as no religion at all, and he saw the fundamental failure of his age in its sheer insensibility to God, that ‘the being of God and another world don’t seem real to them.’ Edwards became, in Henry May’s estimation, the moderate Enlightenment’s ‘most powerful enemy.’ He was the self-appointed apostle to the spiritually indifferent.”*

He’s right, even though he goes on to note that Edwards’s own standards were impossible to reach: “What repelled and offended many readers was Edwards’s relentlessness. He asked more of humans than was humane.”** Of course, any Reformed saint who knows his theology will tell you that the standard God requires of man is impossible. Edwards, too, insisted on this. Every life must be lived for the glory of God.

So may it be said of each of us, that we abhorred moderation in religion, and may that abhorrence be directed chiefly at our own indifference toward the things of God.

________

*Encounters with God (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 108.

**Ibid., 109.

Edwards abhorred moderation in religion.

“God should be reverenced as visibly present”: Edwards on singing

Edwards makes the following acute observation about singing in his Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival. Note not only his connection of irreverence to the third commandment, but his insistence that reverence has an “appearance”:

I believe it to have been one fruit of the extraordinary degrees of the sweet and joyful influences of the Spirit of God that have been lately given, that there has appeared such a disposition to abound in that duty [the duty of singing praises to God], and frequently to fall into this divine exercise; not only in appointed solemn meetings, but when Christians occasionally meet together at each other’s houses. But the mismanagement I have respect to, is the getting into a way of performing it without almost any appearance of that reverence and solemnity with which all visible, open acts of divine worship ought to be attended; it may be two or three in a room singing hymns of praise to God, others that are present talking at the same time, others about their work, with little more appearance of regard to what is doing than if some were only singing a common song for their amusement and diversion. There is danger, if such things are continued, of its coming to that by degrees, that a mere nothing be made of this duty, to the great violation of the third commandment. Let Christians abound as much as they will in this holy, heavenly exercise, in God’s house and in their own houses; but when it is performed, let it be performed as an holy act, wherein they have immediately and visibly to do with God. When any social open act of devotion, or solemn worship of God is performed, God should be reverenced as visibly present, by those that are present. As we would not have the ark of God depart from us, nor provoke God to make a breach upon us, we should take heed that we handle the ark with reverence.*

*Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival, in Yale-Works 4:489-90.

Minnick and Edwards on how young ministers address their elders

I recently listened to Pastor Mark Minnick, who pastors the Mt. Calvary Baptist Church of Greenville, S.C., address the FBFI (mp3). He gave what I took to be good advice to young men (specifically bloggers):

To me it is an irony that some of our young fundamentalists, who express such disdain for the older generation who had their magazines and what they call their “gossip papers,” are repeating the exact same mistake on their blog sites. They’re doing the very thing that they demonize the older generation for having done. And actually it’s much more inflammatory. You read some of those blog sites and the disrespectful tone that very quickly creeps in, and the disdainful attitude, and the cocky spirit—this is not true of all of them, but some of them—honestly, I am embarrassed for them. I would hope they would never speak face to face with an older man like that. But they’ll put it out there for the whole world to read, talking like an older man like that. That is not “wisdom from above.” That is not an evidence of a Spirit-filled individual.

Minnick continues, after an explanation of the “wisdom from above” in James 3, with further sound words for fundamentalists more broadly:

If someone says, ‘Well, that’s what fundamentalists have done toward evangelicals,” in some cases you may be right. And that’s got to be corrected. And I think there are many good men who want that to be corrected. And let’s be certain we do that to all the household of faith, that we correct our course, if need be, toward evangelical brethren that we have a really serious Scriptural difference with, but that we also correct our course toward fundamentalist brethren that we have a tendency to be very critical of, dismissive of. Show the wisdom that is truly from God.

Then I read the following in Jonathan Edwards’s Some Thoughts Concerning the Revival, which resonates very much with Minnick’s admonition:

If young ministers had great humility without a mixture, it would dispose ‘em especially to treat aged ministers with respect and reverence, as their fathers, notwithstanding that a sovereign God may have given them greater assistance and success than they have had. 1 Peter 5:5, “Likewise ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder; yea, all of you, be subject one to another; and be clothed with humility; for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.” Leviticus 19:32, “Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honor the face of the old man, and fear thy God; I am the Lord.” (Yale-Works 4:431)

Why you space out during prayer, Bible reading, and corporate worship

As a Christian, John Owen argued, you have a responsibility to be on alert against the noetic affects of indwelling sin. Regeneration does not remove the corruption of depravity on our faculties. And, Owen warns, if we are not careful, the corruption of our minds is but the stepstool ruining the whole soul.

It is one of the principal duties incumbent on us, to be acquainted with, and diligently to watch over, the remainders  of this vanity in our own minds. The sinful distempers of our natures are not presently cured at once, but the healing and removing of them is carried on by degrees unto the consummation of the course of our obedience in this world. And there are three effects  of this natural vanity of the mind in its depraved condition to be found among believers themselves: —

1. An instability  in holy duties, as meditation, prayer, and hearing of the word. How ready is the mind to wander in them, and to give entertainment unto vain and fond imaginations, at least unto thoughts and apprehensions of things unsuited to the duties wherein we are engaged! How difficult is it to keep it up unto an even, fixed, stable frame of acting spiritually in spiritual things! How is it ready at every breath to unbend and let down its intension! All we experience or complain of in this kind is from the uncured relics of this vanity.
2. This is that which inclines and leads men towards a conformity with and unto a vain world, in its customs, habits, and ordinary converse; which are all vain and foolish. And so prevalent is it herein, and such arguments hath it possessed itself withal to give it countenance, that in many instances of vanity it is hard to give a distinction between them and the whole world that lies under the power of it. Professors, it may be, will not comply with the world in the things before mentioned, that have no other use nor end but merely to support, act, and nourish vanity; but from other things, which, being indifferent in themselves, are yet filled with vanity in their use, how ready are many for a compliance with the course of the world, which lieth in evil and passeth away!
3. It acts itself in fond and foolish imaginations,  whereby it secretly makes provision for the flesh and the lusts thereof; for they all generally lead unto self-exaltation and satisfaction. And these, if not carefully checked, will proceed to such an excess as greatly to taint the whole soul. -Pneumatologia §3.3, in Works of John Owen 3:254.

These are good words from Owen. Notice his insight on this matter. It is not just that the operations of the mind tend devastatingly toward vanity, but Owen keenly perceives that this is evidenced in the very exercise of religion. In other words, the reason you space out during times of worship, when your mind should be most taken with God as He has revealed himself, is because the noetic affects of sin still operate in your mind. How well do I know this struggle! What vain and empty thoughts flood my mind during times of prayer! May God by his grace keep us vigilantly on guard against the vain exercises of the mind.

A relevant word about 335 years old

While reading some John Owen recently I thought that the following remark was particularly “relevant,” as Owen keenly observes that the depravity of our natures has so entangled itself in man’s understanding that there is a resulting factory of continuous vain rebellion against God. Man’s only hope against this malady is regeneration.

Surely this is no less true now than it was when Owen observed it three hundred years ago:

The mind of man by nature is wholly vain, under the power of vanity, and is an endless, fruitful womb of all monstrous births. The world is now growing towards six thousand years old, and yet is no nearer the bottom of the springs of its vanity, or the drawing out of its supplies, than it was the first day that sin entered into it. New sins, new vices, new vanities, break forth continually; and all is from hence, that the mind of man by nature is altogether vain. Nor is there any way or means for putting a stop hereunto in persons, families, cities, nations, but so far as the minds of men are cured and renewed by the Holy Ghost. The world may alter its shape and the outward appearances of things, it may change its scenes, and act its part in new habits and dresses, but it will still be altogether vain so long as natural uncured vanity is predominant in the minds of men; and this will sufficiently secure them from attaining any saving acquaintance with spiritual things. -Pneumatologia §3.3, in Works of John Owen 3:254.

Qualifying remarks on the importance of devotions in sanctification

This is the kind of piece that begs misunderstanding, so allow me to begin by saying that I myself maintain a time of daily personal Bible study and prayer, and have no intention of ever giving it up. I am humbled that my God and King asks me to come regularly (unceasingly, actually) into his presence with my meager requests (though prayer is by no means limited to supplication). I consider it a great privilege to have, read, and meditate on the Holy Scriptures.  We serve a great and benevolent God, and we were made to commune with Him. This is something for which I am very grateful.

Moreover, I have promised my fellow church members that I will maintain “family and personal devotions” in the covenant which unites us as a Christian church. I have no intention of throwing off what our assembly (along with many other Baptist assemblies) has determined to be an important mark of a follower of Jesus Christ. To be sure, meditation on (not merely reading!) the Scriptures and prayer are imperatives of personal piety. I’ve heard messages (or a message) diminishing devotions because they are not in the Bible, and I disagreed with it. I am not fond of hearing a preacher giving me and others an excuse to neglect daily personal Bible study and prayer.

Having given these important qualifying remarks, I have sensed a trend among fundamentalists to place what I believe to be too great an emphasis on “personal devotions” as a way of sanctification. Again, to be sure, Christians should personally study the Bible. We teach our children to read in order that they may read and know the Bible (not the Bible qua Bible, but because the Bible is the ‘only rule God has given to direct us how we may glorify God and enjoy him’).

A while back I was speaking with an older fundamentalist friend who lamented that a mutual acquaintance was no longer faithfully attending any assembly. The reason for this collapse, he explained, was that this young man was “no longer in the book.” I have heard many Christians speak of the importance of personal devotions in one’s daily walk, almost as the litmus test for their spiritual maturity. Sometimes I get the impression that many view personal devotions as the most important means of sanctification. Others tend to view it as a key mark of having reached spiritual maturity. These two views are related, yet differ slightly. Both are incorrect.

Although personal prayer and meditation on the Scriptures are necessary elements of the Christian walk, they are not the most important ingredient of spiritual growth and sanctification. Although today’s mature Christians typically have some kind of “personal devotions”, it is not the sign, or even the best sign, that one is spiritually mature. Here, briefly, are my reasons:

1. We must remember that the phenomenon of the personal Bible is a relatively recent development in the Christian church. Even today, many Christians throughout the world do not own their own copy of the Scriptures. And, certainly, in the earliest days of the church, and before the invention of the printing press in general, having a personal copy of the Scriptures was a privilege afforded to only the wealthiest Christians. It goes without saying that the ubiquity of Bibles we have today in America is nowhere near the experience of generations of believers before us. One can only imagine of their observations concerning this development and how we utilize it. Certainly, we should take every available opportunity to capitalize on this wealth, but, at the same time, we should not transfer the expectations we have developed alongside this phenomenon over to our ancestors who had no such luxury. That is, if we make personal Bible reading (an essential of ‘personal devotions’) either the chief mark or chief means of sanctification, we are essentially saying that Christians before us had no opportunity to obtain spiritual maturity.
2. With respect to personal devotions being the chief means of sanctification, God has stressed other means whereby Christians grow spiritually. For example, Ephesians 4 stresses the role of ministers and their imparting the ‘knowledge of Christ’ in the believers becoming ‘a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.’ 1 Timothy stresses the word proclaimed and taught in the church’s public worship by which the pastor “will save both yourself and your hearers” (4:11-16). Although this does touch on the importance of the Word in sanctification (and the Word, to be sure, is an indispensible element of the corporate worship of God’s people!), it is important to note that this is in the context of the corporate body, not the individual members off on their own. Here one thinks of the command of the apostle to the Colossian believers to teach, admonish, and sing when they are together.  My point is that, indeed, the Word is important for the spiritual growth of the body of Christ, but that when the New Testament thus stresses the role of the Word, it is most often in the context of the gathered church. It is no accident that singing and giving thanks in the assembly are a couple ways in which Paul says believers are “filled by the Spirit.”
3. If I may take this a step further, the ‘personal devotions’ of individual believers should not seen as a way of believers individually by themselves taking their spiritual development in their own hands. Instead, it should be a supplement to the most important means of sanctification, which are observed when the body is gathered together. When it comes to the church, we should all as a body be fostering the spiritual growth of all of us, not looking at spiritual development as the sole responsibility of the other individual members in their daily private time. This is in part the thrust of Hebrews 10:24-25: “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”
4. As to personal devotions being a sign of genuine spiritual maturity, this too begs Scriptural validation. I suppose that we as believers gravitate toward devotions as a sign of spiritual maturity because it is so easily quantifiable. Furthermore, since we often believe personal devotions are the ‘key to sanctification’ (see above!), we suppose that those who have them every day are growing by leaps and bounds. (Again, this may be true, but I would once more stress that the Scripture places more weight on the activities of the gathered assembly of believers as a means of sanctification rather than each separate individual “rolling their own at home.”) The truth is that meditation on Scripture and prayer are important marks of a mature believer, but that they are not the only marks, nor are they chief marks. Sincere love for God and other believers trumps 20 minutes daily skimming 3 chapters of the Bible and sleepy prayer. Indeed, meditation on Scripture and prayer are the “law of Christ” that flows out of this sincere love for God and other believers that mark mature believers. So Paul says “the aim of our charge” is “love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” Elsewhere he notes that “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal 5:22-23). It is better both to cultivate unceasing prayer as well as spend 30 minutes in prayer in the morning (oh, how well I know this struggle!). Those who have been daily reading the Bible and praying many of years of their lives know that it can quickly become duty and drudgery, fained and hypocritical, which is the opposite of Christian maturity. Again, I stress that this does not nullify the importance of prayer and Bible reading. Christians must cultivate these disciplines, and in faith persevere in them even when the flesh wars against the faithful practice of them. My point is that they are not, in and of themselves, the chief sign of spiritual maturity.
   

Again, I want to be clear. I am not condemning person prayer and meditation on Scripture. Far from it! I believe we must do it. But what I want us to do is keep it in perspective. It is neither the chief means of sanctification nor the sine qua non of spiritual maturity.

Give to the Winds Thy Fears (by Paul Gerhardt) to TERRA BEATA

One of the hymns that has been a true fount of encouragement for me over the past several weeks has been Paul Gerhardt’s classic (translated by John Wesley) “Give to the Winds Thy Fears.” A friend of mine introduced this hymn to me a couple years ago, and I am very grateful to him for that.

My only problem with the hymn as I learned it was its tune; the hymnal my family and I use for family worship (the Worship & Service Hymnal; I picked up a handful from Fourth Baptist Church when they moved to a new hymnal several years ago) had Gerhardt’s text set to DIADEMATA (you have probably sung “Crown Him with Many Crowns” to this tune). DIADEMATA, a great tune in its own right, simply did not well serve this text of solace and encouragement.

So I did a little search of hymn tunes that use SMD (66.86.66.86), and found that TERRA BEATA fit the text rather well (you’ve probably sung “This is My Father’s World” to this tune).

Well, my pastor and friend James Anderson was good enough to set this text to that tune in print and has been gracious enough to allow me to post a copy of it for your benefit on this site. Enjoy!

Give to the Winds Thy Fears (TERRA BEATA) (pdf)

Here is a longer version of Gerhardt’s text, as translated by John Wesley (from Hymntime):

Give to the winds thy fears,
Hope and be undismayed.
God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears,
God shall lift up thy head.

Through waves and clouds and storms,
He gently clears thy way;
Wait thou His time; so shall this night
Soon end in joyous day.

Still heavy is thy heart?
Still sinks thy spirit down?
Cast off the world, let fear depart
Bid every care begone.

What though Thou rulest not;
Yet heaven, and earth, and hell
Proclaim, God sitteth on the throne,
And ruleth all things well.

And whatsoe’er Thou will’st,
Thou dost, O King of kings;
What Thine unerring wisdom chose,
Thy power to being brings.

Leave to His sovereign sway
To choose and to command;
So shalt thou, wondering, own that way,
How wise, how strong this hand.

Far, far above thy thought,
His counsel shall appear,
When fully He the work hath wrought,
That caused thy needless fear.

Thou seest our weakness, Lord;
Our hearts are known to Thee;
O lift Thou up the sinking hand,
Confirm the feeble knee!

Let us in life, in death,
Thy steadfast truth declare,
And publish with our latest breath
Thy love and guardian care.

How I became a “Calvinist” (and it wasn’t because of Piper or MacArthur)

In some respects, I should not call myself a Calvinist. The real Calvinists would get upset. Who can reduce the sum of Calvin’s great theological contributions to five theological axioms dealing with the sovereignty of God in salvation? So for those “real” Calvinists out there, who accept the Genevan’s system to a much greater extent than a free church Baptist, please accept my apologies in advance.

In the heated debate of late, there has been the allegation that all Calvinistic Younger Fundamentalists have become enamored with the doctrines of grace because of the likes of Piper and MacArthur and Mahaney. The point of my post is to say that such generalizations, while likely holding a bit of truth to them, are not in every case so. (It does not offend me that such generalizations are made, for generalizations are inevitable. But at times it is important to see exceptions to the rule.) So what follows is a description of how I became a “4.5ish” Calvinist.

It began in college, at what is now Northland International University, before there were really any big blow-ups there over faculty or students propagating “hyper”-Calvinism. To my recollection, the institution did not teach the doctrines of grace. If anything, they taught a kind of soft middle-of-the-roadism (again, according to my recollection). The college really had very little to do with my initial push towards Calvinism. I had always struggled with the problem of God’s sovereignty; how is it “fair” that God chooses some while rejecting others? But I remember one day in my personal Bible study reading Romans 9, and these words stuck out:

⁶But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, ⁷and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” ⁸This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. ⁹For this is what the promise said: “About this time next year I will return, and Sarah shall have a son.” ¹⁰And not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, ¹¹though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— ¹²she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” ¹³As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”

¹⁴What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! ¹⁵For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” ¹⁶So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. ¹⁷For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” ¹⁸So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

¹⁹You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” ²⁰But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” ²¹ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? ²²What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, ²³in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— ²⁴even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?

With these words, I began moving towards an espousal of unconditional election. This passage convinced me that in some way God chooses some in a way that he does not choose others. Even if I had problems with this, the words of the passage were plain: “Who are you, O man, to answer back to God?” Still, I acknowledged that in some way men were able to choose God. I concluded that both must be true, and the resolution of this tension was shrowded in mystery. I was hesitant to call myself a “Calvinist” (for all the political baggage it seemed to represent), but I was heading in that direction. The Bible, as I understood it, demanded that I confess both that men chose God but that God sovereignly elects. Still, the trump card in this dynamic was that God chose men, not that men chose God. Around this time, I remember a roommate of mine–Jon Hutchens was his name–giving me a volume of sermons by Charles H. Spurgeon and recommended one on Calvinism (this good friend let me keep the book, and I still have it). (This same Calvinistic Jon Hutchens is now a missionary to Brazil–would you believe it?) Spurgeon’s reasoning from Scripture was too cogent to deny. I was still reluctant to take the label Calvinist, as I believed that my vague insistence that both man had a role and God had a role was incompatible with the Calvinist’s scheme. Still, I was also beginning to take great delight in reading old Calvinists. This takes us up through the late 1990’s.

After a couple years, I found myself at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. As I recall, I was starting to muse in my reflection on the subject that one of the important questions in the discussion was what foreknowledge meant in Scripture. Did the fact that God foreknew some to salvation mean that God foresaw in the future that the would-be elect would choose Him (and thereby elected them), or did it mean that God foreordained the elect to salvation unconditionally? Then, in one of my first couple years there, Kevin T. Bauder taught in a break-out at a Foundation Conference (straight from his theology notes, I would late find out) outlining different approaches to the question of God’s sovereignty in salvation. He argued (if memory serves) from Romans 8 that foreknowledge had to mean foreordain. He also said that Calvinists were, as he called it, the true “Compatibilists.” That is, Calvinists recognized that God was independently sovereign and that man had real responsibility for his actions. This was helpful for me and my thinking. One should not underestimate the influence of other seminary students around me. Calvinism was a strong presence among the CBTS M.Div. students in the early part of this decade.

Sometime in the midst of this I further observed that the Peter not only said that the murder of the Son of God for our salvation was “foreknown” by God (προεγνωσμενου μεν προ καταβολης κοσμου, 1 Pet 1:20), but that believers were also “foreknown” (κατα προγνωσιν θεου, 1 Pet 1:2). This helped further confirm that foreknowledge did mean, in fact, foreordain. Certainly Christ’s death was more than merely “foreseen” by God–it was eternal decreed before the foundation of the world. If the same word was used of the foreknowledge of the elect, I could not object that “foreknow” meant merely “foresee.” It was not long after all this that I accepted that it was a matter of theological transparency and integrity to call myself “Calvinist.” (My point here is not offer a defense of unconditional election and the other tenants of Calvinism, but merely to point out some of the arguments that, as I recall, were especially influential in moving me more towards the doctrines of grace.)

Later, after I had become a Calvinist, I began reading and listening to John Piper. But I would rank other factors as far more influential in my turning toward these doctrines: 1) my own study of the Bible, 2) my training in fundamentalist institutions (not just seminary), 3) the influence of C. H. Spurgeon, and 4) the influence of Calvinist friends. I should also note that I am extremely skeptical of the recent “faddishness” of Reformation theology. When a pastor or believer’s theology is the result of a fad, it should be the cause for significant alarm, even if that theology is correct.

My main point with this post has not been to argue for Calvinism, but to show that not every Calvinistic “young fundamentalist” became a Calvinist because of Piper or MacArthur or Dever or Mahaney. Although generalities can at times be helpful, they should always be used with caution and restraint. If anything, perhaps we can learn from my little narrative that if one wants to try to argue against Calvinism with “young fundamentalists,” one is going to have to do a lot more than throw grenades at these men and their ministries. The counter argument will need to be both biblical and theological.

Jonathan Edwards: Preach on Hell

Again, Jonathan Edwards, in his Distinguishing Marks:

If there be really a hell of such dreadful, and never-ending torments, as is generally supposed, that multitudes are in great danger of, and that the bigger part of men in Christian countries do actually from generation to generation fall into, for want of a sense of the terribleness of it, and their danger of it, and so for want of taking due care to avoid it; then why is it not proper for those that have the care of souls, to take great pains to make men sensible of it? Why should not they be told as much of the truth as can be? If I am in danger of going to hell, I should be glad to know as much as possibly I can of the dreadfulness of it: if I am very prone to neglect due care to avoid it, he does me the best kindness, that does most to represent to me the truth of the case, that sets forth my misery and danger in the liveliest manner.

I appeal to every one in this congregation, whether this is not the very course they would take in case of exposedness to any great temporal calamity? If any of you that are heads of families, saw one of your children in an house that was all on fire over its head, and in eminent danger of being soon consumed in the flames, that seemed to be very insensible of its danger, and neglected to escape, after you had often spake to it, and called to it, would you go on to speak to it only in a cold and indifferent manner? Would not you cry aloud, and call earnestly to it, and represent the danger it was in, and its own folly in delaying, in the most lively manner you was capable of? Would not nature itself teach this, and oblige you to it? If you should continue to speak to it only in a cold manner, as you are wont to do in ordinary conversation about indifferent matters, would not those about you begin to think you were bereft of reason yourself? This is not the way of mankind, nor the way of any one person in this congregation, in temporal affairs of great moment, that require earnest heed and great haste, and about which they are greatly concerned, to speak to others of their danger, and warn them but a little; and when they do it at all, do it in a cold indifferent manner: nature teaches men otherwise. If we that have the care of souls, knew what hell was, had seen the state of the damned, or by any other means, become sensible how dreadful their case was; and at the same time knew that the bigger part of men went thither; and saw our hearers in eminent danger, and that they were not sensible of their danger, and so after being often warned neglected to escape, it would be morally impossible for us to avoid abundantly and most earnestly setting before them the dreadfulness of that misery they were in danger of, and their great exposedness to it, and warning them to fly from it, and even to cry aloud to them.

When ministers preach of hell, and warn sinners to avoid it, in a cold manner, though they may say in words that it is infinitely terrible; yet (if we look on language as a communication of our minds to others) they contradict themselves; for actions, as I observed before, have a language to convey our minds, as well as words; and at the same time that such a preacher’s words represent the sinner’s state as infinitely dreadful, his behavior and manner of speaking contradict it, and shew that the preacher don’t think so; so that he defeats his own purpose; for the language of his actions, in such a case, is much more effectual than the bare signification of his words. (from Yale-Works 4:246-48).

Dan Brown on pastoral prayer

The seminary I attend recently started a blog, and I want to highlight a helpful post by the practical theology professor Dan Brown on pastoral prayer. Here’s just an excerpt:

Spontaneity, while typical in our prayer life, holds no special benefit with God. Thinking through, and even praying through, the preparation of a public prayer allows thoughts and topics that might not come when we shoot from the hip. Read the prayers of great men of God, and study the prayers of the Bible. Certainly the pastor must be careful not to pray as the Pharisee standing on the street corner, but this danger does not mean he cannot be eloquent, planned, and heart-felt at the same time.

Read the whole thing.

Lukewarmness in religion is abominable

Jonathan Edwards in Distinguishing Marks of the Work of the Spirit of God:

Lukewarmness in religion is abominable, and zeal an excellent grace; yet above all other Christian virtues, it needs to be strictly watched and searched; for ’tis that with which corruption, and particularly pride and human passion, is exceeding apt to mix unobserved.*

________

*Distinguish Marks, in Yale-Works 4:243.

Good words from Carl Trueman

Carl Trueman calls some worship garbage. Here’s an excerpt:

You can tell a lot about someone’s theology from what they do in church.  Involve Kenny G’s music in your worship service, and I can tell not only that you have no taste in music but also that you have nothing to offer theologically to those who come through the church doors; indeed, what you do have can probably be found better elsewhere.

Read the whole thing here.