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From the Chalcedon Blog...
The Law Makes it Personal "The covenant with God is a legal relationship... it is more personal because of that fact. The modern mind separates the legal and the personal, because humanism has made law statist and abstract and hence impersonal. This is not true in the reality of God's creation. My relation to my wife is personal because it is legal, because it meets God's law. An illegal sexual relationship is impersonal and exploitive. In Scripture, the more faithful we are to God's law, the more close and personal is our relationship to Him and to our fellow men." ~ R. J. Rushdoony,
Systematic Theology, p. 674.
Showing posts with label Foundations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Foundations. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Are You Going?
We must understand and shift our thinking from, "Does this help me?", "Do I need this?" to "Does this advance the Kingdom of God," "will this help position future generations (your future generations or other families) to live for the glory of God?" We must be about making shade for others, to be stepping stones for our children's children. This goes absolutely 100% against the grain of our culture, that has even us in the church focused inwardly on ourselves, our retirements, our 401 K's....
Uniting Church and Family Arizona
Uniting Church and Family Arizona
Friday, September 28, 2007
More, How We Got Here
Psalm 78:41 again and again they tempted God and limited the Holy one....
I am fascinated to read of those events that helped turn Christianity from a dominion stance, looking at all of life, knowing that Christ really was Lord over all of it. To one that became turned so sharply inward towards the individual that we became comfortable with the idea of "full-time Christian service" and this now seems normal to most believers! That we struggle, and it's so hard to see that every believers walk should be of full time service to our Lord. This is from Credenda Agenda ....
The Academic Civil War
Roy Atwood
And Jesus said, "Seek first vocational-technical training and all that Kingdom of God and righteousness stuff can be added later." —Matthew 6:35....
...Abandonment of the classical Christian model in higher education and the ascent of vocational-technical college training began with the 1862 Morrill Act...
...The predominantly Unitarian North opened this academic front with the mission of undermining America's historically Trinitarian colleges and universities. Their classical Christian curricula had mentored virtually every major leader of the New Nation since devout Puritans founded Harvard in 1636. The Morrill Act was the North's long-term strategic move to displace the academy's classical Christian tradition and to reconstruct the nation on purely economic, technological, scientific, democratic, rationalistic, and secular (i.e., anything-but-Christian) foundations...
..." Horace Mann, the father of the American government school system and a Calvinist-turned-Unitarian, encouraged "daily reading of the Bible, devotional exercises, and the constant inculcation of the precepts of Christian morality in all the Public schools" so it would disarm critics who knew where his secular vision for education would lead. Using the rhetoric of religion, Mann outflanked pious evangelicals with god-words while establishing a new educational system at war with God's Word....
Prior to 1862, education was almost universally understood as the shaping of a person's life and character through personal, covenantal nurturing and rigorous study of the classical liberal arts from a biblical perspective. Prior to the Morrill Act, the "useful arts" had no place within the Christian liberal arts curriculum....
...The new federally funded land-grant universities redefined education as egalitarian training to serve the American National Will, not "sectarian" interests like serving Christ and His kingdom. Their federally bankrolled success soon pressured even staunchly traditional Christian liberal arts colleges to add new departments of technical education and engineering...
...There are many reasons for the church's drift away from the classical Christian liberal arts college education, but the Morrill Act-inspired belief that practical skills can be taught without religious assumptions was—and still is—chief among them....
...the priorities of Matthew 6:33 have been overturned even among well meaning Christians, just as the strategists behind the Morrill Act had hoped for one hundred and forty years ago. Read more>>
I am fascinated to read of those events that helped turn Christianity from a dominion stance, looking at all of life, knowing that Christ really was Lord over all of it. To one that became turned so sharply inward towards the individual that we became comfortable with the idea of "full-time Christian service" and this now seems normal to most believers! That we struggle, and it's so hard to see that every believers walk should be of full time service to our Lord. This is from Credenda Agenda ....
The Academic Civil War
Roy Atwood
And Jesus said, "Seek first vocational-technical training and all that Kingdom of God and righteousness stuff can be added later." —Matthew 6:35....
...Abandonment of the classical Christian model in higher education and the ascent of vocational-technical college training began with the 1862 Morrill Act...
...The predominantly Unitarian North opened this academic front with the mission of undermining America's historically Trinitarian colleges and universities. Their classical Christian curricula had mentored virtually every major leader of the New Nation since devout Puritans founded Harvard in 1636. The Morrill Act was the North's long-term strategic move to displace the academy's classical Christian tradition and to reconstruct the nation on purely economic, technological, scientific, democratic, rationalistic, and secular (i.e., anything-but-Christian) foundations...
..." Horace Mann, the father of the American government school system and a Calvinist-turned-Unitarian, encouraged "daily reading of the Bible, devotional exercises, and the constant inculcation of the precepts of Christian morality in all the Public schools" so it would disarm critics who knew where his secular vision for education would lead. Using the rhetoric of religion, Mann outflanked pious evangelicals with god-words while establishing a new educational system at war with God's Word....
Prior to 1862, education was almost universally understood as the shaping of a person's life and character through personal, covenantal nurturing and rigorous study of the classical liberal arts from a biblical perspective. Prior to the Morrill Act, the "useful arts" had no place within the Christian liberal arts curriculum....
...The new federally funded land-grant universities redefined education as egalitarian training to serve the American National Will, not "sectarian" interests like serving Christ and His kingdom. Their federally bankrolled success soon pressured even staunchly traditional Christian liberal arts colleges to add new departments of technical education and engineering...
...There are many reasons for the church's drift away from the classical Christian liberal arts college education, but the Morrill Act-inspired belief that practical skills can be taught without religious assumptions was—and still is—chief among them....
...the priorities of Matthew 6:33 have been overturned even among well meaning Christians, just as the strategists behind the Morrill Act had hoped for one hundred and forty years ago. Read more>>
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Looking At The Word With New Eyes
More thoughts from Feb 07......
I keep asking who or which groups are even discussing the world views necessary to really see what is going on in the culture, I see that it is those peoples/groups that fear the LORD and honor His laws and statutes, that have eyes that see and ears that hear. The others don't even seem to be aware of the topics!??! All they see is that they have to get people saved.
But if we will not honor what God has plainly said to us in His Word...why should He then reveal to us the deeper things. The passage where Jesus says I speak to them in parables...otherwise they would repent...comes to mind, but not in a comforting way.
Mathew 5:17-19 I did not come to destroy the law but to fulfill.
This was great, I had just wrote the above and then stopped to read Matt 7 with the family....
I have just returned from our evening Bible reading, Matt chpt 7. My Bible has those little section titles like, "I never knew you" at the start of verse 21 and at verse 24 it says, "Build on the rock". I noticed tonight that those things break up how I look at the Word.
so when I read at 26 and 27 about whoever hears these these sayings of mine and does not do them is building on sand... and when the wind comes...etc. Tonight, God quickend to me verse 23 where he says, "Depart from me you who practice lawlessness." I always thought of this as "wicked","unsaved" people.
But tonight I thought of modern evangelicalism and now I can see that in so many ways we have been lawless, (without God's Law) very little direction (Discipleship) to show us how to live and think God's thoughts after him. Instead it was emphasised to follow the Spirit. I know I have mentioned how more than once that I said at my old church that it seemed like "every man is doing what is right in his own eyes."
As I think of how much carnage is happening in the modern church, divorces, heart ache over what direction the kids are going, the churches themselves more concerned for their buildings than the people, the culture kicking us around, etc, etc, etc....you name it and it is hard to show by its fruit those areas that are still standing and are not falling (fallen) down.... because the foundation is on sand rather than the God's Word/Law?.... v 27 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house: and it fell. and great was it's fall....
I can hear the crys from under the rubble of modern Christianity, "Our houses have not fallen down."
You will know a tree by it's fruit. I am just starting to taste God's goodness by honoring more and more of His Word/Law and in turn foreseeing that God is building a house (family's and generations going forward) that will be able to stand as the rains descend and the floods come....praise God!, I can see it happening.
Without a vision my people perish....
I keep asking who or which groups are even discussing the world views necessary to really see what is going on in the culture, I see that it is those peoples/groups that fear the LORD and honor His laws and statutes, that have eyes that see and ears that hear. The others don't even seem to be aware of the topics!??! All they see is that they have to get people saved.
But if we will not honor what God has plainly said to us in His Word...why should He then reveal to us the deeper things. The passage where Jesus says I speak to them in parables...otherwise they would repent...comes to mind, but not in a comforting way.
Mathew 5:17-19 I did not come to destroy the law but to fulfill.
This was great, I had just wrote the above and then stopped to read Matt 7 with the family....
I have just returned from our evening Bible reading, Matt chpt 7. My Bible has those little section titles like, "I never knew you" at the start of verse 21 and at verse 24 it says, "Build on the rock". I noticed tonight that those things break up how I look at the Word.
so when I read at 26 and 27 about whoever hears these these sayings of mine and does not do them is building on sand... and when the wind comes...etc. Tonight, God quickend to me verse 23 where he says, "Depart from me you who practice lawlessness." I always thought of this as "wicked","unsaved" people.
But tonight I thought of modern evangelicalism and now I can see that in so many ways we have been lawless, (without God's Law) very little direction (Discipleship) to show us how to live and think God's thoughts after him. Instead it was emphasised to follow the Spirit. I know I have mentioned how more than once that I said at my old church that it seemed like "every man is doing what is right in his own eyes."
As I think of how much carnage is happening in the modern church, divorces, heart ache over what direction the kids are going, the churches themselves more concerned for their buildings than the people, the culture kicking us around, etc, etc, etc....you name it and it is hard to show by its fruit those areas that are still standing and are not falling (fallen) down.... because the foundation is on sand rather than the God's Word/Law?.... v 27 and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house: and it fell. and great was it's fall....
I can hear the crys from under the rubble of modern Christianity, "Our houses have not fallen down."
You will know a tree by it's fruit. I am just starting to taste God's goodness by honoring more and more of His Word/Law and in turn foreseeing that God is building a house (family's and generations going forward) that will be able to stand as the rains descend and the floods come....praise God!, I can see it happening.
Without a vision my people perish....
Saturday, September 8, 2007
"Answering Tough Questions About Christian Reconstruction"
The current issue of Faith For All of Life "Answering Tough Questions About Christian Reconstruction" is out. I haven't recieved mine yet. Looks like it will be fun reading. You can read this article from it online for free. It's big, 10 pages on my printer, like the topic. You can go read it from the horses mouth as it were. I love the name of the magazine "Faith for all of Life".
I haven't read the whole thing yet. Printed it up and maybe sit down with some ice cream tonight. I know this about Rushdoony's Chalcedon, they will come from the Word, they don't use a shorter Bible and my Lord always seems to be sitting on a more fitting throne no matter what the topic is. I do think they glorify God in their thinking. Martin here, also talks about a cultures god...Here's a sneak peak...
"Answering Tough Questions About Christian Reconstruction"
Martin G. Selbrede
1. There is much contention over the type of society that Reconstructionists are seeking to build. Given your position within the Christian Reconstruction (CR) movement, perhaps you can give us a definitive statement of what that is. Let me ask it this way: if CRs do indeed get everything they want, if they could design the future to achieve their goals, how exactly do you see both how and what you would achieve?
At the apex of a culture's value system is that culture's god. Within humanistic societies, the state takes that fundamental role, agreeable to Hegel's assertion that the state is God walking on earth. The god of a society is the source of law for that society. All of society then is ordered around that god's prerogatives, and institutions shaped to facilitate and expedite the state's agenda...
...The God of modern evangelicals is squeezed into too small a box to represent any kind of competition to the idea of the modern power state. Secured inside such a box, the evangelicals' God is no match for the power state: containment of that God keeps the power state front and center when people think of "power." Accordingly, when people think of "power" in our country, they think of Washington, D.C.
What kind of power could an absentee God inspire? No wonder Christians are the object of continuous political exploitation: they've mastered doormat theology. They've fallen for the siren song of politics, and thereby implicitly endorse the state's view that state power is the ultimate power in society. Let the manipulation of Christian voters begin. But their delusion begins far earlier in the thought sequence: they've unknowingly swapped gods. Evidence of this is the ease with which most Christians exercise their "faith" on Sunday morning, and live the rest of their lives as if God were the Great Cosmic Mute...
...Why are so many Christians culturally impotent, socially irrelevant, and in general lockstep with the humanistic power state? Puritan John Howe put it best: "An arm of flesh signifies a great deal, when the power of an almighty Spirit is reckoned as nothing."
Read it all
I haven't read the whole thing yet. Printed it up and maybe sit down with some ice cream tonight. I know this about Rushdoony's Chalcedon, they will come from the Word, they don't use a shorter Bible and my Lord always seems to be sitting on a more fitting throne no matter what the topic is. I do think they glorify God in their thinking. Martin here, also talks about a cultures god...Here's a sneak peak...
"Answering Tough Questions About Christian Reconstruction"
Martin G. Selbrede
1. There is much contention over the type of society that Reconstructionists are seeking to build. Given your position within the Christian Reconstruction (CR) movement, perhaps you can give us a definitive statement of what that is. Let me ask it this way: if CRs do indeed get everything they want, if they could design the future to achieve their goals, how exactly do you see both how and what you would achieve?
At the apex of a culture's value system is that culture's god. Within humanistic societies, the state takes that fundamental role, agreeable to Hegel's assertion that the state is God walking on earth. The god of a society is the source of law for that society. All of society then is ordered around that god's prerogatives, and institutions shaped to facilitate and expedite the state's agenda...
...The God of modern evangelicals is squeezed into too small a box to represent any kind of competition to the idea of the modern power state. Secured inside such a box, the evangelicals' God is no match for the power state: containment of that God keeps the power state front and center when people think of "power." Accordingly, when people think of "power" in our country, they think of Washington, D.C.
What kind of power could an absentee God inspire? No wonder Christians are the object of continuous political exploitation: they've mastered doormat theology. They've fallen for the siren song of politics, and thereby implicitly endorse the state's view that state power is the ultimate power in society. Let the manipulation of Christian voters begin. But their delusion begins far earlier in the thought sequence: they've unknowingly swapped gods. Evidence of this is the ease with which most Christians exercise their "faith" on Sunday morning, and live the rest of their lives as if God were the Great Cosmic Mute...
...Why are so many Christians culturally impotent, socially irrelevant, and in general lockstep with the humanistic power state? Puritan John Howe put it best: "An arm of flesh signifies a great deal, when the power of an almighty Spirit is reckoned as nothing."
Read it all
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Do We Hold God to Our Standard?
From Chalcedon, I have been guilty of this many times.....
A World of Rebellion
California Farmer 261:7 (Nov. 3, 1984), p. 21E.
One of the most common remarks that I have heard over the years has to do with people’s objections to something in the Bible or newspapers. “A good God couldn’t allow that to happen,” these people will say, very earnestly.
What they mean is that God must be bound by their idea of goodness, and if He fails to meet their standard, something is wrong with God! The truth is, something is wrong with these people and their standard of goodness.
I am reminded of a spoiled child, who when denied his demands, screamed at his mother, “You don’t love me.” This child’s standard required he be gratified as proof of love. If the mother had met his requirements, she would have shown not love, but unconcern and even hatred...
Read more>>
A World of Rebellion
California Farmer 261:7 (Nov. 3, 1984), p. 21E.
One of the most common remarks that I have heard over the years has to do with people’s objections to something in the Bible or newspapers. “A good God couldn’t allow that to happen,” these people will say, very earnestly.
What they mean is that God must be bound by their idea of goodness, and if He fails to meet their standard, something is wrong with God! The truth is, something is wrong with these people and their standard of goodness.
I am reminded of a spoiled child, who when denied his demands, screamed at his mother, “You don’t love me.” This child’s standard required he be gratified as proof of love. If the mother had met his requirements, she would have shown not love, but unconcern and even hatred...
Read more>>
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Learning How To Walk
This is from Dec 06 as I was wrestling with New Vs Old Testament...I incorporated my whole family into helping me search out the Word. Always looking for activities to build family identity and to give purpose to the kids....
I used my new bible search software "Terry family search" version 1.0, that's where we sit together and everyone starts a different chapter of Psalms Kayla has chapter 1, Beth chapter 2, Jamie chapter 3, I start on chapter 4 and so on... all looking for any verses about how God refers to his Laws, Word etc. When anyone thought they had found one they would read it out to us and then write it down. We covered 100 chapters the first night. Kayla loves doing it. Good family worship.
Even if it's "David" saying something about God's Word I am believing that what he says is Godly inspiration through him, reflecting what God thinks about his own Word. So does God feel it's kinda ok... but wait until my son arrives, or is it good, wonderful, perfect, etc. I think that rather than asking "is it binding on us?" (It makes me feel like I'm trying to find some way around doing what my Father wants, like I'm looking for a loophole) that we should think of it as "does it apply to us? and how?".
We fired up the "search engine" tonight and blasted through Proverbs. Didn't find as much through it.
Here's my initial thoughts on why "David" gets so excited about God's laws and statutes.
a) It's through the law we have a foundation for even "knowing" what is right or what is wrong. This is huge! I think we take it for granted.
b) It is from God's Word OT that we find the foundation for all rational thinking, logic, and reason, ala Bahnsen. Only in using God's Laws and statues will we have a basis as to be guided by the Spirit or to know if someone else is being guided by the Spirit.
c) With the law came God's justice, if you do this, than this should happen, if you do that, than that should happen. As opposed to man's idea of justice like debtors prison, you stay in jail till you can pay.?!? God's justice always provided a way of restoration for the offender and compensation for the victim, neither of which happens today.
d) Israel was told that other nations would think them blessed because of their law. IE no one is above it, even the King must follow it, rather than as other nations where kings could make or change laws willy nilly and excuse themselves from them. Not until Lex Rex in England (the Law is king) thousands of years later did this become a part of modern western thought. We as modern Americans can all to easily testify on how transient things can become when 5 lawyers can overturn 200 yrs of precendence with no basis for doing it. We're under judgment I think.
e) I see that it is through Christ that all of our access to God and our right standing before him is acheived. This is what the New Testament speaks of as a better way, the good news. This is what Christ did away with.
Never mind "David", I get excited about God's perfect laws when I look at it this way !
We found ALOT in Psalms, but Psalms 119 all by itself shouts Christ's thoughts about the Law...
v1 Blessed are...who walk in the law of the Lord!...
v5 Oh, that my ways were directed to keep your statutes! then I would not be ashamed, when I look into all your commandments...
v7 I will praise you with uprightness of heart when I learn your righteous judgments.
v9 How can a young man cleanse his way? by walking according to your commandments!
v10 Oh, let me not wander from your commandments!
v11 Your Word I have hidden in my heart...
v12 Blessed are you...teach me your commandments...
v15 I will meditate on your precepts and contemplate your ways.
v16 I will delight myself in your statutes: I will not forget your word.
v18 Open my eyes that I may see wonderous things in your law.
Guys, this chapter goes on like this for OVER 176 verses!!!!!! It is one of the longest chapters in the Bible and it is one long praise of God's Laws, statutes and his Word, how perfect it is, how righteous it is. Are we looking at the law with the wrong kind of glasses that we don't want to run out and embrace his laws, statutes, and precepts.
You are either with God or opposed to God. It's either God's standard or man's standard. It either his thought or our thoughts. Other than his written word, how else can we discern the mind of Christ.
v159 Consider how I love your precepts...
v162 I rejoice at your Word as one who finds great treasure.
v172 For all your commandments are righteousness.
I used my new bible search software "Terry family search" version 1.0, that's where we sit together and everyone starts a different chapter of Psalms Kayla has chapter 1, Beth chapter 2, Jamie chapter 3, I start on chapter 4 and so on... all looking for any verses about how God refers to his Laws, Word etc. When anyone thought they had found one they would read it out to us and then write it down. We covered 100 chapters the first night. Kayla loves doing it. Good family worship.
Even if it's "David" saying something about God's Word I am believing that what he says is Godly inspiration through him, reflecting what God thinks about his own Word. So does God feel it's kinda ok... but wait until my son arrives, or is it good, wonderful, perfect, etc. I think that rather than asking "is it binding on us?" (It makes me feel like I'm trying to find some way around doing what my Father wants, like I'm looking for a loophole) that we should think of it as "does it apply to us? and how?".
We fired up the "search engine" tonight and blasted through Proverbs. Didn't find as much through it.
Here's my initial thoughts on why "David" gets so excited about God's laws and statutes.
a) It's through the law we have a foundation for even "knowing" what is right or what is wrong. This is huge! I think we take it for granted.
b) It is from God's Word OT that we find the foundation for all rational thinking, logic, and reason, ala Bahnsen. Only in using God's Laws and statues will we have a basis as to be guided by the Spirit or to know if someone else is being guided by the Spirit.
c) With the law came God's justice, if you do this, than this should happen, if you do that, than that should happen. As opposed to man's idea of justice like debtors prison, you stay in jail till you can pay.?!? God's justice always provided a way of restoration for the offender and compensation for the victim, neither of which happens today.
d) Israel was told that other nations would think them blessed because of their law. IE no one is above it, even the King must follow it, rather than as other nations where kings could make or change laws willy nilly and excuse themselves from them. Not until Lex Rex in England (the Law is king) thousands of years later did this become a part of modern western thought. We as modern Americans can all to easily testify on how transient things can become when 5 lawyers can overturn 200 yrs of precendence with no basis for doing it. We're under judgment I think.
e) I see that it is through Christ that all of our access to God and our right standing before him is acheived. This is what the New Testament speaks of as a better way, the good news. This is what Christ did away with.
Never mind "David", I get excited about God's perfect laws when I look at it this way !
We found ALOT in Psalms, but Psalms 119 all by itself shouts Christ's thoughts about the Law...
v1 Blessed are...who walk in the law of the Lord!...
v5 Oh, that my ways were directed to keep your statutes! then I would not be ashamed, when I look into all your commandments...
v7 I will praise you with uprightness of heart when I learn your righteous judgments.
v9 How can a young man cleanse his way? by walking according to your commandments!
v10 Oh, let me not wander from your commandments!
v11 Your Word I have hidden in my heart...
v12 Blessed are you...teach me your commandments...
v15 I will meditate on your precepts and contemplate your ways.
v16 I will delight myself in your statutes: I will not forget your word.
v18 Open my eyes that I may see wonderous things in your law.
Guys, this chapter goes on like this for OVER 176 verses!!!!!! It is one of the longest chapters in the Bible and it is one long praise of God's Laws, statutes and his Word, how perfect it is, how righteous it is. Are we looking at the law with the wrong kind of glasses that we don't want to run out and embrace his laws, statutes, and precepts.
You are either with God or opposed to God. It's either God's standard or man's standard. It either his thought or our thoughts. Other than his written word, how else can we discern the mind of Christ.
v159 Consider how I love your precepts...
v162 I rejoice at your Word as one who finds great treasure.
v172 For all your commandments are righteousness.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Looking At the Bible And The Law, It's Like Honey!
Stuff about the law comes up often, I break up the things of the law two ways...
First application: the understanding that the law has nothing to do with our salvation per se, that's accomplished in Christ and that's where you find the Word inserting Jesus in place of the law, God see's Jesus when looking at us rather than, have we kept the law for our righteousness. Most Christians are stuck with just this view of God's Law and try to make any scripture fit into this context. Most frustrating.
The Second application: this part was epic for me, seeing the law as of the whole of God's counsel that we may align ourselves with a manner of living that brings blessing, not confusion, as regards roles, definitions, proper order and to be able to live fruitful lives. The term "law" applies as his defintions are unchanging, look no farther then America, at how desperate we are to change the meaning of everything, to make it into our own image, of what we want rather than as God has stated. God's order for the family can be violated, but frustration, pain, and emptiness will be the result. We don't call it the "law of the family" but it is every bit a "law" as the "law of gravity" is. Ignore it at your peril. God said....what do you say?
As a modern evangelical I saw everything about the law in terms definition #1 and was clueless, no understanding as to this second way of seeing his Word law, as the whole counsel of God. Letting the Old and New Testaments paint a portrait for how all of life should be lived. My pastors hadn't been taught it, so how could they pass it on. So anytime the word law showed up I would cram it back into the cubbyhole labeled "don't worry about it, Jesus has handled it".
Let me just say the foundation that helped me see this way was the boot camp cd's from Vision Forum, Rob has them. From set 2 , The Intention of God's Law, The Objection to God's law, God's law or chaos, The Continuence of God's Law. Lots of Rushdoony stuff, the book, "Law and Liberty" was also helpful. The fantastic cd set "So Let Your Light" has also helped me to see my role as a Christian more clearly in regards to God's word. I just posted reviews of the first two cds at my blog today, which also pertains to this subject. We are to be like Jesus and do what we see the Father do and say what the Father says... But about what?, everything!
So anytime you see "law" in the word you need to see if it can be distinguished into one of the two camps, their might be other ways to see this, but this has greatly helped me.
L Windham on cd 2showed how all our lives as believers should be about repeating back what God has said, about anything, and of course to then live it out.
1John 5:2,3.. by this we know we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. (Not burdensome?!?, that's what God says!)
Jesus in Matthew 4:4 starts his ministry by saying "man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." all of it, every word!
Jesus in Matt 5:13-25 at the start of his ministry begins by saying you are a light and let your light shine, and as part of that thought drops the bomb that, he didn't come to destroy the law or the prophets and till heaven and earth pass away not one jot or tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled....whoever does and teaches them, he, shall be called great, in the Kingdom of God. Do we, as believers usually put these passages together in our minds, as they were put together when Jesus spoke them?
In Romans 2:18 Paul makes the point that being instructed out of the law you can know his will and to approve the things that are excellent. I struggle to know what is excellent in God's sight.
Romans 3:21-31 paints a contrast of a righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed here's Jesus to the rescue for us, removing the law as the basis for our righteousness and at verse 31 Paul says do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not. On the contrary we establish the law. So that we may know how to live life...so that you should no longer walk as the rest of the gentiles walk in the futility of their mind. Eph 4:17,18 That we may align ourselves with a manner of living that brings blessing, not confusion, as regards roles, definitions, proper order and to be able to live fruitful lives. Rom 7:12 Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good.
God says...Psalm 119, Blesssed are they...who walk in the law of the lord...I will delight myself in your statutes...I shall keep your law and shall observe it with my whole heart...I will walk at liberty for I seek your precepts (We go.. huh?!?)...for your law is my delight...the law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold coins... oh how I love your law! What do you say?
God's word, what he has said, is unchanging, it is law.
First application: the understanding that the law has nothing to do with our salvation per se, that's accomplished in Christ and that's where you find the Word inserting Jesus in place of the law, God see's Jesus when looking at us rather than, have we kept the law for our righteousness. Most Christians are stuck with just this view of God's Law and try to make any scripture fit into this context. Most frustrating.
The Second application: this part was epic for me, seeing the law as of the whole of God's counsel that we may align ourselves with a manner of living that brings blessing, not confusion, as regards roles, definitions, proper order and to be able to live fruitful lives. The term "law" applies as his defintions are unchanging, look no farther then America, at how desperate we are to change the meaning of everything, to make it into our own image, of what we want rather than as God has stated. God's order for the family can be violated, but frustration, pain, and emptiness will be the result. We don't call it the "law of the family" but it is every bit a "law" as the "law of gravity" is. Ignore it at your peril. God said....what do you say?
As a modern evangelical I saw everything about the law in terms definition #1 and was clueless, no understanding as to this second way of seeing his Word law, as the whole counsel of God. Letting the Old and New Testaments paint a portrait for how all of life should be lived. My pastors hadn't been taught it, so how could they pass it on. So anytime the word law showed up I would cram it back into the cubbyhole labeled "don't worry about it, Jesus has handled it".
Let me just say the foundation that helped me see this way was the boot camp cd's from Vision Forum, Rob has them. From set 2 , The Intention of God's Law, The Objection to God's law, God's law or chaos, The Continuence of God's Law. Lots of Rushdoony stuff, the book, "Law and Liberty" was also helpful. The fantastic cd set "So Let Your Light" has also helped me to see my role as a Christian more clearly in regards to God's word. I just posted reviews of the first two cds at my blog today, which also pertains to this subject. We are to be like Jesus and do what we see the Father do and say what the Father says... But about what?, everything!
So anytime you see "law" in the word you need to see if it can be distinguished into one of the two camps, their might be other ways to see this, but this has greatly helped me.
L Windham on cd 2showed how all our lives as believers should be about repeating back what God has said, about anything, and of course to then live it out.
1John 5:2,3.. by this we know we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. (Not burdensome?!?, that's what God says!)
Jesus in Matthew 4:4 starts his ministry by saying "man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." all of it, every word!
Jesus in Matt 5:13-25 at the start of his ministry begins by saying you are a light and let your light shine, and as part of that thought drops the bomb that, he didn't come to destroy the law or the prophets and till heaven and earth pass away not one jot or tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled....whoever does and teaches them, he, shall be called great, in the Kingdom of God. Do we, as believers usually put these passages together in our minds, as they were put together when Jesus spoke them?
In Romans 2:18 Paul makes the point that being instructed out of the law you can know his will and to approve the things that are excellent. I struggle to know what is excellent in God's sight.
Romans 3:21-31 paints a contrast of a righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed here's Jesus to the rescue for us, removing the law as the basis for our righteousness and at verse 31 Paul says do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not. On the contrary we establish the law. So that we may know how to live life...so that you should no longer walk as the rest of the gentiles walk in the futility of their mind. Eph 4:17,18 That we may align ourselves with a manner of living that brings blessing, not confusion, as regards roles, definitions, proper order and to be able to live fruitful lives. Rom 7:12 Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, just, and good.
God says...Psalm 119, Blesssed are they...who walk in the law of the lord...I will delight myself in your statutes...I shall keep your law and shall observe it with my whole heart...I will walk at liberty for I seek your precepts (We go.. huh?!?)...for your law is my delight...the law of your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold coins... oh how I love your law! What do you say?
God's word, what he has said, is unchanging, it is law.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Worldview, Being Thankful
This week I have been thinking about....World views, cubbyholes, computer colors. Topically this email will cover advancing God's Kingdom, how it is all interconnected, the different parts of it and who it was that helped to prepare the soil of my rocky heart so it could recieve the rest of the good news.
I have a lot of Rushdoony books, compared to other authors, not compared to how many he wrote, but I think overall his influence on how I now think, is huge. What is amazing is you can read his stuff from 20-30-40yr ago and it will just nail our culture on how it is. That is a testimony, that in so many ways, he was correctly applying God's truth to the human condition. Any correct application of God's truth will stand forever, because it is only repeating back what God has already said. There is no new truth that God didn't know about It's all his truth and a reflection of who he is. Jesus Christ is the truth and the light, even if it isn't specifically spelled out in the Bible. Its foundational starting point will be found in the word. But God has made us in his image, and one of the ways he is glorified is when his children seek out and identify truth and bring it back to the foot of the cross and say "this belongs to you too, doesn't it, Jesus."
A world view is a net work of presuppositions that are not testable by natural science, in terms of which, all experience is related and interpreted...the most basic convictions make up our world view, and it is what we use to measure and test all we know and experience... Greg Bahnsen
Francis Schaeffer likened it to having cubbyholes in our minds. The cubbyholes are all connected, everything we input into our minds must find a place to fit into so our minds can make sense of it and relate it to everything else. Without a cubbyhole to put some new piece of info, you will either be unable to see it correctly, or if you see it, you might not understand it in its fullness or even we will find ourselves opposing God himself. See Paul in Acts.
If you are taught some basic math you will then have a place to work and understand and apply arithmetic and then geometry, etc, etc.
Isaiah 28:9,10 whom will he teach knowledge? And whom will he make to understand the message? Those just weaned from milk? Those just drawn from the breast? For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, a little here a little there.
In both Matt. and Luke towards the start of Jesus' ministry it is recorded about not pouring new wine into old wineskins cause they might burst. Constantly Jesus kept saying let those who have ears to hear, hear.
Think computer colors. I think of God making creation/life in 32bit color. If you were to see it in all of its facets and dimensions. When you are lost, life looks black and white. When I got saved it seemed like life changed to 256 colors and in many ways it kind of stayed that way until recently. I can see now that no matter how much I would pour over the word, I was still, what seems like only able to see his creation/life and reality at around 256 colors, sometimes a more here or there in different areas. I had a stunted view of what Jesus had done for me on the cross. Because I was so controlled with worldly wisdom and truths that I had filled my mind with. It kept me from interpreting so much of the word correctly.
What I am finding out is as I yeild my mind to God's order and definitions for every area of life is that, then I am able to see so much wider and with deeper understanding. "Hey, is this what 16 bit color looks like?". But first I had to be willing to accept that God really does give direction over all and any area of life and that through his word Christ speaks to it. Once I accepted that, his word just seems so alive to me. Rushdoony was huge in helping me to see it. Also the idea of accepting the whole counsel of God, all of the word. I started to see I had a warped understanding Of Jesus because it was without the context of the Old Testament.
I do feel like in the last couple of years I am starting to see God's creation and his Word as it really is. As he has been wanting me to see it, but I needed some help tieing up the strong man so we could rob his house.
Like it or not, God made us to be inter-connected as people, like the Old and New Testament, which goes so against Americana. Example of inter-connected: how many others beside Achen died because of his sin with the gold. inter-connected...But that's Old Testament you say...We have the jailer in Acts 16:30,32 believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved you and your household. Inter-connected. The word says... Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. In Leviticus we read that ..chpt 10 Nabad and Abihu, brought strange fire and God killed them. But that's Old Testament... so we look at
Acts chpt5 and we have Ananias and Sapphira and God killed them. It is foreign to us but not at all foreign to God's word, Pop quiz: which ones right? Will we insist that it should be just us, Jesus and our Bibles. But if God has ordained that he wants his sons and daughters to be discipled, and his method for bringing his sons and daughters to maturity is for them to be instructed. The older women instructing the younger ladies and to appoint teachers, pastors, elders, etc, etc. that we might come to a more Christ like humanity. A big picture of this is from God's design for families, the inter-connectedness ,multi-generational view, that we continue to try and grasp the enormity of it all.
None of our pastor/elders get up on Sunday and just reads the scriptures and then sits down. They help us see application and more understanding. We expect that. But many will get nervous when some in the body start reading what other men of God are imparting, what they have recieved from Christ. "Shouldn't we just stick with the Bible?" As the foundational source for all truth and knowledge? Amen! But all of what Jesus did, could not be contained in all the books of the world says the Gospel. Do we treat it, other writings like it is holy writ, of course not, but other writings may reveal the application of the holy writ. If once you were blind, and now you see how much you have been missing, because of what godly men have helped you to grasp, that which had been hidden from you. You will want others to read it too.
World view Example: from "Missionary Herosim" , Joseph Neesimas raised in a land of idols, Japan. Got an abridged Bible and read it, rejected the whittled idols and started praying " oh, if you have eyes, look upon me, if you have ears listen to me". Then he purchased a New Testament and read it day and night, was on an 8 month voyage to the US. In boston, he picks up a second hand copy of Robinson Crusoe for a few pennies and while reading it makes the discovery....while reading of a fictitous character that is praying to God...that we have a God who does see and hear us!
His world view was that gods don't have eyes or real ears, even after months of studying the Bible he had to read Robinson Crusoe to learn that "he must cry to God as a present, personal friend. And so day by day, in the full belief that God was listening, he uttered this prayer: "please please, don't cast me way into miserable conditions ..." his basic world view had held him captive.
Rushdoony was part of a multi-generational family of pastors that stretched for 600 yrs, I do think the word shows you can get the generational blessing multiplying from generation to generation through obedience, and in Rushdoony it paid off big.
To my joy and blessing, and not just to me but to hundreds yea, thousands in the future of not only my children's children, but also others they will bring to the cross. I do not look to "add" to His Kingdom but to let God "multiply" his Kingdom through my obedience. Because our God is a Multiplying God, 30,60, hundred fold!
Rushdoony and others were able to correct my vision and now I see God's truth start to spill over into so many areas, in a manner that cut through the lies that were scattered through out my cubbyhole system. I am going from a disjointed, fragmented view, IE secular/sacred, individualism, egalitarianism, or that each generation should just go and do what it wants to, or that God's word really doesn't speak to (fill in the blank).
In brief, I now see how the first commandment touchs everything, how everything is either God centered or man centered, no neutral ground, how even as a Christian I can be so man centered all over the place, I probably still am but I am thankful for what God has straightened out. That it is worship, to agree with what God says. How we are constantly back in the garden all over again, how everything in life can be boiled down to, who decides? who's will? what's the standard? and from whom does it come? Back In the garden again, will we let God decide, or will we be as God and decide for ourselves that which is good and that which is evil?
It was Rushdoony who lead Doug Phillip's father to the Lord and has been a big influence on Doug. The Bible shows the pattern of remembering men, those who God uses in special ways. Abraham, Issac, Jacob, David, Solomon, We appreciate Paul, Martin Luther, Calvin, CS Lewis, etc etc....I think it might be generations before the full impact of God's hand through Rushdoony is seen.
God directs us to give honor to whom honor is due. And it is biblical to deflect praise to others away from yourself and that is why when you read those who see that they are now really alive with God's truth from Rushdoony's faithfulness to God. That it will take you aback. I am hoping to get used to having 16bit vision, (for all I know from God's perspective I might be at 780 colors and not really 16bit.) but there are other men who as I read them, I think, wow, that must be 32bit. As someone who has been gifted to teach I try to be careful to ascribe back to others what I have gleaned from them. I honor God by acknowledging those whom he has used to influence me.
Now I don't think anyone who Rushdoony has helped, worships Rushdoony, he has been dead for a few years, there are no plans to build a museum or special memorial to him, (think Billy Grahm) but his son continues what his father began and continues to publish his father's works and to compile what he hadn't gotten too, into more books, so from the grave he continues to witness to the Glory of God. But for others like me who as we look back and see how naked and bare and shallow our thinking was, and how God allowed this man to see it, and then gave him the ability to relate it back out to others. We are very grateful and hopeful that others too may be blessed.
Because of what God did through this man, and his faithfulness to the word given him, means he will have a very special place in my heart. And one more reason for me to be thankful to God.
I have a lot of Rushdoony books, compared to other authors, not compared to how many he wrote, but I think overall his influence on how I now think, is huge. What is amazing is you can read his stuff from 20-30-40yr ago and it will just nail our culture on how it is. That is a testimony, that in so many ways, he was correctly applying God's truth to the human condition. Any correct application of God's truth will stand forever, because it is only repeating back what God has already said. There is no new truth that God didn't know about It's all his truth and a reflection of who he is. Jesus Christ is the truth and the light, even if it isn't specifically spelled out in the Bible. Its foundational starting point will be found in the word. But God has made us in his image, and one of the ways he is glorified is when his children seek out and identify truth and bring it back to the foot of the cross and say "this belongs to you too, doesn't it, Jesus."
A world view is a net work of presuppositions that are not testable by natural science, in terms of which, all experience is related and interpreted...the most basic convictions make up our world view, and it is what we use to measure and test all we know and experience... Greg Bahnsen
Francis Schaeffer likened it to having cubbyholes in our minds. The cubbyholes are all connected, everything we input into our minds must find a place to fit into so our minds can make sense of it and relate it to everything else. Without a cubbyhole to put some new piece of info, you will either be unable to see it correctly, or if you see it, you might not understand it in its fullness or even we will find ourselves opposing God himself. See Paul in Acts.
If you are taught some basic math you will then have a place to work and understand and apply arithmetic and then geometry, etc, etc.
Isaiah 28:9,10 whom will he teach knowledge? And whom will he make to understand the message? Those just weaned from milk? Those just drawn from the breast? For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, a little here a little there.
In both Matt. and Luke towards the start of Jesus' ministry it is recorded about not pouring new wine into old wineskins cause they might burst. Constantly Jesus kept saying let those who have ears to hear, hear.
Think computer colors. I think of God making creation/life in 32bit color. If you were to see it in all of its facets and dimensions. When you are lost, life looks black and white. When I got saved it seemed like life changed to 256 colors and in many ways it kind of stayed that way until recently. I can see now that no matter how much I would pour over the word, I was still, what seems like only able to see his creation/life and reality at around 256 colors, sometimes a more here or there in different areas. I had a stunted view of what Jesus had done for me on the cross. Because I was so controlled with worldly wisdom and truths that I had filled my mind with. It kept me from interpreting so much of the word correctly.
What I am finding out is as I yeild my mind to God's order and definitions for every area of life is that, then I am able to see so much wider and with deeper understanding. "Hey, is this what 16 bit color looks like?". But first I had to be willing to accept that God really does give direction over all and any area of life and that through his word Christ speaks to it. Once I accepted that, his word just seems so alive to me. Rushdoony was huge in helping me to see it. Also the idea of accepting the whole counsel of God, all of the word. I started to see I had a warped understanding Of Jesus because it was without the context of the Old Testament.
I do feel like in the last couple of years I am starting to see God's creation and his Word as it really is. As he has been wanting me to see it, but I needed some help tieing up the strong man so we could rob his house.
Like it or not, God made us to be inter-connected as people, like the Old and New Testament, which goes so against Americana. Example of inter-connected: how many others beside Achen died because of his sin with the gold. inter-connected...But that's Old Testament you say...We have the jailer in Acts 16:30,32 believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved you and your household. Inter-connected. The word says... Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. In Leviticus we read that ..chpt 10 Nabad and Abihu, brought strange fire and God killed them. But that's Old Testament... so we look at
Acts chpt5 and we have Ananias and Sapphira and God killed them. It is foreign to us but not at all foreign to God's word, Pop quiz: which ones right? Will we insist that it should be just us, Jesus and our Bibles. But if God has ordained that he wants his sons and daughters to be discipled, and his method for bringing his sons and daughters to maturity is for them to be instructed. The older women instructing the younger ladies and to appoint teachers, pastors, elders, etc, etc. that we might come to a more Christ like humanity. A big picture of this is from God's design for families, the inter-connectedness ,multi-generational view, that we continue to try and grasp the enormity of it all.
None of our pastor/elders get up on Sunday and just reads the scriptures and then sits down. They help us see application and more understanding. We expect that. But many will get nervous when some in the body start reading what other men of God are imparting, what they have recieved from Christ. "Shouldn't we just stick with the Bible?" As the foundational source for all truth and knowledge? Amen! But all of what Jesus did, could not be contained in all the books of the world says the Gospel. Do we treat it, other writings like it is holy writ, of course not, but other writings may reveal the application of the holy writ. If once you were blind, and now you see how much you have been missing, because of what godly men have helped you to grasp, that which had been hidden from you. You will want others to read it too.
World view Example: from "Missionary Herosim" , Joseph Neesimas raised in a land of idols, Japan. Got an abridged Bible and read it, rejected the whittled idols and started praying " oh, if you have eyes, look upon me, if you have ears listen to me". Then he purchased a New Testament and read it day and night, was on an 8 month voyage to the US. In boston, he picks up a second hand copy of Robinson Crusoe for a few pennies and while reading it makes the discovery....while reading of a fictitous character that is praying to God...that we have a God who does see and hear us!
His world view was that gods don't have eyes or real ears, even after months of studying the Bible he had to read Robinson Crusoe to learn that "he must cry to God as a present, personal friend. And so day by day, in the full belief that God was listening, he uttered this prayer: "please please, don't cast me way into miserable conditions ..." his basic world view had held him captive.
Rushdoony was part of a multi-generational family of pastors that stretched for 600 yrs, I do think the word shows you can get the generational blessing multiplying from generation to generation through obedience, and in Rushdoony it paid off big.
To my joy and blessing, and not just to me but to hundreds yea, thousands in the future of not only my children's children, but also others they will bring to the cross. I do not look to "add" to His Kingdom but to let God "multiply" his Kingdom through my obedience. Because our God is a Multiplying God, 30,60, hundred fold!
Rushdoony and others were able to correct my vision and now I see God's truth start to spill over into so many areas, in a manner that cut through the lies that were scattered through out my cubbyhole system. I am going from a disjointed, fragmented view, IE secular/sacred, individualism, egalitarianism, or that each generation should just go and do what it wants to, or that God's word really doesn't speak to (fill in the blank).
In brief, I now see how the first commandment touchs everything, how everything is either God centered or man centered, no neutral ground, how even as a Christian I can be so man centered all over the place, I probably still am but I am thankful for what God has straightened out. That it is worship, to agree with what God says. How we are constantly back in the garden all over again, how everything in life can be boiled down to, who decides? who's will? what's the standard? and from whom does it come? Back In the garden again, will we let God decide, or will we be as God and decide for ourselves that which is good and that which is evil?
It was Rushdoony who lead Doug Phillip's father to the Lord and has been a big influence on Doug. The Bible shows the pattern of remembering men, those who God uses in special ways. Abraham, Issac, Jacob, David, Solomon, We appreciate Paul, Martin Luther, Calvin, CS Lewis, etc etc....I think it might be generations before the full impact of God's hand through Rushdoony is seen.
God directs us to give honor to whom honor is due. And it is biblical to deflect praise to others away from yourself and that is why when you read those who see that they are now really alive with God's truth from Rushdoony's faithfulness to God. That it will take you aback. I am hoping to get used to having 16bit vision, (for all I know from God's perspective I might be at 780 colors and not really 16bit.) but there are other men who as I read them, I think, wow, that must be 32bit. As someone who has been gifted to teach I try to be careful to ascribe back to others what I have gleaned from them. I honor God by acknowledging those whom he has used to influence me.
Now I don't think anyone who Rushdoony has helped, worships Rushdoony, he has been dead for a few years, there are no plans to build a museum or special memorial to him, (think Billy Grahm) but his son continues what his father began and continues to publish his father's works and to compile what he hadn't gotten too, into more books, so from the grave he continues to witness to the Glory of God. But for others like me who as we look back and see how naked and bare and shallow our thinking was, and how God allowed this man to see it, and then gave him the ability to relate it back out to others. We are very grateful and hopeful that others too may be blessed.
Because of what God did through this man, and his faithfulness to the word given him, means he will have a very special place in my heart. And one more reason for me to be thankful to God.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Taking scripture down off the wall and turning it over in your hand, hmm, how do we apply this?
I have recently brought up George Barna's name. (see here) It was his polling group that found out that one type of fruit of the modern evangelicalism in Amercia has been the erosion or walking away of 80% plus of our youth by the college yrs. This came out about 4 yrs or so ago. At 49yrs of age I had already seen this happen in one church where we had attended for about 12 yrs and was thinking that I was seeing it happen again at my last church. This finding rocked the modern church and the search was on for what to do. Within about 1 or 2 yrs afterwards, Barna had another book out showing....
...more often than not, what a person decides about truth, sin, forgiveness, and eternal consequences during the pre-teen years is the same perspective that person carries to the grave..... Pg55 George Barna "Transforming Children into Spirtual Champions"
...."Our studies show that the faith principles and practices that a child absorbs by age thirteen boldly shapes their spirituality for the duration of their life," the researcher stated....
His book...."Transforming Children into Spirtual Champions" I'm paraphrasing here, anyone who wants to borrow the book can read it, tried to drive home that we must inculcate into our kids a more encompassing world view, that all church and Sunday school were doing was leaving young kids with a faith that was disconnected from most of life and they were easy to pick off by college professors or the kids adopted their parents world view which was add Jesus where you want to, for example let me give 2 quotes from Barna's recent study...
"...Many of the same people who claim that their faith is very important to them and that they are absolutely committed to Christianity also say that they face no spiritual challenges in life. Many other adults are only vaguely aware of such challenges, and do not put much energy into addressing them..."
"...Americans focus on what they consider to be the most important matters; faith maturity is not one of them. The dominant spiritual change that we have seen - Americans becoming less engaged in matters of faith - helps to explain the surging secularization of our culture..."
It's not that parents want to leave their kids unprepared, although there are some that are too self-absorbed, but that I think most parents cannot see just what it is they should be doing differently. Because they are doing what everyone else is doing in the church and what is the church, on the whole, teaching differently...
I think many though are held captive to the same world view that was inculcated into me through public school, movies and tv. That we are individuals, an egalitiarian view of man and women, a secular/sacred distinction, an acceptance of what labels our society or culture has placed on top of God's creation rather than only accepting a biblical definition.
Now for 27 plus years I have had a steady diet of a lot of teaching and hearing a lot of phrases like this, I'm sure you will recognize them too....." let's stay focused on Jesus..."..."To mature to the measure, the standard of Christ in you..."......"a transformation of our life to show the world..."....."That it is in Christ alone..."....."Raised to walk in newness of life..."....."The Spirit to work thru you.."...."to do more than we ever thought we could do..."....."Trusting in Christ alone.."...."Work the work of Christ in you..."
Now just like when Bahnsen gave the example of "A surge of pious agreement came over me the first time I heard someone confidently assert that "The Word of God no more needs defense than does a lion in a cage. Just let the lion loose, and it will take care of itself!" There seemed something very right about that sentiment. seehere
There is much very right and truthful with the phrases I have put up, but at the same time if we do not ever flesh out what they mean or can mean or how they can applied, or how they should change how we think and view life then everyone can ascribe their own comfortable meaning to them, the whole congregation can nod their heads in unison and we can (I said we can, not we have) in effect bear false witness to the Word of God. We can deny it of its ability to change us and situations if we do not see how to apply it as God would want it done. If we do not go beyond just quoting these type of lines and verses we too will head for an 80% attrition rate. I can put verses and phrases all over the walls of my house but if I do not have some way to apply them, to really walk them out, what good are they? (Yes, they are still God's Word and so there is an intrinsisc goodness and truth to them.)
Because I really believe those phrases mean something and that it is for our Father's glory that we must search it out and apply ourselves to it. And not just for ourselves, but for future generations too, that they can receive blessings and not curses, and that we will be found to be obedient to our calling and election.
Now from the Word I don't see anything automatic about growth in our walk with the LORD after we have been saved. Other than when we die we will by then, at that moment, for sure be attained to his likeness. If it is automatic why would Paul warn in Col 2:4 now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words...and in v8 beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit according to the traditions of men according to the basic principles of the world and not according to Christ. .why also warn us in Eph 4:17 that you should no longer walk as the rest of the gentiles walk in the futility of their minds. Unless it really is possible for saved people to walk as the gentiles walk and be deceived, for saved people to be... tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning, craftiness of decietful men.Eph 4:14 Now I look at modern Chrisitanity and I think, maybe a lot of people are being decieved...Or some, I know, will take choice B those people cannot be saved. But I can see how many ways I have been decieved and am now just starting to see clearly on some stuff, did I really just get saved or was I decieved?
The word is just loaded with statements like, I press on that I may lay hold of... Phil 3:12, press toward the goal... Phil
3:14, forgetting those things which are behind and reach forward to those things that are ahead.... Phil 3:13, run the race...? , laying aside everything that hinders....?, these all speak of applying God's truth.
Here's the kicker, What I have personally experienced is if you try to show "hey, this is how we can apply this"... you can bet someone will suggest were being legalistic or suprise!.. someone will opine that we really should just focus on Jesus. doh!?! thankfully I have only heard one, " ..that's too hard..." Now if someone does suggest something, it doesn't mean you have to do the same thing, there might be a hundred other situations and ways to apply a truth from God.
Now Paul said in Phil 3:17 brethren join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern. ..."stinking legalist"...."sounds like works"...." shouldn't we focus on Christ rather than men"....ok,ok, I am having fun :)
I'm bringing this up as I think I am going to continue to see and hear more, not less of this. Also we can all examine ourselves and see how we might respond in the future when someone trys to apply the Word in a manner were not use to. (Remember the first time you heard Doug Phillips, ok, so not a good example, as I was ready to stand on my chair and clap at the time. I did wonder at the time why so many women were walking out?.... Strange....) Maybe we will hesitate when we get sent outside to get the firewood to burn the heretic.
So as most of the church is functioning today it is giving us an 80% loss rate of our children. So if we stand pat with what has been done before, what reason do we have that we will see anything different? That is a definition of insanity to continue to do the same thing while expecting different results. Don't kid yourselves we have been qouting these verses and phrases for a long time as evangelicals while at the same time not really seeing what to do with them. 50,75, 100yrs. ???
I thank God for men like Phillips, Sproul, Swanson, Wilson, and Rushdoony who have been faithful to try and help the church see that we are wet, and to take the desert island challenge, etc, for what we have just taken for granted for so long.
All standard disclaimers apply, this is not about works, our righteuosness before God, our salvation experience ...this is about Eph 4:13 till we all come..to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. v15...but speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things may into him who is the head-Christ- Col 1:18 ...that in all things he may have preeminence.
...more often than not, what a person decides about truth, sin, forgiveness, and eternal consequences during the pre-teen years is the same perspective that person carries to the grave..... Pg55 George Barna "Transforming Children into Spirtual Champions"
...."Our studies show that the faith principles and practices that a child absorbs by age thirteen boldly shapes their spirituality for the duration of their life," the researcher stated....
His book...."Transforming Children into Spirtual Champions" I'm paraphrasing here, anyone who wants to borrow the book can read it, tried to drive home that we must inculcate into our kids a more encompassing world view, that all church and Sunday school were doing was leaving young kids with a faith that was disconnected from most of life and they were easy to pick off by college professors or the kids adopted their parents world view which was add Jesus where you want to, for example let me give 2 quotes from Barna's recent study...
"...Many of the same people who claim that their faith is very important to them and that they are absolutely committed to Christianity also say that they face no spiritual challenges in life. Many other adults are only vaguely aware of such challenges, and do not put much energy into addressing them..."
"...Americans focus on what they consider to be the most important matters; faith maturity is not one of them. The dominant spiritual change that we have seen - Americans becoming less engaged in matters of faith - helps to explain the surging secularization of our culture..."
It's not that parents want to leave their kids unprepared, although there are some that are too self-absorbed, but that I think most parents cannot see just what it is they should be doing differently. Because they are doing what everyone else is doing in the church and what is the church, on the whole, teaching differently...
I think many though are held captive to the same world view that was inculcated into me through public school, movies and tv. That we are individuals, an egalitiarian view of man and women, a secular/sacred distinction, an acceptance of what labels our society or culture has placed on top of God's creation rather than only accepting a biblical definition.
Now for 27 plus years I have had a steady diet of a lot of teaching and hearing a lot of phrases like this, I'm sure you will recognize them too....." let's stay focused on Jesus..."..."To mature to the measure, the standard of Christ in you..."......"a transformation of our life to show the world..."....."That it is in Christ alone..."....."Raised to walk in newness of life..."....."The Spirit to work thru you.."...."to do more than we ever thought we could do..."....."Trusting in Christ alone.."...."Work the work of Christ in you..."
Now just like when Bahnsen gave the example of "A surge of pious agreement came over me the first time I heard someone confidently assert that "The Word of God no more needs defense than does a lion in a cage. Just let the lion loose, and it will take care of itself!" There seemed something very right about that sentiment. seehere
There is much very right and truthful with the phrases I have put up, but at the same time if we do not ever flesh out what they mean or can mean or how they can applied, or how they should change how we think and view life then everyone can ascribe their own comfortable meaning to them, the whole congregation can nod their heads in unison and we can (I said we can, not we have) in effect bear false witness to the Word of God. We can deny it of its ability to change us and situations if we do not see how to apply it as God would want it done. If we do not go beyond just quoting these type of lines and verses we too will head for an 80% attrition rate. I can put verses and phrases all over the walls of my house but if I do not have some way to apply them, to really walk them out, what good are they? (Yes, they are still God's Word and so there is an intrinsisc goodness and truth to them.)
Because I really believe those phrases mean something and that it is for our Father's glory that we must search it out and apply ourselves to it. And not just for ourselves, but for future generations too, that they can receive blessings and not curses, and that we will be found to be obedient to our calling and election.
Now from the Word I don't see anything automatic about growth in our walk with the LORD after we have been saved. Other than when we die we will by then, at that moment, for sure be attained to his likeness. If it is automatic why would Paul warn in Col 2:4 now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words...and in v8 beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit according to the traditions of men according to the basic principles of the world and not according to Christ. .why also warn us in Eph 4:17 that you should no longer walk as the rest of the gentiles walk in the futility of their minds. Unless it really is possible for saved people to walk as the gentiles walk and be deceived, for saved people to be... tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning, craftiness of decietful men.Eph 4:14 Now I look at modern Chrisitanity and I think, maybe a lot of people are being decieved...Or some, I know, will take choice B those people cannot be saved. But I can see how many ways I have been decieved and am now just starting to see clearly on some stuff, did I really just get saved or was I decieved?
The word is just loaded with statements like, I press on that I may lay hold of... Phil 3:12, press toward the goal... Phil
3:14, forgetting those things which are behind and reach forward to those things that are ahead.... Phil 3:13, run the race...? , laying aside everything that hinders....?, these all speak of applying God's truth.
Here's the kicker, What I have personally experienced is if you try to show "hey, this is how we can apply this"... you can bet someone will suggest were being legalistic or suprise!.. someone will opine that we really should just focus on Jesus. doh!?! thankfully I have only heard one, " ..that's too hard..." Now if someone does suggest something, it doesn't mean you have to do the same thing, there might be a hundred other situations and ways to apply a truth from God.
Now Paul said in Phil 3:17 brethren join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern. ..."stinking legalist"...."sounds like works"...." shouldn't we focus on Christ rather than men"....ok,ok, I am having fun :)
I'm bringing this up as I think I am going to continue to see and hear more, not less of this. Also we can all examine ourselves and see how we might respond in the future when someone trys to apply the Word in a manner were not use to. (Remember the first time you heard Doug Phillips, ok, so not a good example, as I was ready to stand on my chair and clap at the time. I did wonder at the time why so many women were walking out?.... Strange....) Maybe we will hesitate when we get sent outside to get the firewood to burn the heretic.
So as most of the church is functioning today it is giving us an 80% loss rate of our children. So if we stand pat with what has been done before, what reason do we have that we will see anything different? That is a definition of insanity to continue to do the same thing while expecting different results. Don't kid yourselves we have been qouting these verses and phrases for a long time as evangelicals while at the same time not really seeing what to do with them. 50,75, 100yrs. ???
I thank God for men like Phillips, Sproul, Swanson, Wilson, and Rushdoony who have been faithful to try and help the church see that we are wet, and to take the desert island challenge, etc, for what we have just taken for granted for so long.
All standard disclaimers apply, this is not about works, our righteuosness before God, our salvation experience ...this is about Eph 4:13 till we all come..to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. v15...but speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things may into him who is the head-Christ- Col 1:18 ...that in all things he may have preeminence.
So Let Your Light, update2, CD2
Lawrence Windham shows how both profound and how simple the Christian walk should be on this talk. In a nutshell, our calling is to repeat back what God has said. To let God define. He knows reality.
He shows Eves failure in the garden to repeat back what God has said to the serpent, but when Jesus is tempted he does repeat back what God has said to defeat Satan.
Any time I listen to a talk more than 6,7,8 times it's usually nailing something so clear, but at the same time hidden from my eyes, because of some aspect of my old faulty world view.
This talk makes it very clear that we do need all of scripture, that we may know what God has said.
God said.....What do you say! Awesome.
available here
He shows Eves failure in the garden to repeat back what God has said to the serpent, but when Jesus is tempted he does repeat back what God has said to defeat Satan.
Any time I listen to a talk more than 6,7,8 times it's usually nailing something so clear, but at the same time hidden from my eyes, because of some aspect of my old faulty world view.
This talk makes it very clear that we do need all of scripture, that we may know what God has said.
God said.....What do you say! Awesome.
available here
Monday, August 20, 2007
Who We Are
Here Wilson gives his 2 cents about Gerlertner's writing. Again it's helpful to me as I keep examining my americanism and try to have The Kings perspective on it.
American Zionism and the Creed
Topic: Americanitas
David Gelernter really celebrates the Puritans.
"To understand America and Americanism, you must understand those Puritans. They are a difficult proposition, an intellectual handful. They were religious fanatics. But their intolerance gave birth to toleration; their quest for religious freedom yielded freedom in general; and their devotion to the Bible and the biblical idea of covenant contributed significantly to the modern liberal state" (p. 38).
This is all quite true, but when it comes to making a case for "Americanism" it is completely beside the point. If I might, I would start my critique of this chapter right out of the blocks. The Puritans did in fact shape the American personality. But personality is not the same thing as character. Two men can have an outgoing personality, with one of them honest and the other treacherous. Two men can be quiet and withdrawn, with one of them a rock of integrity and the other a knave. We do share certain personality features with the Puritans, attributes we inherited from them. But inheriting a personality like this is not the same thing as inheriting their character.
To hear praise of the Puritans like this is like hearing the Prodigal Son raise a toast in some seedy tavern (Distant Country Ale House) in honor of his father, who supplied him with all this great money. Just like in the parable, there will come a day when we run out of all that "great money" that the Puritans supplied us with. We may already be there -- the pig food is starting to look pretty good.....
Read it all!
American Zionism and the Creed
Topic: Americanitas
David Gelernter really celebrates the Puritans.
"To understand America and Americanism, you must understand those Puritans. They are a difficult proposition, an intellectual handful. They were religious fanatics. But their intolerance gave birth to toleration; their quest for religious freedom yielded freedom in general; and their devotion to the Bible and the biblical idea of covenant contributed significantly to the modern liberal state" (p. 38).
This is all quite true, but when it comes to making a case for "Americanism" it is completely beside the point. If I might, I would start my critique of this chapter right out of the blocks. The Puritans did in fact shape the American personality. But personality is not the same thing as character. Two men can have an outgoing personality, with one of them honest and the other treacherous. Two men can be quiet and withdrawn, with one of them a rock of integrity and the other a knave. We do share certain personality features with the Puritans, attributes we inherited from them. But inheriting a personality like this is not the same thing as inheriting their character.
To hear praise of the Puritans like this is like hearing the Prodigal Son raise a toast in some seedy tavern (Distant Country Ale House) in honor of his father, who supplied him with all this great money. Just like in the parable, there will come a day when we run out of all that "great money" that the Puritans supplied us with. We may already be there -- the pig food is starting to look pretty good.....
Read it all!
Monday, August 6, 2007
What Manner of People are These?
If you haven't been there to check it out yourself, let me encourage you to look at some of what Kevin Swanson has written in his article section on the Generations website by . Some good stuff. Here's a sample...
Reversing Rousseau
The Domino Effect
...Home education is bringing sweeping changes into modern society in the area of sociology, and not everybody is excited about that. We are replacing peer pressure, group think, and statist, big government social relationships with a different sociology. Of course this will be of deep concern to those with a different worldview. It isn't the academic strengths of homeschoolers that is of concern to the opposition. It isn't even the fact that homeschooled children are able to interact with a wide variety of people from varying social contexts with ease, that bothers the opposition. It is the fact that these children are raised in different social relationships, nurturing relationships that will inevitably produce well-rounded, influential leaders of change in future generations. It is the fact that home education is poised to change the worldview, the social relationships of the modern world...
...It would be one thing, if homeschooling only affected family social relationships and perhaps then home educators would be tolerated. But indeed that is not the case! Once you have rearranged social relationships on the basic level, you will inevitably find a domino effect taking place, and all other social relationships will be affected.
...Last week, I took a call from Barna Research, an organization that surveys Christian ministries. (Ironically, the call came in while I was working on my Bible lesson I was preparing for my children that morning.) The gentleman on the other end of the line was surveying Christian pastors on children's ministries in their churches. He asked me if we had any Sunday Schools for children in our church.
I told him, "No."
"Any mid-week youth groups?"
"Not exactly," I replied.
"How about children's church?"
"Nope."
There was a pause. "What kind of church are you? Don't you have anything for children?"
I told him, "Well, we were reading the Bible, and we found Deuteronomy 6:7, Ephesians 6:4, the book of Proverbs, and all of the other passages on children's ministries. In practically every passage we found that it would be a really good idea if parents would disciple their own children. We couldn't find any more powerful ministry program for children, than for their own parents to show them Jesus every day as they sit in their house together, as they walk by the way, as they rise up, and as they lie down. We thought that would be a pretty neat system of disciple-ing children, and we decided to go with it."
"Wow. That's not even on my list here. That's pretty weird."...
Read more>>
Reversing Rousseau
The Domino Effect
...Home education is bringing sweeping changes into modern society in the area of sociology, and not everybody is excited about that. We are replacing peer pressure, group think, and statist, big government social relationships with a different sociology. Of course this will be of deep concern to those with a different worldview. It isn't the academic strengths of homeschoolers that is of concern to the opposition. It isn't even the fact that homeschooled children are able to interact with a wide variety of people from varying social contexts with ease, that bothers the opposition. It is the fact that these children are raised in different social relationships, nurturing relationships that will inevitably produce well-rounded, influential leaders of change in future generations. It is the fact that home education is poised to change the worldview, the social relationships of the modern world...
...It would be one thing, if homeschooling only affected family social relationships and perhaps then home educators would be tolerated. But indeed that is not the case! Once you have rearranged social relationships on the basic level, you will inevitably find a domino effect taking place, and all other social relationships will be affected.
...Last week, I took a call from Barna Research, an organization that surveys Christian ministries. (Ironically, the call came in while I was working on my Bible lesson I was preparing for my children that morning.) The gentleman on the other end of the line was surveying Christian pastors on children's ministries in their churches. He asked me if we had any Sunday Schools for children in our church.
I told him, "No."
"Any mid-week youth groups?"
"Not exactly," I replied.
"How about children's church?"
"Nope."
There was a pause. "What kind of church are you? Don't you have anything for children?"
I told him, "Well, we were reading the Bible, and we found Deuteronomy 6:7, Ephesians 6:4, the book of Proverbs, and all of the other passages on children's ministries. In practically every passage we found that it would be a really good idea if parents would disciple their own children. We couldn't find any more powerful ministry program for children, than for their own parents to show them Jesus every day as they sit in their house together, as they walk by the way, as they rise up, and as they lie down. We thought that would be a pretty neat system of disciple-ing children, and we decided to go with it."
"Wow. That's not even on my list here. That's pretty weird."...
Read more>>
Friday, August 3, 2007
Always Leading
From Credenda Agenda archives. As men and heads of household we are responsible. As husbands and fathers we are always leading. We will either lead well or poorly but we are always leading. Our culture has spent 50 plus years mocking, be-littling, and distorting the biblical order for husbands, it's time to repent and rebuild.
Volume 7, Issue 1: Husbandry
Men Without Chests
Douglas Wilson
At least one obvious difference stands between an ancient pagan home and one belonging to a modern pagan. In the ancient Roman world, for example, the paterfamilias was the head of the home. Because he was pagan, he led his family in error, and if the message of Christ came to him, he was used by God to lead his family out of that error. In the first century, the normal pattern was for the head of the house to be converted to the Christian faith, and his household would follow almost immediately after. The ancient heads of households could readily say with Joshua, "as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Josh. 24:15). This was God's pattern (Eph. 5:22ff.).
The modern world is quite different. Here it is every man for himself, and devil take the hindmost. The modern man is certainly very male , but when it comes to the biblical definition of masculinity , the husbands of our culture have fallen far short of God's standard. This means that any faithful presentation of the Christian message to them must include the necessity of repentance at the heart of the matter and the widespread rebellion against masculinity is at the heart of the matter. In any culture, a superficial demand for repentance will always be readily understood, and commonly applauded. A radical and biblical demand for repentance, in contrast, will frequently require a turning away from those things we all assumed to be good . "For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:15)....
In another era, a man could come to faith as the Philippian jailor did and rejoice as his family came with him. In our day, if a man were to say, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord . . ." his wife might stare at him as though he were insane, while a surly teenager would mutter under his breath in the background. This state of things requires repentance....
Read the whole thing
Volume 7, Issue 1: Husbandry
Men Without Chests
Douglas Wilson
At least one obvious difference stands between an ancient pagan home and one belonging to a modern pagan. In the ancient Roman world, for example, the paterfamilias was the head of the home. Because he was pagan, he led his family in error, and if the message of Christ came to him, he was used by God to lead his family out of that error. In the first century, the normal pattern was for the head of the house to be converted to the Christian faith, and his household would follow almost immediately after. The ancient heads of households could readily say with Joshua, "as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Josh. 24:15). This was God's pattern (Eph. 5:22ff.).
The modern world is quite different. Here it is every man for himself, and devil take the hindmost. The modern man is certainly very male , but when it comes to the biblical definition of masculinity , the husbands of our culture have fallen far short of God's standard. This means that any faithful presentation of the Christian message to them must include the necessity of repentance at the heart of the matter and the widespread rebellion against masculinity is at the heart of the matter. In any culture, a superficial demand for repentance will always be readily understood, and commonly applauded. A radical and biblical demand for repentance, in contrast, will frequently require a turning away from those things we all assumed to be good . "For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:15)....
In another era, a man could come to faith as the Philippian jailor did and rejoice as his family came with him. In our day, if a man were to say, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord . . ." his wife might stare at him as though he were insane, while a surly teenager would mutter under his breath in the background. This state of things requires repentance....
Read the whole thing
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
That In All things He May Have Preeminence
This is a follow up toSitting In The Dirt
Colossians 1:15-20 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn cver all creation. for by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or domminions or principalities or powers. All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things and in him all things consist. and he is the head of the body, the church,who is the beginning the first born from the dead, that in all things he may have preeminence. for it pleased the Father that in him all the fullness should dwell, and by him whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of his cross.
How can we give him preeminence in all things if we don't see every things proper connection to him? This was my sucking chest wound for so many years as a believer, as a modern evangelical. To have let the devil and man define what was and wasn't The Kingdom of God. My compartmentalized faith led to a compartmentalized view of life. When all along God had claimed everything, because he made it all. As I am beginning to comprehend this in its true fullness, all of a sudden Jesus explodes out of church, my bible reading, times of fellowship and can really become Lord over all of life. My Job, maintaining my house, what I watch and read he can have preeminence in. We can have life more abundant when we really see Him connected to all of it and make him Lord over it all in our lives. We can be truly human in the fullness that God intended.
As followers, as disciples we must see his connection to all of life so that we can disciple those he has given to us, our children, and anyone that we help bring to the Lord. So that this disease isn't passed on to the next generation. That blessings rather than curses can be multiplied to our children. Gov't schools, Hollywood, our culture has sold us a lie. We paid taxes and $8.50 (plus popcorn)to have it inculcated into us. When the whole time it was like an old western Hollywood front. You look behind the bank on Main Street and nothing is there. Sorry, no purpose or meaning here.
If we do not take Christ at his Word this false world view spreads like cancer, to first influence and then to suck all of God's joy from so many areas of life. God wants to be Lord over it all. We must first see how mathematics, Logic, and reason make no sense without our Father to impart it to our kids. So they can be human. So they can have purpose and meaning. Life more abundant. For the Glory of God.
Colossians 1:15-20 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn cver all creation. for by him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or domminions or principalities or powers. All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things and in him all things consist. and he is the head of the body, the church,who is the beginning the first born from the dead, that in all things he may have preeminence. for it pleased the Father that in him all the fullness should dwell, and by him whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of his cross.
How can we give him preeminence in all things if we don't see every things proper connection to him? This was my sucking chest wound for so many years as a believer, as a modern evangelical. To have let the devil and man define what was and wasn't The Kingdom of God. My compartmentalized faith led to a compartmentalized view of life. When all along God had claimed everything, because he made it all. As I am beginning to comprehend this in its true fullness, all of a sudden Jesus explodes out of church, my bible reading, times of fellowship and can really become Lord over all of life. My Job, maintaining my house, what I watch and read he can have preeminence in. We can have life more abundant when we really see Him connected to all of it and make him Lord over it all in our lives. We can be truly human in the fullness that God intended.
As followers, as disciples we must see his connection to all of life so that we can disciple those he has given to us, our children, and anyone that we help bring to the Lord. So that this disease isn't passed on to the next generation. That blessings rather than curses can be multiplied to our children. Gov't schools, Hollywood, our culture has sold us a lie. We paid taxes and $8.50 (plus popcorn)to have it inculcated into us. When the whole time it was like an old western Hollywood front. You look behind the bank on Main Street and nothing is there. Sorry, no purpose or meaning here.
If we do not take Christ at his Word this false world view spreads like cancer, to first influence and then to suck all of God's joy from so many areas of life. God wants to be Lord over it all. We must first see how mathematics, Logic, and reason make no sense without our Father to impart it to our kids. So they can be human. So they can have purpose and meaning. Life more abundant. For the Glory of God.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
God Forbid It !
Swanson talking about daughters...
Should We Kick our 18-Year-Old Daughters Out of the House - Living Alone in a Post-Modern Barren Land Monday, July 16,2007
Controversy strikes again on the Generations broadcast. The question raised on this program is, 'Should we kick our 18 year old daughters out of the house?'
Kevin Swanson carefully distinguishes between the normative and the exceptional and points out that the exceptional becomes the normative when the principles of God's Word are utterly ignored in the identification of calling.
While acknowledging a role for the unmarried state, Kevin cautions against an age of unaccountability and the lonely state imposed on us by a post-modern worldview. download mp3 or listen online Go here
Dont miss "Teaching Your Kids to Enjoy Pleasure" either.
Should We Kick our 18-Year-Old Daughters Out of the House - Living Alone in a Post-Modern Barren Land Monday, July 16,2007
Controversy strikes again on the Generations broadcast. The question raised on this program is, 'Should we kick our 18 year old daughters out of the house?'
Kevin Swanson carefully distinguishes between the normative and the exceptional and points out that the exceptional becomes the normative when the principles of God's Word are utterly ignored in the identification of calling.
While acknowledging a role for the unmarried state, Kevin cautions against an age of unaccountability and the lonely state imposed on us by a post-modern worldview. download mp3 or listen online Go here
Dont miss "Teaching Your Kids to Enjoy Pleasure" either.
Sitting in the Dirt, as Praise to God!
This column just blows me away. I finish it and my heart says Yes, yes, yes! Jesus the Redeemer. I read this and I see how man, through the work of Christ is woven back into our Father's creation seemlessly as our father intended. It's the Gospel, the good news! To view it, not as secular and sacred, but now through Christ it can all be seen and used as God intended. Every atom is his and for his Glory. To see the Glory in the mundane...this is Christianity. Redeemed. Restored. I can spiritualize God right out of his Creation, I repent! I so need Christ to just blow out my compartmentalized walls and let his truths envelop all of my walk. "To be in submission to his word".
Colossians 1:15-20
Glory and MatterTopic: Old Table Talk Articles, Doug Wilson
The gnostic impulse lies deep with us, close to the bone. But God, in His mercy, has placed the resurrection of Jesus Christ right at the center of our faith...
...The gnostic impulse is this: whenever matter as such is disparaged over against that which is immaterial and "spiritual," we are being tempted to gnosticism. Of course it would be foolish to reject that which is truly spiritual -- the point has to do with how the word spiritual is rightly defined. When spiritual (as a term of praise) is assumed to be the opposite of material, we have a problem. But when the spiritual understood to be that which is in submission to the Word of God, we are on firmer ground.
...The devil is a spirit, a prince of the powers of the air, but this does not make him spiritual. But a man who makes love to his wife, with a biblical understanding, shows that his carnal act is a spiritual act. A man who helps a non-Christian neighbor plant some shrubs has real dirt under his spiritual fingernails. But many Christians have a definition of what it means to be spiritual which requires them to try to become more like the devil. You believe there is one God? Good for you, and the demons do that. True spiritual knowledge is exhibited in what you do with matter -- how you handle stuff...
Read the whole thing
Colossians 1:15-20
Glory and MatterTopic: Old Table Talk Articles, Doug Wilson
The gnostic impulse lies deep with us, close to the bone. But God, in His mercy, has placed the resurrection of Jesus Christ right at the center of our faith...
...The gnostic impulse is this: whenever matter as such is disparaged over against that which is immaterial and "spiritual," we are being tempted to gnosticism. Of course it would be foolish to reject that which is truly spiritual -- the point has to do with how the word spiritual is rightly defined. When spiritual (as a term of praise) is assumed to be the opposite of material, we have a problem. But when the spiritual understood to be that which is in submission to the Word of God, we are on firmer ground.
...The devil is a spirit, a prince of the powers of the air, but this does not make him spiritual. But a man who makes love to his wife, with a biblical understanding, shows that his carnal act is a spiritual act. A man who helps a non-Christian neighbor plant some shrubs has real dirt under his spiritual fingernails. But many Christians have a definition of what it means to be spiritual which requires them to try to become more like the devil. You believe there is one God? Good for you, and the demons do that. True spiritual knowledge is exhibited in what you do with matter -- how you handle stuff...
Read the whole thing
Swanson and Phillips
Kevin Swanson talked with Doug Phillips on fri....listen online or download the mp3.
The Most Defining Influence in the Life of a Boy - Interview: Doug Phillips Friday, July 27, 2007
Dr. James Dobson said “The Greatest tragedy of the 20th century was the breakdown of the family.” We agree. But unless fatherhood is revived, all efforts to renew the family will in the end flounder. Here Kevin Swanson interviews Doug Phillips on three generations of fatherhood, and how the father-son relationship is more defining in the development of a boy than any other single influence.
We absolutely, positively, must renew fatherhood…. Or we will lose every other battle for the family.
We will lose the traditional marriage battle in the courts and the legislatures.
We will lose the abortion battle.
Kevins generations show is hereis here.
The Most Defining Influence in the Life of a Boy - Interview: Doug Phillips Friday, July 27, 2007
Dr. James Dobson said “The Greatest tragedy of the 20th century was the breakdown of the family.” We agree. But unless fatherhood is revived, all efforts to renew the family will in the end flounder. Here Kevin Swanson interviews Doug Phillips on three generations of fatherhood, and how the father-son relationship is more defining in the development of a boy than any other single influence.
We absolutely, positively, must renew fatherhood…. Or we will lose every other battle for the family.
We will lose the traditional marriage battle in the courts and the legislatures.
We will lose the abortion battle.
Kevins generations show is hereis here.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Godly Definitions...Family
This is from Rushdoony's book "Salvation and Godly Rule" It was posted at Chalcedon's blog. Two yrs ago I did not see the family like this, now I work towards it. Modern believers would find many things to take offense with...but it would not be because they think the Bible teaches something else. What convictions are forming your family's identity ? Or are you just being swept along?
The Biblical Family
"The family cannot be limited to the modern atomistic family, those living under one roof as husband, wife, and children. The marriage unit of husband and wife is the nuclear family, but it is not the sum total of the family. To illustrate: on the one hand, a family with three children, nominally religious, is in no sense Christian nor an area of dominion. Each member goes his own way: there is no sense of any moral responsibility to God or to one another, nor to the grandparents. This is a marriage and a family, but in a biological sense and a legal sense, not in a Christian or moral sense, in that even adultery and fornication are tolerated within limits.
In another case, the family has three children, two sons, and one daughter. A son and daughter have never married; all three children reside some distance from home. They are, however, a godly family. The parents are supported in retirement by the unmarried son and daughter, with help from the other son. The married son was helped through the university by his brother and sister.The family has helped other relatives, and some friends as well, and, while absent from their small town home, have been important in aiding some Christian causes therein. All three children are exercising dominion under God, and all three have a strong sense of family. The daughter, nearing retirement herself, has more of a family life in her effect on other families, and the love she has earned, than the lawless mother in the first family. In the first family, family life means little more than a legal sexual relationship and life under one roof, an essentially biological concept of family life. In the second family, family life is a form of social organization with theological premises, so that it exists and governs where no sexual relationship exists...
"The family in Biblical law controls three central areas of life, the control of which governs society. And institution or agency which controls children, property, and inheritance is the determining agency in any society. Not surprisingly, the modern state, in its totalitarian designs, has invaded all three areas in varying degrees, by means of property taxes, inheritance taxes, statist schools, and laws limiting the jurisdiction of the family. The state seeks to be the new family of man."~ R. J. Rushdoony, "Marriage and the Family," from Salvation and Godly Rule.
The Biblical Family
"The family cannot be limited to the modern atomistic family, those living under one roof as husband, wife, and children. The marriage unit of husband and wife is the nuclear family, but it is not the sum total of the family. To illustrate: on the one hand, a family with three children, nominally religious, is in no sense Christian nor an area of dominion. Each member goes his own way: there is no sense of any moral responsibility to God or to one another, nor to the grandparents. This is a marriage and a family, but in a biological sense and a legal sense, not in a Christian or moral sense, in that even adultery and fornication are tolerated within limits.
In another case, the family has three children, two sons, and one daughter. A son and daughter have never married; all three children reside some distance from home. They are, however, a godly family. The parents are supported in retirement by the unmarried son and daughter, with help from the other son. The married son was helped through the university by his brother and sister.The family has helped other relatives, and some friends as well, and, while absent from their small town home, have been important in aiding some Christian causes therein. All three children are exercising dominion under God, and all three have a strong sense of family. The daughter, nearing retirement herself, has more of a family life in her effect on other families, and the love she has earned, than the lawless mother in the first family. In the first family, family life means little more than a legal sexual relationship and life under one roof, an essentially biological concept of family life. In the second family, family life is a form of social organization with theological premises, so that it exists and governs where no sexual relationship exists...
"The family in Biblical law controls three central areas of life, the control of which governs society. And institution or agency which controls children, property, and inheritance is the determining agency in any society. Not surprisingly, the modern state, in its totalitarian designs, has invaded all three areas in varying degrees, by means of property taxes, inheritance taxes, statist schools, and laws limiting the jurisdiction of the family. The state seeks to be the new family of man."~ R. J. Rushdoony, "Marriage and the Family," from Salvation and Godly Rule.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Americana
From Wilsons Blog Mablog. I continue to slowly digest this type of thing, the untangling of the Kingdom of God with Americana.
America as Religion
Topic: Americanistas
The first chapter of Americanism is entitled "I Believe in America," and it reveals the basic problem. A number of people have wanted to say that America is "dedicated to a proposition," and that we are not bound together by those ties that bind other nations -- things like language, culture, music, food, and common descent. Because of this assumption, believing or not believing in America becomes a choice, like a religious choice, and that means you can fault people for not making it...
..."You can believe in Americanism without believing in God -- so long as you believe in man" (p. 20).
This kind of thing takes the breath away, or ought to, and the initial reaction of many Christians will be to say that Gelernter must be a lone whackadoo, and why are we paying attention to this? For several reasons. The first is that he is highly educated and competent. He is a professor of computer science at Yale, a contributing editor at The Weekly Standard, and a member of the National Council on the Arts. A number of the people mentioned in the acknowledgements are at the center of our national life, and not part of the Glazed Eye Crowd. The second reason for taking him seriously is that he is right. Americanism has become a religion, and he accurately identifies how and where it happened. Where we part company is to be found in his (religious) conviction that this development was a good thing. Faithful Christians will necessarily see it as a tragic fall into idolatry -- and into one of the easist forms of idolatry for conservative Christians to be tempted by....
Read the whole thing>>
America as Religion
Topic: Americanistas
The first chapter of Americanism is entitled "I Believe in America," and it reveals the basic problem. A number of people have wanted to say that America is "dedicated to a proposition," and that we are not bound together by those ties that bind other nations -- things like language, culture, music, food, and common descent. Because of this assumption, believing or not believing in America becomes a choice, like a religious choice, and that means you can fault people for not making it...
..."You can believe in Americanism without believing in God -- so long as you believe in man" (p. 20).
This kind of thing takes the breath away, or ought to, and the initial reaction of many Christians will be to say that Gelernter must be a lone whackadoo, and why are we paying attention to this? For several reasons. The first is that he is highly educated and competent. He is a professor of computer science at Yale, a contributing editor at The Weekly Standard, and a member of the National Council on the Arts. A number of the people mentioned in the acknowledgements are at the center of our national life, and not part of the Glazed Eye Crowd. The second reason for taking him seriously is that he is right. Americanism has become a religion, and he accurately identifies how and where it happened. Where we part company is to be found in his (religious) conviction that this development was a good thing. Faithful Christians will necessarily see it as a tragic fall into idolatry -- and into one of the easist forms of idolatry for conservative Christians to be tempted by....
Read the whole thing>>