FYI

R. C. Sproul is doing a series of discussions this week with a former Muslim (now Christian) entitled "The Dark Side of Islam."  If you don't get the "Renewing Your Mind" broadcast on the radio, you can listen on the Ligonier website (click to link).  It's helpful information about the world's fastest growing religion. 

Easter 2011

Despite the cool, breezy weather, we had a wonderful Easter weekend with Ashlea...shopping, cooking, movies, etc.  We had a few friends over for dinner today, and we enjoyed sharing Resurrection Sunday with them.  Of course, Walsh came home with Ashlea, so he livened up the house...especially for Phoebe and Beatrice.  They're counting the minutes until he leaves tomorrow, and they can have the run of the house again.  

I probably deserve it.  ; )

Ashlea

Ashlea and her 70 lb. baby

Joel and his "granddog"

Dance Your Shoes Off

Celebrating the Resurrection with song and dance!  If anyone has reason to sing and dance, it's those of us looking forward to the day when we will rise up with Christ!

Holy Week: What Happened on Easter Sunday?

Holy Week: What Happened on Easter Sunday?

Did Christ ever descend to hell?

John Piper answers the question, and I'm wondering why we even recite that part of the creed.

Did Christ ever descend to hell?

Holy Week: What Happened on Good Friday?

Holy Week: What Happened on Good Friday?

That's Our Boy!

"In March, 13 K-State students were chosen from a highly competitive national-level selection board to attend rated aviation training in the U.S. Air Force after graduation.  The students are cadets in the university's Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps who will earn commissions as second lieutenants in the United States Air Force before entering formal flight training in 2012. The four rated aviation duty specialties are pilot, combat systems operator, air battle manager and remotely piloted aircraft operator.  Kathryn Blair, Air Force ROTC cadet and junior in geography, gave a rundown on the positions.

"The pilots will fly the aircraft, the combat systems officers will control the electronic, navigation and weapons systems and the air battle managers will command and control the air battle," Blair said.  The 13 cadets were selected for one of these career designations following two and a half years of leadership training, which included standardized testing, undergraduate and military studies, academic and physical evaluations, field training and a battery of psychomotor skills tests."

Continue article here.  Tyler is in the middle of the picture, back row. 

Holy Week: What Happened on Wednesday?

Holy Week: What Happened on Wednesday?

The Cup

"And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, 'My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.'"  Matthew 26:39

"If we knew the Scriptures as Jesus does...we couldn't escape this reference. Isaiah 51:17 shows us this cup in God's extended hand--it's 'the cup of wrath,' and for those who drink from it, it's 'the cup of staggering.' This cup contains the full vehemence and fierceness of God's holy wrath poured out against all sin, and we discover in Scripture that it's intended for all of sinful humanity to drink.  It's your cup...and mine.

In the vivid imagery of the Old Testament, this cup is filled with 'fire and sulfur and a scorching wind' like some volcanic firestorm...That's why there's shuddering terror and deep distress for [Jesus] at this moment.  In the crucible of human weakness he's brought face to face with the abhorrent reality of bearing our iniquity and becoming the object of God's full and furious wrath.

What Jesus recoils from here is not an anticipation of the physical pain associated with the crucifixion.  Rather it's a pain infinitely greater--the agony of being abandoned by his Father.

As one commentator notes, Jesus entered the garden 'to be with the Father for an interlude before his betrayal, but found Hell rather than Heaven open before him.'  Knowing the hour for his death is fast approaching, Jesus has come here in need as never before of his Father's comfort and strength.  Instead, hell--utter separation from God--is thrust in his face.  

That is what bearing our sin means to him--utter distress of soul as [Jesus] confronts total abandonment and a rejection we cannot begin to grasp.  In this, our Savior's darkest hour...do you recognize his love for you?

~Excerpts from Christ Our Mediator by C. J. Mahaney 

Holy Week: What Happened on Tuesday?

Holy Week: What Happened on Tuesday?

An Unexpected Journey - Part 3

I know many Christians resist the truth that God is sovereign over the salvation of men.  In our limited understanding, we want to hold on to the idea that everyone has a free will to choose to follow Christ, because that is what seems "fair." When we were homeschooling, we had a Bible doctrines textbook that actually said, "Isn't it wonderful that God sets aside his sovereignty, so that man can exercise his free will in salvation?" God never sets aside his sovereignty!  He is the unchanging, almighty Lord over all things! 

Years ago, our pastor taught on the election of the saints, and I was keenly interested in understanding this doctrine of the Bible.  I approached our pastor after the service to ask a few questions, because the light bulbs started going on.  I remember asking him something like, "Since God through the Holy Spirit calls certain people to salvation, wouldn't they have to respond in faith?"  I was beginning to understand the doctrine of God's effective call to salvation, that God effects exactly what he intends each time he quickens spiritually dead souls to spiritual life.  That's why God's Word says we are "made alive" in Christ. A spiritually dead person has no ability to make himself come to spiritual life; rather, God replaces our stony heart with a heart of flesh.  In so doing, He alone gets the glory for each regeneration that leads to faith in Christ.  

Some of you might be saying now, "Wait a minute! What about John 3:16? And what about the verse that says, 'God is not willing that any should parish, but all should come to repentance'?"  I had to work through those (and other) verses that are used to support the idea that man has a free will in his salvation.  Through the years, expository teaching, systematic theology, and gifted Bible teachers and scholars have been key in helping me work through these "troublesome" passages.  God's Word is not contradictory, so I had to reconcile all the references to God's electing, calling, and choosing some to salvation with the verses that seemingly indicate man has a free will in salvation.  First of all, I had to gain an understanding man's free will.  Yes, I do have one, but I can only choose according to my nature. If I am spiritually dead because of my sins, I have no ability to choose the things of God.  I'll cover this more in depth when I discuss man's radical corruption.


So what about the "world" and "whoever" in John 3:16: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life?  The meaning of the verse is that Christ's saving work on the cross is not limited to a specific time and place, but applies to God's elect from all over the world throughout history.  


II Peter 3:9 was indeed a troubling verse:  does God really desire that all should come to repentance?  This verse must be explained in the context of the whole letter.  To whom was Peter writing?  "To those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ" (v. 1).  He was writing to Christians!  R. C. Sproul explains that "the scope of 'all' is qualified by the word 'us.'  The repentance in view, for the sake of which God delays judgment, is that of God's people rather than the world at large.  God is not willing that any of His elect should perish (John 6:39)."

One other key passage in my journey was Romans 9, in which Paul explains that election is not based on God looking down the tunnel of time and seeing who will choose Him; rather, it is based on God's sovereign predestinating grace.  He owes mercy to no one, so there is no injustice when mercy is not shown or not offered equally to all.  

The next stop on my journey of the doctrines of grace was God's purposeful atonement - to be covered in an upcoming post. 

Holy Week: What Happened on Monday?

Holy Week: What Happened on Monday?

Quotable

When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.  Luke 9:51

"When Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem, he set his face to die. . .If we were to look at Jesus' death merely as a result of a betrayer's deceit and the Sanhedrin's envy and Pilate's spinelessness and the soldiers' nails and spear, it might seem very involuntary.  And the benefit of salvation that comes to us who believe from this death might be viewed as God's way of making a virtue out of a necessity.  But once you read Luke 9:51 all such thoughts vanish.  Jesus was not accidentally entangled in a web of injustice.  The saving benefits of his death for sinners were not an afterthought.  God planned it all out of infinite love to sinners like us and appointed a time. Jesus, who was the very embodiment of his Father's love for sinners, saw that the time had come and set his face to fulfill his mission:  to die in Jerusalem for our sake.  Here's a question put to every believer by this text...does discipleship mean following him on the Calvary road which leads to suffering and death?  The answer of the whole New Testament is this:  the surprise about Jesus the Messiah is that he came to live a life of sacrificial, dying service before he comes a second time to reign in glory.  And the surprise about discipleship is that it demands a life of sacrificial, dying service before we can reign with Christ in glory.  Jesus' journey to Jerusalem is our journey, and if he set his face to go there and die, we must set our face to die with him." ~ John Piper, "He Set His Face to Go to Jerusalem," 1982. 

Tim Keller on Stories

On C. S. Lewis and Tolkien's discussion about Jesus as the underlying reality of all our stories - because of His resurrection.

An Unexpected Journey - Part 2

If you read part 1 of my unexpected journey, you might be wondering "what does she mean by 'doctrines of grace'?"  I am referring to the five interrelated doctrines regarding man's sinful state and God's plan of redemption:

1.  Humanity's radical corruption
2.  God's sovereign choice
3.  Christ's purposeful atonement
4.  The Spirit's effective call to salvation
5.  God's preservation of the saints

Over several posts, I'll be sharing how I came to my understanding of each of these doctrines, to the best of my recollection.  And I'd have to say my first encounter was with #5 - God's preservation of the saints, also called eternal security.

When I look back on my upbringing, I have to marvel at God's gracious work in my life to bring me to where I am today.  During the first twenty years of my life, my biblical instruction was limited, and I wasn't yet "alive" to the things of God.  But one thing I never questioned at that time was the notion of "once saved, always saved."

That someone could lose their salvation was never even a consideration until the subject was brought up in discussion with friends during our early married years.  (It was also during this time frame that I came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.)  I remember sitting around their kitchen table, and Martin asked us what we thought about the possibility that someone could lose their salvation.  I was so dumbfounded by the question, my only response was, "You mean there are people who believe that?"  Martin laughed and said, "Yeah, it's like turning a light switch off and on."  

The aspect of the doctrine of preservation of the saints with which I have wrestled, though, is the false assurance of salvation, derived from an incorrect view of salvation or a false assumption of one's faith.  How do we explain those people who profess saving faith in Christ, but their lives don't testify to saving faith?  Scripture is clear that if one is genuinely saved from their sins, he will bear spiritual fruit and experience the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.  Many people are led astray by messengers who reduce salvation to walking an aisle, raising a hand, or "praying the prayer."  I have come to really appreciate the parable of the sower found in three of the gospels. I did a blog post on that parable in 2007, so you may click on the link if you wish to read it, but the point I want to make is that those who are true followers of Christ (represented by the good soil) "are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience" (Luke 8:15).   


One other passage of scripture that has been important in my understanding of the preservation of the saints is in John 6.  Jesus assures us with these words:


"I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.  But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe.  All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.  And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.  For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up on the last day."

Bach, like you've never heard or seen before!

An Unexpected Journey - Part 1

One of the Ligonier Conference optional sessions was given by Dr. Robert Godfrey, president of Westminster Seminary in California and reputed "professional church historian" (a conference joke).  Dr. Godfrey discussed his newly released book entitled An Unexpected Journey, the story of how he came to embrace Reformed theology.  Since then, I've been mulling over my own "unexpected journey," particularly to the understanding of the doctrines of grace.  I remember hearing someone say that everyone is born an Arminian, and it's only by the grace of God that eyes are opened to a God-centered understanding of salvation.  I can attest to that statement, because I held a man-centered view of salvation for the first thirty (or so) years of my life, and I am so thankful for God's leading in understanding His sovereign grace in salvation.  


What do I mean by a man-centered view of salvation?  The belief that it is solely man's decision whether he will choose to accept God's offer of salvation from the penalty for his sins, that Jesus died on the cross to make salvation a possibility for everyone, but not a certainty for anyone.  God is offering the gift, and it's up to man to reach out and receive it.  And that's where I was theologically until the late 1980s.

The embryonic stage on my journey, though, was the discovery of the "Grace to You" radio program earlier that decade when we lived in Texas.  Joel and I would regularly listen to John MacArthur on the local Christian radio station as we drove home from church on Sunday nights.  I had never heard anyone preach with such knowledge, conviction, and passion...I hung on every word. At the time, I didn't know what his teaching style was called, but I liked it!  

After three years in Texas, we moved back to Kansas (our home state), and Joel and I became members of a church in the denomination of our upbringing. But over time, we realized we were not lining up doctrinally with the teaching of the church.  My neighbor invited me to a ladies' Bible study, where I met some wonderful Christian women, one of whom spoke very favorably about her church and the teaching of her pastor.  Before long, Joel and I decided to visit Crestview Bible Church.  I remember that as we walked out of church that first Sunday, and we turned to each other and said, "Where has this been all our lives?!"  "This" meaning the style of Bible teaching.  (We also realized it was the same style used by John MacArthur.)  We couldn't wait to go back to church the next Sunday.  All our lives, we had been in churches whose pastors did topical sermons, so this was our first experience with expository preaching (in a church), teaching verse by verse through books of the Bible.  What a difference when you approach God's Word by allowing it to do the teaching and the interpreting, rather than having a sermon topic in mind and making scripture verses "fit" the topic.  This shift was foundational on my journey to the doctrines of grace.


When I began writing on my unexpected journey, I thought I would cover it in one post.  Since I try to avoid lengthy blog posts, and since I would like to mull over the next phase of my journey before continuing, I am going to end for now. I promise, though, that my journey will not turn into a book-length project, as did Robert Godfrey's.  

Have a wonderful day!

Where History Meets Mystery

Am I the only one wondering why the Brits seem to outdo us when it comes to quality television productions?  Granted, I watch very little television (although I'll admit that I drop in on American Idol every once in a while), so I guess I don't really know if there are any good shows out there.  But I do know that I haven't noticed anything that might compare to Foyle's War.  Joel and I can't seem to get enough of this series, based on the police investigations of Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle of Hastings, England during World War II. We systematically worked our way through the first three seasons via Netflix, before we discovered that Sam's Club carries a few of the seasons, namely four, five, and six.  How timely for us! 

Here is a portion of a review from the fan-generated Foyle's War website linked above:
 
"Each episode of Foyle's War, created by Anthony Horowitz (Midsomer Murders), blends real-life war stories with tales of treachery and suspense. Whether investigating sabotage, looting, stolen food or fuel supplies, police brutality of conscientious objectors, treason, or murder, Foyle and his colleagues must wage their own personal war amidst the tumult of a larger one. But more than a period whodunnit, Foyle's War is redolent with rich human drama subtly revealed through the lives of these main characters who make up the heart of the series. Steadfast and loyal to each other, they strive to uphold the values for which they and their countrymen - their loved ones - are fighting and dying."

So excuse me now while I grab the bag of dark chocolate M & Ms and the next episode.  Oh...and if you know of any other British shows we might like, please share in the comments.  : ) 

Our Sunday at St. Andrew's Chapel & Ligonier Ministries

St. Andrew's Chapel, Sanford, Florida - on the Ligonier Campus

Inside the sanctuary looking back toward the narthex

After the service - happy to be there!

John Piper filling the pulpit for R. C. Sproul

The future home of Ligonier Ministries 

I'm standing in the office that will be occupied by R. C. Sproul

The future home of the Reformation Bible College opening this August - also on the Ligonier Campus. 

Almighty Over All

I am the LORD, and there is no other.  I form the light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity, I am the LORD, who does all these things.  Isaiah 45:6-7

When R. C. Sproul, Jr. is asked "Why do bad things happen to good people?" his answer is, "That only happened once in human history, and He volunteered."

As R. C. explained in his Ligonier Conference session entitled "Almighty Over All," we often lose sight of the truth that "there is none righteous," with the exception of Jesus Christ.  We forget that, because we have sinned against a Holy God, we actually deserve His judgment and condemnation, which is much worse than whatever pain and tragedy we will experience in this life.

We struggle with the concept of God's sovereignty in human suffering.  We don't want to accept that the recent tsunami in Japan, the earthquake in Haiti, or the wars throughout the world all belong to God.  As it was with Job, we won't always know what God is doing behind the scenes through suffering, but as His children, we have the assurance that whatever suffering we experience, it is for God's glory and our good - our conformity to Christ.   R. C. challenged us to believe this in the core of our being, and live it out before a watching world.


R. C., Jr.'s wife is currently being treated for her third bout with cancer - a very aggressive cancer.  As he was speaking to us, his wife was undergoing another round of chemotherapy.  The reality of the situation is grim.  Yet, in the midst of this situation, he explained that we are often confused about suffering because we are living for the wrong reason - seeking temporal desires rather than a desire to be conformed to the image of Jesus.  God did not just allow the cancer, or saw it coming and decided to make the most of it.  No, because God has a single-minded passion to make R. C.'s wife like Jesus, He went "shopping," so to speak, for her sanctification...as He does for all his children.  


The questions I must ask are these:  Do I really hunger to be like Jesus?  Am I willing to pray, "Father, send me whatever it takes to be more like Him."  That is what he has promised to do. And when tragedy lands on my doorstep, will I say with Job, "The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." 

Suggested scriptures:  Romans 5, Romans 8, II Corinthians 1, II Corinthians 12, Hebrews 12, James 1, I Peter 1