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I picked up a book last week which looks wonderfully intriguing and insightful, and if the introduction is any hint of what is to come, it is. The book is called Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity and is written by former Wheaton, now Notre Dame, history professor Mark A. Noll.

The book looks great, but what has stuck with me is a segment of his introduction in which he articulates four reasons for us to study the history of Christianity. I’ll use his words and then comment briefly.

1. In the first instance, studying the history of Christianity provides repeated, concrete demonstration concerning the irreducibly historical character of the Christian faith.

That is, Christianity is if anything the ongoing record of the work of God among people. It is not simply the action of men and women in time. Christianity is God at work among us, and the study of history is the study of his continued work of building his church.

2. A second contribution of church history is to provide perspective on the interpretation of scripture.

To see how Christians in other eras mishandled scripture because of the blinders of their cultural setting and presuppositions breeds in us a humility and care in our own handling of scripture, realizing that we might be no more free of our own cultural biases than our forebears were. This perspective cautions us and demands a greater level of care as we come to the scriptures.

On the other hand, positively, when we face a question of interpretation, or when we face a crisis or decision for which we are looking at scripture, it is helpful to know that others before us have faced that same issue, and a knowledge of history may gives us ears with which to hear their wisdom.

3. The study of church history is also useful as a laboratory for examining Christian interactions with surrounding culture.

We are not the first generation to struggle with how to engage the culture around us without losing the heart of the gospel message. Maybe we can learn how others handled, say, worship music. Or immigration. Or abortion. Or peace and war.

4. …historical study fairly shouts out loud, that God sustains the church despite the church’s own frequent efforts to betray its Savior and its own high calling….

He sees two things here, really, both which should give to modern Christians a deep sense of humility. First we should realize that the riches of our understanding and practice are not newly discovered, but are inherited. We are the heirs of those who have thought deeply, and bled profusely, to bring to us what we know and enjoy.

But secondly, it leads us to look to God with a sense of wonder, and deeper humility, that the church continues through all the error and sin and idiocy which has dogged it throughout its history. Because of God’s providence, it ever shall prevail.

I can’t wait to read the book. Maybe I’ll do that tonight instead of watching the Rays game.

Yeah. Right.

Technorati Tags: History

I make it a policy to always take something to read when going anywhere, especially if I’m going alone and there may be the chance of a traffic jam or car trouble or some other delay. That is just what readers do.

Stephen King is a reader first, and a writer second. And though he has a house on Siesta Key he is apparently a Red Sox fan. (This photo is of King at game 3 at Fenway.)

But what does a reader do when they are at Fenway and the home boys are losing 11-1? Great shot from last night’s Rays thrashing of the Sox was of King sitting in the stands reading a book.

I’m impressed that he was prepared. He brought a book to Fenway, just in case.

My suspicion is that he got a lot of reading done.

I am a sucker for tongue in cheek ad campaigns. The recent champion in my opinion is VW’s marketing of their minivan, the Routan.

The ‘claim’ of the ad, presented with the greatest of deadpan seriousness by Brook Shields, is that there is an alarming baby boom happening in America spawned (he-he) by couples’ desire to have a family with which to fill a Routan. I’m sure there are those out there who don’t get it and thus try to take it seriously. Watching them try would be funny in its own right.

“Have a baby for love, not for German engineering,” the ads insist.

And the ads work. I now know what a Routan is. I think I’m even spelling it right.

If you’ve not seen the ads (because you are not, like me, obsessed with the American League Championship Series) you can get a very satisfying taste here.

And while you are there, you can try their BabyMaker 3000. I’ll not even begin to try to explain that. I keep thinking of fun things to say, but this is a family blog and not all of you understand my sense of humor.

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FOOTNOTE: for the first eight or ten years of our life in Florida, we drove a VW Vanagon, the granddaddy of today’s minivans (and thus the direct ancestor of the Routan). When we had our fifth child, we joked that that was our limit because, as everyone knows, Psalm 127 says regarding children, “blessed is he whose Vanagon is full of them.” The Vanagon, you see, would only seat seven – a mom, a dad, and five children.

We eventually exchanged the Vanagon for a full-sized van, and proomptly adopted another child to fill it.

In retrospect, I’m awfully glad we laid off the fifteen passenger van….

My son lives outside Cleveland, Ohio. He is a Rays fan, and he was home alone last night, his wife having to work. So, he sat down to watch the game, previously recorded.

In the third inning, the Rays blew the game wide open with a 3-run homer by B. J. Upton. Matthew lept up and shouted, and then realized that there was no one to be excited with. So, he sat back down, called me, to see where I was in the game (which I, too, had recorded). We compared locations, and he told me to call him back when I was at the top of the 3rd inning, so we could then watch it ‘together’.

After Upton’s home run, I called him and we gloated together, as we did the rest of the game, now and then touching base on the phone for a virtual ‘high five’.

This is a somewhat trivial but revealing example of what Chris McCandless painfully and desperately learned in the recent movie Into the Wild. Toward the end of that film, McCandless, alone by choice and trapped by weather in wilderness Alaska scrawls into his journal something like this: “Happiness is not real unless shared.”

In the movie that is a poignant and powerful message: we are created for community. Happiness is not real unless it is shared. When discovering something great and wonderful, its power and joy is dulled if there is no one with whom to share it.

When our team plasters the Red Sox with two back to back 9-run games, it is wonderful. But it is made all the more wonderful when that is shared.

And to realize that there is a God who has loved us and drawn us to himself is special. But we must worship together to celebrate Him, because our happiness is simply not real unless it is shared.

This is being posted live from my seat on the couch as the Rays are beating the Red Sox at Fenway 5-0. So, I’m in a good humor.

Just a few moments ago, TBS aired a segment from an interview with Rays manager Joe Maddon. What he said is so wise, and should be so obvious to any who manage people (which is what a baseball manager does). I can only paraphrase what he said, but this is its essence:

“It’s all about relationships. If you are going to criticize – have a conversation with someone to tell him something to make him better – you have to have a relationship with him first. If you have that relationship, then you can tell him what you need to tell him, but you must have that relationship first.”

That’s why I want to get a WWJD bracelet. “What would Joe do?”

Thanks to all of you who so kindly expressed your opinion about a format change for this blog. I was fascinated by the comments about how certain colors better fit the blog’s title ‘Somber and Dull’. It’s as if some forget that the title is meant to be, uh, ironic. But more on that later.

Fiona kindly invested some time in showing me what could be done with one of the formats, in terms of color and such – things I did not know were possible. Her sample is pictured here. (Thank you, Fiona. Where’d you find that picture of me?) So, taking her lead, I’ve modified one of the provided templates.

I hope you all like it. If it is hard to read, please let me know!

And, I hope the colors are somber and dull enough for you.

I had to stay up and watch the Phillies – Dodgers game to get this done. But, hey, some sacrifices just have to be made.

Geoff Henderson, the associate pastor of Hope Presbyterian Church, has had a good season at the plate. He has consistently hit the ball out of the infield, often for extra bases.

But with his recent blog series on nostalgia (here and here), he has hit a home run. Very insightful.

Geoff submitted an article based upon the same themes to the local newspaper for publication, and it was published yesterday, but in a severely edited form. You can download the full, unedited article here.

Good work, Geoff!

[PS for Geoff, if you read this, well, about the picture – I couldn’t resist!]

Now and then we forget that our forefathers in various ways referred to this life as a veil of tears. I suppose they forgot to take the positive thinking seminar when it was in town. Or perhaps they were observant and therefore honest men and women who saw and sympathized with the sorrows around them.

Recently I’ve been accosted to the point of numbness with reports of struggle and sorrow, of death and alienation, of marital struggle and parental pain. There is a heaviness about into which I’d like a saint from old to speak.

Most of those who call themselves Calvinist have never read a thing by John Calvin. That’s a shame. When they do, they discover not a man who is polemically committed to a ‘floral’ theological system, though committed he is. They rather find a man who is passionate about helping others grasp a big picture of God so that their weak knees might be strengthened and their hope lifted up.

He is a great friend to have nearby. You really should come to know him.

May these words bring encouragement to you, and may they, perhaps, as well, encourage you to read Calvin on your own. The numerical references refer to the book/chapter/section of The Institutes of the Christian Religion in which they are found.

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‘For whomever the Lord has adopted and deemed worthy of his fellowship ought to prepare themselves for a hard, toilsome, and unquiet life, crammed with very many and various kinds of evil. It is the Heavenly Father’s will thus to exercise them so as to put his own children to a definite test.’ [3.8.1]

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“…the Lord instructs his followers in the vanity of the present life by continual proof of its miseries. Therefore, that they may not promise themselves a deep and secure peace in it, he permits them often to be troubled and plagued either with wars or tumults, or robberies, or other injuries. That they may not pant with too great eagerness after fleeting and transient riches, or repose in those which they possess, he sometimes by exile, sometimes by barrenness of the earth, sometimes by fire, sometimes by other means, reduces them to poverty, or at least confines them to a moderate station. That they may not too complacently take delight in the goods of marriage, he either causes them to be troubled by the depravity of their wives or humbles them by evil offspring, or afflicts them with bereavement. But if, in all these matters, he is more indulgent toward them, yet, that they may not either be puffed up with vainglory or exult in self-assurance, he sets before their eyes, through diseases, and perils, how unstable and fleeting are all the goods that are subject to mortality.

”Then only do we rightly advance by the discipline of the cross, when we learn that this life, judged in itself, is troubled, turbulent, unhappy in countless ways, and in no respect clearly happy; that all those things which are judged to be its goods are uncertain, fleeting, vain, and vitiated by many intermingled evils. From this, at the same time, we conclude that in this life we are to seek and hope for nothing but struggle; when we think of our crown, we are to raise our eyes to heaven. For this we must believe: that the mind is never seriously aroused to desire and ponder the life to come unless it be previously imbued with contempt for the present life.“ [3.9.1]

*****

”…that no one has made progress in the school of Christ who does not joyfully await the day of death and final resurrection. Let us then, take hold of a sounder view, and even though the blind and stupid desire of the flesh resists, let us not hesitate to await the Lord’s coming, not only with longing, but also with groaning and sighs, as the happiest thing of all. He will come to us as Redeemer, and rescuing us from this boundless abyss of all evils and miseries, he will lead us into that blessed inheritance of his life and glory.“ [3.9.5]

Calvin of Geneva, of course, had learned much from Saul of Tarsus:

”For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all men, training us to renounce irreligion and worldly passions, and to live sober, upright, and godly lives in this world, awaiting our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all iniquity and to purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.“ (Titus 2:11-14)

Technorati Tags: Heaven, Struggle

Satan loves to have our hearts distracted when we go to worship, and he delights in our demeaning of the value of the preached Word. There is a battle in our hearts to treat the Word as that which is more valuable than rubies. The Puritan preacher and scholar Thomas Watson new that battle, and challenges us to look with seriousness upon that treasure which is the Word preached. Says Watson,

“Do we prize it [the preached Word] in our judgments? Do we receive in into our hearts? Do we fear the loss of the Word preached more than the loss of peace and trade? Is it the removal of the ark that troubles us? Again, do we attend to the Word with reverential devotion? When the judge is giving the charge on the bench, all attend. When the Word is preached, the great God is giving us his charge. Do we listen to it as to a matter of life and death? This is a good sign that we love the Word.

I trust that these sentiments will soften our hearts as we prepare to hear the Word this Lord’s day.

———-

I’m sorry that I can’t reference the exact source of that quote. It was sent to me from a good friend in Toronto who picked it up from this on-line source. If anyone knows its actual source in Watson’s writings, I’d love to know.

Technorati Tags: Preaching

I chose the title and layout for this blog some time back when I was just playing around and not sure I even wanted to blog. The more now that I stare at the orange banner, the more I want to change.

I’m limited, I think, to the standard layout templates Blogger provides, so mine will still look like a kazillion others out there. But within those confines I’ve chosen several to preview. I need your input. Check out each of the previews below, and vote for the one you prefer I use.

Feel free to tell me to ditch all four and go back to the drawing board, if that is your opinion.

The polls are now open…

Thanks!

#1 (the current configuration)

#2

#3

#4