|
I've had about fifteen mostly-trivial things floating in my brain that I want to blog about but no time to write much, so I'm going to deal with as many items as possible from my "To Blog About" list today in one post, if you'll bear with me.
I've been traveling more than usual this summer. I was supposed to be on sabbatical, and before those plans got rearranged, I had accepted several invitations I simply couldn't back out of, thinking I would be free to travel because I wouldn't be juggling deadlines and whatnot. But the publishers who govern my deadlines refused to let me take any extended time off this summer, and now I have to meet the deadlines plus fulfill most of those other commitments I made. (The sabbatical will have to wait till next year. Or the next.)
That, plus a spate of odd and unusual computer problems (mostly network issues, surely related somehow to the activities of demons), have kept me from putting much serious time into the blog lately. Sorry.
Anyway, last week I was at Cornerstone Seminary in Vallejo, CA, teaching a week-long summerim session on the life and ministry of Spurgeon, with special emphasis on his preaching and the controversies he provoked. While preparing for those sessions, I read all at once through all the past weekly doses of Spurgeon, and it gave me a whole new appreciation for Spurgeon's courage and steadfastness. I recommend the exercise.
A couple of weeks ago, I spoke at a church in the Atlanta area. My reputation for eating odd delicacies has got around, and when I travel, people frequently offer me challenging, barely-edible tidbits to see how far I will go with it. In Atlanta a dear woman (Marie, if I recall her name correctly), gave me a package of squid jerky (yes, I'm serious) plus a bag of freeze-dried anchovies. Great salad toppers. Thanks.
Also, during one of my recent trips I had the inestimable pleasure of meeting (for the first time in person) our long-time friend and honorary PyroManiac Todd "Freakishly Tall" Friel. In the picture there, we're both standing on a level floor. He really is tall. He's the same in person as you hear on the radio, and irrepressibly funny. I wish we'd had a few more days to talk, but one of us would probably have got the other one in trouble somehow. If you've never heard Todd on Way of the Master Radio, you're missing the best daily live show on Christian radio. Get the podcast. Also, if your cable company carries Familynet, check out Todd's daily television program, Wretched. That's the name of the show, not an evaluation of it.
Speaking of evaluations, my next item for today is a brief book review. I got my copy of The Last Men's Book You'll Ever Need from David Moore, the book's author, who kindly sent me an autographed copy with a courageous invitation to review the book candidly.
I would have loved to give the book my unqualified endorsement. Indeed, there is much positive to say about it, and Justin Taylor has covered most of that ground. In addition to what Justin wrote, I would add that I appreciate Dave Moore's resistance to the therapeutic approach to human relationships that dominates so much of evangelical discourse nowadays. Moore points out that everyone is "wounded" and we don't really deserve merit badges or undue sympathy for our personal hurts when we ourselves are guilty of waging war against righteousness. Also, while we're carefully nursing our personal wounds, "we need to remember that we inflict our fair share of them" (p. 118). That's wise advice, especially in our culture where so many men (and women) "focus on the hurt they've received [and] tend to discount or diminish the hurt they inflict on others" (p. 114)—not to mention the sins against Almighty God we're guilty of. Moore calls us back to a more biblical (and manly) view of our own sin.
Moore makes a number of helpful, insightful, and thought-provoking points like that. The book definitely has its fair share of high points.
As much as I'd like to stop with that, however, the manly candor Dave Moore rightly solicits compels me to say that I think the book also has too many shortcomings to fulfill the promise of its own title (which title, David Moore assures me, is supposed to be tongue in cheek). If I were looking for just one standalone book to recommend to your men's fellowship for group study, I'm sorry to say this would not be it.
Let me keep my remarks about the book's shortcomings as brief as possible by simply saying that in one way or another, all my criticisms are related to the fact that Moore brings up some very serious topics without handling them very seriously. Several of the topics that are especially crucial for men in these post-modern times warrant much more thoughtful and sober-minded analysis than Moore gives them.
In a section on the struggle with sexual lust, for example, Moore leaves the impression that prudery and sexual addiction are equally serious dangers. He describes them as "both deadly extremes" (p. 104). Now, I have counseled a lot of men who are struggling in areas related to sex, the thought life, single-mindedness, and relationships, and I can't honestly say that I have ever met one man who fell into trouble spiritually because he succumbed to the deadly danger of prudery. Virtually every man I know who is seeking to live a godly life in the Internet age actually wishes he could recover some of his pre-adolescent innocence. Prudery of the right sort is actually a virtue (Romans 16:19).
At that point in the book, where many men would be most eager for Moore to give truly practical help, he has surprisingly little to say. And he quotes without attribution from "one very wise writer" (I Googled and discovered he was quoting Doug Jones), with some intriguing lines about how porn divorces beauty from goodness and therefore turns true beauty on its head, peddling a concept of beauty that is really ugly in the extreme (pp. 106-7). But despite Moore's confident assertion, I don't think that brief thought from Doug Jones is going to "change" many struggling readers' lives.
Moore clearly knows the lives of sinners are changed only when the Holy Spirit applies the Word of God to hearts, and I wish he had followed the ramifications of that truth when dealing with (of all things) men's battle against lust. He could have—and should have—handled such topic a lot more seriously.
I won't belabor the point further, but this book would be much better if it were twice as long and ten times more serious. For my money, Justin Taylor's edition of John Owen's Overcoming Sin and Temptation is a better, richer summary of what the Bible says about "Guy Stuff." Not as funny, perhaps, but much better for men who are seeking help with the problems of being men.
Still, there's help to be gleaned and good thoughts to be found in David Moore's book, and for some men (if taken with a dose of biblical discernment) this might be a good starting point if they are seeking to understand their manhood in a spiritual and biblical light. But by no means is it the last book on manhood any man will need. (In all seriousness, as someone who has been involved in Christian publishing for more than 30 years, if I had been on the titling committee during the concept phase of this book, I would have lobbied hard for a different title, no matter how much marketing appeal this title might have.)
|
Thanks again to David Moore for his kindness and courage in submitting his book to PyroManiacs for review. To other authors out there: feel free to send any of us your books, but we can't promise to review any particular books, and we especially refuse to try to coordinate our reviews with any publisher's promotional timeline. Generally, we review books we either really like or truly, absolutely hate—and we leave the tepid reviews to Justin Taylor and Tim Challies. Book reviews are relatively rare at our blog anyway, but don't let that discourage anyone from sending us free books.
Enough about book reviews. I've run out of time and space in what was supposed to be a short post.
One last thing: Whatever else you do today, don't neglect to read about the importance of being "missional," succinctly explained by the enigmatic Dissidens.
Have a great weekend, and remember to spend the Lord's Day with the Lord's people.
54 comments:
So, how did you like the "squid jerkey?" I really like that stuff (disclosure: I am from Korea and that's where that food comes from as well).
Wow -- my tag line got nabbed.
At least it's still good advice.
"Masculinity" is your tag-line? I thought it was your middle name.
/c:
"surely related somehow to the activities of demons"
In context that's spelled "daemon". (That's a joke. Dan Phillips should be enough of a geek to explain it if it's too obscure.)
Squid jerkey...
As Dave Barry would say, Great name for a rock band.
Computer probs? Somehow related to the activities of demons?
Oh, that's right. I seem to recall that you switched to Apple. ;)
Moore clearly knows the lives of sinners are changed only when the Holy Spirit applies the Word of God to hearts...
I think I know where you're coming from, but actually, we're supposed to do that (Proverbs 4:20-23).
"porn divorces beauty from goodness and therefore turns true beauty on its head, peddling a concept of beauty that is really ugly in the extreme"
Fornication divorces the beauty of marital sex.
Is this what he is saying?
My pastor mentioned in his sermon how in our culture today young men will look upon thousands, and even tens of thousands, of pornographic materials in their early years. Whereas 100 years ago, they would likely see very few, if any at all.
How do you flee from this kind of fornication?
Thanks for the book review. Short and sweet well written review. You're right up there with Challies.
"Right up there with Challies"? Man, talk about, er, "darn"ing by faint praise.
Two differences between Challies' book reviews and Phil's:
1. I can read Phil's, and still have the rest of my day to myself.
2. I read Phil's.
There are others.
PLEASE . . . package the Squid jerky and the freeze dried anchovies in Pyromaniac graphically produced packaging and market it! I promise to be your first customer . . . and could maybe help out with sales!
Maybe the proceeds could go to the "Emergent-see Rescue Mission"!!
Mike Howard
Bible Burgh
I think the definition of maculinity is voluntarily submitting a book to the Pyro's for a candid review. Takes a lot of... well, guy stuff to do that.
Appreciate the review, Phil, since I have seen too many really bad therapeutic and moralistic "Christian men's" books to ever have the desire to pick up even a better one like this. I spent a number of years early in my Christian life jazzed up with the PK movement, even as a PK leader in my local church. Thankfully and by His grace I've outgrown that.
So how was the trip to Cornerstone Phil? I told my wife I'd love to go and she wisely said "You know Phil lives just down the street, and his church is closer. If you are going to to up to Cornerstone do it when you can spend time Brian Shealy whom you rarely see."
Lol, Praise God for our wives.
There's so much food for thought in this post, and I haven't done much commenting in the last month or so, so there's a lot of ground to make up for.
Here goes:
1. Regarding your sabbatical: Ouch.
1A. Our senior pastor is on sabbatical right now, and we have so many other gifted biblical pastors (and guest preachers) that the quality of the sermons has not gone down at all. Praise God for our elders who have been so discerning in their calling of pastors over the years. But imagine what Met Tab would have been like if Spurgeon had gone on sabbatical for four months. It just wouldn't have been the same....
1B. I work for a company that develops computer systems for taxi companies. One of our program uses "demons"—computer processes that run in the background. When you stop the program for upgrading or maintenance, a message comes up on the "demon server" saying, "Killing all the demons...."
2. Squid jerky and freeze-dried anchovies. The woman whom God has blessed me with hails from South Korea and, in line with Korean custom, eats squid jerky as a snack along with beer. I can't imagine eating it any other way except by washing it down with beer, but even that doesn't work for me. It's just too dry and rubbery. Dried anchovies are used as fish stock; if they were frozen (but not freeze-dried), they could be thawed, prepared, and used as the fermenting agent in kimchi (tastes better than it sounds).
3. Regarding p***ography, in this contemporary culture where everyone is a "victim," I read a fascinating article a year ago (I wouldn't for the life of me be able to dig it up now). As opposed to the feminist argument of the 70s that p**n turns women into sexual objects (which now as a Christian man, I'm coming around full circle to largely agree with, although from a 180-degree diametrically opposite viewpoint), there is also the neglected phenomenon of p**n "victimizing" men by seducing and alluring them into a sensory addiction. The article used much more vivid language to describe the process by which p**n works on men's brains which I cannot repeat here, but it made a lot of sense.
I agree with your sentiments, Phil, and don't see how prudery could be considered anything than a virtue. As a red-blooded male who struggles with lust, prudery is a virtue I wish I had in much greater quantity than I do.
4. Cool graphic with the mechanic tightening the bolts on the TP logo.
Dagnabit! In line with Lee N. Field's comment, I neglected the correct spelling of "daemon," and that the message in question actually says, "Killing all the daemons...." But you get the idea.
Yeah, the Challies/JT comments sorta stood out with me as well. I thought I'd let it lay, but, well, when do we ever do that really? I mean us bloggers?
Sorry about your lack of time off. Come up and we will take you and Darlene to Lake Tahoe for rest and relaxation sometime.
I'm sorry, but the guy with the wrench looks gay to me. He doesn't even have a farmer's tan.
How wonderful to meet Todd Friel. Thanks to Todd, I watched six episodes of Jesus People on YouTube. He was right. Painfully funny.
Candy:
As a matter of fact, Darlene and I spent a day at Tahoe between speaking engagements. We figured you were nearby but weren't sure where.
Candy: "the guy with the wrench looks gay to me"
Ouch. That's from a famous photo by Lewis Wickes Hine, whose most celebrated work was documenting the process of constructing the Empire State Building.
Here's the original, and he looks to me like if someone suggested he was gay, he'd hit them upside the head with that wrench. Maybe I used too much pink in the colorization. I suppose it was also early in the day and he wasn't dirty yet.
He's supposed to be giving our logo a kind of steampunk look.
For the record, I love both Challies' and JT's reviews. And I'm glad they review a lot of books that are neither great nor deplorable--so that we don't have to. My remark wasn't a poke at Tim and JT.
... well, at least it wasn't a serious poke at them.
Candy: Ewww. Look at the studious look on the guy's face as he's tightening those bolts. It's like one of the TP guys discerning their way through a well-crafted post.
Phil: You should totally photoshop the graphic to be black & white, like the original. Or better yet, photoshop your logo (black & white) into the original. That would look über-cool.
Oh my gosh. A graphics art critic!
Phil. I am laughing. Sorry. Too much contemporary culture assimilation! By the way, speaking of art, I went to Dissadens and got hung up over at a blog called Nakedpastor.com or something like that. Did you know that we are now called "First World Protestants" (with much disdain I might add)? Oh...and the emergent art there? In the dumbing down culture of the Emergent Church, their art follows suit, as in the tradition of stick figures. So...I will take the Pyro wrench guy and all of your graphics over anything they offer.
Phil wrote: But the publishers who govern my deadlines refused to let me take any extended time off this summer
Not all publishers are so hardnosed. :)
About the Spurgeon summerim in Vallejo, CA: Are your messages available for purchase from the seminary?
Dan: I hope you appreciated the umlaut over the "u" in "über." You can't be a proper art critic without the artsy affectations, after all.
Candy:
To be clear for the sake of those reading, Dissidens was savaging the many follies of the nakedpastor guy, not promoting his point of view. Dissidens' wit and sarcasm is sometimes so sharp he makes TeamPyro look like we're doing our writing with Q-Tips.
stefan:
Did that already. Watch for it to pop up one of these days in a post.
Phil: Thank you—that looks great. You have a million and one pastoral duties, commitments, and a book deadline; but would it be too much to ask you to add in all that dark, brooding machinery in the background? As a bonus to placate Candy, the focus would then be on the logo, not on the man. (As long as it doesn't bolster the emergents' claim that we're "modernists" ;) .)
Phil,
If you ever make it back to the Chicago area, feel free to stop by, and we can introduce you to more exotic Korean food - there is Koreatown on Lawrence Avenue, and even a number of the suburbs have large Korean grocery stores complete with food courts. I could even treat you to homemade kimchi. (Unlike Stefan, I've thrown prawns, fish sauce, garlic, and other sundry ingredients in the blender to make the goop to ferment the cabbage.)
Personally, I'd rather have octopus than the squid stuff. The legs still writhe when they're on your dish, so you can put a dollop of red pepper sauce on your plate and let the little appendages marinade themselves :)
Sorry for the lack of clarification. Dissadens is like Mark Twain on steroids. He takes on the Emergent Church (oh, sorry, I mean the THIRD world Protestants) and leaves them sputtering in response.
Candy: They're (and their ilk, like Liberation Theologists and the Social Gospel movement) are more like Second World Protestants.
Considering the state of First World Protestantism (evanjellybeanism; health, wealth, and prosperity) etc. and the Protestantism of the "Global South" (Anglican orthodoxy, and so on), methinks us reformers have more affinity with "Third World" Protestants.
Phil: Thank you! You've made my weekend. That graphic is awesome.
Y'know, you do some really good drive-by posts!
Stefan: I thought the Emergent folks identified most with disenfranchised folks from the third world. Plus the third world has such cool clothing! I see it as the Christian parallel to the guy from Into The Wild. You know. Not happy with his parent's wealth, gonna rebel against the establishment, go live in the gentle wilderness. Get back to what is real. Died cuz he had no idea what he was getting into and didn't bother to do his research.
Candy: I think it's a one-way identification. I can't imagine the kind of reception a touchy-feely emergent type would get, preaching to—sorry, conversing with—to born-again believers in Laos or Nigeria.
Let us know next time you'll be in town!
Oh YEAH! Thanks for that link to Piper's blog. You're right, he really does nail it.
One gets the feeling that "mystery lovers" want to keep it that way because it allows them to worship an amorphous God, one who is not all that hung up on doctrine and accountability and junk like that.
" ..true learning increases both knowledge and mystery. The more knowledge we have of God from the Bible, the more mysteries we apprehend."
John Piper is such a fine teacher.
The Bible is a treasure to us. The Bible is the truth.
Without the Bible, how would the Body of Christ know it was the Body of Christ.
The Bible is a treasure to us. The Bible is the truth.
Not me. :) My treasure is Jesus and His presence, not the Bible.
And the Bible is not the truth. :)
The Word is truth, and not "the truth".
Semantics, I know, but there's a difference. I don't do obeisance to my Bible. I read it, and I get into God's presence in prayer.
Mike wrote:
[QUOTE[
The Bible is a treasure to us. The Bible is the truth.
Not me. :) My treasure is Jesus and His presence, not the Bible.
[/QUOTE]
Hmmm...Mike, the Psalmist sure didn't share your perspective.
Ps 119
14 I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies,
As much as in all riches.
15 I will meditate on Your precepts,
And contemplate Your ways.
16 I will delight myself in Your statutes;
I will not forget Your word.
72 The law of Your mouth is better to me
Than thousands of coins of gold and silver.
97 Oh, how I love Your law!
It is my meditation all the day.
103 How sweet are Your words to my taste,
Sweeter than honey to my mouth!
127 Therefore I love Your commandments
More than gold, yes, than fine gold!
162 I rejoice at Your word
As one who finds great treasure.
174 I long for Your salvation, O LORD,
And Your law is my delight.
Ps 19:7-10
7 The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul;
The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple;
8 The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart;
The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes;
9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever;
The judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.
10 More to be desired are they than gold,
Yea, than much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.
Hmmm...Mike, the Psalmist sure didn't share your perspective.
He loved the word... not the Bible. ;) There's a difference.
Please explain.
As a response to the "Friday Bonus":
(Rom 11:33) O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
(Job 9:10 in context) Which doeth great things past finding out; yea, and wonders without number.
Please explain.
Well, if you'd look at the AV1611 site where they put too much emphasis on the KJV, you'd understand, I think, the extent some people go towards bibliolatry.
There's nothing wrong with having knowledge, just don't put emphasis on it more than knowing Jesus.
That's far, far better.
Mike:
Your denial that the Bible is God's Word is not merely egregiously wrong; it's completely off-topic. Please take it elsewhere.
Your denial that the Bible is God's Word is not merely egregiously wrong;
Well, Phil, again you're presumptuous, arent you? I never said the Bible is not God's Word. :)
"My treasure is Jesus and His presence, not the Bible."
I love Christ and the Bible. I love to read, study, and ponder on the Holy Scriptures.
"I will worship toward Your holy Temple, and praise Your name for Your lovingkindness and for Your truth: for You have magnified Your Word above all Your name." Psalm 138:2
"We should observe, secondly, in these verses, the high honour that Jesus Christ puts on the Holy Scriptures. ...having quoted the text, He [Jesus] lays down the great principle, "the Scripture cannot be broken." It is though He said, "Wherever the Scriptures speaks plainly on any subject, there can be no more question about it. The cause is settled and decided. Every jot and tittle of Scripture is true, and must be received as conclusive."
The principle here laid down by our Lord is one of vast importance. Let us grasp it firmly, and never let it go. Let us maintain boldly the complete inspiration of every word of the original Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. Let us believe that not only every book of the Bible, but every chapter,--and not only every chapter, but every verse,--and not only every verse, but every word, was originally given by inspiration of God. .... Let us stand our ground manfully, and defend the principle of plenary inspiration as we would the 'Aplle of our Eye. ... and say, "I cannot give up a single word of my Bible. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. The Scipture cannot be broken." -Bishop JC Ryle
I don't want to keep this discussion going if Phil doesn't want to, but I felt I needed to respond to mike.
If you need to delete this I understand.
But I say no more on this .
OK, Don. :)
Phil,
Feel free to delete this too. Just couldn't help it.
Mike: I never said the Bible is not God's Word.
Mike's previous post: He loved the word... not the Bible. There's a difference.
Seems pretty clear. According to you, the Bible <> God's Word.
Saying we can't love Scripture because we love Christ is setting up a false dichotomy. Listen to Edwards on this:
The ultimate end (in our example, Jesus) is always superior to its subordinate end (in our example, the Bible), and more valued by the agent, unless it be when the ultimate end entirely depends on the subordinate. If he has no other means by which to obtain his [ultimate] end, then the subordinate may be as much valued as the [ultimate] end; because the [ultimate] end, in such a case, altogether depends upon, and is wholly and certainly conveyed by it.
As for instance, if a pregnant woman has a peculiar appetite to a certain rare fruit that is to be found only in the garden of a particular friend of hers, at a distance--and she goes a journey to her friend's house or garden, to obtained that fruit--the ultimate end of her journey is to gratify that strong appetite; the obtaining that fruit, is the subordinate end of it.
If she looks upon it, that the appetite can be gratified by no other means than the obtaining of that fruit; and that it will certainly be gratified if she obtain it, then she will value the fruit as much as she values the gratification of her appetite. (Edwards, The End for Which God Created the World. Works, 2005, Hendrickson. Vol 1, p. 96.)
---
So if I know that the Bible -- though subordinate to Christ Himself -- is my only means of getting to Christ Himself, I will value the Bible (the subordinate end) as much as I value Christ (the ultimate end).
And plus, to try to separate Christ from His word is just ridiculous.
Thanks, Mike R. Well said.
We'll consider that rabbit-trail closed, and perhaps we'll deal with it more fully in a future post.
On-topic comments are still welcome, but there's no need to drag out the discussion of anonymous-Mike's unwarranted dichotomy between love for Christ and love for His Word.
Seriously: Either get back to the subjects dealt with in the above post, or stop commenting altogether, or I'll close comments on this post and and issue the necessary ban[s].
Please see the rules in the right sidebar of the main page if theres any lack of clarity about what kind of comments are appropriate here or not.
Thanks.
Thanks for the Piper link at the top of this post. I once read the following related thought:
"Knowledge once gained casts a light beyond its own immediate boundaries."
gdmajayWatching Congress on CSPAN, Bush ANY time — hey!, a “theocracy” is looking better every day! Visit us, pls, and comment. I dare you...
John Lofton, Editor
TheAmericanView.com
JLof@aol.com
Looking at that package of squid or whatever it was reminds me of an old "Uncle Creepy" or "Cousin Eerie" magazine I saw when in my early teens. One of the stories involved a young man who was briefly zombiefied, and came to himself as he was dining on handfuls of intestines from a human corpse of some kind. Of course, he screamed in horror but couldn't stop eating.
Ever since then, I have not been able to handle "exotic foods" of any type. My closest call came when in Russia and I mistook sturgeon eggs for orange jello. I almost spit them out all over the guy's head in front of me on the plane.
Yeah, I know..prolly too much information. But that package photo really was nauseating. You must have a truly cast iron stomach.
Post a Comment