That other pivotal Christmas character. No, not that one; this one!

by Dan Phillips

Angels, shepherds, Mary, and above all Christ. Even a year or two later, wise men.

But what of Joseph, the fiancé-cum-adoptive-father?

We know that Christ is the wonder of the ages; Mary is an absolutely extraordinary young lady. But also, in considering the character and choices of the man whom God chose to adopt His Son, we learn much.

So, without further eloquence, this year's Christmas sermon: Extraordinary Father, Matchless Son (here's the outline).

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An Arclight of Hope

by The Late Frank Turk

So here's the point: Christmas is not a celebration of everyday life.  The purpose of Christmas is not to celebrate your middle-class life and ethics, or even to enjoy simple human good will, or to inspire it.  It's not even to give thanks for a decent year past -- however good and godly it might seem to try that.  The point of Christmas, if I may say it this way, is that God is fully aware that the world and the lives of those living here are all headed for a sad and sober end if nothing changes.

Because let's face it: things don't really change.  You might make a case for all manner of improvements in law or economics or standards of living, but our core complaint this week is that innocent people die all the time for no reason.  That never changes -- it's the status quo of the world.

That is: until Christmas.

Look: a few years ago I made a point of telling everyone that God's view of Christmas is a strange and amazing balance between his threat to bring justice to disobedient people and his promise to save them from their utter disregard for him.  Another time I made it a point to tell you that the miracle at Christmas is not that a legion of fantastic beings sang out to God's praise in a field -- it was that a baby was born and laid in a manger, fulfilling the promises of God with God Himself.  That was a pretty good one.

This year, let me say this: in this world where your home may seem empty because of a gigantic loss, and where the death of innocents seems to be an insurmountable sign of how the times have turned, God has already taken it upon himself to change the status quo.  The point here -- the actual reason that there is a Christmas, actually a moment when the world affected by the church of God stops and stares, expecting to see something completely amazing -- is that Jesus, who is God, didn't try to remain equal with God. Instead he gave up everything, and was born in a manger to became a slave, when he became like one of us. Jesus was humble the way only God can be humble, surrendering the Glory which Isaiah saw in the throne room of God to become a miracle wrapped in rags. He obeyed God -- and his obedience didn't stop at being born in a barn.  His obedience took him lower still, to a death on a cross when he deserved worship and honor and power, so that the death of innocents would, in an eternal and permanent way, be defeated forever.

Jesus is not just some ephemeral housekeeper who can tidy us up right now -- or at least until we toss ourselves back into the filth. He's not someone who merely helps us avoid the worst right now, as if God has nothing better to do than to stop us from doing exactly what we want to do.  His story is not just a story about truth: he's the one guy who understands our weaknesses because he has suffered through them all, refusing to sin, and then he died for them all so that they can all not only be defeated, but forgiven.

And here we are -- worried that the something was ruined because the sins of our society are more obvious this week than they are most other weeks. I think something was ruined when the angels sang, "Glory to God in the Highest! And on Earth, peace to men on whom his favor rests," -- and what was ruined was the status quo.  Since then it has been our problem to catch up with that -- to live as if that really happened, so we can make much of this Jesus, and enjoy him forever.

This is the true meaning of Christmas, dear reader, and tossing out another example of human moral destitution which tears down our illusions about how safe and civilized we are doesn't harm even one thin angel hair of tinsel in that kind of Christmas: it causes the brilliance of Christmas to shine like an arclight of hope which leads us to our one and only savior.

This Christmas, I beg you: look for him, find him, and throw yourself on him, because in that stable, and at his cross, and ultimately at his empty tomb and his seat at the right hand of God, is your only hope in this world where death is the common end.  Let nothing you dismay: for Jesus Christ our savior was born upon this day to save us all from death and sin's power when we had gone astray.  Those are the tidings of comfort and joy.

I wish you good tidings of great joy this Christmas, and true prosperity and eternal life in the New Year.

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Short Christmas sermon: How not to find Jesus

by Dan Phillips

For our annual Christmas program, I was to bring a brief message. The program lasted well over an hour before my time came, and it was wonderful — piano, banjo, saxophone, flute, guitars; songs, recitals; little tiny kids and adults. Really great.

I'd puzzled and pondered on what to bring. Such events bring believers and unbelievers. We have many such events at which I'm asked to speak; and I know unbelieving friends and relatives are there. So I invariably preach the Gospel as pointedly, plainly and powerfully as I know how. And, to date, there has not been one conversion or even further contact from these events. This is a matter of intense, ongoing prayer for me, and I do all I can to urge my dear ones here at our church to do the same.

That said, I had no interest in offering a soothing, tranquilizing, boilerplate intonation of familiar imagery. So I took a different approach on a familiar passage. I focused on Matthew 2, but announced my topic is "How NOT to Find Jesus."

I'll do for you what I never do. These are my preaching notes:

Introduction:

1.      Every Sunday I stand in the pulpit and tell people how to find Jesus, how to know God, how to walk with Him

a.       Those who come, want to know these things

b.      Those who do not want to know these things do not come

2.      So I thought for a change, I’d preach a short sermon on how not to find Jesus

a.       King Herod will be our example

b.      I’ll draw out three main points, briefly 

I.          When You Hear of Jesus, Don’t Look for Him Yourself

A.       Wise Men Told Herod

1.        He was troubled – making him both smarter and dumber than some

a.         He saw Jesus as a threat, and he was right

b.         But not the way he meant

c.         Still, he did not welcome God’s Messiah

2.        He did not join the Magi himself, but turned to the Experts – a dodge

B.        Bible Experts Told Herod

1.        They found in Scripture where Jesus would have been born

2.        This would have been just six miles

a.         Yet Herod did not go

b.         And the religious experts did not go!

TRANSITION:  this method will work every time: don’t look, and you won’t find

II.       When Your Non-Searching Results in Non-Finding…

A.       First: Blame Others

1.        Herod was angry at the wise men…

2.        …angry, at them, for not being caught by his lie, and helping him destroy the Christ Child!

B.        Second: Believe Absurdity Instead

1.        So Herod believes this is God’s Messiah, and a threat to him…

2.        …but he thinks he can kill him?

C.       Third: Lash Out

1.        What did the babies do? Nothing

2.        Yet little god Herod is desperate in preserving his little god universe…

3.        …and a few innocent babies aren’t going to stop him

TRANSITION:  Keeping the issue everything-but-me also always works; but…

III.    Most Importantly: Never Intend to Find Him in the First Place

A.       Herod Never Meant to Find Christ for Himself

1.        By “find” I mean know, worship, love and embrace Him

2.        Herod just wanted Christ gone so he could carry on as before

B.        Remember: Christ Was There To Be Found

1.        As for Herod and the Experts…

2.        …so for you and me

C.       What If Herod Had Repented?

Psalm 2:10–12 — Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. 11 Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. 12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. 

1.        As for the kings of the earth…

2.        …so for Herod…

3.        …and so for you and me

I expanded a good deal, gave some additional historical anecdotes about Herod... buy hey, did you expect everything?

Now I've given you a gift for Christmas, or so was my intent. Would you give me one? Pray for the church I serve and for me, for these things:

• That unbelievers present for this message find themselves unable to put it out of their mind, their thoughts turned to Christ afresh by the Holy Spirit
• For the power of the preached Word in our church
• For God to use His Gospel as His power for salvation, converting and redeeming the lost in our ministry

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Working Clothes

by the Late Frank Turk

Some of you will recognize that last weeks' post was a re-write of a post which was about the same from 2009.  You might recognize this one that way as well, but it's worth your time to revisit this with me.  I’m thinking about work today because I have plenty of it to do. In one sense, I am feeling blessed by my own abundance of tasks and the fact that they aren’t going to change the locks on my door while I’m out for Christmas holidays because I know for certain some of my own friends are not so lucky. Some of you are getting notice that you have Fridays off indefinitely, but they’re going to cut your pay accordingly. Some of you wish you were only getting Fridays off, because let’s face it: CareerBuilder.com is not awash in great-paying, long-term career moves right now.

So today as I put on my working clothes – sport jacket, decent shirt, pressed jeans since it’s the week before vacation, shoes, socks, appropriate undergarments – I was thinking about the kind of work there is to do right now. And layered on top of that is the News. You know: it’s Christmas, and you’d think human nature could take two weeks off to give us a break, but it never does, and it comes to us as The News. And I don’t know about you, but when I see The News, I think of my own kids, and because I know them and love them I pray to God that there is not an end like that the one in The News in store for them.

Because let’s face it: there could be. The News keeps coming out every day, every single day, because these things keep happening to other people's children and spouses and friends. These things man-handle the blogosphere. When the world puts on its working clothes, that is the kind of thing that comes of it. That is the kind of world we live in. Usually I have some kind of pithy zinger to throw in to really make you not forget what I’m talking about here, but I got nothin’: you know how The News makes you feel every day, and if you don't you’re dead inside.

And for that reason, we get stories/video like this one:


 I will grant you that there are a variety of items in that video which my wife isn’t going to list in my honey-do list, and things I wouldn’t spend the time listing because they are so implausible, but overall that’s what people think of church – as a place where we live out what we believe. While the world has its own work to do, and its own working clothes, decent people think they have a different job, and a different set of working clothes to get into and get after.

But here’s the thing: it seems rather obvious to me that the way this video frames it up, there’s no solution in that activity to the problems we find in The News. If what’s in that video is what the church (of all places, of all groups of people) is all about, it’s a no-contest, one-round knock-out punch, and the world is going to win every time.

So I’m thinking about a different set of working clothes this morning – especially as I try to get myself ready for Christmas amid the busy-ness of life which I am right now blessed with. I’m think of the one who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The working clothes of that guy is where the hope of the world comes from – not from our paltry efforts (however genuinely-good and genuinely-loving they are) to make the world a better place. We don’t believe in our good works: we believe in a Lord and Christ, a Sovereign and a Savior who overcomes a world filled with The News -- the Bad News -- and the sinful hearts which cause it.

And that’s what we celebrate at Christmas: the working clothes that look like a baby in a feeding trough; the long-suffering and loving-kindness of a God who is with us.

We celebrate that there is not just News, but there is Good News, Good tidings of Great Joy for all people.

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Some here, some there — December 9, 2014

by Dan Phillips

Christmas has come early!

Actually, I was looking forward to reading Frank's post... then I realized that it was "my" day. And so, since I was thinking all yesterday that I already had enough for an SHST, here is one early. Not sure whether I'll do another Friday, or something else. Suspense!

Have fun, it's quite the mini-assortment.

• I've long said that secularists have no problem with Christians being Christians, just so long as we don't do it out-loud or in public. Rick Plasterer (seriously) argues that that principle will fall heavily and possibly terminally on Christian institutions, given the current tidal wave of totalitarian, institutionalized immorality (including compulsory approval) that is sweeping what once would have been called Christendom.
• The very people who now sneer at the fact that "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist party?" was ever asked, are having no problem with the same question posed of public persons, with the substitution of "Christian religion" for the last two words.
• Reminding one of the immortal words of Cdr. Buck Murdock.
• One last reflection on that article. Plasterer says this almost in passing: "God’s standard given in Scripture is obedience to Him regardless of pain." How many professed Christians don't even think it important to obey God regardless of inconvenience or effort, let alone pain?

Mary: "Anything else?" Reporter: "Did you know that your baby boy..." Mary's Agent: "This is in the press packet, no more questions. Thanks"
— Church Lifer (@MrChurchGuy) December 8, 2014

• Okay, this next item is not at all like the usual. I can only offer three reasons for including it... and they're stretches. First: it has footage from the Charlie Brown Christmas, including the reading from Luke, so: Christmas! Second: it features one of the very best guitar solos ever recorded by one of the very best guitarists ever to play, so: common grace. Third: it's awesome and I love it. So: my blog (in part)! Thanks to reader Keith Lamborn for alerting me to it. Enjoy, or move along to the next item.

• I loved that the creator timed the clips so well to the song, but what really won me over was the dances during the guitar solo. Awesome.
• And BTW, the song is about writing a song. In case someone's going to go all Johnny Todd on me.
• In case you didn't see it — well, (A) shame on you; and (B) go to my blog and see this lovely version of The Wexford Carol, with Yo-Yo Ma and Alison Krauss.

Q1: If we say a tail is a leg, how many legs do dogs have? Q2: If Rick Warren says the Reformation is over, is it? #SeeWhatIDidThere
— Dan Phillips (@BibChr) December 8, 2014

• You know what's even weirder (to me) than having Rick Warren in effect say "pish-posh" to the Reformation? Having Reformation 21 publish an article lavishing praise on that wonderfully "generous" evangelical Richard Mouw! In case you don't remember, Mouw was President pf Fuller Theological Seminary for 20 years, which all by itself would be enough to raise my eyebrow. But what's more, Mouw is the man who threw Christian missionaries to Mormons under the bus, and who the Mormons love because he has proclaimed Mormonism not to be a cult.
• Do you think Harold Lindsell is looking smug in heaven? Are other saints having to tell him to stop saying "QED!"?
• So is Reformation 21 prepping an article praising the generosity of Rick Warren? Unknown.
• But the president of Covenant College agrees. So there's that.
• Well, now to something more directly seasonal, and as a reward for Frank — if he's read further than the post title — this:

Fun, eh? Now, what will I do Friday...?

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Some here, some there — December 5, 2014

by Dan Phillips

On with the array:

• Louis Markos offers a readable and read-worthy review of Craig Blomberg's recent book Can We Still Believe the Bible?  I appreciate his push-back against Blomberg's apparent defense of the indefensible practice of "gender-norming" in translation. However, when Markos pities Bart Ehrman because "the kind of fundamentalism in which the Christian believer turned biblical debunker was raised did not prepare him for the challenges he would face in college," I recall that Phil Johnson, a classmate of Ehrman's at Moody, has noted otherwise.

#StarWarsTheologians Joseph Sith
— Michael A. Coughlin (@ABereanOne) December 2, 2014

• (That's the only one I'll feature, but it's a funny hashtag.)
• A very interesting note on the overall structure of the Biblical canon from Michael Kruger shows a textual indicator of completeness.
• There probably still are people who have not seen the video Frank Turk made when Phil announced his retirement from Teh Intarwebz. If you haven't, you need to. Hys ter i cal.
• Reader Robert Sakovich found evidence for what we pretty much suspected: the cost of discipleship has gone down a good bit.

• If you missed Charlie Brown Christmas music with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones... well, remedy it!
• Ah, Christmastime. When the atheists show yet again that their dysangelistic obsession with proclaiming the empty message of the sovereignty of self shames many Christians' readiness to tell the good and true news of Christ.

Happy Holidays from the Dark Side pic.twitter.com/OzUTP06j0l
— Darth Vader (@DepressedDarth) December 5, 2014

• The Post-"Farewell"-Bell continues on the same sad but predictable trajectory.
• When Boswell told Samuel Johnson of seeing a woman preach in a Quaker meeting, famously replied: "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all." Which I cite because...
• I feel that way when President Obama tries to use Scripture to prop up his agenda — as he did when explaining why lawless home invasion is a good thing, when done on a national scale. And D. G. Hart lodges an objection. It's nice that someone is bothered when the Bible is "so used and abused."
• Some readers will only be thinking of

• Well, now.  This is new. I've sent you to Doug Wilson in the past when his writing and sharp thinking shine. And now...this!

• I like it. Catch lyrics, some backstory and all here.
• Not everyone was smitten with Russell Moore's response to the Garner verdict. Among the unsmitten, Kevin Stilley.
• Is Christmas pagan? A number of texts will help you rise above common misconceptions. For instance, Nate Busenitz over at Cripplegate looks a little more deeply than usual at why December 25 was chosen.
• Several years ago, William J. Tighe wrote on the same question.
• Then there's my essay, To Tell the Truth, Virginia. (I'm an anti-Santaist.)
• Of course despite everything, many still sneer at Christmas ("Christ's Mass! Pfft!") and shun the opportunity. Should we follow suit? M'man Spurgeon says "What are you, nuts?", and I, of course, agree.
• If you haven't read about the O Holy Night backstory, you need to.
• Prof. David Murray writes three vital words for successful teens. Good thoughts; I think I might reverse the order.
• And hey: this Christmas season, don't be dissin' the 'Mart. Because: awesomeness.
• Dan Cogan shares his journey away from exclusively contemporary worship, to embracing as well the time-tested songs of the church.

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I've Been No Prize, Either

by The Late Frank Turk

You know something: this Christmas will be exactly 7 Christmases since I closed my bookstore.  I was thinking this week about my bookstore on Christmas Eve day a couple of years ago, and we were rockin'. I mean, best day before Christmas ever from a purely angels-get-their-wings standpoint, if you follow the cultural idiom. And I'm busy personally – helping people, encouraging them, being nice to them. (I know you can't imagine that, but that's what was happening)

And as people were throwing money at me and I was throwing merchandise at them – in a nice way, very jolly – these two women walked into the bookstore with a little girl. My helper greets them, and I notice them because they don’t act like middle-class people. They burp when they talk, they talk too loud, that kind of stuff.

Eventually, the wave of business subsided, and I caught a breather, and I took a walk around the store to check on the people who were still browsing – because people usually appreciated that. As I chatted with the handful of people still in the store, I noticed the two women and the little girl still browsing, and I asked them if they need any help. They didn't, but as I traded service talk with them, I noticed that they needed a bath more than they needed a book. They also prolly needed to give up the half-pack of cigareetes they smoked driving over here, but I ignored that and moved on. I've come out in public when I've been no prize, either.

So I went about my business, and one of the women came to the desk to ask for some help, the little girl in tow. We chatted some more, and the more I talked to her, the less I was impressed with her social skills, and I started to get a little antsy about her parenting skills. She wasn't smacking the kid around or anything, but I was pretty sure I had never talked to my kids that way unless they were on the verge of being crucified – which was an interesting word to think of there, given the season, but it's the one that came to mind as I was sort of forced to eavesdrop on this slice of life. Not unless I was on the verge of crucifying them.

And I started to think to myself, "How can she not know better?" So she put this book about Christmas on the counter along with a Bible and some other plastic junk, and I looked at the Christmas book, thinking about the Sunday School lessons I had been teaching the last 3 weeks.

Because the Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We saw his glory – the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth, who came from the Father. We have all received from his fullness one gracious gift after another. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came about through Jesus Christ.

No one has ever seen God. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made God known.

That is, God has made himself known to those of us -- people like me -- who probably need more than a bath and to give up a half-pack of cigarettes to get right before him, and who know better than to talk to our children as if we were about to crucify them. The One who did crucify His one and only son has made Himself known.

I'm the one who ought to know better, because He has made Himself known to me.

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Amazing pre-Christmas sale at Kress Biblical Resources

by Dan Phillips

We like books here. We like sales on books, here. There's a big sale going on, so big you'd expect to see the word going out all over blogdom — and here it is:

Kress Biblical Resources is giving their entire stock an amazing 65% off through the month of November. All you have to do is enter the coupon code BR60833557256 for your cart, and the 65% will be discounted. Like this:

Kress carries a broad selection of Biblical resources. For instance, there's John Kitchen's The Pastoral Epistles for Pastors, which I highlighted here. Kitchen also has Colossians and Philemon for Pastors, which graciously included some suggestions and material from me. Kitchen writes as a pastor and a lover and close student of the text of Scripture.

Then there are Prof. Will Varner's works on Psalms and James (I plan to review Varner's new EEC commentary on James within the next week or so). Kress has many other commentaries, including those by Robert Gromacki on Hebrews, Galatians, and other NT books. Then there's Rick Holland's Uneclipsing the Son, and Ken Ramey on Expository Listening.

Unless you're a regular Pyro reader, you may or may not have heard that I also have a book on Proverbs. It isn't a commentary proper. At the moment, it's Kress' top seller, and it's called God's Wisdom in Proverbs.

It's nicely-bound hardcover, 403 pages long (footnotes! of course!), has eight chapters, an Epilogue, four appendices, and two indices (major subjects and scriptures). Thanks to this sale, instead of the usual $24.99 ($16.82 at Amazon), you can get it for $8.75 a copy.

What the book does is provide an introduction to Proverbs as well as a series of studies. It helps readers understand how to read Proverbs, what it's specific genius and intent is — this is where readers, writers, and preachers alike have often made shipwreck. It also discusses wisdom, and includes a full chapter on the all-important, pan-Biblical theme of the fear of Yahweh. There are also chapters on how to obtain wisdom, trusting and worshiping God, cultivating relationships, marriage, and child-training.

The appendices debate the authorship (and discuss what difference it makes), study words related to teaching, gives suggestions as to how to preach and teach Proverbs, and suggest (at length) that Proverbs 22:6 doesn't mean what you've been told it means.

As with the slightly-earlier book, people who read it rather tend to like it. For instance, pastor and professor James M. Hamilton, Associate Professor of Biblical Theology at SBTS, reviewed the book in Themelios, saying:

The teaching of Proverbs is desperately needed today. As our society descends into decadence, this book of the Bible will give us a backbone and help us to stand, and this applies to everything from fearing God to relating appropriately to others and cultivating marriage and training children, to say nothing of sound economic policy. We need no more “explanations” of Proverbs that nullify its teaching or assume it has no connection to its OT context. Rather, we need balanced, studied, serious, joyful, and wise explanation and application of Proverbs. Enter Dan Phillips. This would be a great book for men’s discipleship groups, for a pastor planning to preach through Proverbs, for the recent graduate, and for much else. We can thank Phillips especially for his balanced and courageous presentation of how parents should use the rod for reproof.

Also: "[Phillips] takes the biblical languages seriously...so while this book does not have an academic feel, it consistently engages the Hebrew text of Proverbs."

Nine reviews at Amazon give it an average 4.7 star rating. Rachael Starke says "get my friend's book and read it ; you will not be disappointed, and you will not be unchanged." Jacob Sweeney calls it "Excellent" and says:

Dan Phillips has written God's Wisdom in Proverbs to help bridge the gap between technical commentaries and the multitudes of "how to read" books. ...This book is easy to read, yet packed with information and insight. He does what a teacher is to do: help us receive his knowledge. This is a book I will keep for many years and plan to turn to often.

David Shaw says

Phillips has written a book that will be invaluable whenever I turn to Proverbs. He has taken the time to give us the meaning of the Proverbs in the original language it was written in (Hebrew). He shows us the style and structure and how we are to gain wisdom from reading Proverbs. ...It is obvious that this book took years of study to prepare.

Robert Sakovich:

When I first read this book, I was amazed at all of the research that went into it. I couldn't help but to think of how people should be reading it and studying it to get a better understanding of the book of Proverbs. So I decided to start a small group study on the book. We had people of all ages (from 7 to 60+) and everybody learned and participated in the study of this book. And every single person said that they loved the book...in fact one of the couples has bought about 5 more copies to give to their friends.

Dan Phillips loads you up with a good deal of theology, word study, and Scripture references, but also ties in all the application one could ask for. The chapters on godly relationships, godly marriages, and godly parenting are worth the price of the book by themselves. He doesn't just give you the theology and leave you there...he challenges you in each of these areas based upon the Scripture. I can definitely say that I was convicted in some areas and experienced growth through working on them in light of Scripture. 

I highly recommend this book to anybody who wants to grow in fear of the Lord.

Mark Stamper:

One can see that the author has spent much time, study and prayer in writing this book. I am using it as the basis of an ABF class for my church for people ages 19-25. I have recommended this book to everyone in the class as it is understandable to a wide range of audiences. I feel that the chapter on the authorship of the book and the chapter on the fear of Yahweh are worth the price of the book.

Readers of Challies and Justin Taylor (and of me!) have seen the name of professor David Murray many times. Murray is a pastor and Professor of Old Testament and Practical Theology at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary. He heartily recommended the book, saying "the writing is clear, snappy, punchy, Solomonic even!," and adding:

It’s more “A Practical Theology of Proverbs,” and at 430 pages it’s one of the most thorough treatments of Proverbs I've come across.

Pastors and scholars will be benefit from the significant chunks devoted to issues such as authorship, Hebrew poetry, and the various proverbial forms. However, the more general reader will find a ton of helpful material in the major sections on worship, relationships, marriage, and parenting – the best treatments of these Proverbial themes I've encountered. I’ll be re-reading them many times and encouraging my wife to do so too. Dan’s explanation and application of “the fear of the Lord” was the highlight of the book for me. Absolutely outstanding.

My buddy Fred Butler says:

Dan writes as a wise pastor concerned for the best instruction he can give his people providing them rich, theological insights that lay a ground work so that they too can receive the maximum benefit from reading the Proverbs. Most academic commentaries don’t have that in mind. 

..exemplifies what makes good Bible teaching. He has the giftedness to communicate profound theology, making it understandable for regular folks and enjoyable to learn. ...I am currently going through his book a second time now that I am able to go much slower, chew longer, and digest what I am reading. What I truly appreciate about this second time is how Dan is sharpening my thinking about God. He has helped me to re-evaluate what I think about wisdom and how I should convey that to my family and in my broader ministry to other Christians.

If you are someone who is looking to teach the Proverbs from the pulpit, or in Sunday school, or maybe a home Bible study group; or even if you just want to personally have a better understanding of this wonderful treasure God has given us, you have to get this book. Dan writes with knowledge of the subject and a passion for God and His people. Believe me; You’ll benefit greatly from this study

Finally, this being Pyromaniacs and all, it might be apposite to quote Phil Johnson's recommendation. He says the book

is written brilliantly at a level that will challenge anyone who is interested enough in gaining wisdom and understanding to be serious in that quest. Readers will range from serious students of Scripture to casual lay readers on their way to a more serious approach to Scripture. It explains the wisdom of Proverbs (and the biblical nature of wisdom per se) in a clear, readable fashion that will be extremely helpful to everyone from students entering the academic world for the first time, to new parents seeking biblical insight into the process of child-rearing, to anyone in a position of responsibility or leadership. I recommend it for all who are tired of the superficial, self-centered themes that have filled evangelical pulpits and bookshelves for the past three decades (or more). If you are hungry for biblical material, God’s Wisdom in Proverbs will feed your appetite.

So... maybe you want to consider it as a Christmas present? I highly doubt you'll ever see a better price. Give it to your pastor (unless I'm your pastor; I've already got a copy), give it to your elders, your group leader, your Sunday School teacher, your professors or teachers at college and seminary, your church library, your favorite high-visibility blogger who usually likes and reviews solid, Reformed, Christian work on OT books in general and Proverbs in particular (unless that's me; I've already got a copy).

Remember: the sale is only through November, and it is only at the Kress site, and you must use the coupon code BR60833557256.

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...and that is what Christmas is all about

by Dan Phillips

First:

And then:

The last two Sundays at CBC were given to framing the Christmas history against the larger backdrop of the saga of redemption.

First, we started literally at Genesis 1:1, in Christmas in Genesis.

Then in Christmas in Isaiah, we traced the thread of the Seed, from Genesis 3:15 to Isaiah 53.  (This includes a robust presentation of some of my reasons for insisting that Isaiah 7:14 looks to the birth of Jesus Christ, and no other.)

Merry Christmas!

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6-Part Harmony

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

For to which of the angels did God ever say,

"You are my Son, today I have begotten you"? Or again, "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son"?

And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says,

"Let all God's angels worship him."

Of the angels he says,

"He makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire."

But of the Son he says,

"Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions."

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to her. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!" But Mary was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."

And Mary said to the angel, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?"

And the angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy--the Son of God. … For nothing will be impossible with God." And Mary said, "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word."

And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

"Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel" (which means, God with us).

When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son.

A decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!"

When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us." And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

And at the end of eight days, when [the child] was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him."

(they said this because the prophet Balaam saw that it pleased the LORD to bless Israel, and he did not go, as at other times, to look for omens, but set his face toward the wilderness. And Balaam lifted up his eyes and saw Israel camping tribe by tribe. And the Spirit of God came upon him, and he took up his discourse and said,

I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near: a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel;")

After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.

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When We Had Gone Astray

by Frank Turk

So here's the point: Christmas is not a celebration of everyday life.  The purpose of Christmas is not to celebrate your middle-class life and ethics, or even to enjoy simple human good will, or to inspire it.  It's not even to give thanks for a decent year past -- however good and godly it might seem to try that.  The point of Christmas, if I may say it this way, is that God is fully aware that the world and the lives of those living here are all headed for a sad and sober end if nothing changes.

Because let's face it: things don't really change.  You might make a case for all manner of improvements in law or economics or standards of living, but our core complaint this week is that innocent people die all the time for no reason.  That never changes -- it's the status quo of the world.

That is: until Christmas.

Look: a few years ago I made a point of telling everyone that God's view of Christmas is a strange and amazing balance between his threat to bring justice to disobedient people and his promise to save them from their utter disregard for him.  Another time I made it a point to tell you that the miracle at Christmas is not that a legion of fantastic beings sang out to God's praise in a field -- it was that a baby was born and laid in a manger, fulfilling the promises of God with God Himself.  That was a pretty good one.

This year, let me say this: in this world where your home may seem empty because of a gigantic loss, and where the death of innocents seems to be an insurmountable sign of how the times have turned, God has already taken it upon himself to change the status quo.  The point here -- the actual reason that there is a Christmas, actually a moment when the world affected by the church of God stops and stares, expecting to see something completely amazing -- is that Jesus, who is God, didn't try to remain equal with God. Instead he gave up everything, and was born in a manger to became a slave, when he became like one of us. Jesus was humble the way only God can be humble, surrendering the Glory which Isaiah saw in the throne room of God to become a miracle wrapped in rags. He obeyed God -- and his obedience didn't stop at being born in a barn.  His obedience took him lower still, to a death on a cross when he deserved worship and honor and power, so that the death of innocents would, in an eternal and permanent way, be defeated forever.

Jesus is not just some ephemeral housekeeper who can tidy us up right now -- or at least until we toss ourselves back into the filth. He's not someone who merely helps us avoid the worst right now, as if God has nothing better to do than to stop us from doing exactly what we want to do.  His story is not just a story about truth: he's the one guy who understands our weaknesses because he has suffered through them all, refusing to sin, and then he died for them all so that they can all not only be defeated, but forgiven.

And here we are -- worried that the something was ruined because the sins of our society are more obvious this week than they are most other weeks. I think something was ruined when the angels sang, "Glory to God in the Highest! And on Earth, peace to men on whom his favor rests," -- and what was ruined was the status quo.  Since then it has been our problem to catch up with that -- to live as if that really happened, so we can make much of this Jesus, and enjoy him forever.

This is the true meaning of Christmas, dear reader, and tossing out another example of human moral destitution which tears down our illusions about how safe and civilized we are doesn't harm even one thin angel hair of tinsel in that kind of Christmas: it causes the brilliance of Christmas to shine like an arclight of hope which leads us to our one and only savior.

This Christmas, I beg you: look for him, find him, and throw yourself on him, because in that stable, and at his cross, and ultimately at his empty tomb and his seat at the right hand of God, is your only hope in this world where death is the common end.  Let nothing you dismay: for Jesus Christ our savior was born upon this day to save us all from death and sin's power when we had gone astray.  Those are the tidings of comfort and joy.

I wish you good tidings of great joy this Christmas, and true prosperity and eternal life in the New Year.

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The Natural State

by Frank Turk

Yes, I am aware that I stole Dan's slot yesterday, and I am now using my normal slot this week -- the bad news for you is that I will also steal Dan's slot tomorrow and then post a final time on Friday.  You are stuck with me this week like gum on the bottom of your sneaker.

Yesterday, I said you can't ruin Christmas with the death of innocents, and most of you opened up the book of Matthew to start second guessing where I am going with this.  Well, close your Bibles, OK?  Not because they are useless or that we won't get there: close them so you are not distracted by your own Bible-Drill cleverness from what is happening in the world this week.

As I page through the stories about the tragedy at Sandy Hook, this one stands out to me as the current conventional wisdom (even if it got the shooters name wrong).  In it, we find this observation by one of the locals:

At St. John’s Episcopal Church, 54-year-old Donna Denner, an art teacher at an elementary school in nearby Danbury whose classroom was locked down after the shooting, said she feels the same way she did after 9/11 but isn’t sure the rest of the country does. 

“I don’t know if the rest of the country is struggling to understand it the same way we are here,” she said. “Life goes on, but you’re not the same. Is the rest of the country — are they going about their regular activities? Is it just another news story to them?”

Now, let's not run this woman over for her grief at the loss, the violence, and the invasiveness of what happened near her.  She lives in close proximity to a lunatic shooting spree.  What has happened to her and to everyone within driving distance of the Dunkin Donuts in Newtown is a moral and civil transgression of what we think is the natural and safe state of our own homes and lives.  It is to our credit, in a Romans 2 way, that we believe we actually live in a peaceful society.

See: what has actually happened here is not that the unthinkable has occured.  It is that the unthinkable has happened to us.  On the exact same day this tragedy took place, for example, exactly half-way around the world in China 22 children were knifed to death by a lunatic (a repeat of a fatal attack on 23 children in 2010; thanks to alert readers for the correction).  But even in saying that, let's be honest: statistically (Thx, CDC), last week, 662 people died in car accidents.  610 were accidentally poisoned -- that is, they probably drank or ate something they thought was harmless and it turned out that it would kill them, and about 10% of those were children.  476 people fell to their deaths.  If it was an average week in Chicago, 6 people were shot to death.  The President isn't delivering eulogies there.

You know: deaths by medical error outnumber firearm fatalities by a factor of 17:1; deaths by medical error outnumber auto fatalities by a factor of 5:1.  You think you're safe in the hospital, but I would suggest that you're in one of the most dangerous places in the world for two reasons: both you and the care providers are, in all real respect for their years of hard work and real intention to be doing no harm, overconfident.

My point is not to minimize the death of these children, or make you fear the hospital: it is to open your eyes to the fact that the natural state of the world is not safe and secure.  The natural state of the world -- the way it really is all around us every day and we simply overlook it -- is that it is a deadly and dangerous place.  

See: the natural state of things is that people die all the time due to no direct fault of their own.  Families are left fatherless or motherless -- or both.  The oldest child, or only child, is safe on the rainy night driving home from work and is killed the next night when she went to the convenience store for milk and a drunk ignored the red light.  The fellow in the locker next to you at work doesn't realize the safety on the overhead crane is broken, and you have to explain it to the OSHA investigator because you pulled him out from under it, too late.

But here's the thing: this does not spoil Christmas.  It in no way denigrates Christmas, or makes Christmas a joke.  This fact makes Christmas necessary.

We'll consider why tomorrow.

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A Whiff of Sense

by Frank Turk

I've gotten a few e-mails this past weekend asking about or anticipating my blog post in the week before Christmas about the act of insane violence in Sandy Hook.  Let me say that on Friday, I was dead-set against writing anything about this event for a couple of reasons.  One is that everybody has written about this already, right? Everyone has laid their idiosyncratic viewpoint on the thing and come up with everything from banning guns to handing out free guns to some truism with the word "Gospel" in it.  And of all the things I hope to be as a blogger, being one voice like the others has never been my objective.

Another reason, frankly, was that I am actually tired of blogging.  I have been having a modest conversation with Dan about my ennui, and while he makes a decent point about the things we have accomplished in the last 7-8 years ("we" including Phil and Officer Pecadillo), this isn't 2006 anymore and I'm not in my mid-30's anymore.  So one thing weighing on me is that I have more important things to do, like ministry.

The greatest reason, for better or worse, that I did not want to blog about this, if I can invite you to be invasively-curious, is that I was off on Friday for the first time in months.  I was spending the day at home with my exquisite family, and I wanted nothing to do with anything other than them.  My daughter and I built an amazing gingerbread house out of graham crackers.  We bought Christmas presents which will blow minds.  I ignored work and the world long enough for my wife to enjoy my company AND I also got to watch about 3 hours worth of new Avengers episodes on Netfix with the Boy.

But the news of the shooting kept intruding.  At one point I was walking into my house, and it occurred to me that it was possible that there was a father walking into his house in Connecticut, which he spends his waking hours paying for, where he spends his nights loving the people in it, and now (for him) there would be one of those people gone forever.  There are presents under his ridiculously-merry-and-bright tree for that person who is now gone.  There's a room in this house where that missing person still has his or her stuff, and that person isn't coming back to play with the Legos or the American Girl dolls or the Thomas table or the Ponies, or to need a bed time story prolonged by a glass of water or a few crackers.  As I walked into my house, I could feel the oppressive emptiness that this other fellow in Connecticut was getting sucked into by the lack of one person.  And all he did wrong in this instance, on that day, was what he does right and has been doing right for the last 2200 days or so.  And this, at Christmas, when we think the world will be full of tidings of comfort and joy.  For my part, I wanted nothing to do with insulting or offending that guy, and the other parents like him, because they were the victims who had their human love and human joy murdered.

Let me say this: I doubt a few verses of Silent Night or Oh Come All Ye Faithful will be enough to console that fellow.  He now has to live with Christmas in the real world where a fatherless boy murders his mother, and then other people's children, on a Thursday.

This past week, by way of comparison, RC Sproul Jr. has been celebrating the first anniversary of his wife's death.  "Celebrating" is the right word, however incongruous it is, if you watch him -- because he is in the process of translating his sorrow in loss, through the immeasurable gain his wife Denise has received in leaving this life and coming into the immediate presence of God, into seeing the face of Christ.  You know: I have been rather hard on R.C. Jr. over the last few months as he and I have had very different ideas about political activism and the American citizen's role in creating political justice in this nation.  He's almost exactly my age, and we are two guys who, except for a few details, have enough in common to get on each other's nerves.  But there are empty places in the Sproul home which I cannot imagine and refuse to consider myself because, if I am honest, I am not sure I would present the faith and hope RC does as he faces them.  He looks into death and sees Jesus, and is glad to the measure that he is also at a loss -- for his loss is not swallowed up in death, but in victory over death, and sin, and sickness, and so on.

I realize that this doesn't make a whiff of sense to most people -- other Christians especially.  You know: melancholy memes go around when stuff like this happens.  Christmas is Ruined for someone.  Christmas is Ruined when I lose my job at Christmas.  Christmas is Ruined when I am evicted at Christmas.  Christmas is Ruined when I suffer violent crime at Christmas, or I am diagnosed with terminal death at Christmas, or a beloved member of my very home and heart who sleeps in one of the beds I have provided and whom I feed and cloth not merely out of duty but ought of love and fatherly concern is murdered when he was trying to learn the alphabet.  Christmas is ruined, and for someone like RC to spout his fantastic praises and felicitations speaks more to hypothetical-me about his lack of seriousness about what has just happened rather than to his faith.  He's another Calvinist quack negating real loss and sorrow and claiming they are nothing.

Well, let me suggest something before you go and toss the tree into the fireplace and put the gifts into the compactor at work out of a desperate attempt to crush the small symbols of joy with your rightfully-large burden of sin-sickness and loss-weariness.

It's possible that maybe you could ruin Christmas by making it into a holiday of introspection.  You could make it a time when we reflect on ourselves and who we have become in the last year -- or as you get older, who you have become since you were young and full of expectation that next year's return would be greater than this year's baubles.  That kind of introspection will, as Dickens taught us with Scrooge, make us old and bitter.  That kind of "holiday" will destroy us over time as we become, over time, the people who do what seems right in our own eyes.

It's possible to ruin Christmas, I suppose, by making it into a mere tradition of family reunion.  Many have already done that, and let's face it: it's a bad deal for the people related to us because you have met us, right?  Nevermind that we feel the same toward them -- getting together in those circumstances won't make it any better.  We'd be better off saving the money we'd shell out for such a thing for our retirements as it would turn into real money after 50 or 60 years if we are fortunate enough to get than many white Christmases.

But here's the thing: I'm willing to say, in the shadow of the insanity at Sandy Hook, that you cannot ruin Christmas with the murder of innocents.  You can only make the need for Christmas more obvious.

More tomorrow.

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One Day a Year

by Frank Turk

Since you mention it, this is a reprinted post from my neglected and un-sanitized blog from a few years ago, and I thought it was worth sharing since most of you have never prolly read it before.  Here are 5 loosely-associated thoughts about the Christmas season:

[1] It is frankly bizarre to associate what happens these days on December 25th (and the 4-ish weeks prior to 12/25) in the English-speaking world with Roman Catholicism in the theological, ecclesiological, or worshipological senses. That is: there's nobody I know who's celebrating Christmas because the day itself turns out to be more holy – except, of course, some Catholics. The rest of us are considering that Christ, in order to die for our sins in accordance with Scripture, had to be born. Which leads me to ...

[2] ... the obvious objection that taking a day and setting it apart to reconsider the birth of Christ is making something holy which God does not – it's a sort of Regulative principle objection. But here's the problem: if one doesn’t read the whole Bible every day and think about the whole thing every day, one is doing by default what one is criticizing others for doing with intention.

You know: you can't mull over the whole of biblical and systematic theology in any kind of thorough or even careful way in the 14 hours you're awake one day and then repeat the process again tomorrow and (for example) hold down a job or take a bath. So breaking the particulars of Biblical and systematic theology up over time – for example, into 52 weeks like the Heidelberg Catechism, or into a "church year", or into a daily reading plan – makes practical sense.

Because you have a human brain with human constraints, you're going to cause each day to be different in some way because you really don’t have a choice. The question turns out to be whether or not you're going to have an intentional way of, as the Bible says, being transformed by the renewal of your mind, or if you're just going to sort of stumble through it.

[3] And then the question comes up, "well, are you saying I must celebrate Christmas? Isn’t that legalism and violating my Christian liberty?" I think the fair comparison – the clear-sighted comparison – is to evangelism, because ultimately that's what I am talking about here (which we will get to in a minute).

You know: when you're standing in the waiting line at the Olive Garden with your family or whatever, I have no qualms saying that you should talk to someone there and try to get the Gospel in as much as it is possible. You should. My guess – and you can argue about the statistics behind this guess if you're that kind of person – is that someone in that waiting line is a lost person who has a sin problem that ends up being a hell problem, and is someone the Gospel is given to be declared to. If you believe in hell and in the only savior of men, you should find a way to talk about the Gospel.

Should. Expresses obligation, propriety, or expediency. Disciples of Christ have an obligation to express the Gospel. Even at the Olive Garden, which may or may not have some historical association with the Roman Catholic church particularly by being an Italian restaurant [sic].

Now, if that's true – and I'd love to see the person who's willing to say that Christians do not have this kind of obligation – how much more obvious is this same obligation on a day which, in the English-speaking world, bears the name of Christ and the whole world is frankly stopped because of it. Last year I published a harmony of the Gospels here at the blog – what if we intentionally gathered as families with both the saved and the sinners and read something like that rather than treating the day as if it's just another day, just like every other day, even though Wall Street and the banks are closed and everyone is frankly looking for something to do?

Opportunities like that don’t just fall out of the sky, especially in a post-Christian culture.

[4] And to connect the dots here between [2] and [3], one might say, "well, cent, I actually do read the Heidelberg Catechism to my kids and we follow the three forms of unity, so my obligation to bringing up my children in the way they should go – evangelizing them, if you will – is taken care of, so your beat-down on me for not observing this day is uncalled for."

Yeah, no. And pay attention, because this is where you imaginary objectors really get my goat.

Paul said this:

"All things are lawful," but not all things are helpful. "All things are lawful," but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.

and again:

For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.

I agree with you that one perfectly "lawful" means of doing your Christian life is the consideration (as in our example) of the Heidelberg Catechism. Where I part company with the imaginary objector is that you are straining out gnats and swallowing camels, and you have a really big problem if Rob Bell understands something which you do not.

I want you to imagine something: imagine that the whole English-speaking world stops for one day – and by "stops" I mean that there's not even any sports on the TV worth mentioning. Everybody stops working for one day. And for the most part, everyone has this yearning to be with family – even the most weird feel like this day bears some kind of meaning in that it would be good to be with family just this one day.

And on that day, the disciples of Christ get up in the morning, read Heidelberg Catechism Week 51 (ironically, "about the Lord's Day", speaking of holding one day above another), and wander off to work to show those idolatrous Catholics we don't bend a knee to the Pope, carn-sarn it.

Let me suggest to you that this is not only an avoidance of a right-minded "should" for a sort of smug and intellectually-selfish "ought", but it is completely tone-deaf to the real spirit of Christ who became flesh and took up residence among us, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, who has made God known.Christmas is the opportunity to make God known, people – particularly, to make Christ known. You have the liberty to do that in an obscure or untranslatable way, and you have the liberty to do that in a public and sort of lavish and joyous way – one which reflects your personal response to this God who poured Himself out, took on the form of a servant, allowed himself to be laid in a feeding trough, and came to die for people who deserved themselves to be put to death.

You can play baseball when the sun is shining, or you can play your PSP in your basement and wonder why you don’t know any real people. What you can't do is pretend that your liberty is more valuable than spending your liberty on your responsibilities.

[5] And that leads to my last point (because this is page 3 in WORD), which is to make it clear that what's at stake here is the declaration of the Gospel of God to the lost by all means possible. That's the real "culture war". You have to consider what it means to have a public faith at some point in your travels through sanctification.

Some people want to tell you that the only meaningful way to have a public faith is by church-community and church-worship. That is: somehow the only way, or perhaps the most efficacious way, of demonstrating a public faith is in liturgy in community. And we have to grant something here: depending on what you mean by "liturgy" and "efficacious", and depending on how important you rate the Lord's table and baptism, they have a point.

But if our worship stops at the last pew in the chapel, so to speak, we're just fans. We're not playing the game: we're just watching it.

You are called to do more than watch the game, reader. You are called to run the race, and fight the good fight, and be someone who's not just shadow-boxing in vain. You are called to be a spectacle for the sake of the Gospel, and that doesn’t happened behind closed doors.

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