For your consideration: Gospel Meditations for Missions

by Dan Phillips

Last year, I had the pleasure of recommending Gospel Meditations for Women, edited by my long-distance friend Chris Anderson, pastor of Tri-County Bible Church. Chris is a good brother, good man, devoted husband and father and pastor; and I'm eternally grateful to him for his absolutely indispensable observations when I was finishing the manuscript for The World-Tilting Gospel.

Since then, Chris has edited Gospel Meditations for Men and, most recently, Gospel Meditations for Missions. Yesterday I was happy to find an envelope from Church Works Media with both booklets, and I began reading the latter today (though arguably I need the former more urgently!).

Chris is on the short list of folks of whom I'd say: he's responsible, so it's worth reading. So I commend it to you. You can also see Andy Naselli's commendation here.

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Keep Calm and Carry On

The Open Letter today is delayed.  Stay Tuned.

UPDATED: Ok, so what happened?  I have 12 days of vacation time to take between, well, yesterday and the end of the year, and to do that I need to get work covered.  But my job is sorta like Mr Incredible's job: No matter how many times you save the world, it always manages to get back in jeopardy again. Sometimes I just want it to stay saved! You know, for a little bit? I feel like the maid; I just cleaned up this mess! Can we keep it clean for... for ten minutes!

On top of that, my hatred of flying through ATL amplified itself yesterday.  I routed my parents through ATL to have a decent layover so they wouldn't get pinched by the lay-over, but their 90 minute layover turned into a 5 hour layover and I had to make the round trip to Memphis not between 7 PM and Midnight but 7PM and 4 AM.  In the pouring rain.

SO the letter this week will be up tomorrow, and then I'll finish up normal the remaining Wednesdays.

Third thoughts about Matthew 28:19 in Greek — a command, or not?

by Dan Phillips

This post may not equally be for everyone, though I think any believer can get something from it. For awhile I had another blog presenting occasional Greek-themed posts. It was called Hellenisti ginoskeis: do you know Greek? I simply haven't had the time to update it regularly for years, though I would like to return to it some day. This is an edited version of an early post from February of 2007. It is aimed primarily at pastors, but I don't think it will harm anyone else... except maybe dangerous pikers. Which isn't bad, and wouldn' really be "harm," would it?

In what is popularly called the Great Commission, our Lord says:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

πορευθέντες οὖν μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, βαπτίζοντες αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος.... (Matthew 28:19)

Probably the KJV is still the most familiar rendering: "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

A number of facets of this translation cry out for comment, but I will focus only on one: "Go ye therefore, and teach." Clearly to the English reader's eye, there are two commands here: (1) go ye, and (2) teach. On the first of these rest countless missionary conferences and sermons.

But when you start learning Greek, you notice that the verbal form of πορευθέντες (poreuthentes) is not imperative at all, as "Go ye" would lead one to expect. Nor, in fact, is it a finite verb of any sort. It is an aorist participle, of which the primer-form translation is "having {verb}ed." So luō is "I loose," and lusas would be "having loosed," and so forth. The imperative aorist in this case would have been πορεύθητι (poreuthēti). So a woodenly literal, first-year-primer translation of the text as it stands would be, "Having gone, therefore, disciple the nations."

So you think, "Well, I'll be. So Jesus assumes the going, and solely commands the making of disciples. There is only one command, one commission. The commission isn't to go, but to disciple."

The bare grammatical observation, of course, is true. The inference, not so much. That is, the form of the verb is undeniably that of an aorist participle... but the rest does not follow. While I have taught it that way (i.e. only one command) in years past, I've come to have third thoughts about the verse.

Repeated readings of Matthew in Greek highlighted to me a facet of Matthew's style of writing. That brother loved his aorist participles! In making my own rough translation, I was constantly writing, "Having X," or "after doing X." In fact, Matthew used this exact construction many times,  but with the semantic force of "do X and Y," and not of "after doing X, do Y."

For instance, take Matthew 2:20, where the angel tells Joseph,  "Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child's life are dead." The word translated by the command "Rise" is not grammatically an imperative, but is another aorist participle (ἐγερθεὶς, egertheis).

If one were to be as woodenly literal with this text as I once proposed regarding Matthew 28:19, he would have to render: "After you get up, take the Child and His mother and go into the land of Israel." How likely is that? Is the angel really saying, "I don't care when or even whether you get up; but whenever you do get around to rolling out of bed, what I really want you to do is..."? Or is he not instead saying "get up, and go!"

Or again, in Matthew 21:2 the Lord says of the donkey and colt, "Untie them and bring them to me." But the command "Untie" translates the aorist participle λύσαντες (lusantes). Too literally, once again, it is "After loosing, lead to Me." But is that really His intent — "Whenever you get around to untying the donkey, here's what I want you to do"? Or is it not "Untie him, and lead him to Me"?

Check out a couple more, with the word translating an aorist participle bolded:

Matthew 22:13 Then the king said to the attendants, 'Bind him hand and foot and cast him [δήσαντες αὐτοῦ πόδας καὶ χεῖρας ἐκβάλετε αὐτὸν] into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'

Matthew 28:7 Then go quickly and tell [καὶ ταχὺ πορευθεῖσαι εἴπατε] his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you."

That last one is very significant for this study, because (A) it comes just shortly before our target-verse, and (B) the form is very similar. If we are going to insist that v. 19 carries no imperative to "go," then we must say the same of v. 7. (Other examples are found in Matt. 9:18 and 11:14, as well as Lk. 13:32; 17:8, 14; 19:30; Acts 9:11; 16:9, 15.)

Now, having noticed this, I then checked The Experts. Indeed, Greek Jedi-master Dan Wallace comments on the same phenomenon, referring to this as an "attendant circumstance participle" (Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, p. 640). Wallace explains:

The attendant circumstance participle is used to communicate an action that, in some sense, is coordinate with the finite verb. In this respect it is not dependent, for it is translated like a verb. Yet it is still dependent semanti­cally, because it cannot exist without the main verb. It is translated as a finite verb connected to the main verb by and. The participle then, in effect, “piggy-backs” on the mood of the main verb. This usage is relatively com­mon, but widely misunderstood.

So in sum, it is true that disciple is the principle command in Matthew 28:19, but the discipling necessitates going. Both are encompassed. After all, the direct object is the nations, and they are principally located elsewhere. The apostles are to disciple the nations and, to do that, they must go. Why must they? Because Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth, and not merely in Israel (v. 18). He owns it all, He has rights to all of it; therefore, His church must bring the Gospel and His commands through all of it.

And now... you know that!

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On Learned and Unlearned Ministers

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson



The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The following excerpt is from the "Report of the Pastors’ College," Published in The Sword and the Trowel in the April 1882 issue..



ime was when an educated ministry was looked upon by certain of our brethren as a questionable blessing; indeed it was thought that the less a minister knew the better, for there was then the more room for him to be taught of God.

From the fact that God does not need man's wisdom it was inferred that he does need man's ignorance; indeed, some seemed to be leaning to the opinion of the Mohammedans, who have long considered idiots to be inspired. Many devout persons doubted whether the preacher should study at all; they looked upon books as "dead men's brains," and conceived of all knowledge as of a thing which necessarily puffeth up.

The venerable Daniel Jackson, a Baptist minister of Indiana, said, at the Conference of churches held in 1880, that "he had a lively recollection of the obstacles placed in the way of study and mental improvement in connection with his first pastorate. He had no books, and no money wherewith to buy them, and there was a strong prejudice among his parishioners against human learning; but he saved twenty dollars out of wedding-fees and the like, went fifteen miles to purchase a Commentary on the Bible, came home with his treasure at night, when it was dark, that it might not be seen, kept it secreted in a private apartment, and never ventured to bring it out and read it without setting his wife to watch at the door, as a sentinel, to give the alarm when anyone came.

A visitor, alas! of the gentler sex, at last discovered the poor offending book, and reported that the minister studied out his text! The news flew like lightning. If he had had the small-pox packed away in his bookcase the consternation could not have been greater; the whole parish, with one of the deacons at the head, was up in arms. His ministry, it was felt, could no longer be a 'Holy Ghost Ministry.' He had to leave, and seek a new sphere of toil; but he did not abandon his Commentary. Now, thank God," said the minister, "young men may read Commentaries, and get a College training, for the sunlight of knowledge has risen with effulgent beams upon the denomination."

This depreciation of learning was a natural recoil from the folly which magnified education into a kind of deity; as though it could take the place of the Spirit and power of God. It was supposed that none but doctors who had passed through the schools could possibly proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ; and yet these were the very last persons to undertake the blessed service,—they were too much engrossed with their own disputations and imaginings.

The result of such idolatry of human scholarship was injurious to the last degree; the free utterance of the word was hampered, and the dead letter of pretended learning crushed out the life and energy of Christian zeal. Greater folly has been found in the schools than out of it. Unlearned men may have injured religion by the wild-fire of their injudicious zeal; but pedantic and pretentious scholars have far more seriously imperilled it by the lukewarmness of their latitudinarianism, and the chill of their doubt.

Human learning is, after all, only another form of human ignorance, touched up with an extra coat of the varnish of conceit; for what does man know when he knows all that he can himself discover? What does he know that is worth knowing unless he be taught of God? Above all, what can he know of eternal truth unless the eternal Spirit shall instruct him?

Yet, for all this, the inference that ignorance is better than knowledge is a false one. Neither untutored confidence, nor learned diffidence can take the place of the Spirit; but when a man has once submitted head and heart and tongue to the supremacy of the Holy Ghost, all other things may be added unto him without fear of injury, yea, with the hope of great advantage to himself and others; and the more he knows, especially of matters which concern the Scriptures, the better will he be able to bring forth things new and old out of his treasures.

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Faith, reason, obedience and sufficiency

by Dan Phillips

As I read through the first part of Jeremiah 13, an instructive and timely pattern leapt out at me.

In verse one, Yahweh instructs the prophet to purchase and wear a linen loincloth. In verse 2, Jeremiah does it. Period. Then, and only then, does the prophet receive another word from Yahweh.

Pause and reflect on that. Such a trivial command, no? As if God parted the heavens to tell you to buy a can of olives, or a jar of mayonnaise, and put it on the shelf?

If that were the case, would it be lawful and reasonable to ask why this command was given? Sure, I don't know why not. We could ask. But suppose no answer was forthcoming? What then?

In response, let me ask four questions of my own:

1. Was the directive surely from God?
2. Was the directive clear enough?
3. Does God deserve obedience, regardless of the presence or absence of further explanation as to His rationale?
4. Would it in any sense be unreasonable to say that disobedience, dithering or delay would itself be unreasonable?

In the Biblical example before us, the answers are clear enough. To the first three questions, I would suggest that Yes is the only reasonable answer; and, to the fourth, only No.

Suppose Jeremiah never received one further word from Yahweh. The entry for that day might be, "Dear Diary: today, Yahweh told me to buy a belt, so I did." The diary's last entry of his life might include, "...oh, and I never found out what the deal with the belt was. But that's okay. He's Yahweh. I'm not."

Why would it be "okay"? Do this mental exercise. List for me every last being who does not have exhaustive knowledge of the nature, meaning and significance of every fact or event that ever has existed or will exist, as well as every fact or event that might have existed.

That will be a very, very long list. Blogger won't allow you to write all the names in your comment. This list will contain the name of every last sentient creature, of any order, ever.

My name will be on that list. Yours, as well.

Now: list for me every last being who does have exhaustive knowledge of the nature, meaning and significance of every fact or event that ever has existed or will exist, as well as every fact or event that might have existed.

That will be a very short list. It will contain only one name: God.

At this point — because this is what they do — your village atheist might sputter and fume with explosive, scornful fury. But, just to be blunt and plain, that's what Hell is all about, and that is why only people who deserve to be in Hell will be in Hell... and why we all deserve to be in Hell. The idea of a God who deserves ultimate and all-consuming love and respect and obedience, simply because He is God, is abhorrent, and the rejection of that premise is what launched the doomed project known as "the world."

Back to our passage. The issue to Jeremiah, once he received this seemingly nonsensical directive, is this and only this: is Yahweh worthy of faith, love, and obedience?

That, right there, is the archetypal question. It was that same question in the Garden, and it was at that same point that our great-great-greats answered wrongly, and doomed us all.

You see, they had a word from God that was also clear and sufficient: don't eat the fruit of this tree, or you will die. In that, they actually had more than Jeremiah had, in that they had a known consequence. So the issue was exactly the same: was Yahweh worthy of faith, love, and obedience?

Sure, they could have asked a million questions. Why that tree? Why make that tree? Why put that tree there? and on and on. But the trump to every last question was the answer to the same four questions above, and the answer would have been exactly the same. Did they need to know the answers to any of those questions in order to know what they must do, and why? No.

But Eve listened to Satan, and decided that epistemological autonomy was the way for her. Maybe Yahweh was right, maybe He was wrong. Who knows? She would decide for herself. She would cull reasons and information from sources that made sense to her, and give and pursue the answer that made sense to her. The locus of authority, the pivot-point of the universe, shifted at that moment from the throne of Yahweh to the mind of Eve — though only in her mind.

And Adam said, "Sure, honey, whatever." 

And what in the world does that have to do with the post's title?

Simple. We can ask a million questions about God's Word, too. Why did this and that happen, according to the Bible? Why can't men do this and this, and why must they do that and that? Why can't women do this and this, and why must they do that and that? And children? Why must we believe this, and disbelieve that? Why must we preach this, and denounce that?

While I am forced to say that we are, all of us, inconsistent with what we should believe and do, and we all fail and sin in one way or another; I am equally forced to say that we are compelled to ask and answer the same four questions as we posed of Yahweh's quizzical-but-crystal-clear command to Jeremiah, above.

This is the dividing-point between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, and between faithfulness and faithlessness. And here, too, is the dividing-point between those who rest in the sufficiency of Scripture, and the endlessly-discontented Leaky Canoneers. 

Both groups share in common that the Bible doesn't tell them all that they would like to know or hear. The difference is that the first category trusts God's wisdom and goodness, and sets itself in faith to make the most of every bit God's abundant provision — whereas the second sets itself to invent and pursue different avenues to get the experiences and knowledge they demand.

Though both claim "faith" as their motivator, I think the Biblical definition and illustration will properly apply only to one of the orientations.

To the other, other Bible words and other analyses will apply.

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Open Letter to Phil Johnson

by Frank Turk

Dear Phil,

Last week I sort of gushed on Dan for the sake of his accomplishments this year and the sake of our friends/readers who may or may not really grasp Dan's contributions around here.  I thought it went well, so I'm sticking to my plan to write 3 more open letters to people I admire and like (and in one case, worship), and of those three, you are next.

For the record: no, I don't worship you.

About six-and-a-half years ago, you invited me to lunch when you were driving between Tulsa and Branson to invite me to be a partner with you in a little adventure which was to become this blog.  You didn't make fun of my lousy hair cut (well, you did, but it wasn't cruel fun -- it was enjoying the irony before irony was all loused up by hipsters), and you didn't abhor me for having a small business in a field which is populated by opportunists and charlatans (christian book selling), and you didn't run me off the road for using a word I should't have used on my own blog.  You simply thought I was fun to read, and that was enough to bring me in.

In the intervening years, I have gotten a better haircut (easy, since I have a lot less hair), I have closed the bookstore, and I have, I hope, overcome my inclination to use the merchant marine style book (at least in print).  I have made a great friend in Dan Phillips -- a friend that I would never had had without the invitation to blog here.  I have also had the opportunity to blog at places like FirstThings.com, and to join in at least one national conference (even if it was only TheNines, to at least establish the conservative end of the bell curve), and literally thousands of people have become an audience I can reach -- even if most of them are not my fans, but yours.

In short, because you have been kind to me, I have gained so much.  Some might counter that it didn't really cost you anything, but it you risked much to put your reputation on the line for someone as hardscrabble as me, and for that I am grateful in a rudimentary sort of way.

But that little hatch into my gratitude toward you is just a tiny opening into the large mansion of your good will, and I wanted to take a moment to expose other people to that since it is Christmas, and there should be some good tidings to spread around.

Most people decide that they want to know you only as the hatchet man for GTY, and they see you as the hammer and tongs begins GTY.  That may be true enough.  What they most of them never bother to see, however, is the way you are almost universally beloved in Grace Community Church.  That sort of comes with the territory when you teach a large sunday school class, and when one is an elder, but people there don't just respect you -- they are grateful for you.  They like you -- sometimes to the point of wearing you out (if I can say that without either denigrating them or saying something untoward about you).  But, because you have a genuine pastoral sense of what you are called to do there and in you various roles, you give back to all of them.  That's something you don't get credit for out here where anonymous lunatics say anything they want to say without a hint of accountability or, in most cases, a shred of first-hand, primary-source information.

You also have a great family who are, without any hyperbole, a treasure.  Somehow you and Darlene raised 3 boys in SoCal and none of them are wash-outs.  They are all sincerely good-hearted, and gentlemanly, hospitable.  They have married well, and have children which are second only to my own in sparkle and charm.  They have a sense that they belong to something unique, which I think is two parts Jesus and one part Darlene, but somehow it's all in the context that they have a father of whom they are exceedingly proud.

It is in that habitat that I find myself so much more grateful for you, because you didn't just make me a jobber for a blog which needed some functionary bandwidth filled.  In spite of having a completely-full life, and having a full schedule and a full task list, you allowed me to be your friend.  You invited me to your parents' home when you were there so that we could spend time together and laugh about, well, everything.  When I brought my family to California (not once, but twice), you opened your home to us like we belonged there.  You treated my kids like your own, and it didn't occur to you that it should be any different.

In the last seven-or-so years, of all the things which have happened because of the blog, that is the consequence which will matters the most to me, and will affect me the most for the rest of my life.

So in this Christmas season, I thank you for all your gifts to me.  I am grateful for the good tidings of great joy you have given me over the years, and I wish you and Darlene, and all the generations Johnson, joy and gladness, and rejoicing in the birth of Jesus who came to us not as a judge but as a child wrapped in rags, to save his people from their sins.

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.

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Pastoral (and other) colloquium: health insurance

by Dan Phillips

From time to time, I've done posts aimed at the pastor. Here's another, though I think this may have a broader reach. Plus the other, longer post I have under development may produce a higher-maintenance meta than what I will have the time to devote today, so the timing is better for this one.

Pastors often serve as contractors, and not always (i.e. rarely!) for churches with staffs of five hundred. This makes health insurance a potentially dicey proposition. It could be argued that providing for family health care in some way is a subset of providing for one's own (1 Tim. 5:8), and that a church doing its best to enable a pastor to do so is part of treating the laborer as worthy of his wages (1 Tim. 5:17-18; cf. 1 Cor. 9:6-10; Gal. 6:8).

So, tell me, pastors — and my focus is American pastors — how do you handle health insurance? What do you do, how does it work, how do you like it?

Others who contract for other lines of ministry — or who have worked on pastoral compensation packages — and other work may have some input as well.

As I see it, it may well be that this meta will help both current pastors and our many seminary student readers who may soon be facing this brass-tacks issue.

So: do share.

BTW: if  you have suggestions for future similar gritty-details colloquia, email me at filops, then @, then yahoo.com.

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Spurgeon on Evolution

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The Following excerpt is from Spurgeon's autobiography.

t one of the memorable gatherings under "The Question Oak," a student asked Mr. Spurgeon, "Are we justified in receiving Mr. Darwin's or any other theory of evolution?"

The President's answer was:—"My reply to that enquiry can best take the form of another question,—Does Revelation teach us evolution? It never has struck me, and it does not strike now, that the theory of evolution can, by any process of argument, be reconciled with the inspired record of the Creation. You remember how it is distinctly stated, again and again, that the Lord made each creature 'after his kind.' So we read, 'And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.'

"And again, 'And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.'

"Besides, brethren, I would remind you that, after all these years in which so many people have been hunting up and down the world for 'the missing link' between animals and men, among all the monkeys that the wise men have examined, they have never discovered one who has rubbed his tail off, and ascended in the scale of creation so far as to take his place as the equal of our brothers and sisters of the great family of mankind.

"Mr. Darwin has never been able to find the germs of an Archbishop of Canterbury in the body of a tom cat or a hilly goat, and I venture to prophesy that he will never accomplish such a feat as that. There are abundant evidences that one creature inclines towards another in certain respects, for all are bound together in a wondrous way which indicates that they are all the product of God's creative will; but what the advocates of evolution appear to forget is, that there is nowhere to be discovered an actual chain of growth from one creature to another,—there are breaks here and there, and so many missing links that the chain cannot be made complete. There are, naturally enough, many resemblances between them, because they have all been wrought by the one great master-mind of God, yet each one has its own peculiarities.

"The Books of Scripture are many, yet the Book, the Bible, is one; the waves of the sea are many, yet the sea is one; and the creatures that the Lord has made are many, yet the Creation is one. Look at the union between the animal and the bird in the bat or in the living squirrel; think of the resemblance between a bird and a fish in the flying fish; yet, nobody, surely, would venture to tell you that a fish ever grew into a bird, or that a bat ever became a butterfly or an eagle. No; they do not get out of their own spheres.

"All the evolutionists in the world cannot 'improve' a mouse so that it will develop into a cat, or evolve a golden eagle out of a barn-door fowl. Even where one species very closely resembles another, there is a speciality about each which distinguishes it from all others.

"I do not know, and I do not say, that a person cannot believe in Revelation and in evolution, too, for a man may believe that which is infinitely wise and also that which is only asinine. In this evil age, there is apparently nothing that a man cannot believe; he can believe, ex animo, the whole Prayer-book of the Church of England! It is pretty much the same with other matters; and, after all, the greatest discoveries made by man must be quite babyish to the infinite mind of God. He has told us all that we need to know in order that we may become like Himself, but He never meant us to know all that He knows."

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Open Letter to Dan Phillips

by Frank Turk

Dear Dan,

Just as a preface, all year I have had a few people give me the what-for because I haven't set any of these letters on friendly targets (a libel which, of course, must be borne rather than refuted), and I decided back sometime in the spring that, once Christmas rolled around, I would write open letters to you, to Phil, and to two other highly-visible people with whom we are all affiliated in order to end the year as well as possible.

You know: seven years ago we didn't even know each other.  I think for the first year or two you thought I was actively trying to sabotage you and your career as a blogger until we met at the Founder's conference and got to spend a weekend at Phil's mom's house eating ridiculously well and doing some investigative blogging of GUTS church before it became the national scandal it is today.  A lot has happened in seven years, and through it all, you have become my friend.

For your friendship, I am grateful.  As your friend, I want to take an open letter at Christmas to give you what can't be described any way except as lavish praise.

First of all, you have made the most blog posts at PyroManiacs of any of us.  That's a pretty significant feat given that we are all pretty windy writers, but you have the most posts.

As well and good as that is, there's something hidden in that which one can only unravel if one reviews the stats.  I've been tracking PyroManiacs with Google Analytics since mid-June 2006. We have had over 8 million page-views over the last 65 months.  Of the top-10 posts in that period, I have one, two are index pages (the main page index.html and the Sept 2009 index page), Phil has two, and the other FIVE are your posts.  Of the top 25, Phil and I each pick up a couple and you wind up with 19 of the top 25 posts.  I didn't want to embarrass myself by going out to the top 50, but let's face it: Phil may have the star power which started our small-pond fame on the internet, and I am good for a few laughs, but without any doubt, the writer who causes people to come back to PyroManiacs for content and substance is you.

You have literally driven millions of page views to this site -- my calculation is over 2 million page views if we include the traffic your Tuesday/Thursdays have drive to this site -- and you have set the tone and character of this blog for most of the readers who come here.  Given the company you keep, that's quite an accomplishment.

I think as a direct consequence of that, you also bear another distinction among the team: you are the only one to have published not one but two books with a real publisher under you own name -- and actually sold copies to real people.  Yes: Phil edits and suits up the major title for Dr. MacArthur and gets an effusive thanks in the credits, but those books are not his books: they are someone else's books.  I can't write more than 3 pages without self-immolating (although 2000+ twitterers are clamoring for a better effort).  You have secured 2 contracts and fulfilled them -- with books that, in spite of some significant failures to engage from people who could have done better, have garnered rave reviews and an excellent reception from the people who have bothered to read them.

On top of that, you work full-time in a secular job with integrity, and you have raised one set of children and are raising your younger children with your beloved wife, Valerie, with gusto.  You are not only a hard-working man, but also an earnest man with deep conviction and love that anyone who knows you at all can see.

I am proud to be your friend, and I see you as a role model in so many ways.  I thank you for your service to all of us as you have worked out your faith among us with fear and trembling, and maybe a little bit of the fire and hammer as well.

So, to the point: this is an open letter.  There must be something wrong with you -- let's get it over with.

You see all that stuff I have written up above?  Is any of it actually untrue? It's not even really exaggerated in any way, is it?  These are the things which are true about you, and which everyone can see if they have eyes.  With all of them lumped together in one place, take a good look at them.  Lay hold of them.  And for pete's sake: will you enjoy them please?

The only thing I have on my list for the open letter, Dan, is that you take this Christmas season and embrace the generous and enviable blessings God has poured out for you, my dear friend, and enjoy them.  They are not the tragic ramp to a high place set up to make you fall greatly: they are God's blessing through which he has used you to affect and encourage and exhort so many people -- far more than could have been reached seriously and effectively by one pulpit -- that you have to see them as the way God has worked so many thugs together for good for you, because He loves you.

My Christmas prayer for you is that you will receive these gifts from God in a way that brings you comfort, and solace, and peace.  I want you to be able to see yourself the way all of us see you, which is as a good man, and our friend, and our good counsel when we are too much the drunken master.

Merry Christmas, my friend: Good tidings of Great joy to you as we consider the great blessings and condescensions God has made toward us and for us.  May all his gifts to you be your guideposts as you enter into the new year and all the new opportunities to serve Him which will certainly come to you.

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Guest post: Jay Adams reviews God's Wisdom in Proverbs

posted by Dan Phillips

For my history vis-a-vis Jay E. Adams, see HERE. His associate Donn Arms is allowing me to preview for you Adams' blurb for publication in a forthcoming issue of The Journal of Modern Ministry. In addition to all I mention in the previous post, this is interesting to me since Adams is himself the author of a commentary on Proverbs. The review is a timely way for me to remind you that today is the deadline for the 50% off sale of God's Wisdom in Proverbs. Go to Kress' page, and you'll see under the picture a code for receiving the discount when you purchase that book.

God's Wisdom in Proverbs
by Dan Phillips
(Kress: 2011)
reviewed by Jay E. Adams

This is a different sort of book. Obviously, the writer has done a lot of preparation before he wrote—It shows throughout the volume. Again, and again, he makes the point (rightly) that we don’t get direction from God in any other way than through the divinely-inspired book, the Bible. Good! Good! Good!

The book considers the purpose of Proverbs, what proverbs are. How they may (should ) be used, etc. You will learn much about Proverbs, in general. Very few verses are considered out of a book as large as Proverbs, but from those that are, you learn how to go about understanding and using the book.

There is a large section on the home and marriage/parental relationships as set forth in proverbs (a major reason for Book).

There is much help in this work—it is useful for preachers and laymen alike (the latter need not be afraid—get it and use it). Indeed, the Book would be a good group study guide. I cannot commend it for such purposes highly enough!

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Thanks, Dr. Adams, and God continue to bless and use you in His service.

Remember: today is the last day to get the 50% off. Christmas is coming. Counselors, pastors, teachers, friends of all sorts would find use for the material in the book. Find out more for yourself in this post.

Perhaps some of you who've been reading it can add your thoughts to Dr. Adams'.

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Two new World-Tilting Gospel projects, and a thank-you

by Dan Phillips

Howdy, gang. You'll recall we had fun picking the cover for the (then-future) book; now, I'm soliciting your input and help (respectively) for two more projects related to The World-Tilting Gospel. First...

Study Guide
(or: Help Me Help You)

A number of you have commented and emailed and Tweeted, asking for a Study Guide for The World-Tilting Gospel. You asked, so you shall receive, DV: I plan to get to work on one.

Since I want to meet your needs the best I can, I'm soliciting your input. So tell me, you who want a Study Guide for TWTG, any and all of the following:

1. What features are you most looking for?
2. What are examples of the best study guides you've used? What makes them great?
3. What are examples of the worst study guides you've used? (No need to name them, I'm not wanting to rip on anyone.) What causeth them to stinketh?
4. How do you plan to use it?
5. Do you prefer a book with blank lines, blank spaces, or neither (i.e. just write in a separate book)?
6. The World-Tilting Gospel is being read with profit by folks literally from eight to eighty-eight, from all levels of education. That being the case, it is conceivable (but not guaranteed) that I might prepare different study guides for different groups. Would you make any particular use of any particular focus?

Web page

Now here, I just need a straight-out volunteer. I'm looking to produce a page to continue to expand visibility. The more you bring to this, the more better. If you've done book pages, can host, are ready to go — hey, if I don't ask, you won't know that I'm looking for it.

I expect it will feature links to reviews, endorsements, excerpts, and contact information for conferences or guest preaching.

You probably don't want to broadcast your willingness, so please just email me: filops, then @, then yahoo.com. Tell me what you propose, and maybe link to some of your previous work.

And finally, at no extra cost:

Thank you!

Every bit of feedback I've received from folks who don't already have issues with the Gospel has been positive, humbling, encouraging. You see in this book an accessible celebration of the glorious Gospel of Christ in its components, its sweep, and its implications. You've said that it's understandable, without any dumbing-down. You want to see pastors and churches use it, you want to see your friends and family read it.

Your encouragement means more to me than I can express. Thank you.

Many of you wish you had larger platforms so that you could tell others about the book, and you wonder why those who do have such platforms — and who love the Gospel and want to see it better-grasped, better-understood, better-lived and better-preached — haven't done so yet. But you are doing what you can do, and that means everything to me. Keep it up.

You've used your blogs, your Twitter account; you've bought copies for friends, pastors, teachers, relatives. A pastor bought a box of a hundred copies to give to every family in his church, present and future. Others are using it for studies, or planning to do so. A father was reading through it with his teenage son; another reader's eighty-eight year old mother is reading it, and re-reading it.

All this, and the book's only been out for about four months!

You who've written and encouraged me live in America, Canada, England, Honduras, Scotland, Australia, South Africa... and I apologize if I've forgotten anyone! The book has endorsements from PhD's like Lig Duncan, Jim Hamilton, Rob Plummer... and it's been reviewed by an eight-year-old! Those reading and reviewing and recommending include sisters here, sisters there, sisters somewhere, brothers who are pastors, brothers who aren't, Jay Adams — all sorts.

It's amazing and humbling to me and again, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you.

God grant that others see what you see, or that they listen to you when you tell them; may God use this book to His glory, to lift up Christ's name, to edify His church, and to make His Gospel clear and compelling to those He whose world He has yet to tilt.
Thanks! Fun times!

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Winning People and Conquering Them Are Opposite Goals

Spurgeon explains rule one of missional ministry
Your weekly dose of Spurgeon
posted by Phil Johnson

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from The Spurgeon Archive. The Following excerpt is from a sermon titled "Independence of Christianity," preached on Sunday morning, 31 august 1857, at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens."

ur missionaries and our clergymen have assumed a kind of superiority and dignity over the people; they have called themselves clergy, and the people laity; and the result has been that they have weakened their influence.

I have thought it right to come amongst my fellow men, and be a man amongst men, just one of themselves, their equal and their friend; and they have rallied around me, and not refused to love me. And I should not expect to be successful in preaching the gospel, unless I might stand and feel that I am a brother, bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh. If I cannot stand before them thus, I cannot get at their hearts.

Send me, then, to India as one of the dominant ruling race, and you give me a work I cannot accomplish when you tell me to evangelise its inhabitants. . .

I had rather go to preach to the greatest savages that live, than I would go to preach in the place that is under British rule. Not for the fault of Britain, but simply because I, as a Briton, would be looked upon as one of the superiors, one of the lords, and that would take away much of my power to do good. Now, will you just cast your eye upon the wide world? Did you ever hear of a nation under British rule being converted to God? Mr. Moffat and our great friend Dr. Livingstone have been laboring in Africa with great success, and many have been converted. Did you ever hear of Kaffir tribes protected by England, ever being converted?

It is only a people that have been left to themselves, and preached to by men as men, that have been brought to God. For my part, I conceive, that when an enterprise begins in martyrdom, it is none the less likely to succeed, but when conquerors begin to preach the gospel to those they have conquered, it will not succeed, God will teach us that it is not by might.

All swords that have ever flashed from scabbards have not aided Christ a single grain.

Mahommedans' religion might be sustained by scimitars, but Christians' religion must be sustained by love. The great crime of war can never promote the religion of peace. The battle, and the garment rolled in blood, are not a fitting prelude to "peace on earth, goodwill to men." And I do firmly hold, that the slaughter of men, that bayonets, and swords, and guns, have never yet been, and never can be, promoters of the gospel. The gospel will proceed without them, but never through them.

"Not by might." Now don't be be fooled again, if you hear of the English conquering in China, don't go down on your knees and thank God for it, and say it's such a heavenly thing for the spread of the gospel—it just is not.

Experience teaches you that, and if you look upon the map you will find I have stated only the truth, that where our arms have been victorious, the gospel has been hindered rather than not; so that where South Sea Islanders have bowed their knees and cast their idols to the bats, British Hindoos have kept their idols, and where Bechuanas and Bushmen have turned unto the Lord, British Affairs have not been converted, not perhaps because they were British, but because the very fact of the missionary being a Briton, put him above them, and weakened their influence.

Hush thy trump, O war; put away thy gaudy trappings and thy bloodstained drapery, if thou thinkest that the cannon with the cross upon it is really sanctified, and if thou imaginest that thy banner hath become holy, thou dreamest of a lie.

God wanteth not thee to help his cause. "It is not by armies, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord."

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Truly Thankful That It's Friday

With Three Reading Recommendations
by Phil Johnson



t's the day after Thanksgiving, and it would be gauche to complain on such a day, so let me just say that one of the things I'm most thankful for is that this week is finally nearing an end.

Here's the short version, without whining: Tuesday, after being socked with a $2,000 car repair and an expensive root canal for Darlene, I came home to discover water under the kitchen sink. The garbage disposal was leaking. While fixing it, the plumber discovered arterial occlusions in the drain line, and tracing that problem to its source, he found a major obstruction under my front lawn, just this side of the street, where (of course) it's my job to fund the repair. That turned out to cost more than the car repair and root canal combined, and it meant plumbers were running in and out of the house until about 3:00pm on Thanksgiving Day. I'm sure it wasn't exactly a great holiday for those plumbers, either (except for the extra pay, of course)—so I'm truly not complaining.

But I do hope disaster is through with me for the week, because first thing this morning, I'm leaving with nine other members of my family for a week in England.

It sounded like a good idea when we planned it. I have to be in England next week for a board meeting. Last spring I commented on how lovely England is around Christmastime and how nice it would be to be there with the whole fam. Someone overheard me, and they all decided to come along. It should be fun—but then Thanksgiving Day should be fun, and look where that got us.

And as we all know, things don't typically go well when I travel.

Anyway, regardless of how it all turns out, I'm sure it'll be one of those memories we all treasure and talk about for years to come. I am thankful—truly and deeply thankful for countless blessings, including the abiliy to travel at all.

I'm taking a couple of books to read on the way. Both of these are written by people I count as friends. One is Knox's Irregulars, by J. Wesley Bush, erstwhile blogger and international man of mystery. When I started blogging in 1995, Bush was already famous as a blogger. He wrote his blog, Le Sabot Post-Moderne, from Ukraine, where he live-blogged the "Orange Revolution." We knew him then simply as "Discoshaman."

Now he's written this fantasy science fiction novel which, I'm told, is full of Calvinistic easter eggs. I'm not usually a fiction reader, but I've read enough of the Discoshaman to know I'd better prepare myself to be entertained, amused, and amazed.

Incidentally, Mrs. Discoshaman is a celebrity blogger in her own right: Tulip Girl. Thanks to her for sending me this copy of Knox Irregulars—from Nairobi, of all places. That's where the Bushes currently reside.

My other reading selection on this trip is God Without Parts, by my friend James Dolezal. He's a Research Fellow at the Craig Center for the Study of the Westminster Standards at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He and I share several common interests, one of which is a fascination with certain disputed points of theology proper—especially classic attributes such as aseity, impassibility, and the simplicity of God.

I've thumbed through the book. Every page I scanned intrigued me. Can't wait to read it.

In the meantime, HERE's something you can read right now by yet another friend of mine. It's a book review of Miraslov Volf's disturbing screed titled Allah: A Christian Response. The review is by Paul Dan, who has ministered in Eastern Europe and has firsthand knowledge of recent (and historic) developments in Islamic-Christian relations there.

Read Paul's blogpost and the attachments. What Paul Dan is describing is the tip of a very lage iceberg, I fear. I expect it won't be long before secular media, the political climate, evangelical ecumenists, religious intellectuals, and academic pundits like Miroslav Volf and Phillip Jenkins drum up some kind of public-relations campaign to pressure conservative evangelicals to accept "Chrislam"—or something in that vein—as a legitimate form of Christian discipleship. In reality, Christian-Islamic syncretism represents a fatal capitulation to Islamic aggression. But it's already a growing trend, and one that certainly bears watching.

I'll be in touch, Lord willing.

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Every reason to be thankful, regardless

by Dan Phillips

The pastor who started my own pastoral training was a mixed bag, doctrinally. But one of the two best and most memorable principles he ingrained on us stands out to me still, nearly forty years later; and it may be personally very relevant to some of our readers today.

This was the early seventies, and Vietnam still raged. Here's a paraphrase of what my pastor said:

If the Gospel you preach could not equally be preached in the trenches of Vietnam and in the dining rooms of Beverly Hills, it isn't the Gospel.

This simple (and true) principle smashes prosperity "gospel" heresies and "contextualized" perversions, and gets us down to the raw, timeless, transcultural dyamism of what Paul says is God's power resulting in salvation for every believer in every culture at every time.

I'll leap to make application for our day, on this day of Thanksgiving.

It is impossible not to think of Americans (or non's) who view our day of Thanksgiving with bitterness. "Yeah, right; easy to say thanks if you're employed, healthy, young, popular, happily married, in a growing and united church, borne on the shoulders of grateful, godly, loving children. And then there's me."

To that person, I'd just say: if you have Jesus Christ, you have reason to overflow with thanks, regardless of your situation.

I don't say this as a theoretician, though I'll not take you with me into the sloughs I've rented over the years. It's an ongoing lesson. So let me just turn to a better, a familiar friend to us all, Charles Spurgeon. One of the greatest, pithiest, truest, most encouraging little points he ever made was a meditation on Jeremiah 31:33 — "For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people."

Spurgeon wrote this:

Christian! here is all thou canst require. To make thee happy thou wantest something that shall satisfy thee; and is not this enough? If thou canst pour this promise into thy cup, wilt thou not say, with David, “My cup runneth over; I have more than heart can wish”? When this is fulfilled, “I am thy God”, art thou not possessor of all things? Desire is insatiable as death, but he who filleth all in all can fill it. The capacity of our wishes who can measure? But the immeasurable wealth of God can more than overflow it. I ask thee if thou art not complete when God is thine? Dost thou want anything but God? Is not his all-sufficiency enough to satisfy thee if all else should fail? But thou wantest more than quiet satisfaction; thou desirest rapturous delight. Come, soul, here is music fit for heaven in this thy portion, for God is the Maker of Heaven. Not all the music blown from sweet instruments, or drawn from living strings, can yield such melody as this sweet promise, “I will be their God.” Here is a deep sea of bliss, a shoreless ocean of delight; come, bathe thy spirit in it; swim an age, and thou shalt find no shore; dive throughout eternity, and thou shalt find no bottom. “I will be their God.” If this do not make thine eyes sparkle, and thy heart beat high with bliss, then assuredly thy soul is not in a healthy state. But thou wantest more than present delights—thou cravest something concerning which thou mayest exercise hope; and what more canst thou hope for than the fulfilment of this great promise, “I will be their God”? This is the masterpiece of all the promises; its enjoyment makes a heaven below, and will make a heaven above. Dwell in the light of thy Lord, and let thy soul be always ravished with his love. Get out the marrow and fatness which this portion yields thee. Live up to thy privileges, and rejoice with unspeakable joy.

There it is: "I will be their God" is "the masterpiece of all the promises; its enjoyment makes a heaven below, and will make a heaven above."

Think about it, Biblically. Make yourself, if your feelings aren't "there." Pray for God to help you think about it. What is the lot — the long-term lot — of the person who has everything but that promise to call his own? Family, friends, health, wealth... but God is not his God?

Then think: What is the lot — the long-term lot — of the person who has nothing but that promise to call his own? Little material good... God is his God?

We've worked at unfolding the treasures in that depository over the course of many posts; and we will do so, Lord willing, in many more. But that is it: if you have God as your God, through saving faith in Jesus Christ, then you have reason today for joy and gratitude. Though they matter, this central truth is true no matter how hard, happy, or non-existent your marriage; how thriving or struggling your church; how grateful or treacherous your children; how abundant or feeble your health; how many or few the candles on your birthday-cake.

Wherever you are, whatever your lot, look to Christ your Savior, Christ your Lord, and thank Him today.

You have reason, Christian friend.

I know this for a fact.

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Ouch; a negative review of God's Wisdom in Proverbs

by Dan Phillips

While y'all are waiting for a later post (percolating in my brainium even as we speak), here's something to chew over.

Life has kept our frequent commenter Rachael Starke from blogging for awhile, but she's back. Boy, is she.

Rachael just posted a completely negative review of God's Wisdom in Proverbs. You might check it out. Later, God willing, if I can recover enough strength to face the world again, I'll bump myself with another post.

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Open Letter to First-Time Turkey Cookers

by Frank Turk

Dear Readers & First-Time turkey roasters:


You do not have to be "truly reformed" to use this recipe. You just have to like Turkey and stuffing.

Roasting a turkey isn't as hard as it sounds. I have made it my holiday tradition to share this recipe, and if you read this today you still have time to make it for tomorrow prior to any football and just in time to slow-roast while you watch the Macy's Day parade. In this case, the turkey is stuffed. DO NOT stuff the turkey and put it in the fridge overnight: that's bacteriologically a bad idea, and we want you all to enjoy Thanksgiving on the sofa, not on a hospital gurney.

It should also be known that the Johnson Household cannot abide Turkey on TG, so we'll extend them grace to abstain, but the rest of you have no excuse now for abstaining from the traditional vittles.

Ingredients:

12- to 14-lb. turkey, thawed if purchased frozen
1 bag, your favorite "Italian" croutons
2-4 bouillon cubes
2-3 stalks, celery, chopper or cubed
1 cup carrots, chopped
½ cup onions, finely chopped
1 tsp, dried parsley
1 cup, cashews (Mrs. Cent prefers walnuts; use the nut you enjoy most)
Pepper and Garlic Salt

STEPS:

1. Preheat your oven to 325. Remove the cooking racks, then place one rack into oven at the lowest position.
   
   
2. Unwrap your THAWED Turkey in a clean sink, and remove the giblets – that bag of stuff that you never thought you would use for anything because it looks gross. It's not gross. You may have to unhook the metal clip which holds the legs together in order to get all the giblets out; you may have to run some warm water into the bird to get the giblets out. Don't be afraid.
   
   
3. Start a medium-sized pot of water boiling – not more than 3 cups. Put your packet of giblets in the water (sans wrapping paper), along with your bouillon cubes and the onions, carrots, celery and parlsey. (FWIW, the leafy parts of the celery are great for this recipe, so don;t get squeemish) 2 boullion cubes will make a somewhat-mild flavored stuffing; 6 will make a very salty and spicy stuffing. You know what you like best, so add the cubes to the low end of your tolerance for spicy. For your reference, I usually use 4 cubes. Boil this mix for about 30 minutes – long enough to cook the giblets thoroughly.
   
   
4. While the soup (yes: you very smart readers knew that we were making soup, didn't you?) is cooking, wash the Turkey thoroughly, inside and out. I wouldn't use soap as you might miss a spot in the rinse and ruin your hours of hard work here, but washing the bird is an important health safety tip. If we were deep frying the bird (that's the Christmas recipe), washing is pretty much unimportant because if some germ can survive the deep fryer, it will kill you before you eat any of the dinner. Anyway, clean the bird thoroughly and put it in a large roasting pan. For this recipe, the deeper the roasting pan, the better. I suggest a large disposable roasting pan from WAL*MART.
   
   If you get bored waiting for the soup to finish up, this would be a good time to rub salt and pepper into the skin of your bird. Visually, salt and pepper the skin so that it looks like very light TV static. Do the top (the breast side) and the bottom (where the shoulders are); do not worry if you put less on the breast side. Because of the way this bird is going to cook, pay special attention to salting and peppering the wings and drumsticks.
   
   
5. You now have a clean, prepped bird and a very delicious-smelling pot of soup. You have to make stuffing now. Remove the soup from the heat and remove the giblets. If you are a complete carnivore (like me), take the fully-cooked giblets to your food chopper and chop them up and put them back into the soup (you can't chop up the neck, but if you have 20 minutes, de-bone the neck and put your neck meat into the soup).
   
   Those of you grossed out by chopping up the giblets can throw them away. The rest of us will weep for you.
   
   Now empty the bag of croutons into the soup. If you used about 2 cups of water, you will get a somewhat-damp bread-and-soup mixture; if you used about 3 cups of water, you will get a very wet bread-and-soup mixture. I like the latter better, but some people like their stuffing more dry than others. The extraordinary secret here is that a soupier stuffing makes for a more-moist bird in the final product. After the soup and the bread are well- mixed, add the cashews and mix again.
   
   
6. When you have this mixing complete, use a tablespoon and start loading the stuffing into the bird. Pack the stuffing down into the bird to get the cavity of the body completely full of stuffing. Don't leave any air pockets. Once the Turkey is completely stuffed, position it in the roasting tray breast-side down (I learned that from watching Emeril) in the center of the pan, and load the pan with the rest of your stuffing mix.
   
   
7. Cover the Turkey, and place it inside your oven. After 2 hours in the heat, remove the cover and roast for another hour. In this final hour, the skin of the exposed parts should turn golden brown. At the end of the third hour, test the bird with a meat thermometer; the center temperature should be 175-180 degrees F. It will be the most unbelievable bird you ever ate.

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Proverbs 21:3 — true and false dichotomies (excerpt from God's Wisdom in Proverbs)

by Dan Phillips

In God's Wisdom in Proverbs (still available for 50% off, but not for long), I develop the nature of proverbs at some length, providing what I see as important tools for reading and understanding them. One of the insights that has been immensely helpful to me, and which I unfold at length in pp. 23ff., is the compressed nature of proverbs. I define a proverb as "truth dressed to travel. It is wisdom compressed, compacted, stripped down to its essentials, and ready to go" (24). Specifically, while some proverbs are ideas squeezed down to their memorable essentials, it is valid to see in others a full story summarized in a pithy proverb. We are immensely helped in detecting such proverbs if we accept the canonical ascriptions of authorship, a point I develop briefly in pp. 2-5, and then at great length in Appendix Two (pp. 317-336). This excerpt focuses on Prov. 21:3, which I categorize as an evaluation proverb (explained on pp. 30-31), and comes from pp. 152-153. It begins with my ad hoc translation of the verse, marked as DJP in the book.

Proverbs 21:3—

To do righteousness and justice
is chosen by Yahweh above sacrifice. (DJP)

This proverb may be another example of a narrative being condensed into two lines. Specifically, it could also be a compression of 1 Samuel 15:22–23 into six little Hebrew words.

Clearly, Yahweh is not saying that He utterly negates sacrifice. He is the one who created the sacrificial system of Israel. This verse is not a denigration of sacrifices offered in believing obedience.

The principle behind this proverb should be easy for parents to understand. We always teach our children that they should apologize when they break or spill something, or if they wrong someone. If we are responsible, we also teach our children that it is better still to be more careful and wise, so as not to have to apologize in the first place. In fact, you might say, “To be wise and careful is chosen by parents above apologies.”

This verse, I think, says the same thing: God does not want people who heedlessly do wrong and blithely commit injustice, because they know they can just pop by the Temple later and slice a lamb. Rather, God wants people who so believe in and love Him that they obey Him, and “do righteousness and justice.”

Therefore, a godly walk is one part of acceptable worship to God.

[End excerpt]

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To expand on that a little, I have heard this same idea expressed by Christians in many false dichotomies. For instance:

• It is more important to be loving than to be orthodox
• It is more important to be loving than to be truthful
• It is more important to care about people than to care about ideas
• It is better to walk with Christ than to attend church
• It better to be kind than to be right
• It is better to live the Gospel than to tell it
• Etc. ad infinitum et ad taedium

On the surface, who could argue with any of these statements? The problem is that, unfortunately, they are usually used to evil ends, and they're diabolically clever. Disagree with any of them, and you seem to be arguing against love, practical Christian living, caring, kindness, Gospel living, Mom, puppies and everything wonderful. Who wants to do (or be accused of) any of that?

However, what all of these statements have in common is that, if pressed, they form false dichotomies.

Going back to Proverbs 21:3, liberals in years past have taken such statements in Proverbs and in the prophets as indicating an anti-Temple faction. One can only get there, however, if one rejects the canonical ascriptions of authorship, which requires (at least de facto) rejection of the inerrancy and authority of the text.

Accept the authority of the text, and we go in another direction: the intent is to help readers/hearers evaluate and identify what most matters to God. One knows at the outset that God cannot be saying "Don't do sacrifice," because it was He who enjoined sacrifice in the first place. Likewise, no Bible-believer can imagine that God wants us to reject the teaching of His word in doctrine and theology, or to disdain wrestling intensely for the faith or casting down ideas that oppose themselves to the knowledge of Christ, or refuse to attend church — because it is God Himself who commands that we do such things; and, if we believe Him, we do them, to the best of our ability.

Perhaps we can understand Solomon's wording and thought better if we can get a better idea of the soil from which this proverb was brought, by God's Spirit. What lay behind the composition of this particular proverb? Did Solomon have in mind the narrative of Saul, who disobeyed God, then tried to smear the whole over with a gaudy religious act of sacrifice (1 Samuel 15)? Very possibly.

If so, then Solomon is saying to us what God told Saul through Samuel (1 Sam. 15:22-23):

And Samuel said, "Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.  For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has also rejected you from being king."

...only he said it in a single, pointed, pithy proverb.

Wisdom, and its balances, is hard.

Guess that's why there's a whole book in the Canon devoted to it, and to grounding it in the fear of Yahweh.

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