Triumph in disguise

by Dan Phillips

Our church has an annual Sunrise Service, 6:30a.m. the morning of Resurrection Day. We meet out front under a massive oak tree. We always have a decent turnout, though I'm a bit bewildered each year to see a lot of people who don't usually attend our church turn up for the Sunrise Service, then not return for the full morning service.

At any rate, it features a briefer message, shouted to be heard over the traffic, not recorded. This is a post-ized version of this year's Sunrise Service.

Let's suppose a person who hasn't read the Bible, and doesn't much know what’s in it. That isn't so hard to imagine, these days, is it? (Some of you are saying "Yeah, in fact I know a pastor like that." Behave.)

So let's say this Biblically-untaught person was told that God would send His Son to solve the dilemma of our planet — what kind of scenario might he come up with? What script might he write? It isn't too hard to imagine, I think.

Our Script

The Elements In Our Script.  It's easy to envision three scenarios:

Scenario One: In this version, God the Son assumes a Christophany, a temporary appearance in human form. He rides down to earth in a chariot of fire, conquers all the sinners, and sets up His kingdom. And there we have our happy ending!

Scenario Two: Perhaps our tale-weaver is aware of Christmas, so in the second version, God the Son indeed takes on human flesh, and is born...into the family of a wealthy, influential nobleman. It's one of the leading families in Israel, so He grows, winning partisans from the nation, amassing a huge following made up of Jews and Gentiles alike.

Then, when He reaches manhood, He declares Himself King, smashes Rome, conquers all the sinners and sets up His kingdom. And there we have our happy ending!

Scenario Three: In this telling, God the Son doesn’t go anywhere. Why should He? He’s God the Son! He doesn’t have to leave His throne to get this done!

So, from His throne in Heaven, the Son of God simply exercises His power, conquers all the sinners and sets up His kingdom. And there, once again, we have our happy ending!

The Results Of Our Script. Now that you've read those all over, can you pick out the one recurring phrase in all three scenarios that poses just one itty-bitty problem for us, for you and for me?

It’s where I said, each time, “…conquers all the sinners and sets up His kingdom”

So here's the problem: How many of us are sinners? Correct: 100%.

We know that sin is a big deal to our holy, righteous God. So if we're going to avoid being conquered, we have to do something about our sin. What can we do? Repent? Lovely thought, but it won't do anything about past sin. If I owe you $500000, then say I'm sorry, I still owe you $500000. 

So how about if I become perfectly righteous and never sin again? That won't work, since that is what I was supposed to be all along.

Shall I offer a lamb or an ox? Can the blood of bulls and goats take away sin? No.

What this means, then, is this:

• Who would He have had to “conquer,” to set up His kingdom? Everyone. You. Me. All of us.
• Who would be left to populate His kingdom? No one. Not me. Not you. None of us.

Now we're ready better to appreciate, by contrast...

God’s Script (Philippians 2:5-11)

This script unfolds in two grand movements.

Christ Humbled Himself (vv. 5-8). So far from riding in as conquering King, Christ lowered Himself to a virtually unimaginable degree, and that in two ways:

By incarnation (vv. 5-7).

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ⁶ who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷ but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

Incarnation was not a promotion for the Logos. It was a step down of infinite degree. But that isn't the full extent of it.

By crucifixion (v. 8).

And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

He died a death of such obscenity that Roman citizens wouldn't mention it in polite company, a death experienced only by the lowest, most contemptible dregs. A Roman would no more wear a cross around his neck than we would wear an aborted fetus or some other obscenity around ours.

Yet this is what He did, because this was the only way to deal with the sin problem. [I developed this theme much more fully in the morning service, a sermon titled Easter Certainties.]

God Exalted Christ (vv. 9-11). 

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

As a consequence of His death on the Cross, Jesus Christ won the right to give repentance and saving faith to His people, to give forgiveness of sins, and to grant eternal life. And because of the suffering of death, He will indeed will rule and reign.

And the only reason the God-man can do that is because of the DISASTER of the Cross! It is as Herbert Schlossberg said: “The Bible can be interpreted as a string of God’s triumphs disguised as disasters” (Herbert Schlossberg, Idols for Destruction, p. 304, quoted by Doug Wilson).

The greatest disaster in all of history was the crucifixion of Jesus. And yet, that greatest disaster is the key and foundation to the ultimate victory! That is God's scenario.

So what happened on Good Friday was God’s plan, what happened on holy Saturday was God’s plan, and what happened on Resurrection Sunday was God’s plan. We serve a crucified, buried, and risen Savior.  And because He is all that, we are citizens of His coming kingdom.

All because of Jesus' triumph in disguise.

---

Risen indeed!

Your weekly Dose of Spurgeon

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from the lifetime of works from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  The following excerpt is from The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, volume 19, sermon number 1,106, "The Lord is risen indeed."

"Is it not true that a clearer understanding of the rising again of our Lord is, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the very surest means of bringing our minds into peace?"

When he rose he did not bring away the costly aromatics in which his body had been wrapped, but he left them there. Joseph brought about one hundred pounds weight of myrrh and aloes, and the odour remaineth still. In the sweetest spiritual sense, our Lord Jesus has filled the grave with fragrance. It no longer smells of corruption and foul decay, but we can sing with the poet of the sanctuary—

“Why should we tremble to convey 

These bodies to the tomb? 

There the dear flesh of Jesus lay, 

And left a long perfume.” 

Yonder lowly bed in the earth is now perfumed with costly spices and decked with sweet flowers, for on its pillow the truest Friend we have once laid his holy head. We will not start back with horror from the chambers of the dead, for the Lord himself has traversed them, and where he goes, no terror abides.

The Master also left his grave clothes behind him. He did not come from the tomb wrapped about with a winding-sheet; he did not wear the cerements of the tomb as the habiliments of life, but when Peter went into the sepulchre he saw the grave-clothes lying carefully folded by themselves.

What if I say he left them to be the hangings of the royal bed-chamber wherein his saints fall asleep? See how he has curtained our last bed! Our dormitory is no longer bare and drear, like a prison cell, but hung around with fair white linen and comely arras—a chamber fit for the repose of princes of the blood!

We will go to our last bed-chamber in peace, because Christ has furnished it for us. Or if we change the metaphor, I may say that our Lord has left those grave-clothes for us to look upon as pledges of his fellowship with us in our low estate, and reminders that as he has cast aside the death garments, even so shall we.

 He has risen from his couch and left his sleeping robes behind him, in token that at our waking there are other vestures ready for us also. What if I again change the figure, and say that as we have seen old tattered flags hung up in cathedrals and other national buildings, as the memorials of defeated enemies and victories won, so in the crypt where Jesus vanquished death his grave clothes are hung up as the trophies of his victory over death, and as assurances to us that all his people shall be more than conquerors through him that hath loved them.

“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”

---

Game of Thorns

by Dan Phillips

Tales of kings and kingdoms, real and fictional, characteristically feature intrigue, factions, strategy, and a lot of fighting. This is what makes for exciting reading and viewing: earnest pledges of fealty, intricate plots, the thrilling flash and clash of swords, and rivers of blood.

Can you imagine instead the tale of a king who wins his kingdom, not buoyed by his supporters' surging numbers, but abandoned by them all? Whose erstwhile subjects do not greet him, but rather scorn, reject, and betray him? Who wins his throne and his kingdom at the cost of death and bloodshed, indeed — but his own death, his own blood, not that of his foes?

A king who wins this sovereignty, marked not by a diadem of gold and jewels, but by a crown of thorns?

It is a story unlike all non-derivative yarns and movies, but it is the tale of our Sovereign. Jesus Christ's path to the sovereign rule of the universe (Eph. 1:10; Phil. 2:9-11; Hebrews 1:2) followed a plan made in eternity past (Eph. 1:9-11; 3:11), a plan leading to the throne directly and necessarily through the Cross (Matt. 26:39; Heb. 12:1-2).

The future of the entire universe, and the issue of who will rule it, will not ultimately involve a game of thrones, but a crown of thorns.

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The World likes "Jesus"

by Dan Phillips

From 2006 to 2012, PyroManiacs turned out almost-daily updates from the Post-Evangelical wasteland -- usually to the fear and loathing of more-polite and more-irenic bloggers and readers. The results lurk in the archives of this blog in spite of the hope of many that Google will "accidentally" swallow these words and pictures whole.

This feature enters the murky depths of the archives to fish out the classic hits from the golden age of internet drubbings.

The following excerpt was written by Dan back in December 2007. Dan reminded us that the world can't like (much less love) the real Jesus.

As usual, the comments are closed.

Why does the world hate Jesus? Note, Jesus does use the strong word, "Hate." The world itself might not use that word. They might call Jesus "Good Teacher" (Mark 10:17), or flatter Him for His uncompromising stands (Matthew 22:16). But Jesus — perhaps doing the very thing for which the world hates Him — lays open their heart. Underneath all the unctuous language, the poses and the self-delusion, He finds not love nor admiration, but hatred.

And why? Because He rejects and exposes its view of itself. The world sees itself as better than God: smarter, wiser, morally and intellectually His superior. Jesus does not. The world sees itself as engaged in a fine and noble endeavor, headed towards a glorious future. Jesus sees it as a flowing sewer headed for irremediable disaster, treacherous and without excuse. The world sees itself as a great place to be, spiritually and in every other way. Jesus sees the only good thing about the world as being rescued from it (John 15:18-19) and kept from its influences while still physically (not spiritually) in it (John 17:14-16).

Jesus makes the world feel really bad about itself qua world, and He makes it look bad. And it hates Him for it.

So why does virtually every worldling speak so highly of Jesus? Jesus says they hate Him; the world says it loves Him.

Simple. They're lying. (Hel-lo? They're the world! Their whole foundation is a lie: "You shall be as God"! Buy into that lie, and everything else is easy.)

Now, worldlings don't think they're lying, and here's how they work that out. You could make it a recipe:

1. Take one "Jesus"
2. Subtract (or ignore) all the nasty bits that you hate
3. Inject all the lovely notions you admire
4. Shake periodically
5. Serve with a sauce of deep (albeit groundless) assurance

In that recipe, the quotation-marks are essential. As with "God," the world simply uses "Jesus" as a verbal unit. They take the Humpty-Dumpty approach to etymology:

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

So when the world says "Jesus" in admiring tones, perhaps with a fond tear in its eye, it means "Someone who makes me feel great about being me, just as I am, and empowers me to achieve my own goals."

It means "Jesus." Not the real, un-tame, dangerous, edgy Jesus of the whole Bible.

Before the Lord saved me, I was the same way. I was a cultist, and I liked "Jesus." I just knew that Christians had Him all wrong. He believed that God was in everyone without exception, and that I should have everything I wanted — just like I did! And so does just about every cult, ism, sect, and anti-Christian philosophy. Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Moslems, New Agers — they all like "Jesus." It's nice to have "Jesus" on your bandwagon, rooting for you and cheering for you. "Jesus" — who is (or is not) Lucifer's spirit-brother, the archangel Michael, a prophet of Allah, functional second-fiddle to other personages and rituals and institutions, an ascended mystic master.... "Jesus." They like that guy a lot.

Insofar as I am true to my profession to be a Jesus-believer, a student (and subject) of Jesus', I will not be in-step with the world at a number of specific points. Indeed I will be totally out-of-step with it at its very foundation. I should not only consider it possible that it will dislike me and find my core beliefs absurd, I should expect it (John 15:18-19; 1 John 3:13). The world's way of looking at itself and God and things should be totally different than my way, if I am true to Jesus, whom (if He is to believed) it hates.

So there it is.

1. The world likes "Jesus"
2. The world hates Jesus

If I presented a "Jesus" whom the world did like — without its being drawn to Him in genuine repentance and reverent love — I would be deeply concerned that I was presenting "another Jesus." Because it certainly would be "another Jesus" than the Jesus who said, in so many words, that the world hates Him.

When we as Christians lose sight of this, we serve neither it nor Him.

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Open Letter to Bryan Storkel

by Frank Turk

Greetings all -- I got an e-mail about 2 weeks ago from some folks promoting a movie and the PBS series Independent Lens.  I watched the final product on Vimeo as part of the advance PR for this movie, and I liked it.  Because one of the producers of the movie has taken a beating from me in the past here at TeamPyro, I thought I would take a hiatus from hiatus to post this open letter/review.

Dear Bryan --

I hope this Open Letter finds you well -- long time no see.  The last time you and I crossed paths was when you released your documentary Fight Church, and you were rather put out that I refused to review it.  I was surprised by that because after I reviewed Holy Rollers, I figured that you would not want someone like me talking about your hard work.  However, you have produced a new movie which will debut on PBS next week called Little Hope was Arson, and I wanted to say a few words about it and your trajectory as a producer of indie films.



If we have to choose between the movie about the misguided scammers who thought that Jesus would endorse scamming casinos, the movie about misguided fundamentalists who think fighting is a way to teach men about the Gospel, and Little Hope is Arson, we should invest our 90 minutes of free time in this movie.  This movie is not hardly flawless, but it is at least an honest treatment of the simple faith of common Christians.

So what constitutes an "honest" treatment of a subject in a documentary?  I think some people would say that "honesty" would be when the documentarian lets the subject speak for himself -- so for example, an "honest" documentary about the kid who shot up Sandy Hook Elementary would be a movie which paints the events as that troubled kid saw them.  The problem with that approach I think is obvious: nobody really thinks they are the bad guy in their own story.  Whatever a documentarian might find out about what Adam Lanza and his motives in his crimes, his view of it would somehow paint what he did as justifiable, and that point of view would be so idiosyncratic that it could not be honest.  It would be entirely subjective.

Another approach might be to tell us only what "experts" think about the subject.  So for example, having FBI profilers and mental health professionals talk about whatever the documentarian has uncovered about Lanza might be seen as a way to get an "honest" treatment of what happened.  Some people might actually say that this would be a way to get at truth in this case because those talking about it are in fact kinds of scientists.  Because Science is seen by some as the final arbiter of what is true, they would equate this with honesty.

When I call your movie "an honest treatment," I don't mean either of these things.  What I mean is that (as I see it) this is your best effort to date as you seek to demonstrate your own integrity through the telling of a real-life drama.  Your treatment of those involved in this movie is, without a doubt, an attempt to really tell us who these people are whether or not they are admirable.  That's a big improvement over Holy Rollers, for example, where the story  is so one-sided that (as I wrote back then) it finally looks like a marketing piece for the card-counting school established by the principle people in the story at the end of the movie.  Here there is more than one perspective, more than one approach to the events, which brings the viewer to draw his own conclusions about all of the players rather than to wind up being either played by the documentarian to a staged conclusion or left without enough information to care about any conclusion.

Since this review is coming out before the film will get its national showing, I'm going to be a little coy about the details.  I also despise reviews which are effectively book reports about the thing being reviewed.  But there is one category which I think you handled quite well here: theology.  That may seem a little odd given that I think you would admit that you really didn't approach this film with theology in mind.  But here's what you did do: you presented the individuals in this movie as people who are all engaged in a relationship with God, and you portrayed their relationship in progress in the context of an objectively-evil act.  That, in case no one else will say it about this film, is where the rubber meets the road.

What I would love to do is to walk that off with you now through the parents, the pastors, the siblings, and (as we say in the part of christendom) the magistrates who make sense out of God and evil as the story in this movie unwinds -- but that would spoil the entire movie for those reading this review.  For me it is entirely sufficient to say that this time, because of the fundamentally christian questions you asked in this movie, and because you encountered fundamentally Christian people in the journey to make this movie, your film actually arrives at some fundamentally-Christian conclusions.  And for that, I want to thank you.  The very least that this movie should have done was to somehow unpack the statement made all over in it: "the church is not a building."  This movie does that, and it does so elegantly, seriously, and without the mushy romanticism which is the plague of most "Christian" entertainment in the marketplace.

The only solid complaint I want to register here is in the final caption of the movie before the credits:

Now, if I clever up a bit and offer you a huge portion of grace, I think the point of this quote is to say that the churches which were burned in these real events shed a light on some real people who, for the most part, have a real faith in spite of hardship.  But Durutti was a Spanish Anarchist, and when he said this what he meant was that everything about religion has to be destroyed in order for all its oppressive burdens to be cast off.  His meaning and yours in this movie, I think, are not the same.  By no means do I think that you have endorsed the crimes recorded in the film, but Durutti would.  The dissonance there is jarring and was confusing to me as I think it would be for any viewer who knows anything about Durutti and anarchist thought.  Your movie is not about anarchy but about the ways in which real people make sense out of suffering, and it is better than the philosophy of those associated with the burning of churches in pre-Franco Spain.

All that said, thanks for your offer to view and review this film.  It's good to see people working hard to develop a voice and a body of work which is actually saying something worth saying in a way that is worth listening to.

If this is where you are headed in the future, please keep up the good work.  I look forward to seeing more documentaries like this from you about real Christians in real life.

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Repost: The most offensive verse in the Bible

by Dan Phillips

If life is funny, blogging is a laff riot. The oddest thing I've learned about it is that predicting the impact of my posts is — at least for me — completely impossible. More times than I can say, I've posted something that by rights should have created a tsunami response... and then, biff! Nothing. 

Then on the other hand, there are posts like this one. The thought occurred to me as I described, I sat down and dashed it off, and it became our most popular post, ever. It has been reprinted, cited by AIG's Dr. Georgia Purdom, used by Doug Wilson in debating Andrew Sullivan about "gay mirage," and so forth. As I write, it's received 38,716 views. The next runner-up received 29,173.

I'm deeply grateful that folks have found it helpful, but I never would have predicted it.

Today at 2:00pm, Texas time, Janet Mefferd and I will have a chat about the post and its implications. I thought it might help to make this easily available.

In the Sunday School class at CBC we're doing a series called Marriage, the Bible and You. In the second lesson of the series, I brought up the subject of secular talk shows and how they like to try to beat up on Christians of any size, shape, and significance about whatever topic they think is most embarrassing and controversial. Of course, at the moment it's "gay" "marriage," or the topic of homosexuality at all.

In the course of the lesson, I remarked that I think — from the comfortable quiet safety of my study — that I'd take a different approach.

When Piers or Larry or Tavis or Rosie or Ellen or The View or whoever tried probing me about homosexuality, or wifely submission, or any other area where God has spoken (to the world's consternation), I think I'd decline the worm altogether. I think instead, I'd say something like,

"You know, TaPierRosEllRy, when you ask me about X, you're obviously picking a topic that is deeply offensive to non-Christians — but it's far from the most offensive thing I believe. You're just nibbling at the edge of one of the relatively minor leaves on the Tree of Offense. Let me do you a favor, and just take you right down to the root. Let me take you to the most offensive thing I believe.

"The most offensive thing I believe is Genesis 1:1, and everything it implies.

"That is, I believe in a sovereign Creator who is Lord and Definer of all. Everything in the universe — the planet, the laws of physics, the laws of morality, you, me — everything was created by Another, was designed by Another, was given value and definition by Another. God is Creator and Lord, and so He is ultimate. That means we are created and subjects, and therefore derivative and dependent.

"Therefore, we are not free to create meaning or value. We have only two options. We can discover the true value assigned by the Creator and revealed in His Word, the Bible; or we can rebel against that meaning.

"Any time you bring up questions about any of these issues, you do so from one of two stances. You either do it as someone advocating and enabling rebellion against the Creator's design, or as someone seeking submissive understanding of that design. You do it as servant or rebel. There is no third option.

"So yeah, insofar as I'm consistent with my core beliefs, everything I think about sexuality, relationships, morals, the whole nine yards, all of it is derived from what the Creator says. If I deviate from that, I'm wrong.

"To anyone involved in the doomed, damned you-shall-be-as-God project, that is the most offensive truth in the world, and it is the most offensive belief I hold.

"But if I can say one more thing, the first noun in that verse — beginning — immediately points us forward. It points to the end. And the end is all about Jesus Christ. That takes us to the topic of God's world-tilting Gospel, and that's what we really need to talk about."

I mean, why quibble about minor offenses, when we know how to take them right to the mother lode of all offense — that God is God, and we are not?

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The bloodied Church

Your weekly Dose of Spurgeon

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from the lifetime of works from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  The following excerpt is from The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, volume 54, sermon number 3,093, "The Church of God and the Truth of God."

"Remember how your fathers, in times gone by, defended God’s truth, and blush, ye cowards, who are afraid to maintain it!" 

Remember that our Bible is a blood-stained book; the blood of martyrs is on the Bible, the blood of translators and confessors. The pool of holy baptism, in which many of you have been baptized, is a blood-stained pool: full many have had to die for the vindication of that baptism which is “the answer of a good conscience toward God.”

The doctrines which we preach to you are doctrines that have been baptized in blood,—swords have been drawn to slay the confessors of them; and there is not a truth which has not been sealed by them at the stake, or the block, or far away on the lofty mountains, where they have been slain by the hundreds.

It is but a little duty we have to discharge compared with theirs. They were called to maintain the truth when they had to die for it; you only have to maintain the truth when taunt and jeer, ignominious names and contemptuous epithets are all you have to endure for it. What! Do you expect easy lives? While some have sailed through seas of blood and have fought to win the prize, are you wearied with a slight skirmish on dry land?

What would you do if God should suffer persecuting days to overtake you? O craven spirits, ye would flee away, and disown your profession! Be ye the pillar and ground of the truth. Let the blood of martyrs, let the voices of confessors speak to you. Remember how they held fast the truth, how they preserved it and handed it down to us from generation to generation; and by their noble example, I beseech you, be steadfast and faithful, tread valiantly and firmly in their steps, acquit yourselves like men,—like men of God, I implore you!

Shall we not have some champions, in these times, who will deal sternly with heresies for the love of the truth,—men who will stand like rocks in the centre of the sea, so that, when all others shake, they stand invulnerable and invincible?

Thou who art tossed about by every wind of doctrine, farewell; I own thee not till God shall give you grace to stand firm for his truth and not to be ashamed of him nor of his words in this evil generation.

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Some Here, Some There — March 27, 2015

by Dan Phillips

Once again, start small, grows until noon TX time.

• If you (like me) never wander to First Things, you probably missed Carl Trueman on the 20th anniversary mourning Evangelicals and Catholics Together. It's informative and thought-provoking and a bit snarky (hel-lo! Trueman!), and has wonderful quotables. Such as:
• "...stadium platform ecumenism is personality heavy and doctrine light. It has placed some very theologically inept people in positions of significant public influence based solely on their ability to pull a crowd. Not all of its senior leaders ultimately seemed particularly clear even on the nature and importance of the doctrine of the Trinity."
• "...can one really claim to agree on the Gospel of God without first agreeing on the God of the Gospel?"
• "Before we start thanking the Lord that we are not like other men, we should ask ourselves whether our own alternative ecumenism, so often controlled by a few unaccountable powerbrokers and by big money, really possesses more integrity."
• Bam.
• And this, from the What Could Go Wrong? department:

• The Jolly Scott, Prof. David Murray, has a very helpful note on 1 Timothy 4:10. That's one of those verses, like 1 John 2:2, that folks with a deficient view of God's saving work plop down on the table, as if the mere citing of the verse is contraindicative to affirming God's sovereign grace — blissfully unaware that the verses are at least as problematic for their own view.
• Here's a review of Logos 6 from Jason Helopoulos. My own is forthcoming.
• This just gives me a chuckle. I'd shared that a poor pastor, given TWTG as a gift, found it "terribly disappointing." I guess my readers have found his review "terribly disappointing," as currently 167 have found it unhelpful, to 9 who found it helpful. And I'm not certain what those nine mean, because I know at least two whom the review "helped" decide to buy the book.

Today's gift to @Frank_Turk — http://t.co/aMHCKMQltf (You can look, too)
— Dan Phillips (@BibChr) March 24, 2015

• Professed Christians dating non-Christians: compare and contrast this and this.
• Proverbs 22:6 — here's a post, and here's a post. Hunh.
• Interesting article on whether armed security is Biblical or not. (SPOLIER ALERT: it is.)
• And I leave you with a useful new word, courtesy of our own Trogdor:

Roger Olson thoughtfully shows the folly of presuming to judge God, engaging in some hardcore emotegesis: http://t.co/xmKFrhzl23
— Machel (@trogdor42) March 26, 2015

• Here, BTW, is Olson's article, subtitled Them Calvinists SO 'TUPID! Olson is helped to his conclusion by failing to allude to, let alone deal with, as much as one verse of Scripture.
• And here, BTW and more helpfully, is Doug Wilson's first takedown thereof. (To be evenhanded, it is also without Scripture references; it is more of a very effective exercise in Proverbs 26:5.)
• To me, Roger Olson is kind of the Bob Dylan of theology. In that every time I take a sample of actual product, I am baffled at the reputation.

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"A church full of pretty people"

by Frank Turk

From 2006 to 2012, PyroManiacs turned out almost-daily updates from the Post-Evangelical wasteland -- usually to the fear and loathing of more-polite and more-irenic bloggers and readers. The results lurk in the archives of this blog in spite of the hope of many that Google will "accidentally" swallow these words and pictures whole.

This feature enters the murky depths of the archives to fish out the classic hits from the golden age of internet drubbings.

The following excerpt was written by Frank back in March 2010. "A church full of pretty people with no problems" can be a source of discouragement to those in broken circumstances.

As usual, the comments are closed.

There's this guy I used to work with.

He and I had a few conversations about the Christian faith because he says he's a Christian, but he doesn't go to church anymore -- and here's the irony: it's not because church is too judgmental. It's because, as he says, church is too full of pretty people.

That's his phrase: "pretty people." Now, if you ask him what that means, he'll tell you that he's a pretty messed-up guy with a lot of spiritual problems, and a church full of pretty people with no problems doesn't do anything for him but frustrate him. Their lives don't encourage him or make him a better person or turn him toward God: their lives actually discourage him because he knows, frankly, that he'll never get there.

I bring this up for a couple of reasons. The first one is this -- we really have to answer the questions people have, and not the questions we wish they had. In one sense, those of us with the Gospel are driving along on the highway of life and we see a lot of cars on the side of the road -- all kinds of breakdowns -- and we are in the only bus that is going to get people to someplace other than the junkyard. And we're supposed to be stopping and picking people up, not just driving past and worrying about these people.

But if we stop the bus and get out wearing a tuxedo (or, for the ladies reading, a wedding dress) and tell these people we've come to help, they're probably not going to take our offer at face value -- because they don't really need a pretty person in nice clothes to help them with a busted jalopy: at the very least, they think they need a mechanic, or a cell phone to call a mechanic, or maybe a guy with a toolbox. They're not looking for someone in clothes so nice that they'd be afraid to mess them up.

The other reason to bring this up is that while they may recognize some part of the problem, the other half of the truth is that they don't really know what they need. They have "felt needs," right? They might be worried that they can't get to work because their car is busted, or they might be worried that they can't afford a new car so this old one has to keep running. But the real solution for anyone is that they have to get on the bus. They don't have to pay a fare, they don't have to sit in any particular seat: they just have to get on the bus and leave the old car behind.

We probably should be dressed in a way that they'll believe us when we tell them to get on the bus, but they have to get on the bus -- and the reason is not because the bus will take them where they think they want to go: it's because the jalopy is going someplace they definitely don't want to go, whether they believe it or not.

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Was the Serpent right?

by Dan Phillips

God told Adam, "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die" (Gen. 2:17). In response to the Serpent, Eve more or less quoted God: "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die'" (Gen. 3:2-3).

Satan flatly denied this threat: "You will not surely die" (Gen. 3:4).

Well, what happened? Eve ate, Adam ate. Did they die? We read, "she took of its fruit and ate" (v. 6) — are the next words, "and she died"? No; they are "and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate." Oh. Okay; so are the next words, "and he died," or "and they died"? No again; they are "Then the eyes of both were opened," and so forth.

So... what happened? Did that bomb fizzle? Was the threat empty, or forestalled?

Or was the Serpent right?

It's interesting to read in the aftermath that God does not say to the man or the woman, "you will die." He does say Adam will return to the ground (v. 19); but He doesn't say he will die. Why not? Is death just implied or assumed or reworded? Or possibly something else?

In answer, this excerpt from The World-Tilting Gospel, pages 47 and following:

**************************

We watch expectantly, like the Maltans in Acts 28 watched Paul after the serpent bit him. They expect Paul to swell up and fall down, or something. Not to keep eating his barbecued chicken.

In the same way, we watch Adam and Eve after they eat the fruit. Cue the “death scene.” Any minute now they’re going to gasp, maybe clutch at their throats, reel around a bit, cry out, then collapse in a heap, dead. Any minute now. Yes, sir. Soon. Really soon. Should be big. So we watch, and we watch, and . . .

Nothing! They just go on. They make some itchy lame clothes. But them? They seem fine. Apparently air’s still going in and out, heart’s still pumping, blood’s still flowing. Not so dead as all that.

What gives?

Not dead? Are you sure? You don’t think they died right away? I think they did. Just like that. It simply took their bodies a few centuries to catch up to the fact.

It’s all in what you mean by death and life.

What is life, anyway? In the Bible, life can denote physical existence (Eccl. 9:4), but it connotes far more than mere existence.

People in hell exist forever, but I can’t think of any passages that refer to their existence as “life.” Life, in its fullness, connotes the enjoyment of God’s presence, and the blessings that this enjoyment entails. To die is to be cut off—not from the bare reality of God’s presence, which is impossible (Ps. 139:7–12), but from the enjoyment of His presence, from experiencing Him as other than terrifying (2 Thess. 1:8–9; Rev. 14:10).

Life isn’t merely the length of the line on a chronology chart; it is the quality of that line. Moses elsewhere paints it so; when he preaches that man does not enjoy life merely by eating bread, but by feasting on what comes from Yahweh’s6 mouth (Deut. 8:3). When Moses lays before Israel the options of life and good, and of death and evil (Deut. 30:15), and urges them to choose life (v. 19), he means more than mere existence. Moses parallels “life” with “blessing” (v. 19), and says plainly that the Lord “is your life” (v. 20). Solomon will later describe life as the opposite, not only of death, but of sin (Prov. 10:16).

...Looking millennia ahead, we see a validation of this when the Lord Jesus prays, “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). The essence of life is knowing God, relating to the triune God.

Real life, then, is a gift of God, and bears His presence and blessing. Likewise, if life is the enjoyment of God’s intimate presence, then death will be the loss of the joy of that presence, and of all of the blessings that fellowship with God brings.

And so I say that Adam and Eve did die, right away. When the horrible reality of physical death eventually overtook them, it was the culmination of a ghastly process that began the moment sin touched them.

Disease produces symptoms. When she was a young girl, my dear and only daughter Rachael caught Chicken Pox. In those pre-vaccination days, we wanted her brother Matthew to catch it as well, to get over it while he was still young and the symptoms would be mild. When he became a bit ill and broke out in red spots, we knew he’d caught it. (And so did I, by the way, with a whole lot more misery!)

So we see Adam and Eve breaking out in death right away. The symptoms begin to appear immediately. What are they?

We see one “red spot” of death instantly in their self-consciousness and awareness of guilt (Gen. 3:7). Before, being naked had not been a problem. They were naked, and not ashamed (Gen. 2:25). Suddenly, now, being naked is a bad thing. They feel guilty because they are guilty; they are ashamed, because they are shameful. So they patch together some leaves.

But a worse and more extensive complex of “spots” is seen the moment Yahweh arrives for fellowship with the man. The presence of God really brings out the symptoms. Our bold, brave, pioneering godling-wannabes actually hide (3:8).

Isn’t that just the most pathetic scene in the entire Bible? Adam hiding in the bushes from Him who made the bushes. As if God couldn’t see him!

So, you see, this one wretched act is in truth an ugly constellation of “spots,” and reveals the spread of death in their mental/spiritual makeup:

• God’s presence is no longer beloved and welcome and sought-out, but excruciating and terrifying and repellant.
• Offending God, indeed insulting Him (by running and hiding from Him who fills heaven and earth) is an acceptable option; so
• God is no longer God in their universe; so
• God’s glory is no longer their central heartbeat; it has been supplanted by their own self-preservation according to their own pitiful notions.
  
• Their very notion of God has become warped and inadequate. (“Hide here, honey! He’ll never see us!”)
• They are evasive about their sin, blame-shifting (“Maybe I can throw Him off!”), rather than openly confessing it, throwing themselves on His mercy, and pleading for a way back into His favor.
• Adam, in fact, has the dead/blind audacity to blame his sin not only on Eve, but also on God (“The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree” [v. 12]; as if to say, “It’s not my fault! You gave me a defective woman! You messed up!”). 

Adam and Eve, then, have died both in vertical relationship and in horizontal relationship. They’ve lost sight of God, and they’ve lost hold of each other. All that remains is their dead, blind, sinravaged selves. Thus, even after He redeems Adam and Eve, God will send ultimate physical death almost as a blessing to relieve them of an interminable existence in sin.

But what is infinitely more gracious and glorious, one day God will send a second Man, a last Adam, to win out where they so miserably failed (Gen. 3:15; more on this in chapter 3).

As the scene closes, God pronounces His judgments on the couple (Gen. 3:16–19), and they begin to ponder the repercussions of their act. Their responsibilities and structures—work and marriage—remain. But all will be more difficult, and physical death waits at the end. Childbirth will be an agony, and the relationship between husband and wife will become a difficult competition

**************************

Subsequent chapters then deal with the transmission and the total effect of sin, with our hopelessness, and with God's grand plan of salvation, first announced in Genesis 3:15.

So was the Serpent right? Of course not. He is the "father of lies."

Adam and Eve died; and, in Adam's death, we died. Only in Christ can we be made alive.

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No discharge in this war

Your weekly Dose of Spurgeon

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from the lifetime of works from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  The following excerpt is from The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, volume 30, sermon number 1,773, "What is your life?"

"The old must die, the young may die."

If, therefore, death be so impartial that he smites down the captains, let not the rank and file hope to escape. Death, which forces entrance to a prince’s bedchamber, will not respect our cottage door. To us also in due time shall be brought the message, “The Master is come and calleth for thee.” My ear hears a voice crying aloud, “Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live.”

Will not you hear it? Will any one of you refuse the voice which speaketh from Heaven? Death evidently pays no respect to character, age, or hopefulness. A man may addict himself to the service of his country, but his patriotism will not protect him. He may be surrounded with a wall of affection, but this will not screen him. He may have at his command all the comforts of life, and yet life may ooze out before the physician is aware. He may be tenderly loved by an affectionate mother and his name may be engraved on the heart of the fondest of wives, but death hath no regard to the love of women.

“It is appointed unto men once to die.” There is no discharge in this war: we shall all march into this fight, and unless the Lord himself shall speedily come and end the present dispensation, we shall each one fall upon this battle-field, for the shafts of death fly everywhere, and there is no armour for either back or breast by which his cruel darts may be turned aside. I would to God that all of us retained this truth in our memories.

“Lord, make me to know mine end and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am.” We have a very clear conviction that others will die, but as to ourselves, we put far from us the evil day, and care not to dwell upon a subject which smells so unpleasantly of the charnel-house.

Yes, we admit that we shall die, but not so soon as to make it a pressing matter; we imagine that we are not within measurable distance of the tomb. Even the oldest man gives himself a little longer lease, and when he has passed his four-score years, we have seen him hugging life with as much tenacity as if he had just commenced it. Brethren, in this we are not wise; but death will not spare us because we avoid him.

What is there about any one of us that we should fare better than the rest of our fellow-men? We are in the same army, marching upon the same field; how shall we escape where all others fall? Only two of our race have gone into the better land without crossing the dark river of death—Enoch and Elijah; but no one among us will make a third.

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We scarpered

by Dan Phillips

My dear wife and I celebrated our wedding anniversary yesterday (I write proleptically, so with a "DV" attached). This year, we ran away! We headed off Wednesday to some not-too-far-off part of unexplored Texas — "unexplored" could describe about 99.9% of it, in our case — for a brief anniversary getaway. We're headed back today.

So no SHST today. Instead, in keeping with the theme, you could listen to the Sunday School series I taught on marriage. Or you could read the first blog post I ever published.

See you next week, or in church, whichever comes first.

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Overtolerance of Heresy

by Phil Johnson

From 2006 to 2012, PyroManiacs turned out almost-daily updates from the Post-Evangelical wasteland -- usually to the fear and loathing of more-polite and more-irenic bloggers and readers. The results lurk in the archives of this blog in spite of the hope of many that Google will "accidentally" swallow these words and pictures whole.

This feature enters the murky depths of the archives to fish out the classic hits from the golden age of internet drubbings.

The following excerpt was written by Phil back in February 2011. Phil addressed one of primary reasons for American Evangelicalism's vulnerability to false teaching.

As usual, the comments are closed.

Rob Bell's latest heresy neither surprises nor interests me. What does intrigue me is the tragic drift of popular, mainstream evangelicalism. Here we see clearly why the evangelical movement is in grave trouble: The passions of today's self-styled evangelicals are easily aroused in defense of someone who makes a career dabbling around the edges of truth. Rob Bell likes to play with damnable heresies as if they were Lego bricks, and yet anyone who points out the glaring errors in Bell's teaching will be met with a wall of angry resistance from young, self-styled Christians who grew up in the evangelical mainstream.

Where is that much passion ever employed these days in defense of the truth?

I'm not looking for crass watchbloggers or anti-intellectual zealots for whom every disagreement is an excuse for insults and a shouting match. We are up to here with people like that. They are a tiny minority, I think, but a noisy one. They represent one extreme out there on the evangelical fringe: people who can't tolerate any difference of opinion.

But the other extreme seems to be a much larger, more pervasive problem (and this is the trend currently pushing the most evangelicals off the edge): people whose "tolerance" is bent in favor of distorted and unorthodox teachings. They despise unvarnished criticism. They especially hate it when a critic suggests this or that heresy is truly damnable. Evidently there is no doctrine so important that they are willing to fight for it—much less die for it.

Both our Lord and His apostles told us plainly that we would need to defend the faith against false prophets, vicious wolves in sheep's clothing (Matthew 7:15), minions of Satan disguised as angels of light (2 Corinthians 11:13-14), and corrupters of doctrine who arise within the church (Acts 20:29). Why is it that the average Christian today flatly refuses to take those warnings seriously?

As we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century, American evangelicalism is clearly confused, fragmented, and frighteningly vulnerable to false teaching. Evangelicals are too worldly-minded and untaught to be able to recognize all the deadly errors that have made themselves at home within the movement. Evangelical leaders are far too tentative and timid in denouncing those errors—up to and including the damnable ones. Rank-and-file evangelicals won't stand for it if their leaders do point out false doctrines, especially when the error is being peddled by a slick celebrity.

These problems are serious. What we commonly refer to as "the evangelical movement" is actually no movement at all anymore. It has morphed and melted down into a variegated, muddled, incoherent swamp—without any meaningful boundaries. And we are sending to the world a message that is as garbled and bewildering as this ersatz movement.

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The power of the word of God: oft-overlooked ramifications

by Dan Phillips

All Christians attribute power and authority to God's word, for the simple fact that it is God's word. In his Sufficient Fire talk, Phil Johnson mentioned that Brian Maclaren attempted to make mileage over the fact that 2 Timothy 3:16 said that Scripture was useful, not that it was authoritative. In my later talk I chuckled a bit over that, wondering how much more authoritative you could get than "God-breathed"!

I find John Frame's phrasing of Scripture's authority very helpful and memorable:

[Scripture] imposes on them an obligation to respond in an appropriate way. That is the proper definition of authority: an authoritative word is one that imposes obligations on those who hear. And the word of God imposes an absolute obligation.

[John M. Frame, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2013), 529.]

There are obvious implications to this. It's easiest to see in the commandments. For instance, when God says not to commit adultery (Exodus 20:14; Ephesians 5:3), I'm to obey by not committing adultery. When God commands that we love Him (Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37), we know we are to love God.

But do the narratives obligate me, as well? The Bible begins with a narrative: God creates the universe in six days, and rests on the seventh. Does that narrative obligate me? Or does the narrative of the call of Abram, or the Exodus, or the Passover, or Balaam's loquacious donkey, or Jonah and the big big fish? Or the narratives of Jesus' casting out demons, of His resurrection, and of dead rising in conjunction with that resurrection?

Do these stories obligate me in some way? Is there something I must do, reading them?

One's first thought might be that no moral obligation arises from a story. If so, one's first thought would be mistaken. These aren't newspaper items or oddments in old books. These present themselves to me as God's Word. As such, I am obligated — morally obligated — to believe them. If I disbelieve them, I not only err, I sin.

How so? God tells me they are true, on His honor. Reject the stories, I reject His honor. If that doesn't plunge me into blasphemy, doesn't it bring me right up to the door and knock?

But wait, there's more.

What of the passages that tell me I should fear God (Proverbs 1:7; 1 Peter 2:17), that I should rejoice in the Lord (Philippians 3:3-4), that I should hope (1 Peter 1:13)? Do those obligate me as well? Surely they do.

But wait, there's still more!

This all brings us to the Charismatic issue.

The great achievement of modern Charismaticism is to dupe so many otherwise-fine people into letting Charismatics carve a niche for themselves where they can both promote themselves and avoid all meaningful accountability. Or, put another way, both to canonize and sanctify their personal experiences and claims and to avoid testing of any sort.

One of these ways is that they will ostensibly quote God, some "word from the Lord" — but then, when challenged, hurry to say "That's just for me!"

But is that option open? They have dared to claim to quote God. They have had the breath-taking, astonishing hubris to position themselves as mediators of revelation — claiming that God said words directly to them and them alone, words they now convey to you and to me.

Can that be a private affair? If so, too late now: they've spoken. They've claimed to speak God's words!

So now I am indeed obligated. Their word obligates me. I cannot escape. (Nor can they, though they try.)

You see, if what they speak is a word of God, I am morally obligated to believe it. It doesn't matter what the content is: a word from God has God's authority, and "an authoritative word is one that imposes obligations on those who hear." Well, I hear. What is my obligation?

If it is God's word, I am obligated to believe it. And if it is not, I am obligated to rebuke and expose them as false prophets.

I want to be sure you get this. Even if what they say is "God told me personally, 'Hey, buck up, my precious darling cuddly lambie-dear, I just want to cuddle you close in sweet saccharine waves of My unconditional love and approval, and have great plans for you'" — now that they've told me, I'm obliged.

If that's God speaking and I do not believe it, I am sinning.

But if it isn't, and I do? Same result — or, at the very least, I am complicit in enabling another's sin (cf. Ezekiel 3:18).

And so, an open-but-clueless sort is obligated to search out every claim to revelation, and decide whether to embrace and submit to it, or reject and expose it. That means that such poor souls are morally obligated to be constantly directing their attention from inspired, inerrant, sufficient Scripture, to vet and test and decide on every modern claim to quote God. Because if those are words of God, I am obligated to receive and believe them, myself.

Those are our choices. Either reject the movement as a whole and stand on the sufficient Word of God, or devote yourself to constant, daily distraction.

My, that sounds like a clever way to keep Christians off-focus, doesn't it? Devilishly clever!

Claiming to speak for God is a big, big deal, as I argued at length. They want us to forget it, so they can keep the charade going.

But we mustn't forget it. And we mustn't lose focus on God's real, abiding Word.

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The power of the Scriptures

Your weekly Dose of Spurgeon

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from the lifetime of works from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  The following excerpt is from Speeches at Home and Abroad, pages 21-22, Pilgrim Publications.

"Dear friends, what are you doing towards scattering the Bible?" 

Do you give it away? Somebody may say it is of very little use to give away Bibles and Testaments. That is a very great mistake. I have very seldom found it to be a labour in vain to give a present of a Testament.

I was greatly astonished about a month ago. A cabman drove me home, and when I paid him his fare he said, “It is a long time since I drove you last, sir!” “But,” said I, “I do not recollect you!” “Well,” he said, “I think it is fourteen years ago; but,” he added, “perhaps you will know this Testament?” pulling one out of his pocket. “What!” I said, “did I give you that?” “Oh, yes!” he said, “and you spoke to me about my soul, and nobody had done that before, and I have never forgotten it.” “What,” said I, “haven’t you worn it out?” “No,” he said, “I would not wear it out; I have had it bound!”— and he had kept it very carefully indeed.

It encourages one to give books when they are so valued. Sometimes people will not value a tract. I believe it is often the cheapest thing to give a better thing; that which costs you rather more will be more highly treasured, and “a Testament for twopence!”—who would not scatter such a thing broadcast?

Should you be unable to give away the Book itself, quote the Scriptures often. A colporteur last Monday said there was a man in the habit of addressing him upon religious subjects when he was “half-seas over,” as they call it. Whenever he had plenty of drink in him he came to the colporteur to talk about religion. This colporteur said, “He came and knocked at my door, and I felt vexed that he should so often come to me in that condition, and I hurled four texts at his head out in the street with all my might.”

He quoted the four texts. They were very appropriate to the man’s condition, and contained a full statement of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He said, “I do not know whether I did that man any good or not, but there was a woman next door, who had just opened her door to put two dirty children off her doorstep. She stood still, and heard all the four texts, and the Spirit of God carried them home to her heart and conscience ;” and he added, “I have been awakened at night many times, and glad to be awakened, by hearing her sing, whilst she lies dying upstairs in the room next to mine.”

I wish every person here who knows the power of the Scriptures on his own soul would incessantly be trying to spread the Word of God and to expound it.

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Some Here, Some There — March 13, 2015

by Dan Phillips

Here y'go. Updates through noon, TX time.

• Nicholas Batzig offers six very helpful "tips" on becoming a more welcoming church.
• You might be interested in a sermon I preached showing (Biblically) how to connect the stirring and deep doctrines of Ephesians 1:1-8a to daily living.

Isn't there something inherently ironic about rating any *video game* "Mature"?
— Dan Phillips (@BibChr) March 13, 2015

• Over at the indispensible (I keep telling you that) DBTS blog, John Aloisi fills in popular gaps about Patrick, missionary to Ireland.
• God gave cats a lot of the 'tude quotient of the animal kingdom. Deal with it.

• So much damage has been done by incomplete and false repentance, and by confessions that aren't really confessions, that you will want to bookmark this fine essay by Doug Wilson. Anymore, I find I have to listen to confessions like a lawyer reads a document.
• Ah, Christianity Today.

RHE formally bails on evangelicalism, and now @CTmagazine can't stop retweeting her every word. #LaodiceanismToday
— Dan Phillips (@BibChr) March 13, 2015

• It's sad. When I was a young Christian, Christianity Today was a terrific magazine, with substantive articles and book reviews and all. And even then, in the 70s, it wasn't fully what it had been. Then came embrace of female preachers, shoddy handling of the days of creation... and it's been downhill since.
• Now some female writer tried to redeem the monstrous Margaret Sanger. In Christianity Today!
• Thankfully, the indispensable Denny Burk tersely notes that "Sanger’s legacy has a body-count," and pretty thoroughly fisks the CT article. Denny's piece features many quotables... and the meta isn't even too bad! (Yet.)
• Doug Wilson writes about the same issue, noting that the pro-aborts "disproportionately target black boys and girls — with the connivance of black quislings", and that "they have a kill rate much higher than that of the Ferguson Police Department." He adds that, "as bad as Sanger was, she wasn’t as ghoulish as her heirs are."
• Check out what William Gurnall has to say to those who choose to sleep during sermons.
• Bacon donut hot dog. That is all.

• For good reason, at one point, Stan Gale did not want a funeral to be held when he died. But now, for good reasons, he's changed his mind.
• No, the order of the last two items is not meant to send a message.
• Me, I'd like one. Not for dueling hagiographies, but to give "me" one last chance to preach Christ, in the person of whoever does the funeral preaching Christ. Funerals are, or should be, a great opportunity (Eccl. 7:1-4).
• Here's a post from 2009 about paper pastors vs. local church pastors.
• Here's a post from this month about podcast preachers vs. local church pastors.
• BTW, in case you didn't notice: I posted on one of my "off" days, telling how to search Pyro for past articles.
• If the Lord doesn't come first, one day I'll die. I just don't want to die in a dumb way.

• Aimee Byrd commends a book offering help and encouragement to women who have suffered a miscarriage.
• The popular atheist dodge-topic of slavery in the Bible receives a treatment by Fred Butler.
• Concluding with one of my very favorite Po-Motivators:

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5 Reasons Why Your Marriage Matters

by Dan Phillips

From 2006 to 2012, PyroManiacs turned out almost-daily updates from the Post-Evangelical wasteland -- usually to the fear and loathing of more-polite and more-irenic bloggers and readers. The results lurk in the archives of this blog in spite of the hope of many that Google will "accidentally" swallow these words and pictures whole.

This feature enters the murky depths of the archives to fish out the classic hits from the golden age of internet drubbings.

The following excerpt was written by Dan back in May 2012. Our marriages matter to God, to our spouse, to us, to our children, and to the Church.

As usual, the comments are closed.

Though I've written often on marriage (see this and this and this and, somewhat famously, this), I am returning to it from a number of angles, Lord willing. My hope is both to help couples, and to give an "assist" to fellow-pastors.

Here I just have a simple point to make: your marriage matters.

"Matters" to whom? Well: 

It matters to God. Really, if I'm writing to actual Christians, we should be able to stop with this one, shouldn't we? You took vows invested with meaning He'd given to them, and He cares about that (Num. 30:2; Deut. 23:21-23; Pss. 61:8; 76:11; Prov. 20:25; Eccl. 5:5). He is invested in your marriage. He invented it, it's His institution, and you entered into it. 

It matters to your spouse. You promised that man, that woman, that (s)he could trust you absolutely. Brother, you promised to lead and love and sacrifice, as Christ did for the church. Sister, you promised to respect and to subordinate yourself, as the church should do towards Christ. You told this person, "Though all else fail you, you can count on me. You can forget about looking for sex or love or devotion anywhere else. I'm your man/woman." 

It matters to you. In more ways than you can think, it matters to you. Let's just start with the boneheadedly obvious: supposing you're in a marriage that is other-than-humming, and there's something you can do about it. But you're not. Why? You were going to get going on that when, exactly? When life really starts? Dude, sister, news flash: it started. When you get to Heaven? That's stupid. When the kids are grown? That's stupid, hateful, and irresponsible (see below). 

It matters to your children. This is the saddest part. We all say we think it's the saddest part -- even people who tolerate and even cultivate marriage-harming sin in themselves pay lip-service to caring about The Children, while their lives show they care a whole lot more about unrepentantly indulging their flesh in this or that way. But kids see, they notice, they take note, they know at some level, and they are harmed. Not merely discouraged, distracted; harmed. Home should be a safe, healthy, Christward place for them. They get their ideas about marriage by watching yours. 

It matters to your church. Maybe not right away, because it is possible to put on a good face for an hour or two a week. But you can't be giving yourself to godly, Spirit-led worship and service with a bunch of relative strangers if you're not obeying the great and the second commandment (see numbers 1 and 2, above) at home, can you? Does that make any kind of sense? Seriously. Wake up.

I plan to say a lot more with a lot more specifics. If you want a lot of Biblical study and content and counsel, you can get a head start right here, as perhaps some readers could attest.

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