"In the MTV generation truth and honor means nothing, money and noise means
everything... Parents relive their childhood through their child." Charles Whiley in my Family class today speaking on modern youth culture.

redeeming more than our souls

For one of my classes my professor requires us to read several chapters and one full book of agrarian thought. Agrarianism is a practical philosophy (how to live life) that is centered around agriculture as the basic mainstay of work and occupation. They are excellent critics of modernity and their educational polemics are invaluable.

Wendell Berry, an agrarian, suggests that the Amish are the most technologically intelligent people because they are incredibly discerning with regards to the technology they incorporate into their lifestyle. Very provacative stuff.

I hold a dear appreciation for these guys as they genuinely are counter cultural. That is something we Christians sturggle with. But at the same time, I wish the agrarians would offer a transforming element pertaining to culture in their criticisms.

Counter cultural Chrsitianity would say no to a lot of baggage in this messy world (premarital sex, adultery, consumerism, selfishness and self-love, many more), yet the gospel redeems various elements of creation (sex is good not bad, marriage and family governed as a ministry and reflecting Christ and the church, moderation with alcohol and smoking, the arts and music - do our churches reflect this?, work - it is effective and enjoyable). Christians should celebrate such a gospel, it redeems more than our souls.

One may start by asking God to redeem our days, time and activities in whatever we may be doing.

[this thursday Jerram Barrs is speaking on this very subject up here at 4pm]

Iain Duguid Resources

One of the most gifted preachers I have heard is my Hebrew professor Iain Duguid. This page contains all of his sermons that I can find on the web, books he has written, and other things of the Duguid name. A brief biography can be found here.

::Sermons

Christmas sermons (2007) at First Reformed Presbyterian, Pittsburgh (PCA)
Christmas Present for the World (Is. 9)
Promise of Emmanuel (Is. 7)

Easter Sermons
Is this your King?

Sermons on the entirety of Esther, the entirety of Ruth, Numbers, and Genesis (here)

The Following were preached at Grace Fallbrook (PCA)
Malachi - When Good things happen to Bad people
Malachi - Do you Really Love me?
Luke - Justifying Ourselves (Good Samaritan)
Judges - Othniel: the perfect judge
Job - The Lord's Final Answer to Suffering
Joshua - Whom will you Serve
Zechariah - No Condemnation

Haggai
A Whole New World (ch. 4)
Cleaning up your life (ch. 3)
the Best is yet to come (ch. 2)
Consider Your Ways (ch. 1)

Daniel
How Long will I be Broken
Wars and Rumors of Wars
Prepared for Battle
Hope in the Darkness
Praying in the Darkness
How to Wait for God
Living in the Valley of Darkness
The Triumph of the Son of Man
In the Angel's Den
Weighed and Found Wanting
The Rise and Fall of Nebuchadnezzar
Through the Fire
Gone with the Wind
Interesting Times
When the World Does it's Worst, God is faithful

::Books

Ezekiel - New International Version Application Commentary

Reformed Expository Commentaries
Esther and Ruth
Daniel
Judges (forthcoming in 2011)

Evangelical Press Commentaries
Obadiah and Jonah (forthcoming)
Zechariah, Haggai, Malachi (forthcoming)

Preaching the Word Commentaries
Numbers: God's Presence in the Wilderness

Paternoster
The Major Prophets (forthcoming)

The Gospel According to Series
Living in the Grip of Relentless Grace: The Gospel According to the lives of Issac and Jacob
Living in the Gap between Promise and Reality: The Gospel According to the Life of Abraham
Hero of Heros: Seeing Christ in the Beatitudes

Contributed to Covenant, Justification, and Pastoral Theology: Essays by the faculty of Westminster, California

Triperspectivalism and it’s application to Epistemology

This summer I was introduced to the idea of Triperspectivalism, a theory popularized by John Frame, but originated by Cornelius Van Til. Triperspectivalism is not a final conclusion by any definition; on the contrary it is a means, a way of thinking. It stresses the idea that different perspectives are essential in finding the truth, indifference and relativism are not options for us as we learn, think and know. This framework emphasizes absolutes. From these perspectives comes the fullest understanding that we can have as finite beings.

Frame writes: Often, however, God's revelation to us of his own perspective is itself multiperspectival in structure. He has, for example, given us four gospels, rather than one. It is important for us to hear the story of Jesus from four different perspectives. God's perspective, in this case, embraces those of the four gospel writers. His infinite perspective validates those four human perspectives and commends them to all of us. Similarly, God has given us both Kings and Chronicles, though these books overlap in many ways. He has also given us both a prose account (Ex. 12-14) and a poetic account (Ex. 15:1-18) of his deliverance of Israel from Egypt. Many of the Psalms, too, give us poetic accounts of what other Scriptures present in prose narrative. There are two givings of the law (Ex. 20:1-17, Deut. 5:1-21). Paul often repeats his ideas (as Rom. 12 and 1 Cor. 12), adding and subtracting matters of interest, varying their contexts.

We can see such perspectives teaching the fullness of truth in: The three offices of Christ. If one does not know Christ as King or Prophet, will one really know Him as Priest? It is the same with Divine Lordship, the Ten Commandments, salvation and finally human knowledge.

At the middle of this paradigm is human knowledge. We know things by experiencing them, which we can only do through our senses, and in order to remember, God gave us reason to discern such moments. In any epistemology, when you separate any of these you come with a theory of knowing that is lacking. Once understood in this way, by God's common grace, it is realized that Descartes was right, in part, when he said, "I think, therefore I am." And Rousseau when he stated, "I feel, therefore I am."

Others have used such a paradigm and applied it to church offices, ministry and church growth. I have not thought about it applying to such areas yet, but I think it is a useful idea, especially when one remembers that it is a means, not an end. (Frame's Primer is found here.)

Precious Remedies

Every Sunday Night Hillcrest PCA sponsors a bible study for the GCC college students... Well a book study. This year Pastor Hughes is reading through the Puritan work Precious Remdies Against Satan's Devices. We are over 1/2 through (as he started it last year) and tonight's topic was How Satan causes Christians to doubt their salvation, caused by meditating on our sins more than Christ and His beautiful person and work.


The puritan Thomas Brooks offers help:

//1) consider that Jesus has not freed me from the presence of sin, but instead He freed me from the damnatory power of sin.
//2) That though Christ has not freed me from the vexing power of sin, He has freed me from her reign.
//3) Keep on eye on the promises of remission of sin, and the other eye on the inward operations of sin
//4) to look upon my sins as charged upon the account of Christ, as debts which the Lord Jesus has fully satisfied
//5) of the reasons why the Lord is pleased to have his people troubled, exercised, and vexed with sins operations (to be humble, to seek Christ, to long for Christ, to rely on God through the disciplines)
//6) that believers must repent of their discouraged by their sins. For this springs from one's ignorance of the person and work of Christ

My night with the Buddhists (in Pittsburgh)

This eve was interesting to say the least. West met the East, Grove City encountered the Buddha. Several members of my World Religions class went on a field trip to the Zen Center of Pittsburgh tonight. (it was Zen Buddhist) The priestess taught us how to and the purpose of meditation. It was honestly an attempt to try to convert us, and some students tried to convert them. Or at the least reveal their foolishness.

I spent the 10 minutes in meditation reciting Psalm 22, and focusing on the beauty of Christ. It was a great exercise in the Spiritual discipline of renewing our minds. At the conclusion, the priestess led in asking people what they got out of it. One girl remarked that she was at peace, and boy did the priestess latch on and following up, seeking to led this girl and others to a lie. Afterwards there was a short Q and A and here are the top questions.

What is the purpose of this [meditation]? To become more human.

What do they mean by this? Buddhists believe that every person has part of god within us, and to be human is to fully realize this. It is a skewed view of God and mankind all in one dose. It even effects their epistemology - how does one know things. But that is the next question.

Skewing #1 God: God is not within everyone or everything, this is pantheism. It makes no sense and does not and cannot answer the problem of good vs. evil.

Skewing #2 Man: Umm.. we are not God nor will we ever be. To claim so is robbing God of His glory and rebellion vs. the true king.

Is there ultimate truth or is truth up to the individual? Yes. That is all I will say.

Epistemology - How one is able to know things. Truth is whatever means to you. When you meditate you consider the things that matter most to you, and those things are different for every person. Priests and priestesses won't tell you what you need to learn - because your experience is different than theirs. Instead they are there to guide you. One knows truth by searching within oneself, emptying your mind and focusing on the. (purposefully ended with the.)

in their own words:

Dharma refers to the absolute truth or reality (as opposed to our ideas or beliefs about truth or reality) or to the teachings of those who have awakened to this. Buddhism is not a system of religious dogmas. Rather, it presents a way by which all can awaken to their own Buddha-nature. Buddha Shakyamuni's teaching states that the outstanding characteristic of the human situation is frustration, which arises because of our difficulty in accepting the basic fact of life that everything around us is impermanent and transitory. Our wish to divide the perceived world into fixed, individual, and separate things does not fit with the fluid and indefinable nature of reality. In manifesting enlightenment, one is freed from these notions.

Do you notice how self centered this is? Emptying ones mind to focus on the, to focus on you, to focus on whatever matters to you. There is not hope, there is no grace. How can one find freedom by looking to oneself? I know myself, I am a sinner and apart from Christ I would revel in that fact. Christianity offers love, grace, hope, joy, forgiveness, righteousness, justification, all that we might know and taste eternal life with the Creator. He is personal, not some impersonal force scattered throughout all of the creation - pantheism. No, Christ came to die for sinful mankind, He came to redeem us, to restore ourselves to God. We cannot do that by searching our hearts and minds, only discover a need for a savior.

In Cyberspace today...

I discovered some really sweet things.  

RTS offers a myriad of their courses online, and are of extreme value (i.e. John Frame's Apologetics class).  As does Covenant Theological Seminary with Covenant Worldwide - they only offer 20 courses but it is fantastic.  You can get them through iTunes University.  Combine both seminary's apologetics class lectures and you have a great class. 

Mark Driscoll is writing more books.  

I'm wrestling with Piper's statement, "The greatest sin that was ever committed in the history of the world... was planned by God, namely the death of His Son." [HT: Pure Church] 

On the Desiring God Blog... 

If it's our inclination to deny church membership to genuine believers, we should put ourselves in the shoes of the one being rejected, and make our decision from that perspective. If we feel loved and accepted in our church, we are hardly the ones who have the right to say that being shunned is no big deal because we can still be united in Christ. You will not feel "united" with other believers when you live your life trying to be in fellowship with them and they continue to refuse to accept you as a member.  [read the whole thing]

the beginning of school and the world religions

The past few days and weeks have been crazy as school is now back into full swing. Dr. Duguid gave us a quiz the first class session this past Wednesday - we are now into Biblical Hebrew Readings, aka lots of translating. (lots). By the end of the semester I'll have all the psalms of Ascent, 1 Kings 16-19, and Esther translated. I love it! There is only three of us in the class.

Other classes I am taking:
- Courtship and Marriage
- Volleyball
- Intro to Ministry
- Augustine and Aquinas
- World Religions

In the coming week I hope to be posting some reflections from Augustine and Aquinas, and World Religions. I am really enjoying that class and will have to do a presentation on Taoism and the Chinese religions. I am not stopping my study on church government, so if you have thoughts please let me know, instead I am focusing on my studies right now. Beginning with a theological examination of why there are religions (aka idolatry), how that impacts our evangelism, then moving on to consider how sad and lost the other 'world religions' are (vs. Christianity.) This will lay the groundwork for apologetics. (which along with Evangelism is where my heart is at.)

some fun summer reading

A class I am taking in the fall has some 16 books on the reading list so I am getting a head start on it. (the class is modern Christian writers), one such book is The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris. It is a fictional autobiography... well more truth than fiction in a beautiful composed masterpiece. Two examples:

Listening to the Bible read aloud is not only an invaluable immersion in religion as an oral tradition, it allows even the scripture scholars of a monastic community to hear with fresh ears. A human voice is speaking, that of an apostle, or a prophet, and the concerns critical to biblical interpretation- authorship of texts, interpolation of material, redaction of manuscript sources- recede into the background. One doesn't forget what one knows, and the process of listening may well inform one's scholarship. But in the communal lectio, the fact that the book of Jeremiah has several authors matters far less important than the sense of being sought out, personally engaged, making it possible, even necessary, to respond personally to take the scriptures to heart. (pp. 33)

At morning prayer, we heard these words from Ephesians 2: "so you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the founation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone." The altar gleamed, bone white, before the dark wood of the monks choir, and I could dare to conceive of the church as a refuge, a place to find the divided self made whole, the voice of the mocker overcome by the voice of the advocate. It is still a sinful church- how could it be otherwise? - but the words of its prophets and apostles had led me to this sanctuary, and I could dare to imagine it as home, a place where there is no 'other.' (pp. 46)

PS> we raised $17,000 for Light of Life Rescue Mission today at WORD FM :-) YEAH!!

classes

School starts on Monday, it has been a great 4.5 weeks but I am ready to go back. Any opportunity I get to see Jen every day is bound to be fantastic, but there are at least 6 other reasons why I am looking forward to going back to School.

Hebrew 201 (Duguid)
Minor Prophets (Moller)
Systematic Theology 2 (Schaefer)
the Vision and Values Conference: The deChristianization of Europe
Medieval Europe (Graham)
And an independent study on Covenant Theology under Duguid which i am taking with Gilbert (Score)

Though i must say, I slacked off on my hebrew too much that it wont be too much fun learning the Piel all over again right away. (Or worse) :-(

shma yisra'el adonai elohenu, adonai echad
Hear O Israel, The Lord Your God, the Lord is One
Deut. 6:4