Reformation Day 2012

A hymn of the reformer Dr. Martin Luther, written in 1524:

O Lord, look down from heav'n, behold,
And let Thy pity waken;
How few are we within Thy fold,
Thy saints by men forsaken!
True faith is quenched on ev'ry hand,
Men suffer not Thy Word to stand;
Dark times have us o'ertaken.

With fraud which they themselves invent
Thy truth they have confounded;
Their hearts are not with one consent
On Thy pure doctrine grounded.
While they parade with outward show,
They lead the people to and fro,
In error's maze astounded.

May God root out all heresy
And of false teachers rid us
Who proudly say: "Now where is he
That shall our speech forbid us?
By right or might we shall prevail;
What we determine cannot fail;
We own no lord and master."

Therefore saith God: "I must arise,
The poor My help are needing;
To Me ascend My people's cries,
And I have heard their pleading.
For them My saving Word shall fight
And fearlessly and sharply smite,
The poor with might defending.

As silver tried by fire is pure
From all adulteration,
So through God's Word shall men endure
Each trial and temptation.
Its light beams brighter through the cross,
And, purified from human dross,
It shines through every nation.

Defend Thy truth, O God, and stay
This evil generation;
And from the error of its way
Keep Thine own congregation.
The wicked everywhere abound
And would Thy little flock confound;
But Thou art our Salvation.

Notice the Difference?

From the April 16, 2012 Christian Science Sentinel:

Each of us has spiritual sense that moves us fearlessly to take remedial action when something goes wrong. Motivated and regulated by a higher law of harmony, it doesn’t entice us into reckless abandon, naïve impulse, or some lesser type of bravery, however instant our response may have to be. It impels us to do what is selfless and morally right. We make room for it above our own willful tendencies and ahead of our commitment to our daily affairs. If this abiding sense is part of our spirituality (and why wouldn’t it be?), our hearts can be open to exercising it more for the good of the world. First by acknowledging its legitimacy and accessibility. Then, by carrying out is authoritative commands when they come.

From the Holy Bible:

Who can say, "I have made my heart pure; I am clean from my sin"? Proverbs 20:9 ESV

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? Jeremiah 17:9 ESV

And he said, "What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person." Mark 7:20-23 ESV

But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. John 2:24-25 ESV

“I hope you’re not superstitious.”

Before a flight, air traffic control assigns a code which is put into the transponder on the flight deck, allowing the flight to be more easily identified on radar. One day our transponder code contained three sixes. The First Officer commented “I hope you’re not superstitious.” Nope. I’m not superstitious.

666 is the number of the second beast in Revelation 13, sent by Satan to deceive those who dwell on earth. The beast is allowed to slay those who refuse to worship the image of the first beast, a fearsome picture of the war that Satan wages against Christ’s bride, the Church. Yet we Christians need not be afraid. The beast and its image and the number of its name are conquered:

And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire--and also those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, "Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations! Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed." Revelation 15:2-4 ESV

In Christ’s death and resurrection, He defeats Satan, and we can join with our fellow redeemed to sing God’s praises forevermore: “For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed." We need not fear the number of the beast.

Fix Your Eyes on Jesus

I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word. Psalm 119:15-16 ESV

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."  Luke 4:16-21 ESV

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Hebrews 12:2 NIV

photo credit: swissrolli

Come and Die

photo credit: Diane Leigh

Coming Soon, Pastor Jonathan Fisk's New Book Broken

I'm looking forward to Pastor Jonathan Fisk's upcoming book, Broken: 7 "Christian" Rules That Every Christian Should Break as Often as Possible, published by CPH and coming out in December. You can pre-order a copy here. Here's a sneak preview from Pastor Fisk.

The Heart of the Christian Experience

Quoting from Anglican Dr. Phillip Cary's article "Why Luther is Not Quite Protestant: The Logic of Faith in a Sacramental Promise" in the Fall 2005 issue of Pro Ecclesia:

I do not find faith or any other good thing in myself, so I must look at Christ instead—and precisely this is faith. So if there is to be any comfort or consolation for me I must find myself outside myself—by faith alone, which means, simply by believing what Christ has to say about me in the promise of the Gospel. Who I really am is one for whom Christ died and rose, one whom Christ baptized and absolves, one to whom he gives his body and blood.

This refusal to rely on experience is at the heart of Christian experience, as Luther understands it. When he speaks of experience he thinks immediately of Anfechtung, temptation or (more literally) assault: the recurrent experience of being attacked by an awareness of how offensive I am to God, a consciousness of sin and death and the devil which also shows me the weakness of my faith. In this regard Luther stresses that there is no substitute for experience:

This cannot be adequately expressed in words, but our own experience is necessary in addition. This teaches what hard work it is to climb over the mountain of our own unworthiness and sins standing between God and us as we are about to pray….it is here that we feel the weakness of faith most.

Christian experience is the experience of the inadequacy of our own faith. The only comfort we feel at these times of Anfechtung is the inexpressible sigh of the spirit that Paul describes, which in fact we barely feel at all:

it is time to turn your eyes away from the Law, from works and from your own feelings and conscience, to lay hold of the Gospel and to depend solely on the promise of God. Then there is emitted a little sigh…and nothing remains in your heart but the sigh that says 'Abba! Father!' And so the promise produces the sigh that cries: 'Father!'

At the heart of Christian experience for Luther is therefore this "sighing, of which we are hardly aware" because "we do not hear this cry. We have only the Word." The sigh of the Christian spirit is the anxious prayer of one who has no reassuring experience or feeling, and certainly not the experience of a strong faith, but only the word of promise to cling to. But the word alone is enough. That is precisely what we are to learn by experience—not by mere words, as Luther often puts it. This contrast between experience and words is not meant, of course, to devalue the word of Christ but rather to criticize the discourse of reflective faith. Talking about faith does me no good in times of Anfechtung, when only the word of God can help me. How many preachers have failed to learn this lesson? You cannot help me to have faith by telling me about faith or the experience of faith but only by preaching the Gospel, which tells me about Christ. Thus good preaching conforms to the essential shape of Christian experience, which is uninterested in faith, feeling or experience but only in the external word of Christ.

Explaining the Trinity to the Jehovah's Witnesses

The Jehovah's Witnesses are well trained in deflecting common arguments trying to disprove their theology, including those on their rejection of the Trinity. Their arguments are generally based on what they've been taught by the Watchtower, which in the case of the Trinity is derived by misquoting Church Fathers and Scripture twisting. Yet the Witnesses can sometimes be reached with the truth by combining kindness with a proper Scriptural presentation.

In the following lecture from several decades ago, Dr. Walter Martin respectfully explains the Watchtower position on the Trinity and then relates it to the doctrine of the Trinity as found in the Bible. Since this recording was made many years ago, some of the information contained in the lecture has been superceded by changing Watchtower doctrine, but the Trinitarian truths found in Scripture do not change. Dr. Martin established the Christian Research Institute in 1960, which is still with us today; it publishes the apologetics magazine Christian Research Journal.  He also authored the still-in-print and updated book The Kingdom of the Cults.

Listen in as Dr. Martin delivers a great apologetics lecture on the Trinity:

Running Through History

What’s with the rather non-descript railroad photo, taken while on a run near the Atlanta Hartsfield Airport? This Norfolk & Southern rail was once in the vicinity of another rail line, the Macon & Western Railroad, which on August 31, 1864 was the last vein of life supporting the Confederate city of Atlanta. At the time Atlanta was under siege by the artillery of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman. Directly abeam this spot stood the Rough and Ready Tavern, a retreat for Confederates fleeing the city, and likely the temporary command post for Confederate Lt. General William J. Hardee.

General Sherman, after weeks of standoff because of Atlanta’s stiff defensive fortifications, opted to move the majority of his forces south and west of the city in a flanking move to cut off the two remaining rail lines into the city. The Atlanta & West Point Railroad line was cut on August 30, and the Macon & Western was cut just south of where I took the photo on August 31. A few miles further south, one of the most significant battles of the Civil War was fought at Jonesborough (now spelled Jonesboro). On September 1 the vastly outnumbered Confederate force was defeated, spelling the end of Atlanta’s resistance. Nearly 7,000 Confederate and Union soldiers were killed. That evening, Confederate General John Bell Hood ordered the evacuation of Atlanta, which was occupied by Sherman the next day. While much of Hood’s Army of Tennessee, led by Hardee, was able to escape, they were no longer able to stop General Sherman’s famous march to the sea. The Confederacy was dealt a severe blow.

Union General William Tecumseh Sherman

Like many war battles, Atlanta was not just militarily significant, but of equal political importance. The war was not going well for the Union. With General U.S. Grant unable to take Richmond, the upcoming Presidential election hung in the balance. Had Atlanta not been taken, Democratic candidate George McClellan might very well have defeated the incumbent, Abraham Lincoln, in the election and sued for peace. Had that happened, the United States we know today would not exist. Not unlike today, the fates of politicians and citizens alike are often determined on the battlefield.

You romanticists will remember the famous burning building scene in the movie Gone with the Wind as Rhett and Scarlett flee Atlanta. This scene takes place on August 31, 1864. Rhett decides to join the cause against the Yankees, leaving Scarlett to fend for herself with the memorable and apt words “God help the Yankees if they should get you.” Scarlett must slip past the Union forces located in the area of Rough and Ready (now called Mountain View) and Jonesborough to make it back to the family plantation, Tara. The book is historically accurate at this point. You can read this particular part of the dialogue here. You can also read about the background, and the interesting twists and turns of the Battle of Jonesborough, that helped seal the fate of the Confederacy, from an excerpt of William R. Scaife’s book The Campaign for Atlanta here. The area around Jonesboro and its history was one of the inspirations for Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind. There are still several antebellum homes in the area, as well as a couple of Confederate cemeteries – the final resting place for those Confederate soldiers who fought and died in the Battle of Jonesborough.

It Pays to Know Your Books

While thumbing through the religion books at Brused Books in Pullman, Washington, I came across a book I knew I had to buy. “What was it?” you ask, in eager anticipation. Why, it was The Emphatic Diaglott. “Oh, awesome!” you say, unsure of what that might be, other than that it’s something with two tongues.

The Emphatic Diaglott is an interlinear Bible – but not just any interlinear Bible, it’s a bad interlinear Bible. Originally published by Benjamin Wilson, who was anti-Trinitarian in his beliefs (being a Christadelphian). His anti-Trinitarian leanings show up in his translation, originally published in 1865 and based on the Codex Vaticanus. Where this monologue finally gets interesting is the entrance of a mystery person who buys the rights to Wilson’s Bible. The mystery man is Charles Taze Russell, the inventor of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and their organization, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. Russell was interested in The Emphatic Diaglott because of its anti-Trinitarian and anti-hell bias, as well as its usefulness in backing up Russell’s belief in Christ’s invisible return to earth in the 19th century.

The Watchtower printed the Diaglott, using the original plates obtained from Wilson, in 1902. They reset the type for publication on their own printing presses, running editions in 1927 and 1942. Eventually, the Watchtower tired of this Bible, translating and adding and subtracting to their own Bible, The New World Translation, in 1961. The Diaglott is useful because it can be used to show the Witnesses, using their own materials, how the Diaglott and The New World Translation differ. Of course, the easier route to take is to obtain a copy of the Watchtower’s own interlinear, called the Kingdom Interlinear Translation, and use it to show how the Greek markedly differs with their translation. You can download the Kingdom Interlinear (lovingly called the Purple People Eater by Christian apologists because of the purple cover of the 1965 edition) here.

So why was I so intent on buying The Emphatic Diaglott? Partly because I didn’t have one – it’s one of the few significant JW books I didn’t have. The other reason? It was $9.00, and the actual value for this early print edition is at least ten times that price – not that I’d sell it. It pays to know your books.