It Was a Very Good Year

Almost universally 2016 seems to be regarded by many in the broader culture as a very bad year. There were shootings and terrorists. There was a contentious election that offered Americans two dreadful choices. Peoples' lives fell to pot. There was a war in Syria that seemed to be less of a war and more of a holocaust. The list goes on. People seem to universally be ready to bid 2016 goodbye. I feel a little guilty I suppose, but I'm not quite ready to throw 2016 onto the trash heap of history.

As I write this post, I am listening to Frank Sinatra. And all I can think is that everybody else is wrong and Frank is right. It was a very good year. Of course, Frank is only right by accident the same way even a broken clock is right twice a day. For Frank a very good year was

Blue-blooded girls
Of independent means
We'd ride in limousines
Their chauffeurs would drive
When I was thirty-five

Personally, it was a very good year, but not because of girls and chauffeurs. I can only speak for myself, and perhaps for my family, but as this year ends I want to end it striking a note of gratitude and not of grumbling.

The time from when we were called to Pearl Presbyterian Church until now has been a whirlwind and filled with personal blessings. Not only do we have a church family that loves us and puts up with my odd fashion sense, preaching foibles, and clearly expanding waistline, but they seem to get me. The other day I was preparing to teach a Wednesday night Bible study and forgot I was wearing my converse sneakers with my dress pants and blazer. My wife said something about it, and one of our parishioners said, "Oh we knew what we were getting when we called Adam." It wasn't an insult in the slightest and I appreciated hearing it. It was the sound of someone who gets me.

Our family feels very loved by this congregation. Not only did they turn out in large numbers to help us move, but we have been welcomed into their homes, shared many meals, spent time over the holidays with their families, and become a part of their lives.

Materially, we have been blessed. We have our first ever home. After 16 years of marriage, my wife lives somewhere that she can paint the walls, hang up shelves, tinker with the landscaping, and customize to her heart's content. We have always lived in places where we couldn't have animals, and so my family now has a new kitten named Winter. She is soft and cuddly, but she scratches me and bites me a lot, and so our relationship is complicated.

In many ways, and on so many levels, this was a year of massive changes and improvements for our family. My wife is realizing that maybe she has a real gift for not only decorating her own home but also helping others to decorate their own houses. My children are all learning to deal with being in public school. I am learning what it is to be not only a preacher, but also a pastor (sure to be a long process, as my parishioners will tell you).

It wasn't all smooth sailing and salty sea air, though. January to July of this year was, without a doubt, the most stressful, difficult, and trying season I've ever personally endured. Once the last semester of seminary came, everything went from abstract and hypothetical to real and consequential. Our search for a new church home sent us on multiple flights to Chicago (our childrens' first time seeing skyscrapers in person). We traveled to the Tennessee countryside, and to the muggy swamplands of Georgia. At every stop we asked ourselves the very real question, "Could we see ourselves here? Could this be the place for us? Will this be our home?" (These can be exhausting questions if you consider them very seriously each time.) And of course, there is the added pressure of knowing that the churches are asking themselves similar questions about us. Travel took its toll on me physically, and it was a very difficult time. I experienced so much anxiety that I often found myself thinking I might need to see a doctor.

Looking back on this year I realize how much faithlessness and fear was intermingled with this season. Anxiety, paranoia, wondering what we would do if we didn't find a place to minister... all of these thoughts plagued me during half of 2016. Someone looking in from the outside might say, "Well Adam that doesn't sound like a very good year. Spending half of the year realizing how faithless and fearful your heart is sure sounds like a bad year to me."

Of course, we don't often see or feel it, but seasons like that are really a gift. It's one thing to acknowledge the providence of God. It's one thing to acknowledge and believe that you have been called by God to serve as a pastor. It's another thing to put those two realities - your calling, and God's providence - together and hold them in your heart and really believe them such that you can rest and sleep knowing that his plan is good and that his call is true. The reason this season was a gift was that, among other things, it exposed sin. There was no other way for this to be done! My family and I had to be tested, tried, and troubled so that the dross could rise to the surface. If I had sought a church and had something lined up in May as soon as I graduated I guarantee you I would have gone into a church situation as a smug new graduate, ready to lecture and teach, but lacking in tenderness toward those who struggle.

Instead, God saw fit to tenderize me over a period of six months, to show me my own heart, to let me be stung by the barbs of my own fear, even in the face of the promise that God truly does ordain and control whatsoever comes to pass (Eph. 1:11).

If you feel that 2016 was a very bad year, I won't try to persuade you that you are wrong. It may have seemed pretty awful. But I would encourage you to ask if God was using the darkness to purge you or show you your own sin. Often giving our children what they want is the worst thing for them. God used this season to show me that fear and failure can be sanctifying in the life of his people when met with repentance and pleading for divine grace. It was a painful year, but by the help of the Holy Spirit, God turned it into a very good year.

A Letter to My Wife After Four Years of Seminary

Dear Arryn,

Five years ago when we were convinced of God’s call you agreed gladly and willingly to move to Jackson. You packed up all of your possessions. You packed up your children. You said goodbye to countless friends. You said goodbye to stability. You said goodbye to smooth roads (literally and metaphorically). You said goodbye to good customer service, to cool crisp breezy weather, and a nice big quiet front yard with birds chirping outside the window. You said goodbye to a cozy hometown where you could walk a block over to go to the bakery or a restaurant and a neighborhood where you felt you could walk around with your kids whenever you wanted. You said goodbye to clean air and water. You said goodbye to living near family. You said goodbye to a loving church family. You said goodbye to familiarity.

In a word, to pursue God’s call on our lives, you said goodbye to your life as you knew it. You died to yourself. Aside from Christ himself, you are the greatest model of dying to yourself that I’ve ever seen, and you do it over and over on a daily basis. I see you up close, and with a lot of people when you see them up close your admiration diminishes. I feel the exact opposite about you. The more I know you, the more I see your life, the more I observe you day in and day out, the greater my esteem for you becomes. To me, you are a hero.

For me, seminary has been a dream. Something I hoped about, fantasized about, dreamed about, for nearly 17 years. Two years after God planted this calling and desire in my heart I met you. It took 11 years together for us to get to a place where, as a family we were ready to move to Jackson for this. These last four years, with a couple of painful and difficult exceptions, have been everything I hoped seminary would be. God has used this time to prepare me, I believe, to pursue the call that I’ve sensed since I was just a 17 year old kid. In a word, seminary could not have been a better experience for me. I saw so much, learned so much, grew so much, and developed so much.

However, every day while I’ve been in class learning…every day when I’ve gotten to meet some theological hero…every day when I’ve been able to study and grow and work and write…you have been dying to yourself.

And your daily dying never stops. Whether it’s working multiple part-time jobs (taking up huge chunks of your week)…whether it’s homeschooling children who do NOT want to learn…whether it’s preparing a healthy meal for your family at the end of a long day when you’ve already been working at the clothes closet…whether it’s giving up your Saturday mornings every week so that you can clean Phil and Ginger’s house…whether it’s taking care of a whiny husband who can’t even handle a little cold…whether it’s the two years you spent on the WIM cabinet…whether it’s trying to corral four children in a little church with no nursery or anyone to help you keep them in line (all so that I can preach)…whether it’s driving a horribly crummy car that doesn’t even have a working driver’s side door lock or properly working rear door…whether it’s getting up at night with little ones who have nightmares because you know if it was me I’d never be able to get back to sleep…whether it’s the numerous challenges that every Christian faces, like living daily before the face of God and spending time with him…

You have died to yourself for the sake of me, for the sake of our children, for the sake of the Lord’s call on our family and on our lives. You have a level of honesty and integrity that I hope to aspire to. In a matter of days I will be receiving my Master of Divinity degree, and we will prepare to go to the church where God would have us serve. But you deserve an award that is more prestigious, more honorable, and that conveys my gratitude.

I believe that without exaggeration it can be said of you: “Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her.”

With all my Love,
Adam

Keeping Your Head Above Water in Seminary

I won’t hold myself up as the pinnacle of time-management. I’m not perfect, and I don’t claim to be. However, I'm quite a few semesters into school and haven't lost my mind yet. I'm getting my assignments in on time and doing well in classes. I often get asked how I have time to read books beyond what we're assigned in class. I may be well-adjusted enough to give a few tips. I've had to become organized out of necessity. I'm the kind of person to get easily stressed out if I have too many things on my plate. I want to do everything well and if I know I have things undone it drives me crazy until they've been handled. My first tip, of course, is don't waste hours and hours of your time watching sports. If that's not enough, you may need to just read on and see the rest of what I say.

My first year of seminary was very stressful. This was for a variety of reasons - the same sorts of problems and concerns that occupy most seminarians that I hang out with, really. I’m not special or unique. But my prone-ness toward stress drove me to find ways to be more efficient with my time. Leon Brown has written a blog post where he highlights the importance of time management in Seminary. In light of the topic he’s brought up I thought that I would share a few of the most important practical changes (most of them tech-related) that I’ve made in my life that have been used by the Lord to maintain my sanity. This isn't an exhaustive list, but it is the big four.

E-Mail

When you click to read your e-mail, what do you see? Are there a couple that are waiting to be cleared out, or are there 3,000 that are there to stay? When I first came to seminary, after reading an e-mail I would just leave it in my inbox unless it was junk or spam. I didn’t sort it, and I relied on my memory when I needed to go back to something in an e-mail at a later date.

What changed my life was using an app that lets you file your e-mails you want to save, delete the ones that don’t matter or have your email sent back later. I use Mailbox for iOS. I won’t go on and on about this, but if you use an e-mail app that still leaves your inbox filled with thousands of e-mails you need another system. This program encourages you to have a zero inbox. Probably the most important thing about this program is that you can set the e-mails that you need to respond to later (but don’t have the time) to return to you at a later time when you can deal with it. It forces you to confront what is in your inbox. This means that any time there is something in your inbox, it is something that needs to be dealt with. It saves you time down the road and—more importantly—saves you from the mental energy of trying to keep track of e-mails you need to deal with in your mind.

The Seminarian’s Calendar
If you have a calendar app on your computer and aren’t using it, I don’t know how you get through the day. When I first started at RTS I didn’t do well with time management. I didn’t think very far ahead. I took the semester one week at a time and didn’t think much further ahead than that. It was a mess and resulted in a couple of final papers that had been cobbled together over the course of a couple weeks instead of being allowed to simmer throughout the semester. By the second semester, though, I’d figured out that I needed to sit down for a few hours with all of the syllabi from every class and write in the due dates for everything. Every reading, every paper, every quiz…everything. I use the default Calendar app on my Mac as well as a program called Fantastical.

One of the best things I’ve done with projects that are due at the end of the semester is to create an event at different stages along the process to confront me with reminders and set milestones. These events essentially ask me how I’m doing on assignment X or Y. You don’t want to turn in a last minute paper. Last minute papers stink. They smell like desperation and commentaries. Working on your paper at stages throughout the semester helps to prevent that.

As an example, I actually have a paper for Isaiah-Malachi that is due on April 11th. I created an event for Feb. 28th in Fantastical that says, “Have a thesis and outline written for Isaiah-Malachi paper.” I then created an event on March 21st that said, “Have rough draft written for Isaiah-Malachi paper.” These are stages in the creation of a paper that you don’t want to leave til April 7 to get started on. At this point, all I have to do for that paper is to go over the rough draft and clean it up. I’ve removed the stress from the equation by working on it in chunks through the semester. Use your calendar apps to keep you on your toes!

Also, when each week starts I go through and have every day planned out. I print out my schedule for my wife while walking through it with her. It helps her out and it gives me an opportunity to think about my week before it happens. I tell myself how to spend my day before it starts. If I followed my base impulses I’d just watch cats playing Super Mario Bros. on You Tube until it’s bedtime. Seminarians shouldn’t live like that. Every day that we spend is precious. There shouldn’t be wasted minutes. This doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be relaxation or times of rest. But it does mean that most of our time is already spoken for.

Dropbox
I don’t know if you should use Dropbox, or Google Drive, or whatever. I haven’t tested all of them. I use Dropbox and I’m happy with it. Several times a day I use Dropbox for at least something. I use it to e-mail class notes to a classmate who was sick, to check something from the class syllabus (you don’t just carry those around with you, do you?) on your iPad, to print off an assignment that’s due, or to open a PDF to study off of even if you forgot to transfer it before you left home.

Another reason to use Dropbox? Your computer could crash. How many semesters of work will you lose if your computer drops dead? Probably a lot. And that’s a lot of tears. Having a cloud backup is a nice cozy security blanket for your schoolwork. If you have a desktop computer at home that you use and a laptop that you also use, it keeps files between them synched constantly. No need to transfer files from one computer to the other. It’s a time saver. It’s a thought saver. With Dropbox you spend less time worrying about stuff and more time focusing on your projects, lessons, sermons, etc. that are keeping you busy already.

And while you’re at it, keep your Dropbox organized. Create a folder for each semester of the school year and subfolders within each of those for the classes you have that semester. Stay organized so that you have to use your brain less to remember where you kept stuff. Click on the picture above to get an idea of how I keep mine organized.

Half of time management is keeping yourself well organized. Know your week ahead of schedule. Know your semester before it begins. Know your long-term projects and create reminders to work on them throughout the semester. Do not save your papers until the week they’re due.

Be (willing to be) a B Student
I don't remember where I heard this, but somebody once told a group of seminary students, "For some of you, it would be a sin for you to not get an A. For others of you, it would be a sin if you did get an A." The point this person was making was that school is not supposed to be more important than everything else in your life. If somebody is capable of getting an A without upsetting the balance of the universe, they should aim for an A. But if getting an A means throwing your family under the bus or neglecting the church, you need to recalibrate things.

Use the extra time your efficiency is carving out to look at your kids. Talk to them. Hold them up in the air and stare at them. Kiss your wife. Be present. Be alive. Enjoy your family. Take them to church. Pray with them. Read Lord of the Rings with your kids at bedtime. Oftentimes seminary students wait until the semester is over to pay attention to their families. I don’t care if you’re taking 17 credit hours and preaching on the weekends, you probably need to come to terms with the fact that God didn’t call you to Seminary exclusively to be an A student. I’ve never heard of a church that wanted to know a man’s GPA from seminary before hiring him. God definitely called you to keep your family together and to minister to your wife. And while you’re at it, grit your teeth and let your wife go to women’s groups in the evenings when it’s possible. Watch the kids for her. Take a load off of her back. Give her one chance during the week to meet other people who aren’t little kids who want to watch Magic School Bus 24/7!

Conclusion
E-Mail inbox zero. Calendar apps. Dropbox. Be willing to be a B student.

That’s it. Those are the four things that have taken the chaos of my semester and given me some structure and stability. Everyone is different, and everyone’s personality requires different things to function well. For me, I can’t be thinking about a thousand things at a time. I can only be any good at one thing at a time, and that means bringing structure out of the chaos.

Know what your priorities are. Act in ways that move you towards accomplishing your priorities. Don’t play video games until the important stuff is done. Pray like you’re dependent on God (you are). Act like he holds you responsible (He does).

Growing From a Maximus to a Lawrence

The summer after I graduated from High School was the most carefree and memorable time of my life. It was filled with camping and driving my truck all over Kansas with friends, listening to Tom Petty, and dreaming about the future. It was also the summer that I saw the film Gladiator. I was just a teenager. I'd never seen a real film epic. I didn't know what a proper film epic was like. The closest thing to an old Hollywood epic I'd seen was The Sound of Music. I saw Gladiator, and my favorite thing about the film was the triumphalism of it all. The movie gave you a bloodlust for Commodus, and in straightforward Hollywood fashion it was satisfied by the end. There was a triumphalism and a victory and something that gave me, as a young man launching in to the world, a sense that the world was also mine for the conquering. It sounds so dumb now, but that's really what the world looked like to me back then.

A year later I had an opportunity to see Lawrence of Arabia. By this time I'd had in my mind an impression of what a grand Hollywood epic would be like. The film was a huge disappointment to me. At first it was exciting, but the film ended with Lawrence very unhappy and broken. It didn't appeal to me because I wanted victory, clashing swords, and happy endings.

Soon after, I watched Ben-Hur (the one with Charleton Heston) and basically expected to see Gladiator again. I was shocked by how liberally Gladiator borrowed from Ben-Hur, and so I thought I could predict the film's formulaic ending, but was again disturbed when I realized this was a film that dwelt on the brokenness of its protagonist and dissatisfaction with the revenge that was being sought throughout the movie. This time, I got it. This time I understood that something was wrong with me. I wanted flashy Hollywood spectacle and considered something inferior that was actually offering a mature exploration of human brokenness.

As a young man, I wanted the flash and the victory. Now I'm in my thirties, and I know that doesn't make me a wisened old man, but I have had my share of both beautiful and painful experiences in life. I've been to my father's funeral. I've failed at things I've tried to do. I've held my baby boy in my arms as his last breath left his body. Even those closest to me don't realize I've wept great tears more times than I can count. Life hasn't been the way I thought it would be when I was a fresh-faced High School graduate. It's a beautiful and painful world we live in. Tonight, I watched Lawrence of Arabia again. Peter O'Toole is such an amazing actor, I became lost in his performance.

For the second time in my life I watched the part where Lawrence has to shoot the man he went back through the desert, risking his life to rescue - Gasim was his name.  I don't know about the real T.E. Lawrence, but the Lawrence in this movie never recovered from the moment he had to shoot Gasim. He was never the same man. A hardness came upon him. He could never go back to being the person he was before. Maybe it wasn't wrong what he did - he was administering justice, after all. But it changed him, regardless.

The point I'm trying to make is that now I realize that life isn't Gladiator. We get hurt, and we don't always heal. We change and grow. We don't stay the same, and yet paradoxically we don't move on, either. Part of growing up involves experiencing life as it comes and having the perspective to see how you've grown through it without resentment or bitterness, trusting God's providence in it all. This is a lesson I wasn't ready for, coming out of High School. It's one I'm still trying to get used to.

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Thanks for reading,
Bring the Books

Thanks for the clicks!

I just want to thank our readers for their clicks to the Westminster Bookstore. As you may know, when you follow our links to WTS Books, we get a small amount of credit each time. What you see above just came in the mail a matter of minutes ago. They are for my Fall seminary classes at RTS Jackson. These aren't all of the books that I need for all of my classes, but they are the books that you - our readers purchased.

One of the most exciting books, for me, is Michael Kruger's Canon Revisited. I had wanted to read it for my own edification, but now I will be reading it for Doctrine of Scripture class. I'm glad that an important work like this has been integrated into our curriculum here at RTS. We will also be reading Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum's Kingdom Through Covenant as well as Meredith Kline's The Structure of Biblical Authority for Introduction to Biblical Theology. All in all I couldn't be more thrilled about the Fall classes or more thankful to our readers.

Spend Less Time on Your Computer (and More on Your iPod/iPad)

The last year has been full of transitions.  One of the biggest transitions was moving from Windows to Mac.  I know, I know, I'm very trendy like that.  If hipsters are defined by their love of things before they are cool, then I am the anti-hipster when it comes to computers.  Anyway, as I've transitioned to an all-Mac household, I've accrued some time-saving programs and methods that I've used to minimize how much time I spend in front of the actual computer.  And so, without any sense of organization, and totally out of any kind of order, I present to you my favorite time-saving apps.

Pocket (formerly Read It Later)
One of the best apps that has helped me spend less time at the computer is Pocket.  This fancy little program can be integrated into your home browser.  After you sign up for a free account with them, you can install a user-created browser add-on (Chrome or Firefox) so that if you want to save a page to Pocket, you just right click and choose "Read It Later."  It's that easy.  The program builds a list of the webpages that you are saving.

You can then install Pocket (again, for free) on your iPod or iPad.  When you activate Pocket each time, it automatically downloads all of the webpages you saved to your device.  Now, even if you leave the comfort of Wi-Fi you can read the stories you saved at your leisure - or whenever you have a dull moment.  It has helped me to get that big screen out of my face in the mornings reading news and my favorite blogs... and replace it with a smaller screen.

iMatch
I don't want to spend too much time lobbying for this.  If you have a Mac or iOS device, then you're already used to Apple waving this feature in front of your face every chance they get.  Either this is your kind of thing, or it's not.  If you have two or more Apple devices and a lot of music to manage, this is, plain and simple, something you should have.  It costs $25 a year, and Apple basically takes care of all your music.  When you sign up, any music in iTunes gets confirmed with the cloud (in some cases it gets uploaded if they don't already have it somewhere in the cloud).  You can almost instantly listen to that music on any of your devices, assuming you've got wi-fi in the vicinity.  No more plugging in your iPod to manage your music, and if your computer ever has a hard drive disaster, you've still got your music.

Tip: Apple only backs up files that are 96kbps or higher bitrate.  This is a problem if you're Reformed and love sermons since most sermon audio files are pretty low bitrate.  My solution is to upconvert the files from 64 or 32kbps (or whatever they are) to 96kbps.  Now I have Martin Lloyd-Jones with me, even in the cloud.  It's a bit sneaky, but it does work.  The same goes for my Max McLean ESV audio Bible.

Instacast ($0.99)
One of the annoyances I have with iOS 5 is that it doesn't allow for wi-fi podcast management.  And so even if you are using iMatch to keep and organize your music, you still have to plug your iPod into the computer to keep your podcasts up to date. Enter Instacast. This program is a fantastic podcast manager that tells you each time there are new episodes of your favorite programs like The Dividing Line or Christ the Center. If you are using iMatch and you also have Instacast, it is possible that you will never need to plug your iPod into your computer again (you'll still have to charge it somewhere, though.  No app for that yet).

Accordance
This is my go-to Bible software.  If you have Accordance on your mac already, then you already know about this program.  However, even if you aren't already an Accordance user, you can still benefit from the iOS version.  The initial app comes with the ESV and WEB translations of the Bible, fantastic search functions, and other features.  If you sign up for a free Accordance online account at Accordance's web site, you get other features added to your Accordance app such as the KJV Bible, the 1901 ASV, Greek & Hebrew Strong's Dictionaries, and other stuff that I won't list here.  Accordance is great, even if you don't want to shell out $1000 for the Cadillac package.

The Reformed Forum
I love listening to The Reformed Forum.  When I'm at home and have wi-fi, I listen to the show with this app.  The only downside is that it doesn't allow downloading so that you can use it when you're out of wi-fi range, which is why I tend to use Instacast to listen to the show.  Still, this is a solid app and a great way to listen to a fantastic podcast.

Tiny Wings
Because it's so addictive.  (This won't save you any time.  It will waste it.)

Josh Walker Interviewed

Friends of the blog may be interested to know that our own Josh Walker was interviewed over at A Living Sacrifice.  You can read the interview here.

"Behind a Frowning Providence..."

I began this day with an unwelcome cold shower. This unpleasant cold shower was a kindness of the providence of God. Let me explain. I got into my shower this morning only to realize that there was no hot water. After expediently showering, I went downstairs to light the pilot on our water heater, only to find it would not light. I also noticed that our furnace was clicking and not lighting. It also was apparent that our dryer (gas) was running, but it wasn't warming up. Anyone with a lick of sense will tell you that something was wrong with our house's gas supply, and they would have been right.

Our local gas company came out later in the day and explained that they installed a new meter for us because the old one was not allowing gas to get through. With the new meter installed, the men from the gas company were gracious enough to re-light our pilots for my wife, as I was at work for a few more hours. When the man from the gas company lit the pilot, he also checked for Carbon Monoxide leaks. Low and behold, he found one. Evidently, our house is built in a way that excess CO is vented through an old incinerator flew. However, the CO was not escaping - it was staying in our house. Evidently, birds had made their home in our chimney and had so blocked the opening that no light was even able to get through. The gas company would not turn our gas back on until the obstruction was removed.

Our landlord promptly had the flew cleaned out, our gas was turned back on, and the pilots were lit. Tonight, we have heating and hot water, praise God. What really concerns us is that our house may have been filling with carbon monoxide for quite some time. The gas company told us that we might have all died in our sleep some night because of this leak. If it hadn't been for my cold shower this morning and the discovery of this obstruction which lay at the end of a long chain of complex events, we still could be in serious danger of carbon monoxide poisoning.

What I mean to say is, I thank God for this event which began the day. I was not thanking God for my cold shower at the time, but I have spent the entire evening thanking Him for what I thought was a "frowning providence" on His part. Our lives were literally saved because this gas meter went bad.

It has been a hard week, I won't lie. We had two funerals in one week. We spent an entire week separated as a family because of one of the funerals. Work has been exhausting. Responsibilities keep piling on. I woke up this morning with a freezing cold shower.

In all of this, I am reminded of brother Cowper's words:

Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

Much of the time, we don't have the pleasure of seeing God's smiling face in the immediacy of our pain or apparent "frowning providences." It is in the times when we can't see God's smiling face when we glorify Him by trusting Him anyway that He is good, and that He does good, and that He will not allow His saints to endure anything which is not for their eternal good. We do Him no honor by claiming that the things which happen to us are not His will and that they are not sent by Him. In so doing, we lose God's entire purpose in our pain. In fact, by denigrating God's sovereignty in our pain, we make it impossible for God to have a purpose in our darkest hours. These two claims together are our anchor: (1) God rules even my pain, and (2) He is absolutely good and always does what it right. Remove one and He is a despot. Remove the other, and he is a well-intentioned weakling.

Walker Reviews Lexicon

The Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism has a review of the Compact Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, edited by Mark House. The review was written by our own Josh Walker and may be of interest to many of you.

Did 9/11 Give Your Life Significance?

In his book Lost in the Cosmos, Walker Percy discusses the fact that fallen humanity both need and desire violence in order to infuse common life with meaning. Much like Flannery O'Connor's fiction, many of Walker Percy's books involve characters who experience some sort of injury or violence, and that moment of violence creates a world of significance and escape from the boredom - at least for the moment.

Since 9/11 is coming up and it is en vogue to talk about it for the moment, permit me to offer an illustration. Most of us remember where we were when we learned that there was a terrorist attack on New York and Washington D.C. I was sitting next to my soon-to-be-wife during my freshman year of college, in a chapel session. Though it was horrific, there was something exhilarating about the thought that maybe - just maybe - the world was coming to an end. It suddenly felt that something was afoot - that there was something tremendously significant happening, and we were a part of it, and it was moving all around us in a way we didn't understand. Between our tears for the suffering and the dead, we felt alive again. This is a somewhat embarrassing truth because it makes us look callous and heartless, and we often care what other think about us. But this truth is also horrible, because it shows that we are not able to awaken ourselves from the malaise - from the joyless monotony. We emotionally need to be rescued from without by some unspeakable violence which few of us would admit that we need.

I hate to be too obvious, but it seems to me (and this seems to be Percy's answer, though he never says it explicitly) that the answer to humanity's permanent malaise has come in the death of Christ. Though this event took place thousands of years ago, it was arguably the most unjust, the most horrendous act of violence (spiritually and physically) which humanity ever committed or witnessed. If Christians are right that Christ was, Himself God, then their contention that Jesus was infinitely good makes the death of Christ infinitely horrible. As such, while events like 9/11 are horrible and are scarred onto us in a way that is unimaginable, the horror of it all is nothing compared to the evils and horrors of the death of Christ. His death was so rife with meaning and injustice that it still rings out, through the aeons, as the violent act which is alone truly capable of permanently shaking men from their malaise.

We have no grounds for boredom or laziness or meaninglessness or insignificance in a universe where Christ has been crucified. Those who find themselves in the malaise need only remind themselves of the bare facts of Christ's death on the cross before their soul and conscience is shocked to the core that a pure and innocent man should willingly die this ignominious, shameful, and violent death. Just as men said to one another, "Did you hear about the twin towers?" in order to feel alive again, men ought just as well to shock one another by something as simple as, "Did you know that the anointed one, the Holy One, the Messiah, died as a naked crook?" If our consciences were working properly, we would never cease weeping at the thought that the innocent Lord of Heaven and Earth hung naked on a piece of wood, despised by his Father and cursed by his people. Because Christ died, we know that forever, something is afoot - something is happening. And we know that it is a bigger deal than 9/11 felt like when it happened.

This may be the greatest testimony of man's wickedness - that upon hearing of Christ, we often respond with a careless yawn and feigned interest. It is no wonder that man has become bored with sex, bored with violence, bored with amusements - bored with himself. His own conscience is barely roused to cognitive wakefulness by the deepest dreadfulness the universe has ever known. If the death of Christ will not shock man out of the doldrums, then what makes him think that watching a person being mutilated on television or a children's hospital being blown up abroad via the news will barely more than increase his circulation?

A Tribute to my Uncle Jerry

My family growing up was Christian. It was my father who kept our family's religious commitments together. When my father had a downtime spiritually, we would go weeks (months?) without attending church. When my father was feeling reinvigorated, we would find a new church and stick with it for a long time. I am quite convinced that my father was the spiritual center of my family, and even though he was a profoundly imperfect man, he still loved God and prayed for his children. He brought us up the best he could, and he sought to share his love for God with me as well.

When I was about 14 or 15, I had an experience at church camp where I was essentially forced to speak in tongues and I subsequently faked it because of the pressure that was put on me. After that experience, I drifted from God and became a self-styled atheist and skeptic. Around 17 or so, I started to study cosmology and history, eventually I devoted my life to Jesus and came back to the Church.

It was during these early and formative stages of my life that my Uncle Jerry came in and played a very important role in my spiritual development. Early on, during my atheist years, Uncle Jerry and I bonded over our love of Michael Crichton's technothrillers such as Sphere, Jurassic Park, and The Terminal Man. I felt him a kindred spirit who loved science and truth as much as I did. He was not an atheist like me, however. After I became a believer, the first thing that I remember my Uncle doing was that he gave me a book by J.I. Packer, Knowing God. I read the book, and it became basic and formative for me in my understanding of who God is and why He should matter to me. Every book that I read was built upon the foundation of Knowing God, and I have my Uncle Jerry to thank for laying that foundation by encouraging me to follow God, and not simply experiences of God. My father was much more experiential and charismatic in his spirituality. He loved to sing worship songs and to travel around to churches providing the special music in the middle of the service. In this respect, I am a near opposite of my father. Whereas my father was highly emotional and open to "movements of the Spirit," I am a skeptic by nature and distrust experience for the most part.

It is because of these differences between my father and I that this book from my Uncle was of such value. I was used to seeing authors like John Bevere and Bob Larson around which emphasized defeating the devil and overcoming demonic forces. What I found in Packer's writings was an emphasis on God Himself - the person of God. The next book, which I still read to this day, is John Stott's book Authentic Christianity, which is a collection of extended quotes from Stott. As before, this book took me to the next level in my commitment to God - yet in a way that did not primarily emphasize experience. I was grateful for the God-centeredness of Packer and Stott. I didn't know it yet, but it was the God of Packer and Stott which I was missing in my Free Methodist theological education I was getting. It was only years later when I found the writings of R.C. Sproul did I once again recognize the great and sovereign God which I had first encountered in the writings of these two books.

Throughout my life, my Uncle has been a spiritual inspiration to me, and I will never forget the special interest which he seemed to take in me during those formative and important years of my life. I only hope that when my nieces and nephews are at the right age, their uncle Adam will be remembered as a blessing and not as a nuisance (history is against me on that one, though!).

Lightning Storm + Rich Mullins

About a week ago a huge lightningstorm passed southeast of our house. It was a late night, and I decided to step out side to videotape the lightning. Some of you may find something pleasing about this video. I've set it to the tune of Rich Mullins' song "Calling Out Your Name" which is fitting for two reasons: (a) he makes reference to feeling "the thunder in the sky/I see the sky about to rain" which fits the video, and (b) he's from Kansas, like me, and so I always feel like he's singing about my home. I'm self-centered like that.

Three Movies That Changed My Life (Part 3)

1. The Thin Red Line

There is no other movie out there that I have triple-dipped for before except this one. I used to own it on VHS, and I wore out my copy til it became nigh unwatchable. Then I bought it on DVD and watched it too many times to count, although it bore nary a scratch because it was beloved to me. Finally, for my birthday my wife got me the Criterion Edition Blu-Ray of it (probably the greatest looking film ever seen on Blu-Ray, it is reference quality and sets the standard for all film transfers, as far as I'm concerened), and I watch it constantly. In the last six months I've owned it, I've probably watched it five or six times. I do not tire of it. I have nearly memorized every scene and every line of this movie. I have owned both discs of the soundtrack for the film and listened to them obsessively. I have purchased and read the book by James Jones which the movie was based on. I cannot say the same of any other movie. Watching it becomes a ritual for me, where I turn out the lights, pull my chair up five feet from the TV, and just get lost in the greatest film of all time. It's been my favorite since I first saw it in 1998.

I was a junior in high school. I bought an old used copy on VHS from Blockbuster. I had never seen it, but for $3 I could ignore the fact that the case for the movie was long gone. I took it home, watched it, and was mystified. I thought this was supposed to be a war movie, but instead I found an abstract exploration of sin, death, violence, and God. Holy cow, so I watched it again. The second time, I tuned the world out and became lost in the glory. A third time. It was all coming together; I was tasting something beautiful in the universe. Progressively as I've watched this film I have always gleaned something new. It's a masterpiece. A masterpiece. I'm gushing.

As a high school junior, I was way too shut up in my little town with my little sophomoric worries. I wanted a girlfriend. I wanted friends. I wanted a better truck. I wanted to be liked. I wanted to go to college and become somebody - anybody. I knew there was a world out there, but it felt so far away. All I felt when I looked around me was concrete, wheat fields, closed up storefronts - reminders of a bygone time that was good and once rang of prosperity and success. This was the town I came from, and I'll never forget it because it provided the context for my delight in The Thin Red Line.

Here was a film which did not pass by on the screen, but screamed at me that there was a larger reality and that I should not identify it with myself. I became inflamed with a desire to enjoy the world, to not pass up the delights of flowers, of clouds, of the touch of a girl's hand. After watching The Thin Red Line, I knew that these things were real in more than just a "my life is a TV show" sense. I saw the universe, I saw what I had been missing, and I resolved that whether I died today or tomorrow or 50 years from now, it could not be denied that I lived.

The film injected a poetry into everyday life which I still enjoy. I will often go on a walk and remind myself to savor this moment as though it were my last. Although I have since heard this sentiment echoed by Jonathan Edwards, C.S. Lewis, and John Piper, I learned it from all of these men in the context of a post-Thin-Red-Line world. A world after I had seen this film. It became my reference point for finding the beauty in the ordinary and in the extraordinary. The film addresses specific theological matters without ever really speaking of God. The strength of what the film does is, it denies the possibility of comprehending the world apart from God, much like director Terrence Malick would later do with his potential (I haven't decided yet and won't for a decade) magnum opus The Tree of Life.

In the end, it doesn't matter if I convince you. I probably won't. Either you're one of those people who hate this movie, or you agree with me that it's a filmmaking masterpiece. Maybe you're like Gene Siskel and think it's "the greatest contemporary war film I've ever seen." In that case, I'm with you, providing you'll remove the "contemporary war" qualifier. Or maybe you're like a group of my friends I invited over to watch it with the other evening who seemed almost completely mystified by it. In that case, you still need to see it a second or third time.

In the end, I really don't care. The film made it's mark on me, and it's still making its mark on me. Yes, it really is the greatest film ever made. I'll get in a fist-fight defending that claim.

Best dialogue from The Thin Red Line:

Witt: I remember my mother when she was dyin', looked all shrunk up and gray. I asked her if she was afraid. She just shook her head. I was afraid to touch the death I seen in her. I couldn't find nothin' beautiful or uplifting about her goin' back to God. I heard of people talk about immortality, but I ain't seen it. I wondered how it'd be like when I died, what it'd be like to know this breath now was the last one you was ever gonna draw. I just hope I can meet it the same way she did, with the same... calm. 'Cause that's where it's hidden - the immortality I hadn't seen.

Welsh: In this world, a man, himself, is nothing. And there ain't no world but this one.

Storm: I look at that boy dyin', I don't feel nothin'. I don't care about nothin' anymore.
Welsh: Sounds like bliss.

Witt: We were a family. How'd it break up and come apart, so that now we're turned against each other? Each standing in the other's light. How'd we lose that good that was given us? Let it slip away. Scattered it, careless. What's keepin' us from reaching out, touching the glory?

Train: Where is it that we were together? Who were you that I lived with? The brother. The friend. Darkness, light. Strife and love. Are they the workings of one mind? The features of the same face? Oh, my soul. Let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes. Look out at the things you made. All things shining.

Witt: Do you ever feel lonely?
Welsh: Only around people.

Welsh: There's only one thing a man can do - find something that's his, and make an island for himself. If I never meet you in this life, let me feel the lack; a glance from your eyes, and my life will be yours.

Bell: Love. Where does it come from? Who lit this flame in us? No war can put it out, conquer it. I was a prisoner. You set me free.

Train: What is this great evil? How did it steal into the world? From what seed, what root did it spring? Who's doing this? Who's killing us? Robbing us of light and life. Mocking us with the sight of what we might have known.

Bell: Why should I be afraid to die? I belong to you. If I go first, I'll wait for you there, on the other side of the dark waters. Be with me now.

Witt: War don't ennoble men. It turns them into dogs... poisons the soul.

Pushing Yourself to the Next Level

I want to do a plug for one of my favorite blogs on the net. It's called The Art of Manliness, and if you don't read this blog, then you are missing out. They inspired me to do the following things over the last few months:

• Make homemade ice cream with my kids.
• Become a hat man. I bought a felt and straw fedora because of their blog.
• Start dressing snappier. I threw away a dozen t-shirts and made the move to button shirts with ties and vests, even when I'm not going out. It has really increased my everyday confidence and has encouraged my productivity here at BTB.
  
• Start shaving with cold water. Their arguments in favor of it are sound.
• Learn how to talk to my barber.

This may be as close to an inspirational post as I'll ever share because normally that sort of stuff is sappy, sentimental, and very me-focused. However, this post from AOM has some very helpful advice, even for would-be theologians or pastors. What is it that makes us plateau and keeps us from getting better?

The Unprofessional Book Review: Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson

Erik Larson's books are great. I've read his Devil in the White City and In the Garden of Beasts and they're all wonderful historical narratives. Although Isaac's Storm is not the greatest thing he's ever written, it is a tremendously moving and at times horrifying tale about the most destructive hurricane to ever strike the United States. The tale takes place in Galveston, Texas in 1900 and follows Isaac Monroe - a meteorologist for the newly budded National Weather Service as he comes to grips with the barometer readings and all that scientific stuff. Once he realizes he is dealing with a full-on hurricane, it is too late for the residents of Galveston. In the end, nearly 8,000 people were killed by this hurricane, making New Orleans and 9/11 combined look like child's play. It was (and still is) the deadliest storm in the history of the United States.

Isaac himself lost his wife and baby to the storm and it is gut-wrenching to follow him as he seeks to find her body, confirming for sure that she is actually dead. Isaac was changed forever by this storm and devoted the rest of his life to the study of hurricanes. It was in this respect that I was most affected by what I read as I saw Isaac move from being a scientist to being a man, drawn into the painful reality that weather is not merely something to be studied - it is to be respected.

I think that we in the Church - and especially those in places of leadership - have something profound to learn from this aspect of Isaac's experience.

I have been planning all week to speak to our church's high schoolers about the subject of Christology. Specifically I've been preparing to talk about Jesus' being one person with two natures and about the heresies of the past who have denied or confused these truths. I am convinced these are important things to discuss, and I feel deeply that if all the Gospel hangs on the reality of who Jesus really is, then we will recognize and live in the reality that Christology is not a merely academic pursuit. In truth, I composed the lesson like a scientist preparing to talk about amino acids and DNA. In this context, listen to this moving passage which I think forms the heart of Larson's narrative:

There were dreams. Isaac fell asleep easily each night and dreamed of happy times, only to wake to gloom and grief. He dreamed that he had saved her. He dreamed of the lost baby...During the week he worked on his official report on the storm. Psychically, it was a difficult task. His wife was still missing. The air stank of rotting flesh and burned hair. Always in the past he had been able to separate himself from the meteorological events he described...He was the observer looking upon these phenomena through glass. But this storm had dragged him to its heart and changed his life forever.

Carl Trueman is right - boring preachers should get out of the ministry. But maybe this is why we have so many boring preachers - and why I ought to be terrified of being one of them. If Christ is a hurricane, then the reason why we write and preach so disconnectedly is that we've never been ravaged by him. We've never been taken to the eye and watched the light waves transform as He passes over us. We have never lost family or life or home to the hurricane because it has never been asked of us and we have never offered them up. Many of us have watched through a glass from afar, and I am guilty, myself of often coming to God as a spectator and not a participant. The irony is that I am always teaching the youth of our church that theology is not a scientific or mathematic enterprise where we approach God much as a coroner about to do an autopsy, dispassionately listing off observations into his tape recorder. I frequently warn that theology for its own sake is a devil's doctrine - we must do it, not because we're in need of facts, but because we need God!

I'm teaching the youth tonight, and I'm praying that I will remember the hurricane while I speak to them.

[You can get Isaac's Storm from Amazon for just over $4 used, delivered to your door. Not bad.]

John R. Stott (1921-2011)

"It is enough for us to know that on the last day and through eternity we shall be both with Christ and like Christ; for the fuller revelation of what we are going to be we are content to wait...

"To be sure, it is appropriate at Christian funerals joyfully to celebrate Christ's decisive victory over death, but we do so only through tears of personal sorrow. If Jesus wept at the graveside of his beloved friend Lazarus, his disciples are surely at liberty to do the same."

-John Stott

Two Ways to Live Like There's No Tomorrow

I have often been fond of quoting Jonathan Edwards' Resolution 7:

Resolved, never to do anything, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.

What we need to take special notice of is the insufficiency of living by Resolution 7 alone. The last hour of one's life will be devoted to that which he regards as highest and of greatest importance. Hence, when watching one of those end of the world movies, there is inevitably some character who is more than happy to have sex with a complete stranger because they think a comet is about to destroy the planet and their last moment of opportunity for deviance is now upon them. This is the picture of a self-obsessed individual who performs the proverbial dance on the deck of the Titanic as it is sinking. Look at the lyrics to this song which struck me tonight as I was thinking of this subject:

I live my life like there's no tomorrow
and all I've got, I had to steal
Least I don't need to beg or borrow
Yes I'm livin' at a pace that kills

I found the simple life ain't so simple
When I jumped out, on that road
I got no love, no love you'd call real
Ain't got nobody, waitin' at home

Runnin' with the devil
Runnin' with the devil
I'm gonna tell ya all about it!

Van Halen, "Running With the Devil"

You see that it's just as possible to live by Edwards' resolution 7 and yet use the resolution in opposition to God. To the end, mankind's deepest inclination is to shake his fist at God as the eschatalogical hammer comes smashing down.

One of the toughest questions we can honestly ask ourselves is HOW we would put Resolution 7 into action. If this were the last hour of our lives, would we seek to spend that last hour giving glory to God or in gratifying the flesh? It's one thing to give the right answer, but it's quite another to feel the right answer, deep within our soul.

Of The Removal of Fear For Our Sins

Earlier today I was in the midst of chastising my daughter for some pretty upsetting behavior. As I was doing so, I found myself at a crossroads. I could either say, "If you do that again, I will spank you!" or I considered another more Gospel-oriented approach. And so I decided to turn down the Gospel road. I leaned down to her crying face and said, "Sweetheart, do you love me?" to which she replied through pouty lips, "Yes. But you're gonna spank me." I paused and said, "I'm not going to spank you. But I do want you to listen to me. Do you love me?" She said, "Yes." I said, "If you love me, then please show me by your actions. You don't have to be afraid of being spanked. I don't want you to just do what I say because you're afraid you're going to be punished every time you mess up. I want your heart, and that means that I want you to obey me because you love me, because you want to please me. Because it gives you pleasure to bring joy to your Dad. That's the way God is with us. Jesus takes away our fear of death and condemnation so that we can obey him out of love instead of fear. That's what the Gospel is all about. Now you're old enough to understand what I'm saying, okay? God has taken the punishment from us so that we don't have to constantly be afraid of being punished, and that's what I'm doing with you, okay? Now, will you please apologize to your brother - not because you're afraid of me, but because you love me?"

Now, I don't want to drag anyone through the mud, but another family member (not my wife) chimed in and said, "Yes, but there's still an element of fear. We still have to fear disobeying God, because He does punish us when we sin." I just felt like a whole lifetime of poor Gospel preaching went into that comment. Is it possible that we can hear the Gospel our whole lives, sit under Protestant preaching all our lives, attend and teach Sunday School all our lives - and still completely miss the Gospel?

If you are talking to someone who still has to fear any condemnation from God, then you are not speaking to a Christian. And if you are not speaking to a Christian, then that person ought to hear the condemnation that is inherent in the Law for those who are not in Christ. They have reason to fear.

This is the greatness of the Gospel - in Jesus Christ, God has removed all of the punishment due his people. Any and every bit of God's wrath which we are worthy of was born in the body of our Lord. Either we are forgiven or we are not. God does not partially pour his wrath on us. He does not place some of our sin on Jesus and the rest on us. This is where a really solid view of the atonement is crucial. If we miss this, then we miss the Gospel. Jesus removes God's wrath completely from his people.

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love" (1 Jn 4:18). If perfect love really casts out all fear, then Christ's perfect love definitely casts out all fear. Obedience to God (lets call it Sanctification) does not run on the fuel of fear. It is fueled by love. If you are putting the fuel of fear into your tank, you will fall flat every time.

This is a message I need to constantly remind myself of - especially when I am in the mire of sin and condemnation. Yes, I should put my sins to death, but I should not do it because I am afraid of condemnation or of being damned if I cross some sort of "sin boundary." Christ has taken that possibility as far as the east is from the west. Rather, my new motive is pleasing Christ. We move from having a negative relationship with God to a positive one. Rather than looking over our shoulder at a task-master, we look straight ahead into our Father's eyes, knowing that no sin in our lives is too wretched to separate us from Him.

In this respect, Luther's commentary on Galatians has been a great comfort to me. In one particularly simple and yet pointed passage, Luther considers that Christ has born our sins and concludes that "All this is of wonderful comfort to a conscience troubled by the enormity of sin. Sin cannot harm those who believe in Christ, because He has overcome sin by His death."

In another place, Luther speaks peace to our consciences again:

Practice this knowledge and fortify yourself against despair, particularly in the last hour, when the memory of past sins assails the conscience. Say with confidence: "Christ, the Son of God, was given not for the righteous, but for sinners. If I had no sin I should not need Christ. No, Satan, you cannot delude me into thinking I am holy. The truth is, I am all sin..." Let us equip ourselves against the accusations of Satan with this and similar passages of Holy Scripture. If he says, "Thou shalt be damned," you tell him: "No, for I fly to Christ who gave Himself for my sins. In accusing me of being a damnable sinner, you are cutting your own throat, Satan. You are reminding me of God's fatherly goodness toward me, that He so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. In calling me a sinner, Satan, you really comfort me above measure." With such heavenly cunning we are to meet the devil's craft and put from us the memory of sin.

With what greater words can I speak than these? In this blog post, I hope most of all to speak to the troubled consciences of my brothers whom I know are hurting from the sting of sin in one way or another. The longer I follow Jesus, the more I become convinced that the Gospel is for us, all the time. That we ought to practice preaching the Gospel to ourselves at all times. That we ought never to tire of the old message that our sin has been removed. That if we ever think that we're mature enough to move on from that old message that we're as immature as we could possibly be - regardless our education or status in the church.

A Generic Thank You to One of Our Readers

I just wanted to send out a quiet and grateful "thank you" to one of our readers from Florida who anonymously purchased Douglas Bond's book The Betrayal: A Novel on John Calvin for me off of my Amazon wish list. I am absolutely grateful, and it really does feel great to receive some sort of "visible" affirmation of the work I do here at BTB. Not that I don't write because I absolutely love it, but this book was just a great gift, and I can't wait to read it. Whomever you were, thank you for the book.