Tag Archive for 'worldview'

Turning Point of History

Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus, the Son of God. He came to bring order and reconciliation to a world fallen into sin. The birth of Jesus is not merely a fact of ancient history.  We can live triumphant today with the knowledge that the defeat of all of our foes commenced with the death and resurrection of Jesus in the first century. The story begins with the promise of the offspring of the woman who would come to defeat the serpent:

The Lord God said to the serpent . . .
” . . . I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:14-15)

The people who lived before Christ lived in general darkness, but Christ came to bring light to the world:

The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shined. (Isaiah 9:2)

. . . when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away  . . .  But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed  . . .  And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another . . . (2 Corinthians 3:14-18)

Jesus was born into the world to rule the world in peace, justice, and righteousness:

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. (Isaiah 9:6-7)

All authority over all things was given to Jesus by the Father:

“I saw in the night visions,
and behold, with the clouds of heaven
there came one like a son of man,
and he came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.
And to him was given dominion
and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed. (Daniel 7:13-14)

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

Jesus will continue to reign until all enemies have finally and completely been abolished:

For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death  . . .  When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. (1 Corinthians 15:25-28)

Merry Christmas!

Published on December 25, 2008. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

The Primacy of the Imagination

Alastair has posted an excellent essay entitled The Primacy of the Imagination. A very helpful read.

Published on July 14, 2007. 0 Comments Tags: , .

The Church

In Ephesians 5:22 and following we find instruction for a wife to submit to her husband. Paul then continues in commanding the husband to love his wife. The following illustration of Christ and the Church is given:

“. . . Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25-27, ESV)

What does it mean when it says that Christ is sanctifying and cleansing the church (not individual Christians)? Who makes up this church? Are baptized members of the church who later fall away included? If the church is only made up of individuals who are truly regenerate then why does it need cleansed? If this cleansing is meant to really only refer to individual sanctification then why refer to the church?

The church is a living breathing organism that is in need of cleansing. Christ purchased her with his blood but impurities remain. Those impurities need cleansed “by the washing of water with the word” (ESV).

Published on March 24, 2007. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Joy to the World

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven and nature sing,
And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ;
While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat the sounding joy,
Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as, the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders of His love,
And wonders, wonders, of His love.

Isaiah 9:6-7

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

Published on December 25, 2006. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

All Saints Day

For all the saints, who from their labors rest,
Who Thee by faith before the world confessed,
Thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their Might;
Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well fought fight;
Thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For the Apostles’ glorious company,
Who bearing forth the Cross o’er land and sea,
Shook all the mighty world, we sing to Thee:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For the Evangelists, by whose blest word,
Like fourfold streams, the garden of the Lord,
Is fair and fruitful, be Thy Name adored.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

For Martyrs, who with rapture kindled eye,
Saw the bright crown descending from the sky,
And seeing, grasped it, Thee we glorify.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
All are one in Thee, for all are Thine.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

O may Thy soldiers, faithful, true and bold,
Fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,
And win with them the victor’s crown of gold.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
And hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

The golden evening brightens in the west;
Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;
Sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day;
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of glory passes on His way.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
And singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost:
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Published on November 1, 2006. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Unfaithful Narrative and True History

Over the last year I have become interested in the science fiction of Gene Wolfe. Because of various posts on the Urth List concerning the reliability of Severian as the narrator of The Book of the New Sun, Volume 1 and Volume 2 I have become intrigued by this idea of the dishonest narrator.

The entire concept at first took me by suprise when I saw it mentioned. If the narrator of a book is not telling the truth then what exactly is the purpose of the book? I am the type that gets annoyed when Star Trek contradicts itself or when books and movies don’t match. I want to believe the story they are telling (as fiction, of course) but the point of what really happened isn’t the same when the story is different. Compare the books and the movies of The Lord of The Rings for instance.

I don’t think that the way I deal with fiction is too out of the ordinary. People tend to want fiction that is consistent and believable. I know lots of people with the whole sci-fi genre for instance that don’t like it because it’s “not real” (as opposed to other regular fiction which is real). The question pops into my mind – Why do we tend to trust fiction? Why do we instinctively believe that the narrrator is all knowing on the topic at hand. If the style or facts is such that we can’t believe the story we chalk it up to poor writing – not dishonest narration.

Unbelievers won’t allow positive assumptions to be made about the writers of the Bible. They assume that many of the writers (or redactors) were dishonest narrators who were inventing a religion. We conservative Christians can’t believe whole-heartedly the daily news or reporters like Dan Rather. We know that we have often been lied to. It seems to me from last year’s election that John Kerry has throughout his life pushed a falsehood which is his concept of the Vietnam War. We believe what we want to when it comes to the news and the happenings around us. I remember reading and article in the Chalcedon Report a couple of years ago in which the author mentioned series with episodes that never happened. He specifically named The Last Battle from the Chronicles of Narnia and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. In that author’s view these stories were part of a larger series and these specific stories could not have happened. They didn’t fit.

Because of falsehoods in the news, history books, public schools, congressional testimony, campaign promises, and our pulpits we need to be able to discern the turth. We can look at the Chronicles of Narnia and debate whether The Last Battle should have been written the way it was or whether it really happened in its context. We can watch the news every day and wonder what is really true. We can read scientific studies that contradict the Bible. We need to know where our foundation is. The Bible is either true with faithful narrative or it is a false book that happens to include some true stuff. We can’t throw out Genesis 1-2 because it doesn’t fit with our science. We can’t twist the meanings of words and phrases because they don’t agree with our eschatology as we “see” it. The Bible means something and it is faithful. We may not always understand it instantly but we can know it is true. People can continually present “facts” that seem to disprove the Bible but prove their idiocy. They basically claim that they are omniscient and know all of the facts. They fail to take into account that the God who wrote the Bible may have access to more facts than they do.

I have digressed slightly from my main idea which was being intrigued by the unfaithful narrator. Sometimes it would probably be helpful to have a more real view of literature and realize that the fictional narrator who saw the events may just be writing his viewpoint and not what “really happened.” Looking at it this way may help total contradictions to make more sense if that is possible.

Published on July 6, 2005. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Reading the Bible

Over the weekend I listened to the second messages in James Jordan’s series on Reading the Bible. He made some really good points against your average “How to Read the Bible” books and helped me to understand more how we can do a better job of understanding the Bible and how it should be applied to our lives. Most books tend to give something similar to a list of rules or steps that you have to follow in order to correctly understand the Bible. Some of these steps are more like theological lenses that you are expected to look through in order to “understand” what the Bible “really means.” These lenses come in both reformed and dispensational sizes.

One of the problems that is close to common sense once you think about it is that we probably should quit reading books on how to read the Bible and just read the Bible. As moderns we tend to look at lots of things in the Bible through our modern lenses and miss what is being said. We can then debate to an extent that I as the reader always bring baggage to the text that will color how I look at the text. This would be greatly helped if we read the Bible more. We tend to think that it would have been better if God would have expressed truth in a different way (what are all those priestly laws in the Pentateuch about anyway). The problem is that God expressed truth in His way (read best way) and our thinking is wrong. By reading the Bible more we will learn to think like God thinks. We will know why God spent all the time on rituals in the Pentateuch.

One minor example Jordan gives is in Psalm 93:1 where the ideas are presented as parallel that the Lord is clothed with majesty and strength along with the concept that the world is firmly established. We look at that and can understand what the Psalmist is saying but we know that we would never talk that way. The problem is that we don’t think that way. We have to decide how the way we would express the truth of God’s reign relates to how God chose in Psalm 93 to say the same thing. The best option seems to be that the way we think and talk and express ourselves should be governed by the examples in the Bible so that I may be conformed to the image of the Word. This can only happen if we are reading the Bible regularly and lots so that we can be changed to think like the Bible instead of trying to change the meaning of the Bible to think like us.

Published on April 4, 2005. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Why I Became a Postmillenialist

Alistair recently posted on his site a very good treatment of his theological history. I very much understood where he was coming from and wanted to express here some of the reasons I believe the things I do.

Many of the people that I still have as friends continue to be mildly dispensational and definitely Baptist. I understand why I am a postmillenial, paedobaptist presbyterian. Many of my friends on the other hand don’t understand at the least and at the most think I’m crazy. I became very interested in Greg Bahnsen after a friend (a baptist friend) loaned me some of his debates with atheists. I was very impressed with Bahnsen’s thinking and saw how much of what he said fit with the scripture. I tend to be slow to latch on to new ideas but at times I run into things that are rather close to what I was already thinking but I didn’t really know how to put it to words. Listening to Bahnsen made me want to understand more of his reconstructionism and his postmillenialism. I still remember the day that I was listening to his tapes “Why I am a Postmillenialist”. I felt that he had a better grasp of eschatology than I had heard before but I wanted to be sure that what he said was really in the Bible. After listening to his explanation of 1 Corinthians 15 and especially verses 20-28 a few times I came to understand what he was saying. It kind of clicked when I came to understand that the passage leaves no room for a millenium on earth after the return of Christ. The dispensational premillenialist can hold his position by ignoring the clear idea that the defeat of the last enemy is accomplished by the final resurrection. The last enemy (death) is defeated by the resurrection that occurrs when Christ returns. There is no place for future enemies at the end of the millenium as the premillenialist must claim.

The biggest problem my friends have with this is Revelation 20 and their literalist reading of that (and their view of Israel). One problem among many with this is that they cannot put a “literal” reading of Revelation 20 up against a literal reading of 1 Corinthians 15. They may say that I ignore Revelation 20 (without basis) but it seems to me they ignore 1 Corinthians 15. They can’t have it both ways. Some say that Revelation 19 depicts Christ coming on a literal horse from heaven but that the sword coming out of his mouth is figurative. Why? Isn’t it rather clear that it is all figurative. Yes, the word of Christ is a two-edged sword that defeats the enemies of God. Isn’t this nothing more than a picture of the triumph of the gospel in this age?

Just like Alistair, it becomes easier to look at a wider range of beliefs and look for the good. When postmillenialism and amillenialism is linked to unbelieving liberalism it makes you wonder. If some people cannot even understand where the postmillenialist is coming from (to the extent they call them liberal) can we be sure that they know where others are coming from?. Just some of my thoughts. Thanks for reading.

Published on March 3, 2005. 6 Comments Tags: , , .

Leithart on Islam

Many blogs I read have linked to Peter Leithart’s recent articles on Islam. I really enjoyed the aritcle Islam: Mirror of Christendom Part 1, Part2, and Part 3. Reading these articles reminded me of the original reasons I started to move toward reformed theology. The writings of Peter Leithart, James Jordan, and Doug Wilson among others make the most sense of everything in the world. It is good to see that the universe God has made and its movement through time can all make sense to a thinking Christian.

Note: Leithart.com appears to be down as I post this article. Hopefully it will return soon though.

Published on December 8, 2004. 0 Comments Tags: .

Lessons from “The City on the Edge of Forever”

I watched the Star Trek episode The City on the Edge of Forever today. It’s part of the recently released Star Trek The Original Series – The Complete First Season. In this episode Dr. McCoy goes back in time by accident to the 1930s. History is immediately changed to the extent that the Enterprise never existed and much of what we and they know as history has not occurred. Kirk and Spock are forced to go back in time and figure out what McCoy has changed so that they can fix it.

The focal point of the change in history turns out to be a depression era social worker named Edith Keeler. She gives a speech at her mission in which she explains how that in the future there will be no hunger or poor because our technology will allow us to feed everyone. On a side note it’s interesting that this is Gene Roddenberry’s main point in making Star Trek. As it turns out, McCoy had changed history and allowed Edith Keeler to survive a deadly accident. When she lived in this alternate history she was instrumental in starting a pacifist movement that influenced the United States so that it entered World War II later than 1941. By the time we got into the war the Germans had developed the atom bomb and we were defeated as the Germans went on to rule the world.

Kirk and Spock say that Edith Keeler was right in her pacifist ways, but they have decided that she was doing it at the wrong time. Their history had decided for them that she should die. It is interesting to think of this in relation to the current Presidential election and people like Kerry who have regularly been anti-war. When is the right time for pacifism? Gene Roddenberry can claim through Star Trek that the future will be all joy and peace, but then we have to ask why do the officers of the Enterprise carry weapons? While there may be lots of room to disagree on the current situation in Iraq, we must also realize that we can never just lay aside our arms and let the tyrants of the world take over. John Kerry can easily say that we should not be in Iraq or should not have gone to Vietnam, but then how do we justify World War I and World War II? Japan bombed us, but Germany did not. Saddam had declared war on us, and he was friendly to Al Qaeda at the least. Was it right to allow Germany to go as far as she did before we joined the war? Should we have helped stop her sooner? Should we have never stopped her as in the history caused by the life of Edith Keeler? These are important questions and so is the question of whether we should ever be fighting wars in the Middle East. Bush has explained his position and it seems clear. He will hunt down terrorists wherever they are because they needlessly attacked us. Kerry’s only position in his speeches seems to be that he is better than Bush at everything. His position that he has lived over the last 30 years seems to be totally opposed to any action anywhere.

I don’t pretend to understand fully when one nation is justified in going to war with another. It does seem clear that Kirk and Spock were wrong in saying that Edith Keeler was pushing the right thing at the wrong time. How can we ever know how far the tyrant we want to ignore will go? Will he ever stop with Austria or just Europe? Kerry is also wrong when he says that Iraq is the wrong war, at the wrong time, and the wrong place. He says he believes the President has the right to preemption but only if the tyrants that make up the United Nations agree. Based on his history the whole thing seems to be nothing but lies. There seems to be no evidence of Kerry wanting anything but to win an election no matter what he has to say.

We should never rush to war. Kirk and Spock are right when they desire peace. But if pacifism is right it has to be right all the time – not just when expedient. The Bible teaches that peace comes from the the work of Christ and not the works of men.

Published on October 30, 2004. 0 Comments Tags: .