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On March 31, 2022 By In Culture, Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom

Fleet Feet

In the second film of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight, the antagonist, the Joker, is an incomprehensible criminal. We might write the Joker off simply as a psychopath or sociopath, a man with no common human emotions or feelings that make him reluctant to do evil or feel remorse after doing so. At one level that may be true. While not feeling like you or I would feel had we done even a fraction of the evil he did, he has emotions. Those emotions are focused on doing evil. He believes that the whole world is like him. With a little push, the thin veneer of moral restraint that holds people back from the deep evil in their hearts will shatter and chaos will ensue. He calls himself an agent of chaos. He finds his purpose, joy, and short-lived satisfaction standing, somewhat peacefully, in the eye of the chaotic storms he creates. He is not a normal criminal who wants to kill and pillage for the sake of wealth or revenge. As Bruce Wayne’s butler, Alfred, tells him, “Some men just want to watch the world burn.” Some men, both individually and collectively, love evil and eagerly run toward fighting against God’s created order and creating chaos. Those men Solomon describes as having “feet that are swift to run to evil.”

In the list of six things, yes, even seven, that the Lord hates in Proverbs 6.16-19, the fifth is “feet that are swift to run to evil.” Solomon started at the head and has now reached the toe of this corrupted body. This distorted body is both the result of sin and its agent to twist the world into its image. The feet must play their part to bring to life the wicked imaginations that spring from the heart.

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On March 24, 2022 By In Culture, Theology, Wisdom

Wicked Imaginations

In 1971, John Lennon released the song Imagine. In that song, he created a human existence in which there was no heaven, no hell, people living only for the moment, no countries, nothing to die for, no religion, only a life of peace, no possessions, no greed, no hunger, only a brotherhood of man. (Tim Hawkins’ version is better.) Lennon probably hadn’t developed a deep philosophical or theological understanding of the imagination, but he understood its power. His song has probably had a more direct influence on people than that of a dozen trained philosophers of the same time. Through art, Lennon connected people intellectually and emotionally to a vision of the world, probably being a contributing factor to many communists in the West still living in our day. His world is a living hell, but those with wicked imaginations see it as a utopia.

At the heart of the corrupted body Solomon describes in Proverbs 6.16-19 is the heart that devises wicked imaginations (KJV). The Hebrew word translated “imaginations” could be “thoughts” or “plans,” but I believe “imaginations” captures more of what Solomon wants us to hear.

Our first thought about imaginations is probably one of wispy fantasies that have no basis in reality. These are the unreal fictions conjured up in the overly active minds of children and adults who act like children who want to escape reality. While imagination can be used to escape reality, our imaginations are God’s gift to us that, when disciplined and healthy, help us to apprehend reality and shape it as a part of our dominion mission. The imagination, simply put, is a faculty of the heart that has the ability to create images. These images can be anything from a simple object such as a rock to the complex fairy-tale fantasy world of The Lord of the Rings. Imagination fuels the role-playing of a child who has connected with a good story as well as empowers scientists or engineers who are exploring new technologies in their fields. Imagination forms objects out of the mud and inspires us to put a man on the moon. Imagination is not mere vapid fantasy or fiction (though there is nothing wrong with either per se), but it is a creative faculty that draws us into the future and seeks to mold the world according to the constructs formed in our minds and hearts.

Our imagination images that which is in God himself, not merely his raw ability to create in his mind, but his eternally begotten Imagination, the Son. Through his Imagination, his Image, everything that is was made. He is not a wispy, non-existent fantasy but a Person. In everything that is made, all the physical realities around us as well as the story of history with all of its characters, twists, and turns, his eternal Imagination is revealed. His Imagination is reality, a reality in which each object in the creation relates to the other objects as they ought. The creation of his Imagination is good.

Our imagination is derived from God so that we don’t create like him, that is, out of nothing. We work with what God gives us. A healthy imagination “enables us to see the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.” Our imaginations are creative and do reshape the world, but they should do so according to the reality revealed by God. Our imaginations are only truly fruitful when we work with the patterns of creation and providence. Even when the characters in our stories, for instance, are fantastic, they are good stories when they harmonize with and elucidate some aspect of God’s grand narrative. These stories ring true to us because in them we apprehend reality in ways much deeper than if we are given a list of factual propositions. As Shakespeare communicated in A Midsummer’s Night Dream (as interpreted through Dr. Malcom Guite), “Imagination apprehends more than cool reason ever comprehends.”

Our imagination constructs new worlds. While those worlds ought to cohere with the way God puts the world together, they often don’t. John Lennon is not the only one with wicked imaginations. The heart’s wicked imaginations have fueled man’s rebellion against God from the beginning. The serpent, the man, and the woman constructed a world in their minds and tried to make a new reality. The people on the plain of Shinar imagined a unified world connecting heaven and earth with their tower (Gen 11). Jewish leaders imagined a world in which Jesus wasn’t king, and they plotted and killed him.

Wicked imaginations continue to construct alternate realities. Men are “inventors of evil” (Rom 1.30). Every idol created has its genesis in a wicked imagination. The history of philosophy divorced from God’s revelation is a playground of wicked imaginations about reality. Evolutionary biology begins with and fills in the evidential gaps with its wicked imaginations. Hollywood and news media imagine worlds for which they create narratives that they want you to accept as reality and draw you in to love this world and work to create it. Whether through visual images or through “romance stories,” pornography taps into your imagination to create an unreal world.

Wicked imaginations are not harmless because what begins in the heart expresses itself in haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, and feet that run to evil. Wicked imaginations are the impetus for creating a Godless world.

Wicked imaginations shape you as an individual as well as shape cultures. That is why each of us individually and all of us collectively must guard our hearts with all vigilance, casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ (2Cor 10.4-5). We must cultivate the heart and its imaginations so that we may see the world as it is, submit to God’s reality, and work to create what is true, good, and beautiful.

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On March 17, 2022 By In Theology, Wisdom

Bloody Hands

Whenever we hear of or see innocent people suffer or die at the hands of the ruthless, our sympathies trigger grief for them and deep ire for the perpetrators. We know it isn’t right. We feel the injustice in our bones. We long for order to be restored by the assailant paying for his crime. But why? Why do we have this deep sense of the need for justice and, therefore, hatred of the suffering and death of the innocent? We long for justice and hate the destruction of the innocent because we are the image of God who hates hands that shed innocent blood.

In Proverbs 6, Solomon describes a deformed, decaying body, a body that is the object of God’s hatred. This body can be an individual who embodies all of these sins in his own person, or it can be a body-politic, a society, a world-within-the-world that is disordered and is in the process of being de-created. The son being instructed is to be transforming his own body and bodies-politic into the kingdom of God. To do this, he must avoid allowing the corruption of these seven abominations to control him or those bodies he reigns.

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On March 3, 2022 By In Culture, Politics, Theology, Wisdom

Live Not By Lies

“I don’t trust the media. I don’t trust our political leaders. I don’t trust foreign governments. I don’t trust my own government. I don’t trust the mob. I trust almost no one at this point and that’s not because I want to be this way. It’s just because I’ve been paying attention.”[1] This is the lament of Matt Walsh regarding our current cultural environment. Who can blame him? It is quite difficult not to be cynical when government officials along with their allies in much of the media are using the language playbook of 1984. Reversals on positions (at least with words) happen so fast that your brain is disoriented with a type of cognitive whiplash. The conspiracy theorists that we once believed were insane have become the prophets of culture. The difference between many conspiracy theories and the news of the day is about six months. We live by lies at the highest levels of our society, and it is destroying us.

Solomon told us it would. God hates a “lying tongue” and a “false witness who breathes out lies” (Pr 6.17, 19). With the smorgasbord of sins to put in his seven-fold list, Solomon includes two forms of lying. God must really hate lying.

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On March 2, 2022 By In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom

Proud Eyes

Solomon instructs his princely son in Proverbs so that he might complete the mission of dominion given to man; namely, to form and fill the world that God gave to the stewardship of man (see Gen 1.28; Ps 115.16). This will take wisdom, the ability to see how everything should relate, and the skill to put everything in right relationship. This wisdom begins and matures in the fear of Yahweh, loving Yahweh and his discipline and zealously guarding his instruction. As the son submits to Yahweh, the mission will progress; the world will grow and come together to reach its intended purpose. If the son rebels, rejecting the wisdom of the Father, he will reap chaos and destruction, not only for himself but for the world. Adam’s story is a clear picture of this.

The seven-fold structure of the abominations in Proverbs 6.16-19 fit this theme of world-building, echoing the structure of the original week of history. However, Solomon is instructing by the contrary. If you want to know how to de-create the world, then these seven abominations will tell you. These are the sins the son must avoid.

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On February 24, 2022 By In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom

A Healthy Appetite

In the beginning, God made us hungry. Some of the first words spoken to man were the joyful declaration of the gift of food from a loving Father: “Behold! I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food” (Ge 1.29). Our need for food is not a flaw in our design but a glorious feature. Food and our appetite for it are ever-present witnesses of our creatureliness and dependence upon our Creator. Through food, God doesn’t merely sustain our lives but gives us abundant life. Food is given for us to enjoy; not merely the myriads of tastes and textures, but because through food we have communion with God himself.

The ordination of food as communion began at the Tree of life, continued through the worship feasts of Israel (Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles, New Moon, Sabbath), and is experienced now at the Lord’s Supper. History comes to an end in a feast with God. Food and drink, being a part of creation, are good. Anyone who teaches you that any food or any drink is off-limits for proper use is teaching you a demonic doctrine. Everything created by God is good and nothing to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving (1Tm 4.1-5).

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On February 17, 2022 By In Counseling/Piety, Discipleship, Men, Wisdom

Resisting Harlot Folly

Fighting sexual temptation has never been easy. There have been times in which societies such as ours helped by having and enforcing laws discouraging sexual deviancy. There were also general cultural mores that disparaged sexual immorality so great social shame was the lot of the sexually deviant. Temptations didn’t disappear, but cultural pressure at least encouraged restraint.

Studying history, you will see that these societies were few and far between. Our present Western culture is probably more in line with the way many cultures have treated sexual relations; that is, there are few cultural guards that help us with temptation. The lack of cultural sexual restraint that has ingrained itself over the past century or two combined with present-day technology has only increased temptations. I don’t think that we can say, “It is more difficult for us than it ever has been,” but the force of the battle is growing. None of this, of course, is an excuse for sexual sin. In fact, it is a call to arm ourselves all the more with the appropriate discipline to fight an enemy that is growing in strength. We must match our enemies’ strength with greater strength.

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On February 10, 2022 By In Theology, Wisdom

Episode 98, The Legacy and Stories of Rev. Dr. Gregg Strawbridge

Welcome to Kuyperian Commentary, this is episode 98. I am host Uri Brito.

The Rev. Dr. Gregg Strawbridge died a couple of weeks ago. Those of us who knew him well have mourned profusely these last 14 days. We have lost a friend, a mentor, and a titan of the Christian faith. His presence in the CREC was palpable every time we met. He was kind, gracious, studious, a Presbyterian of high caliber, a churchman with unspeakable talent, a pastor with theological and pastoral inclinations which made him a remarkable gem in every way.

When we were in Lancaster, PA last week, we had the opportunity to gather, remember, grieve and laugh over Gregg’s stories. A gracious host provided the second floor filled with several fine beer taps and we told stories and rejoiced in the life of our brother.

I thought I would bring some of the men who were trained directly by Gregg Strawbridge to join me for this episode and do a bit of the story-telling bit from a perspective of folks who spent enormous time with him and who now shepherd their own flocks as a result of the Gregg Strawbridge School of Theology.

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On February 10, 2022 By In Men, Wisdom

The Tactics of Harlot Folly

One obvious truth about Harlot Folly in Proverbs is that she is a woman. She is an “evil woman” (Pr 6.24). She is the inverse of Lady Wisdom, who is also a woman. Harlot Folly is not “all women,” but she is a woman. Whatever secondary applications we make or whatever metaphors we explore (and there are many), Solomon is writing to his son, a man, about a certain type of woman to avoid.

I belabor this point because there are cultural mindsets that have become practically unquestioned assumptions that being a woman per se is original righteousness. As Feminism has grown and helped spawn intersectionality, anything a woman does, even if appearing to be wrong, is not her fault. She did not sin. She is always innocent. She is an all-powerful yet impotent moral agent whose actions are controlled by entrenched patriarchalism. She is not responsible. She is not to blame. #MeToo.

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On February 3, 2022 By In Culture, Discipleship, Family and Children, Men, Wisdom

Sexual Mission

Sexual restraint in our Western culture is not a virtue. To deny your urges for sexual expression is, at the least, a passé morality of a puritanical by-gone era or, at most, abusive. Sexual expression is practically a sacred right, codified by law-making bodies and upheld by the courts under the constitutional privilege of “right to privacy.” Even so-called conservatives become libertarian when it comes to questions of sexual morality. What people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms or how they want to identify themselves sexually should be up to them, and no one should be able to say anything negative about them or deny them any privileges that those who live out “traditional sexual morality” enjoy. This lack of personal and authoritative discipline seems fine until you are dealing with sexually transmitted infections, rampant illegitimacy, homosexuals demanding to be “married,” and Johnny proclaiming himself a female so that he can shower with the girls whom he recently beat in some athletic competition.

Our sexual lives are not private. They are a part and parcel to the world-building, dominion project that God gave us as his image from the beginning. For this reason, they are public; not in the sense of being open to voyeurs, but rather in the sense of having public ramifications. Our sexual lives are created to serve our mission as humanity. When unrestrained by that context, sexual expression becomes bondage to sin leading to death. For this reason, God has called us to discipline our sexual appetites.

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