Kuyperian, Author at Kuyperian Commentary

On August 7, 2015 By Kuyperian In Scribblings Like

I Clement on All Creation Figuring the Reality of Resurrection

“Let us consider, beloved, how the Lord continually proves to us that there shall be a future resurrection, of which He has rendered the Lord Jesus Christ the first-fruits by raising Him from the dead. Let us contemplate, beloved, the resurrection which is at all times taking place. Day and night declare to us a resurrection. The night sinks to sleep, and the day arises; the day [again] departs, and the night comes on. Let us behold the fruits [of the earth], how the sowing of grain takes place. The sower goes forth, and casts it into the ground; and the seed being thus scattered, though dry and naked when it fell upon the earth, is gradually dissolved. Then out of its dissolution the mighty power of the providence of the Lord raises it up again, and from one seed many arise and bring forth fruit.”

1 Clement, Ch 24

N.B. I Clement is a letter of Clement of Rome, and likely one of the earliest of the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. It is one of the few writings that was considered for inclusion in the Canon of Scripture, but ultimately not received by the Church. However, like many of the writings of the Fathers, it has always held a place of special honor. It’s exclusion was not because of any error of doctrine but because the Church recognized that though it was written by a disciple of the Apostle Peter it was not written in his name as, for instance, Luke and Acts which were written by Luke (not an apostle) but in the name or under the supervision of Peter, were. Thus the Church received it as an important and pious text, but not an inspired one.

On August 6, 2015 By Kuyperian In Culture Like

18 Simple and Practical Ways to Advocate for the Unborn

Guest post by Michael Graham

I have had a good number of people ask me how they can help advocate for the unborn. When issues are this large and complicated it is easily to get lost in the weeds of what you can do about it resulting in paralysis and inaction. Here is a compiled list of simple and practical list of ideas. Not every single idea is a good fit for everyone but there is something in here for everyone.

NOTE: these were not organized with order of importance in mind.

NOTE: we need to have both a pre-birth and post-birth serving mindset if we expect people to choose life.

1. Pray – privately and publicly

2. Read – Why Pro-Life?, The Case for Life, Bonhoeffer, Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery – as powerful as Alcorn and Klussendorf’s books were Eric Metaxas’ biographies of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and William Wilberforce has carried the most substantive source of encouragement

3. Dialogue – have a meal and civil conversation about life and abortion

4. Write Elected official – write your congressman and senators

5. Vote – vote for candidates that support life

6. Sidewalk Counseling – effective and empathetic physical presence at abortion clinics

7. Volunteer at Local Crisis Pregnancy Centers

8. Donate to Local Crisis Pregnancy Centers – supplies, money

9. Ultrasounds – explore bringing a mobile ultrasound ministry to your city

10. Peaceful Protest

11. Adopt – caring for the unborn means you take care of them after they have been born

12. Support Others Adoptive Efforts

13. Foster Care – do foster care or support others who do

14. Educate – teach people in your network, community or church about abortion and ways to help

15. Social Media – shine a light on the darkness – Gen. Patton made local Germans tour the concentration camps at Buchenwald

16. Teach young moms and dads – teach how to care for their babies

17. Pre abortive counseling

18. Post abortive counseling – we need to care for people no matter what, post-abortive counseling can be effective in preventing future abortions as well as present a unique Gospel opportunity

BONUS: Invest ethically – Here is a list of 77 companies that either directly fund or sponsor events of Planned Parenthood.

Read more about Mr. Graham here.

On August 6, 2015 By Kuyperian In Scribblings Like

Schaff on the Apostolic Fathers

The [Apostolic] Fathers are inferior in kind as well as in degree [to the inspired canonical authors]; yet their words are lingering echoes of those whose words were spoken “as the Spirit gave them utterance.” They are monuments of the power of the Gospel. They were made out of such material as St. Paul describes when he says, “Such were some of you.” But for Christ, they would have been worshippers of personified Lust and Hate, and of every crime. They would have lived for “bread and circus-shows.” Yet to the contemporaries of a Juvenal they taught the Decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount. Among such beasts in human form they reared the sacred home; they created the Christian family; they gave new and holy meanings to the names of wife and mother; they imparted ideas unknown before of the dignity of man as man; they infused an atmosphere of benevolence and love; they bestowed the elements of liberty chastened by law; they sanctified human society by proclaiming the universal brotherhood of redeemed man. As we read the Apostolic Fathers, we comprehend, in short, the meaning of St. Paul when he said prophetically, what men were slow to believe, “The foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men … But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are.”

Philip Schaff, Introduction to The Ante-Nicene Fathers

On August 5, 2015 By Kuyperian In Politics Like

The Fallacy of Corporate Sponsorship of Planned Parenthood in a Capitalistic Economy

Guest post by Chad Poorman

Abortion! We’ve been fighting this battle openly since the 70’s. We have prayed fervently in our churches, protested lovingly, sought counsel and economic relief for those considering “the way out.” Recently, we won victories with the Center For Medical Progress videos clearly showing the brazen evil of Planned Parenthood. As a result of these videos the Daily Signal posted a list of companies that contribute to PP. Our friend and regular Kuyperian contributor Andrew Isker wrote a piece for Kuyperian on July 23^rd encouraging the Body of Christ to contact the corporate sponsors that donate to PP and ask for their stance on the viral videos. I read Pastor Isker’s article and began to contemplate how to get involved and which companies I should contact (read it and get involved).

As I muddled through my day in and out of prayer and contemplation, it occurred to me that these companies that donate to PP are companies that are all about profit, “making coin,” generating revenue. Why would these companies support the murder of babies? PP is a non-profit (wink wink nudge nudge), or at least is categorized as one. Being overly gracious I chalked it up to a tax break. When these corporations give to PP they receive a tax break and it is written off as charity. Do you see the fallacy? These companies give money to receive a tax break and the organization that they support is openly and legally killing their potential patrons. Do these companies realize that a baby grows up, gets a job, and is able to consume their goods and services? Surely no tax break could equal the about of money aborted babies could spend in our economy. It does not make sense, there is no logic.

I became even more curious about the depth of this fallacy. Taking the list from the Daily Signal, I picked a company that is all over my house, Bath and Body Works. Their product is at every sink, in my showers, under cabinets, on my walls, this stuff is everywhere. My wife and daughter use their soaps, shower gels, lotions, body butters (whatever that is), and lip balms. How did all this get into my dwelling? My wife will often go to the mall with her mother, and they stop into Bath and Body Works and bring home gads of their various products. I ask, “Don’t we have enough?” She responds, “They were buy one, get two.” How can a company stay viable if they are giving so much product away. They must have a large profit margin on their product, and if that is the case they are making cach hand over fist.

What are the statistics? Bath and Body Works is America’s largest mall beauty brand. There are over 1,600 stores nationwide. They are owned by the L Brands Inc. (the L Brands also owns Victoria’s Secret). They opened their first store in 1990. Bath & Body Works does approximately $145,000,000 in sales every year. One of their shower gels is priced at $12.50.

Planned Parenthood has been involved with abortion since Roe v. Wade in 1973 (I am suspicions they were doing abortions before 1973). PP has committed approximately 6 million abortions in the last 42 years, which is an average of 142,857 lives per year.

Bath & Body Works is a large company that is in virtually every mall in America. $75,000,000 is the amount of money Bath & Body Works would make if every aborted American baby never happened and was able at some point in their lives to purchase one retail priced shower gel. The numbers are astounding. Seventy-five million dollars! American corporations that sponsor PP, take a stand and look at the babies in the womb as potential lifelong patrons of your companies.

Christian, if bad publicity, and public pressure will not change the corporations’ minds, hopefully, prayerfully an understanding of potential earnings will. I encourage you to read Andrew Isker’s article, it will help you as you get involved and fight this war.

Chad Poorman teaches 4th grade, Latin and Greek at Trinitas Christian School and is a member of Providence Church in Pensacola. He is an avid bibliophile, and enjoys any conversation about books and Medieval history. He enjoys cooking with his wife and daughter.

On July 20, 2015 By Kuyperian In Scribblings Like

While It Is Still Called, “Today”

God is now calling all men everywhere to repent, which means he is not calling any men anywhere to wait until they’re certain they’ve been made alive before they repent. Seek Him while he may be found; call upon Him while He is near; drink from the living water He now offers, for He has not only secured life, He is life. Faith is the evidence of things unseen, and although you may not yet see evidence of new life, faith will repent, drink the living water, and trust that fruit will follow, that life will follow. When we see streams of living water flow from repentance, we know that it is God who works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure, we know that the wind, the Spirit, has moved. Our heavenly Father always has a fatted calf ready to slaughter for the feast following repentance. The angels are ever itching for the party.

Our faith is not in our faith. Our hope is not in our fruit. Our sure and steadfast hope is that Jesus died to conquer death, and he ever lives to impart His own life to us, in us, and through us to the world.

On July 6, 2015 By Kuyperian In Scribblings Like

Happiness is Eating God

In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis proposes the Fall of Adam and Eve occurred when they tried to “invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside of God, apart from God.” From this has flowed all the sinful acts and all their ill effects throughout the course of human history. Our history is “the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”

However, as a motor designed to run on fuel cannot run without it, so the human being, designed to feed on God, cannot be happy without him. Lewis goes so far as to say, “God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”

Lewis wasn’t making this stuff up. Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.” (John 6:53-55)

It is no small coincidence that the first temptation revolved around food, the consummation of all things happens around a meal, and in the interim we commune with God around His table. God is the source of all pleasure and all fulfillment, but not a source producing things which, once imparted, make us happy. He gives us himself. He is the fuel. He is the food. He, himself, is the fulfillment. “God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”

On June 27, 2015 By Kuyperian In Scribblings Like

C. S. Lewis Comments on SCOTUS Decision

“For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique; and both, in the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious.”
–C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

On June 12, 2015 By Kuyperian In Scribblings Like

Evil, Lies, and Ugly: Thoughts on Privation

by Marc Hays

In The City of God, Augustine of Hippo wrestled with the problem of evil. Augustine summarized his thoughts with the now famous maxim: “Evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name ‘evil.’” Evil is not a thing; it is a privation—a lack of a thing, namely goodness.

The qualities of being have been aptly summarized in classical philosophy in the triad commonly referred to as the “transcendentals”—namely “goodness, truth, and beauty.” Augustine has relegated the definition of evil to a privation of the good; the very existence of evil is ultimately contingent upon the existence of the good, for evil cannot describe any act except the one that does not attain unto goodness. Consider for a moment an extension of Augustine’s maxim to the other two of the three, ancient transcendentals: truth and beauty.

Truth is often considered under the realm of knowledge, and most of us hold to the notion the truth is “that which corresponds to reality.” We also know, however, that truth can be embodied, enfleshed, and incarnated for Jesus Christ said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” So truth is more than a logical correspondence with reality, but it is nothing less than that.

Continuing with Augustine’s idea of privation, a “lie,” would be a description of that which does not correspond with reality. There is no category for “lie” unless there is a “truth” to be misrepresented, twisted, corrupted. Borrowing Augustine’s axiom, a lie would be a privation of the truth. A lie stands between the knower and that which is to be known, casting a shadow.

Following this line of thought, the third of the transcendentals, “beauty,” ought to be considered within the same category of goodness and truth, while “ugliness” would fall into the category of evil and falsehood. Following Augustine again, that which is ugly is a description of that which does not attain unto the standard of beauty.

There is no apt description of ugly unless beauty is the canon, the standard, the rule. There is nothing easier than to believe with our culture that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” We have replaced “beauty” with “preference” and we sleep easy at night believing that the transcendental triad is fine as a duo. We fight for objective goodness, and we fight for objective truth, all the while affirming with the spirit of our age that beauty is up for grabs. The longer the church affirms that there is no such thing as objective beauty, the more ugliness will be preferred, both within the church and without.

On June 5, 2015 By Kuyperian In Culture, Family and Children, Theology, Wisdom Like

God Is Not Enough: The Story of Christian Community

Guest post by Pastor Rich Lusk

The story of Christian community begins, as every Christian story does, in the Garden of Eden. Adam was created in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness. He was created in perfect covenantal fellowship with the Triune Lord. No sin stood in the way of their communion, as the Creator and creature loved one another in fullness. Moreover, Adam didn’t have to earn anything; God had freely and graciously blessed him. He had all the privileges of divine sonship. The Lord had, in the most intimate way, breathed life into Adam, imparting his own Spirit to the first man (Gen. 2; cf. Jn. 20). The Lord gave him access to the Tree of Life and a fatherly warning to avoid the Tree of the Knowledge of Good Evil until the time was right. The Lord gave him meaningful labor, as he was to serve and guard the garden the Lord had planted for him. He had abundant food and a beautiful environment in which to live, worship, and play. All of creation was his, as God’s vice-regent. And yet, the Lord evaluated the situation at the mid-point of the sixth creation day and said “It is not good that man should be alone” (Gen. 2:18).

Alone?! Adam was emphatically not alone at his creation. He enjoyed friendship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He was the son of God. He was included in the Triune family. What more could he need? We’d expect the text to read, in harmony with the rest of Gen. 1-2, “And the Lord God said, ‘It is good for man to be with me, to have me as his friend.” But that’s not what the inspired narrative says.

Apparently Adam’s pre-fall communion with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit was not enough. God made man for more than fellowship with himself. To be complete, to be satisfied, to be fully realized as a creature made in God’s image, the man needed fellowship with other humans. He was not only created, as Augustine suggested, with a Trinity-shaped void in his heart that only the Father, Son, and Spirit could fill; he was also created with a human-shaped void that only other people could fill.

This is part of what it means to be made in God’s image. God is not a single individual. He is a community of three distinct persons, bound together in an absolute oneness of love and fellowship. For man to image this kind of God required a plurality of humans in fellowship with one another. An isolated individual is not a full image of the plural Godhead. Thus, God is not enough. People need other people to be complete. We were made for each other.

Because we are made in God’s image, God is the model for humanity. The Father, Son, and Spirit mutually indwell one another’s lives (Jn. 13-17). The theological term for this is “perichoresis.” “Peri” is Greek for “around.” We get the word “choreograph” from “choresis.” The idea is that the three persons of the Godhead “dance around” or “dance within” one another. Their lives are totally intertwined. They move in lockstep with one another because they abide within one another. But this is precisely how we are to live in Christian community. We are to open our lives to others so they can indwell us, but we are also to seek to “move into” the lives of others, abiding in them. In this kind of community, as we indwell one another and live “perichoretically,” we image the life of the Triune God.

Obviously, the claim “God is not enough” is hyperbolic. This should not be understood in an idolatrous fashion. Obviously, in an ultimate sense, God is enough for man. We can and must still speak of the absolute adequacy of God. It is God, after all, who provided all Adam’s needs. It is God who created Eve and gave her to Adam as the crown of his other gifts. God stands back of all Adam’s satisfaction and joy. It is God who ultimately completes Adam.

But our point here concerns God’s creation design. God designed humans to live in community with one another. This is part and parcel of what it means to be imago Dei. God made us in such a way that vertical fellowship with the divine would be insufficient; we also need horizontal fellowship with other humans. God did not just make us for himself, he made us for each other.

Or, to look at things from another angle, God made the world in such a way that his presence would be mediated from one human to another. God dealt directly with Adam, but for the most part God deals indirectly with us. He speaks to us, disciplines us, molds us, and so forth, though the agency of others. God works through means, especially the means of humans made in his image.

Community is inescapable. Each one of us comes into existence only because two other people “communed” (so to speak) in just the right way. After birth, we would perish in days, if not hours, if others did not care for us. We learn every social skill we possess (or don’t possess) from others – language, manners, games, proficiencies, etc. And this need for others is not something we outgrow. It is more obvious in the case of infants, but just as real in the case of adults. No man is an island and no man is self-sufficient.

Thus, the pessimistic dictum of existentialist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, “Hell is other people,” is exactly backwards. Hell is the absence, not the presence, of other people. In fact, in hell, the wicked will be utterly alone, apart from an all-too-personal, all-too-close relationship with the God they utterly despise. Contrary to existentialism, other people do not stifle our freedom or get in the way of our self-actualization. Rather, it is precisely in community that we are free to find and be our true selves. We are not self-made, but God- and others-made.

Heaven and the new creation are precisely what Sartre dreaded, but in a form he could not imagine. Heaven is, as Jonathan Edwards put it, “a society of love.” It is not the absence of other people, but precisely their presence that makes heaven so heavenly. The saved community is marked out even in the present by this mutual love (Jn. 13). Our love for one another shows that the power of God’s new creation is already at work in the world. This love will be perfected in the resurrection.

Ultimately, salvation itself must be understood in communal terms. Just as sin wrecked our fellowship with God and with one another, so in redemption that fellowship is restored. Psalm 133 spells out the connection between salvation and community in beautiful, poetic terms. Brothers dwelling together in unity is likened to the precious anointing oil flowing down Aaron’s beard to the edge of his garment. The priest’s body and robe become symbolic of the oneness of the community. The body of the priest is now the body of Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 12). The oil – usually symbolic of the Spirit in Scripture – covers the body from head to toe. The psalmist goes on to compare fellowship among the redeemed to the refreshing dew of Hermon flowing down Mount Zion. This is an interesting picture, since Hermon was in northern Israel and Zion in the south. The Spirit, now symbolized by the dew, unites things disparate in space and even culture. The conclusion is remarkable: “For there the Lord commanded his blessing – life forevermore.” That is to say, eternal life takes the shape of community life. The structure of the psalm itself makes the point: Just as the inner sections of the psalm match (oil and dew, priests and mountains), so the outer sections match (brothers dwelling together in unity and eternal life).

The gospel, then, is irreducibly social. Liberals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century used the label “social gospel” to refer to their program. They substituted salvation from poverty and ignorance through state-mandated welfare and educational programs for salvation from sin and damnation through the cross and Spirit. One theologian characterized the social gospel of liberalism as a God without wrath, bringing men without sin into a kingdom without judgment though a Christ without a cross. Obviously, that is a total distortion of the biblical teaching.

But in another sense, we could benefit from restoring and redeeming the label “social gospel.” The gospel is social through and through. Traditional Christian teaching claims that outside the church there is no ordinary possibility of salvation. That is to say, forgiveness from sin and incorporation into Christ’s body go hand in hand. Salvation includes a new status (justification) and a new community (the church).

Moreover, the whole Christian life can only be lived out in the context of the church community. The New Testament authors presuppose that followers of Christ will be discipled in the matrix of an ecclesial community (cf. Acts 2:42ff). Numerous apostolic commands only make sense in this light. For example, we are told to love one another, pray for one another, bear one another’s burdens, confess to one another, forgive one another, and so on. In other words, we’re to “one another one another.” But this can only happen in the environment of a church body. It can’t be done in isolation.

American Christians struggle with these things because of our heritage of individualism and dislike for authority (including church authority). Community means you give up some privacy, some of your rights. It means you sometimes have to accommodate yourself to things you wish could be done differently. You have to learn to “give a little,” and to be flexible. It means we have to learn that life together involves becoming vulnerable at times, admitting weaknesses and needs. It also means meeting needs and showing strength on behalf of others at times. Communal life means we are willing to submit to the brethren, especially those God has put in charge of us through ordained office.

But whatever the costs, it is imperative that we learn to live in community once again. We must learn to deal with our differences in a biblical manner (Phil. 2:1-11). We must learn to live under authority (Heb. 13:7, 17). We must learn work together on the common project of building God’s kingdom. We must learn to live as an organic body, in which every part of the community cares for every other part. We must learn what it means to be the communion of the saints, as we confess in the early church creeds. We must rediscover what it means to live shared lives of generosity, of mercy, of friendship, and of hospitality. Many of these virtues the ancient church excelled in have been lost on us.

American spirituality often treats church community as a “tacked on” extra to a personal relationship with Jesus. In other words, we often act as if God alone is enough, and other Christians were quite unnecessary. “Quiet times,” in which the individual gets alone with God, have replaced the church’s corporate gathering as the pinnacle of spiritual growth. But the Bible points us in a different direction. Remember Adam: life alone with God is not the divine plan for us. God alone is not enough, in a profound sense. We must live in fellowship as one body with other believers if we are to grow and mature as God’s people. As Augustine said, the essence of God’s plan for humanity is mutual fellowship with himself. We are called to share a common life with the Trinity and with one another.

So: Is God enough? Yes, we must insist that he is in an ultimate sense. God is our all in all. But how does God manifest his all-sufficiency towards us? Precisely through giving himself to us in one another. God meets our needs by giving us each other, and together we are called to mirror his life – the life of Triune, perichoretic community.

—

Rich Lusk has served as the Pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church since December, 2004. Before that he served at Redeemer Presbyterian (PCA) in Austin, TX and Auburn Avenue Presbyterian (CREC) in Monroe, LA. He and his wife Jenny have four kids. Rich is a graduate of Auburn University (B. S. in Microbiology) and the University of Texas at Austin (M.A. in Philosophy). This article is used with permission, and originally appeared at the Trinity Presbyterian website.

On June 3, 2015 By Kuyperian In Scribblings Like

Jenner Identity

A new era of acceptance for sexual relativism was inaugurated this week with the announcement of Vanity Fair’s upcoming issue, which will feature a cover story showcasing former Olympian Bruce Jenner’s official reveal as a “woman.”

Transgenderism—like egalitarianism—is ostensibly an emancipation from oppressive traditionalist categories. But it’s actually parasitically reliant upon traditional sexual conventions. Those who attempt to change sexes still feel the need to look and act masculine or feminine. Bruce Jenner’s transformation was not just a change of mind, it involved cosmetic surgery and hormone therapy. He also changed his name to something feminine (“Caitlyn”). Transgender rhetoric may be progressive, but its optics are confusingly traditional.

Witness the new Vanity Fair cover photo: Jenner is presented essentially as a supermodel. The wardrobe (or lack thereof) and composition intentionally accentuate the feminine characteristics Jenner is trying to assume. He is depicted as demure, voluptuous, even seductive (and thus objectified, take note). While this is the antithesis of manhood, it’s also the antithesis of androgyny or the rugged feminism of the modern age. Traditional ideals of beauty and sexuality are in the background here, albeit in twisted form. And far from being seen as objectionable, all this is deemed “heroic” and praiseworthy in the media.

The shape of Jenner’s “identity transformation” is an ironic revelation that human sexuality involves biological, aesthetic, and other natural givens that can’t be eradicated, even by those engaging in self-destructive revolt against divinely-created order. Though we may try to rebel against our Creator and fashion our own reality, we cannot transcend our created nature. We cannot escape living in God’s world and functioning according to the categories He has established.