Bill Smith, Author at Kuyperian Commentary

On July 28, 2022 By Bill Smith In Discipleship, Wisdom 2

Conquering Anxiety

“Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs him down, but a good word makes him glad.”
~ Proverbs 12.25

You have lost any control that you thought you had. You can’t get a handle on the situation either emotionally or physically. The doctor’s report hasn’t come back, so you don’t know why your health is declining. Financial markets are unstable. Your business is threatening to downsize, so you might be taking a severe financial hit. Your grown children are at odds with one another, and you can’t get them to reconcile. That person you love is flirting with apostasy, and you feel helpless.

This situation and the threat of loss are all you can think about. You are hyper-focused, and your mind is spiraling quickly through the scenarios, none of which have good endings. In fact, the more you think about it, the greater your fear of loss. And there is nothing you can do about it. Your heart feels as if it is being compressed in a vice. It is heavy. Your countenance is tight. When you are with other people, you are emotionally distant, focused on this situation.

You’re anxious.

Anxiety is an expression of fear. This fear originates in legitimate care that has now run amok. Care for ourselves and others is good. Excessive care that manifests as this great fear of loss as if we will lose everything if we lose this one thing is a good disposition that has turned into a sinful attitude.

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On July 21, 2022 By Bill Smith In Culture, Discipleship, Wisdom 1

How To Talk To A Fool

It is difficult to watch. You want to say something, to do something, something that will change the situation. You know that if things continue as they are going, the end will be disaster. But he won’t listen. She’s got this. So they think. They are taking the path of a fool. What do you say to them?

Solomon was aware that in a world of sin in which we are called to bring order that one of our greatest challenges would be dealing with fools. A fool is not merely a superficial, immature buffoon. He may be a cultural icon, a respected businessman, or a leader in society. The Proverbial fool is the man whose heart and life are disordered according to the standard of God’s created purpose. He is in rebellion against God. Fools come in all shapes and sizes, falling on a spectrum of foolishness. He may be the child whose foolishness is present but still has the opportunity to be cut off through discipline (Pr 22.15), or he may be the belligerent, hardened fool whose foolishness has matured to the point that he holds God and everything that is wise in contempt. The wise must learn to identify and deal with all types of fools.

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On July 14, 2022 By Bill Smith In Culture, Discipleship, Wisdom Like

Lip Restraint

All of his spirit goes out of a fool, but the wise stills it.
~Proverbs 29.11

No one likes a fake. When people come across as disingenuous, it is off-putting. Consequently, in our broader society and church, high value is placed on authenticity that is expressed in transparency. There is, of course, a need for authenticity. The Scriptures speak of this as faithfulness. But, as one of my seminary professors used to quip, “The devil’s favorite trick is to take a good thing too far.”

Authenticity and transparency have come to mean self-expression in any way you deem fit. If you are truly authentic, you will say all that you are thinking or feeling to the guy standing in front of you or to thousands, potentially millions, of people on social media. You should be able to speak with words, clothing (or lack thereof), hairstyles, piercings, or in any other way to tell everyone of your psychological brokenness, your rebellion against the oppressive powers that be, the goings on of what used to be called a private life, or any number of improprieties. Restraint is inauthentic. It is a lie of the highest order because psychological nudity is the highest good. Restraint from self-exposure is the great sin. “I’m just being real.”

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On July 7, 2022 By Bill Smith In Art, Discipleship, Wisdom 1

Occasional Speech

A man has joy by the answer of his mouth, and a word in its time, how good!
~Proverbs 15.23

Communication is an art. We all begin as three-year-old finger painters with little control over our minds and bodies so the art we produce, though appropriate for a young age, reveals that we have a long way to go to become da Vinci. As we grow we move to the paint-by-numbers pictures where everything is laid out neat and tidy. The predetermined outline is sketched out and only needs to be filled in with the colors in the spaces matching each number. If you follow the detailed directions, your finished project will look a great deal like the picture on the box in which your canvas was purchased.

Developing skills to paint freehand takes a great deal of time, effort, and training from masters (mixed, of course, with natural talent). To look at an image and reproduce it on canvas or imagine an image and bring it to life through various colors and shades is not the skill of a toddler. It is the mature fruit of perseverance in learning the craft.

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On June 30, 2022 By Bill Smith In Culture, Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom 1

Gaslighting

Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 stage play Gas Light, which was adapted into British and American films in the 1940s, is the origin of the term “gaslighting” that is used so much today. The story concerns a manipulative, evil man who kills a woman to steal rubies. He couldn’t find the rubies at the time of the murder, so he left and concocted a plan to come back and find them. Assuming an alias, he marries a lady who has the money to purchase this house years later. He attempts to drive his wife mad by orchestrating events and then telling his wife that she imagined things. Each night he would sneak into the attic to hunt for the rubies and light the gas lamps. This would cause the gas lamps in his wife’s room to dim. She told him about the dimming of the lamps, and he would tell her that she was imagining it. She was going crazy because he was manipulating her by re-writing history and making her think she was delusional.

As the story progresses, you feel the tension and spite for this man growing inside you. He is evil. He has, what Solomon describes in Proverbs, a perverse tongue.

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On June 16, 2022 By Bill Smith In Culture, Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom 1

Integrity

Covenants and contracts have been a part of human history since its beginning. From God’s covenant with the creation and man in particular to two men agreeing with a handshake on the sale of property, words have created bonds between God and man and men with men. Those words are only as good as the character of those speaking them. If one or both parties lack integrity, then the relationship is vapor. Integrity in character revealed through speech is the mortar that binds us together.

As Solomon instructs his king-in-waiting son, one concern is the character of his speech. Because a king’s words are powerful, holding in them the power of death and life (Pr 18.21), the son must be careful in speech. At the root of all of his speech must be integrity. “Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity than one who is crooked in speech and is a fool” (Pr 19.1) “Walking in integrity” is contrasted here with being “perverse in speech.” Just as God reveals who he is through his Word (Jn 1.1-2, 14, 18), so we also reveal our character through the way we speak. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks (Mt 12.34), and the heart is command central for our total being; the heart is where our deepest affections and allegiances lie, where we reason, and where we decide what to do. Our heart is revealed in our speech along with our actions. Our hearts must be integrous. When they are, the integrity will be evident in our speech.

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On June 9, 2022 By Bill Smith In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom Like

Wise Winsomeness

The heart of the wise makes his speech judicious and adds persuasiveness to his lips.
~Proverbs 16.23

Everyone is trying to sell you something, promising you a taste of the good life or, at the least, the avoidance of the worst life. Advertisers spare no expense to peddle their wares. In 2020 advertisers spent $225.8 billion, and that number is expected to rise to $322.11 billion by 2024. From soap to app subscriptions, people are trying to persuade you that what they’re selling will give you a taste of glory.

Merchandise is not the only thing being hawked. Politicians, constantly in campaign mode with a 24/7/365 news cycle, are trying to sell you on their vision for the future. Political ads use ominous music and black-and-white visuals to frame their opponents and their positions, and then switch to lighter music and color visuals to frame themselves. They lay out their plans for the economy, justice, climate change, the sexual issues du jour, and a plethora of emotional topics to have you buy into their agenda.

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On June 2, 2022 By Bill Smith In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom Like

Loose Lips Sink Ships

When the Spirit comes, he creates bonds; he binds people together. He does this as the Spirit of the Word, and, therefore, he binds us together with words. When we share the same language and confession, we are able to know one another and work together in a common mission. This is why Pentecost has always been associated with words. When the children of Israel came out of Egypt after the Passover and Exodus, Pentecost was the time that God gave his Law through Moses to Israel to bind them together as a new nation. Pentecost was memorialized every year in a feast that culminated in the giving of the Spirit after the great Passover and Exodus accomplished by Jesus. God gave his Law, his word, to the nations and formed a new holy nation, the church, through the preaching of the gospel as every man heard that word in his own language. The Spirit created new bonds with the word of the gospel so that the church might be able to work together in our common mission to disciple the nations.

Words are spiritual tools and weapons to build and to fight. When we walk in the Spirit, we speak words that build. Our words may also be used to do evil just as any tool or weapon may be used. When we speak evilly, we grieve the Spirit because he is the Spirit of unity who creates bonds of peace.

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On May 27, 2022 By Bill Smith In Discipleship, Worship 1

Paedo-Noises

My Christian life began as a Baptist. I grew up Baptist and went to a Baptist college. Graduated with an MDiv from a Baptist seminary, served as a Baptist youth and music minister, and finally as a Baptist pastor. That was quite a chunk of my life. While children are important to Baptists, baptistic theology views children as “outsiders” until they come to their crisis conversion experience … which probably happens from 6-8 and then again, maybe several times after puberty (because they realize that they weren’t “really” saved when they were younger). Children are to be evangelized in the most basic sense; you know, like we would do the man on the street. So, we have classes and even children’s church aimed at getting them to “ask Jesus into their hearts.”

Baptistic theology doesn’t incorporate children in the way that Reformed theology does. That’s not a slam on my Baptist brothers. It is just a fact.

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On May 26, 2022 By Bill Smith In Theology, Worship Like

The Ascension

Hidden in the smoke that ascended from the altar that sat in the forecourt of the Tabernacle and Temple was a prophecy, a shadowy type of what was to come. The worshiper brought his offering to draw near to God. Indeed, the word he heard that we translate as “offering” is more literally “near-bringing.” There were several different types of these offerings or near-bringings, each with its own emphasis on what happens in our relationship with God. One of these near-bringings was called the ascension offering. Translations confuse us because they focus on the action taken upon the offering and not what the offering is doing. You will read “burnt offering,” but the Hebrew word emphasizes ascending or going up; yes, the offering goes up in fire and smoke, but it is going up.

After having drained the blood from the animal, skinned it, cut it into pieces, and washed it, the priest put the pieces that were to be offered on the altar, head first, followed by all of the other parts (see Lev 1). The fire set by God himself was a consuming fire, but it was a friendly fire. The fire turned the offering that represented the worshiper into smoke that passed through the smoke of the incense altar, which is the prayers of the saints (Rev 8.4), and united with the glory cloud of God in the Holy of Holies. The worshiper ascended through the mediation of the holy substitute to draw near to God, to join him in his enthroned rest to enjoy his work.

Jesus’ ascension is the fulfillment of this smoky type. His death and resurrection–his blood shed and his body transformed–were not the end of his work. All of his work was leading to his ascension and enthronement. It is no mere bland historical fact that the disciples see Jesus “lifted up” so that a “cloud” takes him out of their sight as they stare into heaven (Ac 1.9-11). Jesus is the near-bringing, the offering, that draws near to God to sit enthroned with him to enjoy his work. He is seated at the right hand of the Father after his ascension, reigning until he has put all enemies under his feet, the last of which is death, which he will conquer at our resurrection (Mk 16.19; Ac 2.34-36; Heb 12.2; 1Cor 15.20-28).

United to Christ Jesus, our substitute, we join him in his ascension, seated with Christ Jesus in heavenly places, reigning with him until our common enemies are put under our feet (Eph 1.20-22; 2.6; see also Rom 16.20). Each Lord’s Day renews this covenant, assuring us of our present and future glory. In the Spirit, we ascend into heaven, incorporated into God’s glory cloud in praise to rule with him.

Happy Ascension Day!