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On January 22, 2021 By In Culture, Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom

Not My President?

This past week the United States of America inaugurated a new president. I don’t like him. I believe he is, as my grandpa used to say, “crooked as a barrel o’ snakes.” I don’t like his vice president. I despise his baby-killing-gender-bending-Marxist-promoting-communist-China-loving-LGBTQ-racist-Orwellian agenda. The Biden administration is an unapologetic enemy to the kingdom of God, no matter all of the “God-talk” they employ. I am one of those kooks who believes the election fraud was so evident that it was hard to believe. No one will ever be able to convince me that Joe Biden was elected legitimately. However, none of that means that I can say that he is “not my president.” He is a legitimate president because the powers-that-be under our Constitution certified him as president.

This situation is nothing new to world history or even to God’s people in particular. For example, God made it clear in Israel who were to be the priests and high priests: the sons of Aaron. As history progressed, the sons of Aaron were even narrowed down in the time of David to the line of Zadok. Only Aaron’s sons through Zadok were to be high priests. Upon the Jews’ return to the land after captivity and exile, the Zadokian line had to be restored when the temple was rebuilt. However, between the rebuilding of the temple and the birth of Jesus, the high priesthood became a position that could be bought and sold or given as a gift by rulers. During the lifetimes of Jesus and his apostles, the high priests were not “constitutionally legitimate.” Nevertheless, neither Jesus nor the apostles refused their authority.

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On January 16, 2021 By In Discipleship, Theology

Treason

“Behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table” (Lk 22.21). One of the twelve apostles, hand-picked by Jesus to be the foundation of the new holy nation, who walked with Jesus for three years, eating this transformed Passover meal with Jesus in which he is giving them his body and blood, is about to commit high treason. How could it come to this?

Before that question can be answered, we must first answer, “Who is it?” Eleven of the apostles don’t know. There is no finger-pointing. The traitor is not obvious. Each of the apostles, while appalled at the prospect, understands that it could be any one of them. Each one knows his capabilities. Each one knows the capabilities of the others. This heinous act of apostasy is not beyond the possibility of any of Jesus’ disciples.

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On January 9, 2021 By In Culture, Discipleship, Wisdom

Apocalyptic Patience

Tensions are running high. For the past nine months, we have been living with a novel virus, politicians playing power games with the virus, people losing their livelihoods, social unrest because of police actions resulting in deaths, and, now, political unrest because of the questions about the legitimacy of the recent election. Societal anxiety is high. Whether or not you have felt the pinch directly from any of these things, you are affected. The anxiety is in the air. Our leaders, who have the power to allay societal anxiety, have not only refused to do so but rather they have exacerbated it by their blatant hypocrisies as well as using it as an opportunity to enrich themselves and increase their power. We are sitting on a powder keg with a bunch of hysterical toddlers playing with matches. We know the explosion is coming. The anticipation of disaster creates anxiety.

Whenever these sorts of things happen in a society, people look for relief. We need rest. We can’t live like this. We’re going to pop. All of this sets us up for some type of messianic figure who will lead a revolution. It may or may not be bloody, but it will be revolutionary and promise peace. With the potential for rest, we will give up our heritage of liberty and just about anything else. If we believe in his cause, we may even fight. Tensions must find resolution.

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On January 2, 2021 By In Discipleship, Theology

Incarnation: The Glorification of Man

What is God’s chief end for man? To glorify man and enjoy him forever. This is not quite the catechism question we are used to hearing, but it is just as true as the one with which we are familiar. God created man for glory, and he himself would bestow that glory on the man. In the incarnation of the eternal Word, we see God’s intention for man realized: glorified flesh. John tells us that “the Word was made flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten, full of grace and truth.” (Jn 1.14) We behold the glory of God in flesh, the flesh of man.

The Hebrew word for “glory” speaks about something weighty. Glory is heavy. Glory is the regal robe and crown of the king that sits heavy on his body making him a sight to behold while also reminding him of the weightiness of his responsibility. Glory is the vestments of the high priest in Israel by which he reflects the beauty of God and his people while also carrying the tremendous responsibility to God and for his people. Wherever God adds weight to our lives through privilege and responsibility, he is glorifying us.

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On December 26, 2020 By In Theology, Worship

Incarnation: The Glory of God

During the Christmas season, as we meditate on and celebrate the incarnation of the eternal Word, we rightly think of the condescension of God in taking on poverty and the likeness of sinful flesh (Rom 8.3). Our minds are overwhelmed at how God, who is so far above us, could do such a thing. We might even entertain thoughts of a reluctant God who, becoming flesh, is doing something out of character; as if he was happily existing as eternal Father, Son, and Spirit, not wanting to be entangled with the creation (especially creation corrupted by sin), but he loved us so much that he was willing to de-glorify himself for our sake. While it is true that he was rich and became poor for our sakes (2Cor 8.9), and it is also true that his taking on, not only flesh, but the likeness of sinful flesh, was a great act of humility, it is also true that in the act of incarnation we see the glory of the eternal Word. That’s what John says in John 1.14: “The Word was made flesh and dwelt (tabernacled) among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

If we are not careful, all of the talk of God’s condescension in the incarnation easily turns into a wrong understanding of God, the creation, and the relationship between the two. We might develop dualistic undercurrents in our thinking that the material world is evil because it is material and the immaterial spirit world is good because it is immaterial. Consequently, the act of incarnation itself is an act of anti-glory for God because the creation is anything but glorious. However, the act of incarnation, the eternal Word clothing himself in flesh, is the glorification of God.

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On December 19, 2020 By In Discipleship, Theology, Worship

A Baptism Exhortation

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. ~Galatians 3.27

Prayer: Almighty God, who formed the earth out of water and through water by your word, who saved Noah and his family through water while destroying the wicked, who delivered your people Israel through the Sea while defeating Pharaoh and his armies, all of which are types of baptism into Christ Jesus, we pray that you will look mercifully upon Leah, saving her with your people while destroying sin and death. May she, throughout her life, relying upon the grace you give to her this day, continue to mortify sin so that at the last day she may participate in the resurrection of the just and reign with Christ Jesus eternally. Amen

Clothing is important in Scripture, not merely to cover our infantile nakedness but to glorify us. God never intended the man and woman to remain in their primal condition of nudity. He always intended to clothe them as they grew into the exalted royal rule God destined for them. We see this in the fact that Jesus, when seen after his ascension in Revelation, is clothed in garments of glory and beauty. He did not return to the original condition of nakedness–that occurred on the cross–but is crowned and clothed with glory to rule.

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On December 17, 2020 By In Men, Wisdom

Letters To Young Men: Think Like A Man

Young Man,

Men and women are different. The differences between us are not merely in our “plumbing.” We are different all the way down to the chromosomal level. One of the differences between us that is both frustrating and delightful is the way we think like men and women. Those differences in the way we receive and process information–thinking–is the focus of this letter. Once you read this, you will understand why many times you don’t understand women.

Men and women have the same parts in their brains, but the wiring is different, you might say. (For a humorous introduction to this, watch the video A Tale of Two Brains.) This doesn’t mean that one way of thinking is superior to the other any more than a hammer is superior to a saw. It simply means that they are different, and, like the hammer and the saw, when they are used for that which they were made within the same project, they work together to complete the project. God created us to be oriented to the world as men and women. Each of us has sex-specific missions in the dominion of the world. These two ways of thinking are oriented toward those missions so that together we complement one another to complete man’s (man + woman) mission.

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On December 13, 2020 By In Discipleship, History, Theology, Worship

The Temple. So What?

The Lord has come to his temple. He is going to destroy it. So what?

Large sections of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are taken up with Jesus teaching his disciples about the destruction of the Temple (Mt 24; Mk 13; Lk 21). Jesus not only speaks about it, he prophetically acts out the destruction of the Temple when he turns over the money changers’ tables, drives everyone out, and shuts down the Temple for a day. The Temple occupies a central place in the life of God’s people and becomes a focal point of Jesus’ ministry in the transition between the new age and the age to come. But why? Why take so much time in discussing and focusing on the Temple? Why should we care about what happens to an ancient building back in the first century? Well, if Jesus thought it important enough to talk about, and the writers of the Gospels under the inspiration of the Spirit believed it was important enough to record among the massive amounts of other information that could have been recorded (cf. Jn 21.25), then it must be important to the continuing life of the church.

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On December 6, 2020 By In Culture, Theology, Worship

Devouring Houses

Whenever we see a powerful person using his power to abuse the weak in any way, something goes off in us. There is a great sense of anger at the injustice of it. The big kid on the playground bullying the weakling, the husband abusing his wife, or the parent beating his child raises our righteous ire. We know innately that this isn’t right. Powerful people ought not to be using their power to pummel the weak.

But why? If we actually lived in a universe in which evolution was a reality, these sorts of actions would make sense. The strong survive. The weak do not. Sometimes the strong must eliminate the weak in order to survive because of the scarcity of resources, to eliminate threats, or to demonstrate to others what will happen if they are challenged.

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On November 30, 2020 By In Discipleship, Family and Children, Men

Letters To Young Men: Respect

Young Man,

Let’s explore the issue of respect, particularly the man’s need for respect in a relationship with his girlfriend or wife. As many Christian pastors and writers have noticed in the Scriptures, Paul’s exhortations for husbands and wives vary in Ephesians according to the needs of men and the needs of women (see Eph 5.22-33). When Paul tells the husband to love his wife, he describes that love with two words: nourish and cherish. These words carry with them the basic needs of the woman from the man about which I have already written: masculine provision and protection. When a man nourishes and cherishes his wife, that’s how he loves her, and that is how she knows he loves her. However, when Paul gives directives to the wives, they are to submit to their husbands, respecting them (Eph 5.22-24, 33). This is how she loves her husband: putting herself under his mission and respecting him. A man knows that he is loved by his wife (or girlfriend) if she respects him, which is demonstrated in how she responds to participating in his mission (of which I have written to you previously).

The need to be respected by your wife or future wife is not egotistically superficial. Respect is not a game she plays with you in order to “stroke your ego.” If a woman feels the need to fake respect–stroke your ego–then she doesn’t truly respect you. She believes that she is superior to you. This will be indicated in how she talks about you to other women and/or how she presents herself before others (especially with other men present). A woman that doesn’t truly respect her man will tell her girlfriends how she has to stroke your ego and about how she manipulates you to get what she wants. A woman who doesn’t respect her man will not defer to him in public settings; she will put herself forward, talk over him, contradict him, or simply embarrass him by the way she acts before or talks to men.

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