Luke says that Jesus grew in wisdom and stature; Peter tells us to grow in grace and knowledge; Zaccheus shows us what to do if we have not yet grown enough to see Jesus as he passes nearby. We use whatever tools we have in order to improve our vision. Zaccheus had a tree, and you and I have minds, hearts, and appetites, bearing God’s image. Our children bear that image as well, so we train them to use the tools God gave them so they can distinguish truth from falsehood when they meet either. God has given them each a mind, a heart, a belly, a conscience, a will, an identity, a community, a church, and a family. We have God’s Word in our hands and God’s world at our fingertips, so we seek truth in both, and we place both within the reach of the ones God has given us.
What is Lent?
What is Lent? Lent is the penitential season of the Church. Lent is the purple of royalty. Lent is the desert before the promised land of the Resurrection. Lent is the pathless mazes of the wilderness. Lent is the war against the disease of sin. Lent is the long wait Jacob endured for Rachel. Lent is the “Thus saith the Lord,” when the devil whispers, “Who said ye shall be like God?” Lent is the sacrifices of incomplete priests. Lent is the exile of a perfect man so that we might be set free. Lent is the love of injustice poured on a just Man. Lent is fasting with hope. Lent is giving up idols and turning to the true icon of God, Jesus Christ. Lent is finding joy in the midst of suffering. Lent is loving without expecting to be loved. Lent is death. Lent is death to us. Lent is repenting and being forgiven. Lent is exploring your weakness. Lent is judging yourself first. Lent is John the Baptist preparing the way of the Lord. Lent is a pattern for redemption. Lent is God moving his people from desert to city, from ruin to a new civilization. Lent is obedience through sacrifice, love through death.
Why Lent? Because Lent takes away our arrogance. It instills a sense of need. It builds a habit of dependence. It prepares our wounds to be healed by Another. Lent is the power of Another to do what we cannot do for ourselves. We need Lent because without it Christ is no king, we are no people, and life is no gift. We all must take up our cross and follow the Christ of the cross. In Him, we move and live and have our being.
Lenten Devotionals and Readings
As we enter the Lenten Season, many of us are looking for healthy ways to engage in this penitential time of the Church Calendar. My presupposition is that whether you are part of a tradition that observes Lent or not, we all need a season of our lives to meditate on the cross of Christ and to give special attention to the forgotten doctrine of repentance. We are on day one of Lent, so here is a list of several devotionals and readings:
Lent CREC devotionals: These are pastoral devotionals for the family. They contain three Lenten readings each week and a full week of readings during Passion Week.
Lent with the Church Fathers: Meditate these next forty days on the writings of 10 Church Fathers. These are 15-20 minute readings.
Celebrating Lent with Kids: Dozens of ideas and readings for our children during this rich season.
Reading the Jesus Story Book Bible During Lent: Reading Plan by Sally Lloyd-Jones
Lent with Martin Luther: Learn more about the richness of the Lutheran tradition and their theology of the cross.
Five Books for Lenten Meditation: Lenten reflections from well-known evangelicals and much more.
Recycled Protestant Liberalism
Here is a quote from Os Guinness’ book Fool’s Talk about how the evangelical world is filled with theological liberalism:
Full blown revisionism was once the natural preserve of extreme Protestant liberalism, and its proponents still lead the field by miles. But they no longer run alone. “Emergent Evangelicals” have emerged and aged until now only nostalgia or denial allows them to claim that they are emergent. But as their emergent sell-by date has passed, they demonstrate the effects of being weaned on the diet of their day-postmodern uncertainties, a relentless rage for relevance and a burning desire to be always seen as “innovative” and “thinking outside the box.” Not surprisingly, the result in the extreme cases is an Evangelical revisionism that is a recycled Protestant liberalism with the same feeble hold on the Bible and truth, nonchalance about authority, a patronizing stance towards tradition and the church catholic, and a naive idea of their own importance as heralds of newer, fresher gospels, and an uncritical stance towards the future.
Guinness’ description is spot on. Much of what passes for evangelical today is nothing of the sort. The assumptions of many evangelicals line up nicely with those we saw during liberalism’s great day in the late 19th and early 20th century. In particular, their “feeble hold on the Bible and truth.” Evangelical denominations, conferences, seminaries, and publishing houses are full of those who shave Scripture to fit their agenda, deny Scripture’s inerrancy, or blatantly ignore the plain teaching of the Bible. Evangelical pastors are not much better. And perhaps the worst part is we don’t even know we have been gutted. We walk along, whistling merrily, believing we are alive when we are just a carcass.
Wolterstorff on the Fourfold Task of the Church
In his marvelous and meticulous book, Art in Action, Nicholas Wolterstorff offers a concise summary of the identity of the church as the “community of those who have taken up the call of God to work on His behalf in His cause of renewing human existence.”
Wolterstorff outlines the calling of the church in terms of a fourfold task: to witness, work for, embody, and proclaim the kingdom of God (paragraph breaks added):
“The task in history of the people of God, the church, the followers of Jesus Christ, is in the first place to witness to God’s work of renewal, to the coming of His Kingdom—to speak of what God has done and is doing for the renewal of human existence.
Its task is, secondly, to work to bring about renewal by serving all men everywhere in all dimensions of their existence, working for the abolition of evil and joylessness and for the incursion into human life of righteousness and shalom.
Thirdly, it is called to give evidence in its own existence of the new life, the true, authentic life—to give evidence in its own existence of what a political structure without oppression would be like, to give evidence in its own existence of what scholarship devoid of jealous competition would be like, to give evidence in its own existence of what a human community that transcends while yet incorporating national diversity would be like, to give evidence in its own existence of what an art that unites rather than divides and of what surroundings of aesthetic joy rather than aesthetic squalor would be like, to give evidence in its own existence of how God is rightly worshipped.
And then lastly it is called to urge all men everywhere to repent and believe and join this people of God in the world.”
Bible Reading Plan, 2016
For those of you still looking for a Bible reading plan, it is not too late to catch up. A friend of KC, Pastor Brian Nolder, has put together a terrific reading plan for the year. He writes:
So, if you missed yesterday, you can use today to catch up on yesterday’s readings and begin Monday right with the program.
Olasky and Myers: A Conversation on Culture
Marvin Olasky turned the tables on Ken Myers, conducting an intelligent, sweeping conversation on things ranging from modern dance to radical Islam. Per usual, when Ken talks about anything he talks about everything, deftly showing cultural connections between seemingly unrelated artifacts. Those who listen to Ken’s bimonthly MARS HILL AUDIO Journal won’t be surprised by the themes emphasized:
- Life is a gift and the Spirit is the giver.
- You can only believe what you can imagine.
- Religion is a modern myth.
If you don’t have time to listen to the whole interview, skip to minute 58:30. There, Myers attempts to answer the question, “why does God allow Islam?” Following Peter Leithart and William Cavanaugh, Myers says Islam is a rebuke to the Western church which has succumbed to the temptation to privatize the faith. Perceived this way, the church can engage Islam by critiquing not its outward stance, but its dogma; that it’s a public outworking of a faith lacking a Trinity, an incarnation, or indeed grace.
The Five Core Ideas of L’Abri
“All of life is spiritual except what is actually sin.” – Francis Schaeffer
An extremely formative class during my time at Covenant Seminary was Cultural Apologetics, which my wife, Whitney, and I took with Mark Ryan and Dick Keyes. I’m thankful for the work of FrancisSchaefferStudies.org in bringing a number of old L’Abri lectures back into circulation – including the one below by Keyes. Here, Dick gives a brief intro to L’Abri by describing its five core ideas, which are as relevant today as they were in 1984:
- Christianity as “true truth.”
- The reality of the supernatural.
- The humanness of spirituality.
- Living in the shadow of the Fall.
- The lordship of Christ over the whole of life.
Education or Propaganda?
Last summer in a talk entitled “The Harmony of Contemplation,” author and educator Tracy Lee Simmons briefly contrasted the educated mind with the propagandized mind: “[What is] the difference between the educated and the propagandized mind? The one is prompted to think, the other is anesthetized to thought. The one is given the greatest questions, the other is supplied with canned answers. The one seeks a measured and rational view of oneself and others, the other can be lulled into satisfaction with caricatures.”
As our children grow, we parents are often faced with questions that baffle us, stump us, and ultimately, humble us. As this occurs, remembering Mr. Simmons’ three comparisons can help us educate our children as opposed to merely propagandizing them. (more…)
“Bless my Soul, People were Getting Baptized!” Newbigin on his Life and Mission
I once heard Greg Thompson at Trinity Presbyterian Church say something to the effect, “every time I think I have an original idea, I always find that Lesslie Newbigin beat me to it.” I resonate with Greg’s sentiment. Often, his ideas have so assimilated in my mind and soul I forget their origin. I go to Newbigin again and again to be challenged, confronted, and shaped.
Below is a rare interview with the good Bishop. By the end, you’ll get a taste for what animates him. In Newbigin’s estimation, the gospel isn’t just a private affair of the heart. Rather, it is public truth. It’s about this world, the real world, the one which Christ is redeeming. I find the best entryways into Newbigin’s work to be Truth to Tell, Foolishness to the Greeks, and Geoffrey Wainwright’s definitive biography, Lesslie Newbigin: A Theological Life.
Watch and enjoy!
