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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 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 January 24, 2022 By In Theology

Against Nature

In Romans 2:27-28 we read:

Then he who is physically uncircumcised but keeps the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision but break the law. For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical.

ESV

This translation translates as “physically” and “physical” two entirely different words. In verse 28, Paul designates “true” Jews as having more than a circumcision en sarki “in flesh.” Paul’s use of the term “flesh” is complex. The word has a bunch of biblical associations beyond “physical.”

But in this post I want to consider his terminology in verse 27. There he refers to Gentiles as the ek phuseos akrobustia—the “by nature uncircumcision.”

What?

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On January 13, 2022 By In Culture, Family and Children, Politics, Pro-Life, Theology

Blasphemy Laws

While people condemn the blasphemy laws in God’s law as being barbaric and severe, every society has blasphemy laws. These are the laws that tell you what you can and can’t say about certain people and subjects; “gods” you must worship or, at least, refrain from criticizing. These laws are not arbitrary. They tell you who defines the culture and what the culture is. They tell you who the gods of the culture are; that is, what or who is worshiped.  Sometimes these laws are codified and enforced by authorities. At other times they are general cultural practices that are endorsed by the authorities’ unwillingness to stand against injustice. Pressure by activists is put on companies to conform to their morality. If they don’t conform, they will be canceled or attacked. Whether codified or passive among government officials, or a loud, powerful, cultural movement, blasphemy laws exist, and violators will be prosecuted.

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On January 7, 2022 By In Discipleship, Theology

Jesus’ Baptism & Ours

If we would not be too proud to admit it, many of us American Protestants are scared of water. Whenever people start talking about what happens in baptism instead of what doesn’t happen in baptism, many of us start twisting in our seats. Images of superstitious priestcraft and mechanical guarantees of salvation start to swirl through our heads, and we have violent reactions like any good Protestant.

Some of us have seen people presume upon God because they have been baptized. That kind of abuse of baptism has caused us to go to the opposite extreme and reject any effect of baptism at all. Besides that, we know that God wouldn’t use water on our bodies to do anything substantive in regards to our salvation. That all happens directly by the Holy Spirit without any sort of means.

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On December 30, 2021 By In Church, Theology, Wisdom

The Church: The Manifold Wisdom of God

The created order was in disarray. This disorder was deeper and more serious than the unformed and unfilled state of the original creation. While the darkness and the deeps required a great amount of wisdom and power to overcome, they were not hostile. Sin changed all that. Sin introduced a death-sting that fought to keep things separated that God intended to be unified. The sleep of Adam from which he awoke to the glory of Eve became a sleep from which he would not awake. He would lie there ripped in half without resurrection glory. He would return to the dust from which he was made.

Sin’s death was not limited to our individual bodies. This death was the enemy of life as God intended. Anything that separated what God purposed to be joined together was death that needed to be overcome. From the beginning, God purposed that all humanity be caught up in his eternal fellowship as Father, Son, and Spirit as one worldwide family. Proverbs 8.30-31 poetically allude to this as Yahweh and Wisdom mutually delight in one another and in the sons of men. This delightful union and communion are what Paul speaks of to the Ephesians when he says that God’s eternal plan revealed in Christ Jesus was to unite all things in Christ (Eph 1.9-10). Without the presence of sin, this would have been a friendly process of maturity (a truth I explained in the article Incarnation Anyway). Sin latched on to this process, fighting it tooth-and-nail, refusing to allow death to move into the resurrection of unity between God and man and man with man.

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On December 23, 2021 By In Theology, Wisdom

Incarnation Anyway

Was the Incarnation of the eternal Son “Plan B,” an aberration of God’s original intent for his relationship with creation? We know that because God works all things after the counsel of his own will (Eph 1.11), sovereignly determining the course of history, that there is no “Plan B.” Even sin was somehow a part of the original good plan of God. I am speaking in terms of the trajectory of creation and God’s relationship to it had sin not entered the world. To put it another way, is the Incarnation only a rescue operation? Did the eternal Son become flesh only for the purpose of rescuing man and the created order from sin? I don’t think so. I believe that the Incarnation would have happened even if sin had not entered the world.

The Incarnation reveals God’s fundamental intent for his relationship with creation: union and communion; God dwelling in/with man and man dwelling in/with God. Hints of this are given in Proverbs 8 where pre-incarnate Wisdom’s relationship with Yahweh and the creation are poetically described. Wisdom is beside Yahweh. He is a master craftsman, forming and filling the created order. There is a mutual delight and rejoicing between the two Persons. But there is also rejoicing and delight in the inhabited world, in the sons of men (Pr 8.30-31). The delight and rejoicing that Yahweh has with Wisdom eternally is the delight and rejoicing in which he wants the creation to share. Creation’s fundamental purpose, even apart from sin, was to get caught up in the life of God himself.

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On December 2, 2021 By In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom

Hands On Wisdom

“The sluggard buries his hand in the dish and will not even bring it back to his mouth.”

~Proverbs 19.24

The image is a comical one. A platter of food rests in the middle of the table. If the dish to which Solomon refers is a common one for that day, it doesn’t have any sides to negotiate. It is not a bowl that one would have to reach into and pull out of. Those at the table could simply reach and retrieve food with a minimal amount of effort, scraping it to themselves if they had to. Here is this man who has exerted just enough effort to get his hand to the plate of food, buries his hand in the food, but now he has neither the will nor the energy to bring it back to his mouth. All that he needs to sustain him and bring him joy is literally at his fingertips (actually, all over his fingertips), but his torpor keeps him from it. He will starve even though everything he needs is easily accessible.

He started the whole arduous process of eating, but he didn’t have the energy to finish it. Not finishing what one starts is the way of the fool. Solomon characterizes this as having a “slack hand” in Proverbs 10.4 He puts his hand to something, he takes hold of a commitment and, therefore, a responsibility, but then he lets it go before the job is complete. Maybe he had good intentions. He made commitments. He may have even been excited at first about what he was going to do. His hand might have been the fastest to get to the dish, but he quit on the project as quickly as he started.

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On November 18, 2021 By In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom

Ant Wisdom

The wisdom that Solomon desires for his son is the wisdom that works. Wisdom worked from the beginning creating and ordering the world (Pr 3.19-20; 8.22-31). As the image of Wisdom, man is a worker, creating, ordering, and bringing productivity within the creation over which God set him to rule. We are world-makers, beginning with ordering the plot of creation that is uniquely ours–our own persons–and extending that dominion to wherever God grants us responsibility and authority.

God has created and commanded us to work. As Solomon’s son is moving into his maturity, the kingly stage of his life, Solomon is concerned that he understands his responsibilities as a worker and the tempting threats he will face as he fights the post-fall creation. Sin not only made the creation outside of man resistant to his dominion activity, but sin has also twisted man as a worker. We fight the curse of sin without and within.

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