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On November 24, 2021 By In Discipleship, Wisdom

Own It!

Once upon a time in first-century Israel, ten virgin young ladies were excited about attending a wedding. They didn’t know exactly when the bridegroom was coming, so they had to make adequate preparations for their waiting time. Five of these young ladies wisely worked diligently to prepare for any length of time that the bridegroom would delay. Whenever he came, they would be ready to go into the wedding feast. The other five young ladies foolishly didn’t work diligently but assumed everything would work itself out.

As the time of absence of the bridegroom lengthened, the inadequate preparation of the five foolish young ladies became evident. They were running out of supplies. They asked the five wise young ladies to share what they had. The five wise young ladies told them that their foolish lack of preparation put no obligations upon them to give what they had collected in their wisdom. The foolish five need to go to the market to restock.

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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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On November 4, 2021 By In Culture, Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom

The Salvation of Works

In all toil there is profit….

Proverbs 14.23

“Help Wanted” signs are up all over the country. Businesses are struggling, not only to find competent workers, but warm bodies who will show up. Jobs are available, but many people don’t want to work. On his November 2, 2021 show, Matt Walsh reported that three out of four unemployed able-bodied men of working age simply don’t want to work. Some of the biggest industries hit are the leisure and hospitality sectors. Vox, drawing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, reports that there are 1.7 million job openings in the industries, ten percent of the entire industry, with another one million quitting. Theories concerning the loss of drive to work, especially among able-bodied men, are many. Some attribute it to low pay (although some places are paying higher wages than they ever have). Others attribute it to the government’s quantitative easing through printing money, extending and expanding unemployment benefits, and sending out stimulus checks, disincentivizing workers who make more staying home than they would at work. Walsh attributes the problem to despair and purposelessness.

A perfect storm is brewing that has been created between the factors mentioned and many more that has already and will leave devastation in its wake. But all of this gives us the opportunity to ask ourselves, “Why do we work?” If work is only about getting a paycheck and the government provides that, why shouldn’t I get on the dole like everyone else and ride this gravy train until the last stop? The sheer mechanics of God’s world tell us that this is unstainable. You have to engage in some level of work to continue to survive. Remove producers from society and soon we will be covered with a fruitless, unkempt world that will be our death.

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On October 28, 2021 By In Discipleship, Wisdom

Little By Little

Wealth gained hastily will dwindle, but whoever gathers little by little will increase it.

~Proverbs 13.11

More. Faster. These two words, especially together, could very well be the tagline for modern Western society. Companies from casinos to Amazon play on our impatience, our insatiable desires to have more at an ever-increasing pace; to have more and have it easier than ever before. Entertainment has also picked up on our boredom with the mundane, repetitive rhythms of life, our impatience with “sameness,” and seeks to titillate us with bigger and more provocative technological wizardry. It is tempting and quite easy to fall into the frenzy of the bigger-faster-more society that feeds our impatient need for novelty and wealth without work.

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On October 23, 2021 By In Politics, Wisdom, Worship

10 Theses on Ecclesiastical Conservatism

What I wish to do is to establish some principles for thinking rightly about politics. I have done my very best to reflect these principles over the years with a certain level of success, and am also fully aware of the temptations that come with easily deviating into one side of the aisle over the other.
I want to first begin with a legitimate concern in our evangelical ethos. And again, for the 400th time, I am addressing evangelicals, because I am one. I am not addressing my family members out of spite, but because God has given me some ability to see things. Now, whether my sight of the current issues is a gift from God or an incredibly astute self-deception is for you to decide. I speak only for myself and my three-old who still believes my flaws are merely superficial.

Back to the concern: there is a legitimacy among my friends who have sent me private notes about the dangers of over-politicizing things and how evangelicals are very susceptible to accepting bribes from politicians. And there is also a danger in making the Church so political, so trumpian, and so americana that we become a wing of the GOP receiving special favors from Donny Jr.

I see that concern and raise the bets. It’s real and if you have been reading me long enough, you know that I have attacked 4th of July celebrations in the Church and the exaltation of the Pledge of Allegiance over the Nicene Creed, etc. I have attacked these so much that as the great prophet says, “If you don’t know me by now, You will never never never know me.”

I am a Reformed, Evangelical, Christian with the bona fides to prove it and the letter of recommendations as well. I preface that to ensure that no one thinks I am some ecclesiocrat. I am not, but I do love the Church, like, a lot. She is my mother and I honor her as the bride of my only Lord. The result of this happy marriage and what ought to be our interest in the political sphere makes me an “ecclesiastical conservative.” And since those two words according to a google search have never been put together into a sentence, I’d like to define some of it in ten theses. Whether you find it fruitful or silly is up to you, but here I stand and I can do other things, but I want to park here for the moment at least to begin formalizing some thoughts:

Thesis I: Ecclesiastical Conservatism begins thinking about politics first as a churchman and then as a citizen of the body politic. His loyalty is first as a worshiper and then to his responsibilities to think about the politics of the day. The first must flow into the other and not the reverse. Our temptation to view government as the answer is a sign that we are eager to give up the role of the Church in society. Conservatism observes the expansion of the state and the overreach of the government in areas where the Church should be independent. We, therefore, oppose such actions and accept that our fundamental duty is to obey God rather than man.

Thesis II: Ecclesiastical Conservatism affirms that the Church is central to the purposes of God in the kingdom and that from her flows the wisdom of God to the world (Eph. 3:10). Wisdom comes from above through the lips of ministers and the gifts of bread and wine. The lessons or rituals from D.C. should never take precedence over the Church.

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On October 14, 2021 By In Culture, Wisdom

Fret Not

Have you been keeping up with the news? Our country is a mess right now. We have a porous southern border with no-telling-who coming across with very few if any expectations upon them while our government puts crushing burdens on the backs of its own law-abiding citizens. Supply chains are massively disrupted because of ludicrous policies concerning COVID. Healthcare workers, pilots, and others are walking off the job because they, for a variety of reasons, refuse to submit to the vaccine mandates that are being implemented fascistically. Our recent military debacle in Afghanistan caused unnecessary casualties. The Federal Reserve is printing billions of federal reserve notes–paper money–each month, infusing it into the economy, creating inflation, and making citizens poorer. All of this is recent and is on top of the atrocities of abortion, the celebration of deviant sexual lifestyles, and all of the tolerated lawlessness of the riots in 2020. All the while we are told by our government and many in the media not to believe what we are seeing, hearing, and experiencing. It truly is the stuff of dystopian novels.

Everything from the lawlessness to the newspeak that goes on is maddening. With the inundation of news 24/7/365 and connections on social media constantly pushing the latest absurdities through our feeds, it is tempting to be caught up in a frenzy of emotions all of the time, seething about everything going on.

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On October 7, 2021 By In Theology, Wisdom

Wisdom’s Weapons

Whenever we think of safety or security, we may tend to think of being protected from anything that would disturb our comfort physically or emotionally. A generation has arisen in our society that certainly believes this. Authors Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt examine this obsession with what they call “safetyism” in their book The Coddling of the American Mind. Numerous examples are given from various parts of our society in which people seek the elimination of all threats, real or perceived, to what they consider their physical or emotional well-being. This is particularly true on college campuses, where historically a person goes to be challenged in order to sharpen his mind and skills. Now, we have “safe spaces” on campus. Professors who refuse to use preferred pronouns, question the legitimacy of gender fluidity, or dare confront the absurdities of Critical Theories have their careers ruined by people who are “traumatized.”

The security that God promises through Solomon in Proverbs has no resemblance to this sort of safetyism in our culture. The promise of wisdom’s security is not the promise of safety that a mother provides for an infant child, but the safety a shield and sword provide in war. Wisdom doesn’t shield you from discomfort and difficult decisions. Wisdom doesn’t protect you from challenges that will test your mettle. Wisdom is not a “safe space.” Wisdom is a weapon that protects you while you engage the world.

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On September 30, 2021 By In Theology, Wisdom

The Enemy Within

Throughout the book of Proverbs, Solomon warns his son of the enemies he will face. A few of those enemies are outside of his son. There is the perverted Band of Brothers who appear in chapter 1 and are alluded to elsewhere. They lie, steal, and pillage. They will play on the son’s God-given need to join with other men in a comradery of mission to take dominion. But their commitment to a distorted dominion makes them an enemy to be avoided. Then there is Harlot Folly who plays on the need of the son for a helper. She seduces with short-term benefits without long-term commitment and will only help him in dwelling in the abode of the dead, not in his mission to build God’s house. Her seduction is to be avoided for she is an adversary.

But there is another enemy with much more influence over our lives than the perverted Band of Brothers or Harlot Folly. This enemy resides within each of us and poses the greatest threat to our well-being. This enemy is our own hearts.

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On September 23, 2021 By In Theology, Wisdom

Unafraid of Immortal Wounds

What, if anything, keeps you awake at night? Are there any anxieties or fears that roll through your mind that keep you from sleeping? This is a common question in the business world, especially for the owners or leaders that feel the stress to keep the business going knowing that not only do their livelihoods but others’ livelihoods are dependent on them. But you don’t have to be a boss or owner of a company to experience stresses that create insomnia. Any fear of loss that stems from a real or perceived lack of power to control people and situations can create stress that will rob sleep from you. You can worry about family finances, personal health, the health of family members, loss of job, loss of relationships because of tensions, and a myriad of other things.

In the end, what keeps us up at night is the lack of security. We feel threatened with some sort of loss accompanied by the powerlessness to change things. We sleep well when we feel secure.

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On September 9, 2021 By In Theology, Wisdom

Wisdom: Guardian Against Lies

Toward the end of the long sentence that is Proverbs 2, Solomon promises his son that the way of wisdom is safe, guarding and preserving him from the perverted speech of both men (2.12-15) and women (2.16-19). God calls the son to a mission of dominion, a mission that requires that he become a brother in arms with other men in fulfilling our masculine duty as well as finding a personal helper, a woman who will aid him in building a house, being fruitful and multiplying. There are fallen men and women out there who submit to the father of lies and because they bind themselves to him, they assume his nature as liars. They make false promises concerning the mission. Their lies promise you that you can defy reality–the way God made and sustains the world–and, in the end, find the same rest, peace, and security that God promises.

Both men and women use perverted speech, lies, to try to seduce the son. The men want the son to join their marauding gang (cf. Pr 1.10-19) and walk in evil paths, obtaining glory through wicked means. The woman entices him that he can have sex without consequences or commitment; no marriage, no children, only fun. Both are lies that lead to death.

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