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On December 6, 2019 By In Counseling/Piety, Wisdom

The Mother of All Virtues

I have had the privilege over the years to teach literature to high school students. I particularly enjoy teaching medieval literature. I come away from those years far richer than I come into them. One of the works we always read is the Song of Roland, a French ballad of chivalry written probably around the First Crusade. It provides a wonderful gateway into discussing the ideal of chivalry, where it succeeded and failed during the Middle Ages, and why it matters today.

Chivalry at its basic level is simply a code of life that defines the proper actions and responsibilities toward friend and foe, man and woman, rich and poor. It includes areas such as society, manners, justice, war. The Medieval concept of chivalry, at least in its best moments, attempted to take those virtues that are objectively defined by the revealed character of God and apply them to the various circumstances and relationships of life. 

If you think back to the knightly code of medieval Europe, it would have been of the utmost importance not only for you to live by a certain code, but also to be able to rely upon those around you to live by the same code. Friendship was built upon a mutual understanding of loyalty and trust. Enemies knew the rules of engagement on the battlefield. Women knew what a gentleman looked like. Men knew what a lady looked like. Not that there weren’t imposters running about, but they were imposters because there was a standard to deceptively imitate. 

The cultural prophets of the past few generations have proclaimed that chivalry is dead. I don’t exactly know what form of chivalry has been killed, and I’m not interested in simply resurrecting some structure of the past. We do not necessarily need a well-developed chivalric code. But as Christians, we need to seriously consider again what a virtuous society looks like. 

While virtue may deal with personal character, it is expressed communally. Virtue creates the fabric of life together. Therefore, several early medieval writers, such as the venerable Bede, called discretion the “mother of all the virtues.” Such discretion involves judging the proper expression of the other virtues within a particular context that maintains the integrity of those other virtues. Let me explain.

For a person to act a certain way in one situation would be courageous. To act in a similar manner in another situation would be brash and impulsive. For a person to extend mercy in one case would be truly merciful. To extend what appears to be mercy in another case would be foolhardy, condoning, or even cowardly. It is discretion that enables us to know the difference.

Think of all the ways we are called to honor others. I honor my wife in a way that is unique to how I honor all other women. The way I honor my mother now at 46 looks different than how I was called to honor her when I was 5, 12, or even 18.  Discretion allows the virtue of honor to extend beyond good intentions to actually bestowing it tangibly upon another.  

What does it look like to love my enemies, not in the abstract, but on the various battlefields of life? There are battlefields of nations, battlefields of ideas, battlefields of truth, and battlefields of personal conflict. All require a particular response in order to express the virtue of love. When does patience become passivity? When does honest speech become a spark that sets forests ablaze?  

Because of the great rebellion of Adam and his descendents against God, we live in a world that by its very nature spoils virtue and subverts social norms. A world that was created for unity and harmony has the seeds of autonomy and discord permeating the soil of men’s hearts. The medievals understood the fallenness of man and felt the need for an explicit, societal code of honor. In contrast, many today are content to emphasize vague principles of love and respect. 

However, the moral foundations that support our current cultural building project are extremely unstable even on a calm day. Add to it the stormy winds of #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ, or Trumpism, and you quickly find Christians walking timidly through a field of landmines.  Love, respect, tolerance, empathy, mercy, justice, equality, etc. are all handled with uncertainty. When Jesus stated, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” the people responded, “Who is my neighbor?” Now they would ask, “What do you mean by love?” 

The answer to this is a return to our mother virtue. A virtuous life must become a robust, unapologetic, catholic way of life; a liturgical dance for the everyday moments.  These are not the days of standing by the punch bowl with our hands in our pockets looking unsure of what we’re supposed to be doing while the world dances on into oblivion. You fight a culture of death with a culture bursting at the seams with life. 

So we learn how to sing and dance together. We learn how to eat together. We learn how to be a good friend, how to marry and raise children. We learn how to respect the wisdom of the old and invest in the strength of the young. We learn how to bestow greater honor on the weak. We learn how to hate the sin and love the sinner. We learn how to live peaceably in an increasingly hostile world. “Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.” (2 Timothy 2:21)

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On November 14, 2019 By In Wisdom

Why Your Local Pastor is a Better Pastor than Tim Keller

Dear friend,

I am a better pastor than John Piper, John MacArthur, Tim Keller and any other pastor of renown. No, I am not as rhetorically gifted, nor am I widely published, nor will I ever draw the crowds, but for you, specifically, the members of my congregation, I am the best pastor you will have. I will go further and say that your local pastor, whoever he may be, is also a better pastor than all the men I mentioned above. They are uniquely called men to shepherd you, to hear your stories, to know your individual names, to baptize your children, marry your daughters, bury your fathers; yes, these men are better pastors than the prestigious men above.

You can go ahead and gain from their insights, listen to their sermons and lectures, read their books, but at the end of the day, only one man (or a couple of them) will be at the hospital when your son has a concussion or breaks his leg, or when your aging mother has a heart attack, or when the unexpected comes.

Friends, don’t lose sight of your local reality and community. Encourage your pastor to continue the hard work of ministering, bearing burdens, exhorting, comforting, and more. Don’t believe the lie that you can do church alone with these celebrities or that you don’t need a local body or that theology is a job best done in isolation or that your local pastor is only a fill-in or an add-on to the real pastors. You belong to a local body. And that weak and sometimes unsophisticated and sometimes clumsy, and sometimes corny, but always faithful man is a better pastor for you than all those super names combined.

Sincerely,
A local pastor

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On November 13, 2019 By In Books, Theology, Wisdom

Augustine on Prayer

Augustine’s book Confessions is a wonderful reflection on the sovereignty of God and the evangelical nature of the gospel. That is to say, in reading in the Confessions, you are steeped in the reality that God will judge every moment of your life. Augustine underlines and highlights this reality throughout the book by writing it as one long prayer to God.

One time I was talking with a friend about the book and he commented that he kept getting caught on the pronoun “you”. He would be reading along and then Augustine would say “you” and my friend said that pronoun would reorient everything: the book is not addressed to the reader but to God. This is true throughout the whole book even up to the end where Augustine writes, “Only you can be asked, only you can be begged, only on your door can we knock” (Bk XIII.38).

As I reflect on the nature of prayer and what Augustine is doing in this book, I am challenged in a couple of ways. First, do I have such a robust prayer life that I could pray to God like Augustine? Augustine prays about everything imaginable. Big things and small things: he prays about smiling as an infant, being beaten at school, dreams, friendships, reading, death, philosophy, memory, etc. Augustine’s prayer life is his whole life. I don’t know when I have ever heard someone pray about the nature of time. But Augustine does it.   

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On October 13, 2019 By In Theology, Wisdom

Growing In Authority

When Jesus called his Twelve men in Luke 6, he named them apostles. They would be his official representatives, sent out with his authority. Their initial calling looked toward maturity. Eventually, they would be ready for Jesus to grant them more authority and send them out. But there must be time between their calling and when Jesus sends them out with his authority to deliver people from demons and disease in Luke 9. This is where Jesus was taking them, but before he could entrust them with this authority, they had to be with Jesus for a while to learn from him by word and example what it means to have and use authority in his kingdom. The disciples stay in the “school of Jesus” for a while. Then, when Jesus deems them ready, we see Jesus granting them the authority he always intended to give them.

While our calling might not seem so dramatic as theirs, our calling has the same fundamental trajectory: maturity that will be able to handle greater authority. At our baptism, Jesus calls us into a special relationship with himself. We belong to him and he to us. Like the disciples, we are called to be with him to learn from him. Also, like the disciples, we are vested with a certain amount of authority in our calling. When Jesus grants his authority to his disciples, he is “clothing” or “vesting” them in his own authority. When we are baptized, Paul says that we “put on Christ” (Gal 3.27). We are vested with Christ’s name, and with that name, a certain amount of authority. While our authority and responsibility grow throughout the years, every Christian has this basic authority. Each Christian bears the name of Christ and has the responsibility to use that authority as he did: to serve others.

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On September 8, 2019 By In Wisdom

Parabolic Perspective

Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth! I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter riddles from of old, things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of YHWH, and his might, and the wonders that he has done. He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments…. (Ps 78.1-7)

In the opening lines of this Psalm, Asaph makes it clear what he is doing: he is speaking a parable, a riddle from of old. What comes after this quoted passage is a sketch of Israel’s history from Egypt through the wilderness to the establishment of David’s kingdom. Throughout the parable, Asaph emphasizes the consistent unfaithfulness of Israel in contrast to the faithfulness of God. (I encourage you to read through the entire Psalm to see what I’m talking about.) All of Israel’s history is parabolic; it is all a dark saying, a riddle. In Israel’s history, God has shown his purposes, plans, and promises. Israel’s history is hidden the mystery of the kingdom.

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On September 1, 2019 By In Theology, Wisdom

The Mystery of Marriage

This is a homily delivered on the occasion of the wedding of my son, Joshua, and his wife, Naomi.

Paul, quoting Genesis 2.24 and then commenting on it says to the Ephesian church, “’For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.”

This is a great mystery. Our word “mystery” is brought over directly from Greek, but in its trek through history, it has picked up some connotations in English that Paul did not intend. When we hear the word “mystery,” we tend to think of that which is unknowable or incomprehensible; something shrouded behind an impenetrable veil that we could never hope to get our minds wrapped around. Though there are enigmatic elements in what Paul means when he speaks of mystery, that is not the totality of what he means.

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On August 16, 2019 By In Wisdom

QUICK to Obey!–not Slack (Audio version included)

Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality. Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.


Colossians 3:22–4:1
The Quick & the Slack

The typical way I think this passage is applied and preached is to exhort Christians to be better employees because they want to please God by obeying him. Since we’ve eliminated slavery as they practiced it in the ancient world and later, these texts are usually applied to the employer/employee relationship. But I’d like to do something a little different here. I’d like you to consider how the way you work to please your employer should influence how you obey God.

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On July 7, 2019 By In Counseling/Piety, Theology, Wisdom

Merciful Coals of Fire

“If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat; And if he is thirsty, give him water to drink; For so you will heap coals of fire on his head, And Yahweh will reward you.” (Prov 25.21-22; cf. also Rom 12.20).

Since the fall, a line of antithesis has been drawn between the serpent and his seed and the woman and her seed (Gen 3.15). We are mortal enemies. We each desire the other’s destruction, though destruction doesn’t mean exactly the same on both sides of the line. The serpent and his seed desire and work toward the annihilation of God and his image; utter destruction. The woman and her seed desire and work toward expulsion or conversion of the serpent’s seed.

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On June 29, 2019 By In Counseling/Piety, Family and Children, Men, Politics, Wisdom

Defy the Culture: Get Married

As you look around at the cultural confusion, you might be wondering how to get involved. Where do you start with the kind of mess that is all around us? I have a simple suggestion: get married. And then throw a really big party to celebrate. You might even consider inviting the whole town. I am not being flippant here. This is a serious recommendation and it is a key tactical move in attacking the enemies of darkness. Nothing causes greater consternation in the foe than a godly wedding celebration and a godly marriage.

Over the month of June, the Rainbow Mafia has been inundating us with their brainwashing techniques. And they have been laying it on thick. Business after business has been running Gaystapo ads. And they are super cheesy too. Given this ploy, it is wonderfully defiant to celebrate a Christian wedding.

In this age of sexual perverts, a Christian wedding ceremony is a fantastic grenade to lob at our culture. This kind of grenade accomplishes two things: first, it destroys the folly of the world and second, it exalts the beautiful reality. This is a wonderful way to attack the evil around us. It is a one-two punch that is incredibly winsome. At a Christian wedding, we hear clearly and profoundly the truth of the world: God made us male and female and it is good. He made Adam and Eve for each other. Jesus proclaimed this as Christian marriage in the gospels. This is the reality of the world. All the other perversions are fakes. And those other relationships are ugly and harmful. We get the chance to stand against those errors when we celebrate a Christian wedding.

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On June 25, 2019 By In Culture, Theology, Wisdom

Toward a Philosophy of Tech Implants, Part 2

Scenarios to Consider

Continuing the discussion from last time, let’s look at a couple of possible scenarios. There are a lot of unknowns about technology so these are really hypothetical scenarios rather than real predictions. These are useful to consider because they help make the five principles concrete. Here are the five principles: 1. Natural form of the body matters, 2. The soul matters to the body, 3. What is the purpose of technology, 4. Treat the body as made in the image of God, 5. Technology is a tool.

The first scenario to consider: a third arm implant. While this might seem strange, this seems like a pretty reasonable development. If there is a way to implant a third arm on a body, then that could offer a number of interesting possibilities for people. An extra hand to hold a phone, operate a machine, complete a complicated task. How do the principles in the last article apply to this?

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