Kuyperian Commentary

On January 6, 2022 By Uri Brito In Church Like

Epiphany as Gift-Giving Celebration

Happy Epiphany!

It doesn’t have the same ring as “Merry Christmas” or “Christ is risen!” but it carries significant repercussions for our Christmas and Easter theology. In some sense, Epiphany is the key that unlocks both classic Christian festivals. Epiphany secures the triumph of Jesus’ life and mission.

In Epiphany, we celebrate the “manifestation” of Jesus to the Gentiles. When Magi came to give him gifts, they gave him gifts as a foretelling of the great gift the Son will give the Father at the end of history (I Cor. 15:24-26). When Christ returns, he returns with the kingdom as a gift to the Father. Jesus receives gifts, but he is the great gift-giver of history.

Jesus introduces himself to the Gentile world as a fulfillment of Simeon’s song. He is a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of Israel (Matt 2:1-12). Jesus’ entire ministry is a ministry of gift-giving, which culminates as his body is given for his people (Lk. 22:19). Indeed, gift-giving is a crucial component of the revelation of Jesus to the world.

The reason we can be certain of the fulfillment of the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20) is that Epiphany’s gifts to Jesus are gifts that will be dispersed among men. Jesus is the unfailing gift-giver to the nations. He has never failed to provide for his people. Even in Israel’s underserved position, he still offers them life and light.

For the Christian, Epiphany signals a season of discipleship through rituals of gift-giving. The entire biblical premise of sanctification entails a life of exchanges (my life for yours). Christians are called to think through their ordinary rituals and adjust them accordingly for the sake of revealing Christ’s work to the nations. Three questions arise for us to ensure the gift-giving environment:

First, how can my home be a gift of refreshment to my children and those who enter it?

Second, how/what are my daily habits? In what ways are those rituals bringing life to my own soul and those around me?

Third, how am I being apostolic in my endeavors? How is my private and public life sharing the mission of Messiah to the world?

Epiphany means to make known what was hidden. Christ’s presence was a mystery to the Gentiles, but now his life is made known to the nations as a babe and as the Creator of the cosmos. It speaks to our need to wrap our lives as gifts to those around us and to be constantly on the lookout to give of ourselves to others out of the abundance of gifts we have received from Christ(mas).

On January 1, 2022 By Uri Brito In Church Like

A Note from the Founder

This is the first post of the year, which means I get an extra measure of grace in writing more. That is to say, I have much to say. And if you reach the end of this post, I salute you in good Kuyperian fashion.

I expect to stray into a few autobiographical curves on the road. Transparency is my crime, and song is my time. Our histories are too brief to remain quiet. God may be quiet in our inquietude, but he is not silent. He is never silent. The noise in our heads does not confuse the mind of God which is altogether harmonious from eternity past to all eternity, world without end, amen!

I want to offer a digest of this year and phrase the whole narrative as a big comedy piece. This entire endeavor from government mandates to ecclesial shutdowns was crystallized for me in a very lengthy essay by Josie Appleton who made some very salient observations about the pandemic. The title of his piece was “Toxic Sociality.” Now, as I stood staring at the screen reading that title, I was reminded of the audacity of the world 20 years ago when it kept moving after I completed the final words of “Mere Christianity.” It was an outrageous act of history to take steps forward while my mind was paralyzed by Lewis’ meticulous arguments. I felt the same way when I read and re-read those words, “Toxic Sociality.” According to Appleton, this refers to the overall impact of the pandemic which was to pose a threat to “human social relation in general.” It trivializes the holy by punishing spontaneous laughter and coffee tables. To say I despise the grammar surrounding COVID is an understatement, as my readers have noted in the last 200-300 posts. And it goes far beyond the political insanity surrounding masks, vaccines, boosters, lockdowns, etc. If, in fact, there are humans out there that still wish to pretend this entire tour de force is all about our health, I pity the fool. It’s ultimately about typology, amigos! It’s about establishing patterns of existence that alter the way we do life together and that inevitably intoxicate the holy with echoes of fallen Eden.

Social creatures made with distinct rituals are now called to cease from them, not for a couple of weeks, but for over 700 days and the result is a series of comic moments, so humorous that even those who embraced it as Mosaic law from the beginning are now pausing to wonder whether the joke was on them. But if their Venmo account keeps drawing every month, they won’t poke the dragon. If the media, or whoever and whatever can seize the moment, they want to reshape human relationality. If they can make humans less Christo-humans, then they can make humans anew. They can create an entirely new social space where gender, identity, and victims play the role of supporting actors and actresses in the grand drama of de-christianization.

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On December 30, 2021 By Bill Smith In Church, Theology, Wisdom Like

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 Bill Smith In Theology, Wisdom Like

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 16, 2021 By Bill Smith In Discipleship, Wisdom 1

Discipline Is Freedom

“People look for the shortcut. The hack. And if you came here looking for that: you won’t find it. The shortcut is a lie. The hack doesn’t get you there. And if you want to take the easy road, it won’t take you to where you want to be: Stronger. Smarter. Faster. Healthier. Better. Free. To reach goals and overcome obstacles and become the best version of you possible will not happen by itself. It will not happen cutting corners, taking shortcuts, or looking for the easy way. There is no easy way. There is only hard work, late nights, early mornings, practice, rehearsal, repetition, study, sweat, blood, toil, frustration, and discipline. Discipline. There must be discipline. Discipline: the root of all good qualities. The driver of daily execution. The core principle that overcomes laziness and lethargy and excuses. Discipline defeats the infinite excuses that say: not today, not now, I need a rest, I will do it tomorrow. What’s the hack? How do you become stronger, smarter, faster, healthier? How do you become better? How do you achieve true freedom? There is only one way. The way of discipline.” (Willink, Jocko. Discipline Equals Freedom: Expanded Edition. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2020)

This may be something of the wisdom of the sons of the east and Egypt (1Kg 4.30). I don’t know the status of Jocko’s relationship with Christ, but much of what he says here lines up with the picture of the life of discipline that Solomon paints for us in Proverbs.

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On December 13, 2021 By Uri Brito In Church, Counseling/Piety, Culture 1

Paul Tripp, Wokism, and Tri-Perspectivalism

I wish to offer just a couple of initial thoughts on the psychology of conversion towards woke and social justice ideologies. The task seems rather complex, and I do not wish to offer the final word but a mere word on a somewhat layered conversation. This is a primer’s worth of articulation on the subject.

This post stemmed from some questions raised by some fine people in my recent post on Paul Tripp. Some sent me private questions, and some others opined on the note. The gist is that several people expressed how much they have appreciated Paul Tripp’s work in the past and cannot understand how he could make such dramatic shifts culturally. They are wondering what causes such magnificent theological and cultural changes. For the record, I restate my level of appreciation for Tripp and his labors on a variety of counseling themes.

Nevertheless, trajectories are a real thing, and some prophets can see these things more accurately and astutely than I do. My own assessment is that these trends stem from a set of priorities.

Over the years, many of us have been completely shocked by movements among Reformed people who hold to the Catechisms, Confessions, and Creeds, but yet have sold their ideologies to the biggest woke bidders. I have detailed many of these over the years, but I want to offer just a brief summary as to why this manifestation is so evident in our day.

It is first and foremost essential to note that these movements happen slowly for most and are fast-paced for a few. These theological movements generally occur when perspectives begin to change in little things. Big changes occur through a thousand microscopic ones.

The classic example of this is the Republican political leader who makes remarkable speeches on the dangers of leftist sexual ethics and how modern attempts at distorting traditional marriage are dangerous. That healthy dogma begins to lose stamina when his son comes out as a homosexual. Suddenly, the strong assertions rooted in Genesis 1-2 begin to lose their vigor and eventually–as we have seen many times–that politician succumbs to social pressures and changes his view of sexual ethics affirming that homosexuality is something brave and bold and that we ought to listen more attentively to those in that community.

I argue that these changes are perspectival. If we break them down to existential (experiences), situational (cultural-historical), and normative (the authority of the Bible) we can arrive at a more accurate interpretive model for how these stalwarts move incrementally towards woke and BLM rhetoric.

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On December 9, 2021 By Uri Brito In Culture Like

Paul Tripp and Deconstruction

I have no regrets re-discussing the current brouhaha over deconstructionist thought because I view it as a threat to Christian society. So, once again, it seems that the Neo-Decons are treating themselves as revolutionaries, or better yet, Reformers. If you think of the Protestant Reformation, we had a man like Luther who saw the exegesis of Rome as deficient, to put it mildly. The German Reformer viewed Rome’s abandonment of the Bible as a big deal. He was right, in case you were wondering. But here comes the Decons viewing themselves as heroes and arguing that they are true Reformers like Luther and stuff.

Except, of course, they are not. Decons are tearing the Bible asunder to restore it from its ancient ways to provide sufferers and victims new hope. Because, after all, what hope can prophecies of judgment provide? What can overthrowing tables provide? What can divine justice provide? Well, for the Christian, everything! But judgment texts won’t suffice for those who believe the Church needs a new orientation–to find better and more suitable ways to deal with the suffering– and a total re-modeling of the faith. Since European white men ruined exegesis, we now need a new interpretive framework to consider the Bible afresh.

Let me take this opportunity to mention someone who has been causing me some concern over the years. It’s someone I met personally in my field of interest—counseling—but whose trajectory leads me to doubt his overall project, which is Paul Tripp. Tripp has done much good, and I’d recommend several things he’s written, but his recent urges towards the cultures of victimization and racial reconciliation led him to make the following statements:

“We should all be deconstructing our faith, we better do it. Because our faith becomes a culture, a culture so webbed into the purity of truth that it’s hard to separate the two. I celebrate the church of Jesus Christ…but I’m sad for the church.”

In another place, he notes:

“I’m sad we’ve become so loyal to [evangelical] culture, we’re afraid to deconstruct in places where it’s lost its way, it’s harmful, it’s producing things that allow the world to mock & cause young people to walk away.”

This is a prime example where the answer leads to greater damage than the question itself. Now, there is a lot to dissect and read in its raw form; one can find some nuggets of kindness and generosity. And I am certainly not in the “Burn the witch” camp. But one should be relatively cautious about Tripp’s attempts at rehearsing for the play while using the enemy’s playbook. Theologically, I would suspect that Tripp and Derrida hold nothing in common. But attempts to revise/deconstruct the faith is somewhat troubling to me. Even if the rationale is pure, hell is paved…etc. etc.

As Dustin Messer noted about ex-evangelicals, and what appears to be the future of Decons–in my understanding:

“What they’ve deconstructed is the faith, what they’ve kept is the ethos of the subculture that weaned them on emotional appeals, swallowing goldfish for entertainment, & an obsession with who’s “in” & who’s “out.”‘

There is additionally a layer of borrowed vocabulary that we must consider. I read counseling material too often and know that counseling vocabulary can be a language in itself. It’s possible that “deconstruction” can make sense in a separate context. But overall, the language of deconstruction attached to “our faith” is dangerous, even if the attempts are noble.

Vocabularies can be shared to make sense of things, but when we borrow Jemar Tisby’s lexicon to make sense out of the current cultural milieu, we borrow from the wrong source. In fact, you may notice that the farther one is from embodying cultural and political conservative values, the more prone he is to re-imagining the faith into something more privatized and particularized that keeps us away from the nasty Constantinians.

I genuinely hope that Tripp is not going in that direction. After all, our faith is a culture and produces particular cultures. It may not be what Tripp and others wish it to be, but you simply can’t split that baby.

On December 9, 2021 By Bill Smith In Counseling/Piety, Discipleship, Wisdom 1

All Hat And No Cowboy

In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty.
~Proverbs 14.23

Originally, the cowboy hat was made to be functional for those who spent long days in the sun working cattle. The wide brim protected the head from the sun’s rays. Eventually, that rim was turned upward on the sides so that the swinging of a rope would not be impeded or knock the hat off. The pinch at the top of the hat made the hat easier to grip.

As with many articles of clothing, fashion followed function. People who have romantic visions about cowboy life, love country music, or like the style of headwear incorporate the cowboy hat into their wardrobe. The hat says “cowboy,” but they ain’t no cowboys. Real cowboys have a saying for this: “He’s all hat and no cowboy,” or “All hat, no cattle.” For all of you city slickers out there, this means that a person is all talk and no action.

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On December 3, 2021 By Luke Welch In Culture 1

Fun! A Little Fun, on 1 – 2 – 3 – 2 – 1

Ring them bells, ye heathen
From the city that dreams
Ring them bells from the sanctuaries
’Cross the valleys and streams
For they’re deep and they’re wide
And the world’s on its side
And time is running backwards
And so is the bride

Ring them bells St. Peter
Where the four winds blow
Ring them bells with an iron hand
So the people will know
Oh, it’s rush hour now
On the wheel and the plow
And the sun is going down
Upon the sacred cow
Bob Dylan, from “Ring Them Bells” / “Oh Mercy” / 1989

Look at your calendar – or better yet, look at mine… you might have moved on to another date.

Today’s date is a palindrome. A chiasm – a thing the Bible is full of because God designed scripture and history that way. What goes up – comes down. What is divided is reunited. This is a great mystery sometimes. But a beautiful one. Bad things come undone. The arrogant are abased, and the poor are lifted up.

Every valley shall be exalted. And every hill made low.

Supreme courts court the idea of supremely reversing themselves. The White Witch is destroyed and Father Christmas starts passing out presents again as the shortest days of the year struggle to reverse themselves into longer light.

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On December 2, 2021 By Bill Smith In Discipleship, Theology, Wisdom 1

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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