Kuyperian Commentary

On July 31, 2024 By Uri Brito In Culture 1

How to Re-Build a Trust Culture

Aaron Renn notes, “America is in the midst of a slow-motion shift to a much lower-trust society.” The more our institutions fail, the more prone we are to distrust others, even those nearest us. In some ways, the challenges before us are challenges pertaining to the fifth commandment. The entire nature of communication and exchanges will add additional notes of skepticism to authority structures in our society. Who do we trust? How do we honor fathers and mothers who do not have a history of honesty and trust?

So, how does a biblical society rooted in authority and categories of honor succeed in an age where no one’s word is taken authoritatively? Renn notes that J.D. Vance’s email correspondences with close personal friends many years ago were revealed to the New York Times. Those emails offered personal information and back-porch chat between young men. Trust was broken. Intimacy was severed.

This is not exhaustive, but there are a couple of principles to remember when rebuilding a “high-trust” society:

a) Trust institutions and leaders that have a history of trust. If an institution has existed briefly and its history is marred by missteps, firings, and scandals, they are not worthy of your trust.

b) When looking for churches, see/check if they possess a DNA of durability and longevity. Have there been constant moves and changes in a short period of time among the leadership? Is there a consistency of message? Does the community manifest healthy interactions and practices? Is there fruit in their children?

c) When relating to other peers, keep intimate details close. Don’t overshare. Consider whether that person has a reliable story. Do you think that individual will repent readily? Does he/she affirm his/her weaknesses? Do they handle small personal details well or quickly disseminate information shared privately?

d) Finally, for more meaningful discourse, almost always choose face-to-face or phone conversations instead of email or lengthy chat exchanges. The value of personal interaction cannot be overstated. Our personableness doesn’t always translate well into words, or its interpretation can be misunderstood.

Our low-trust culture results from the failure of the trust currency in our culture. Government and ecclesiastical betrayals have led to a society of disinformation. Who can we trust? Who do we seek guidance? Who should we submit to? Who are my people? The answer to these questions must be rooted in a framework that allows longevity to shape our trust. Trust should not be given immediately. It needs to be built.

On July 29, 2024 By Uri Brito In Culture -1

Paris Olympics and the Fall

The mastermind behind the Paris Olympics opening ceremony, with his vast resources and power, created a spectacle that was a stark contrast to the beauty and order of Eden. Instead of using his power to create a harmonious environment, he allowed depraved creatures to roam that space, seeking affirmation and adulation from a world gone mad.

In Eden, the creatures moved, lived, and existed in God’s good pleasure. They were created, and therefore, they cherished their creator. But on that stage in Paris, these creatures re-invented themselves. Instead of doxology, they stood pridefully displaying their distorted postures and allegiance to the gods of the age. They denigrated God’s table of order, choosing a table of chaos.

That creator who designed and choreographed those liturgical movements in Paris used power to show what a world designed by Genesis 3 produces. The Christian should not be afraid of power, but he should use it to produce Edenic worlds, mini-Christendoms that show forth the worlds of Genesis 1 and 2 in their uncorrupted power and glory. Christians use power to show God’s artistic splendor and display heavenly realities in our daily liturgies.

On July 24, 2024 By Bill Smith In Family and Children, Men, Theology, Wisdom, Women 2

A Husband’s Love

“Husbands, love your wives and do not become bitter with them.” ~Colossians 3:19

Marriage has been a fight for survival from the beginning of time. The present-day battle of the sexes is nothing new. Feminists rail against biblical marriage because the thought of submitting to a husband is barbaric and demeaning. But Feminism, with all its evils, is not the primary problem. The lack of masculine leadership is the principal problem; it has been since the Garden. Modern men respond to Feminism not by assuming masculine responsibility and seeking to win women back with strong, confident leadership but by agreeing with them that marriage is a bad deal for men as well. “The courts are stacked against us. A woman can take almost everything I have, including my children. Marriage is a bad deal for men.” Black-pilled (at least in the area of marriage) MGTOWs (Men Going Their Own Way) have blamed women for everything, becoming resentful. “Masculine” influencers encourage young men never to get married; in other words, never truly love a woman.

Marriage is risky. It always has been. You are entrusting yourself to another person, opening yourself up to the possibility of the greatest pain you can ever experience. But it is also true that you may experience some of the deepest joys known to a man. Masculine men take risks and take on responsibility. Effeminate men hide behind all the excuses of everything being against them, whine, and refuse to fight for what is good. Real men take the risk of loving a woman genuinely and deeply.
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On July 18, 2024 By Bill Smith In Discipleship, Family and Children, Theology, Women 2

The Submission of Wives

“Strong Independent Woman” has been a meme in our culture since the 1970s, and not a funny one. The character developed within the Feminist movement has leavened Western culture so that now this is the cultural ideal. Women who refuse this title are backward and old-fashioned in the worst possible way. The Strong Independent Woman “don’t need no man” and must never do anything for the express purpose of pleasing a man. If she happens to choose marriage, she will remain on a separate path from her husband. Her subservient husband (whom she will call an “equal partner”) supports her independence so that she can achieve her hopes and dreams.

Enter Paul’s words to Christian wives: “Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord” (Col 3:18). The words come as so out of place to some Christian commentators that they see Paul’s command as “culturally bound” and can’t be translated into our more enlightened twenty-first-century context. Reading this part of what is called “the household code” must be only to “unmask them as texts promoting patriarchal violence.” (Fiorenza in David Garland, Colossians, 253).

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On July 17, 2024 By Rick Davis In Podcast Like

KC Podcast – Episode 136: Honor Thy Fathers

On July 17, 2024 By Uri Brito In Theology 2

The Death of Dispensationalism

Dispensationalism is not faulty because of its adherents. As the prevailing evangelical ethos in our country, I have met thousands of faithful, Bible-believing, zealous saints who subscribe to various dispensational features. It’s the mode of operation of the American church.

But the system of Dispensationalism is faulty for ten reasons:

1) Literalizes the text in places where literal readings are unnecessary. This approach overlooks the Bible’s rich, genre-saturated literary nature, which is a source of profound enrichment to the Christian reader.

2) Separates theological paradigms like law and gospel and thus misses the gracious nature of the law and the command-driven imperatives of the gospel.

3) Fails to see the compelling nature of Israel’s story as a preparation for the story of the new Israel. Israel is the seed planted in the parched desert places, nourished by priests, prophets, and kings, and flourished under the reign of the One Priest, Prophet, and King.

4) Truncates biblical categories that demand far more glory and weight in the text. It minimizes covenantal realities into stages rather than the maturation of history.

5) Subjectivizes and moralizes historical characters instead of seeing their typological and historical function in the text.

6) Reject eschatological realities that were declared in the first century to be true and tangible by futurizing them into a future millennium.

7) Differentiates Israel and the Church without reading the Messianic story as a recapitulation of the Israel story.

8) Spiritualizes this age and thus fails to see the earthly transformative effects of the vindication of Jesus.

9) Transforms piety into an introspective paradigm that sees the salvation of souls as the sine qua non of the Christian experience.

10) Fragmentizes the biblical story and thus fails to see each biblical text as a part of the overarching whole.

Dispensationalism is a system that is slowly perishing. As a mode of interpretation, it cannot survive the test of time or the present tests of biblical scholarship.

On July 12, 2024 By Rick Davis In Books, Podcast 1

KC Podcast – Episode 135: A Christian’s Reading Life

On July 12, 2024 By Rich Lusk In Culture, Sexuality 5

A Masculinity Manifesto

I love it when various interests of mine converge in one place, and that’s the case with Romans 2:6-16. This passage brings together some of the themes I’ve emphasized in my teaching and writing on masculinity; of course, it’s also a key text in various so-called Federal Vision discussions, especially verses 6-7 and 13. When Paul says those who seek glory, honor, and immortality will be given eternal life, is he speaking hypothetically of those who seek to fulfill a covenant of works but obviously cannot? Or is that an actual description of what the faithful Christian life looks like? When he says the “doers of the law will be justified” is that hypothetical – if we could keep the covenant of works or keep the law perfectly, we could be justified by doing, but obviously that is not possible now? Or is it an actual description of what will happen to Christians at the final judgment, when our works are presented to the Lord and we hear the verdict, “Well done, good and faithful servant”?

I believe when Paul talks about God “rendering to each one, according to his works,” he’s not speaking hypothetically. I have developed the exegesis elsewhere (in essay form multiple times and sermon form multiple times with notes and further explanation), so I will not repeat that here. It should be obvious Paul is speaking of a real judgment to come at the last day. Likewise, when he talks about the “doers of the law” being justified in the eschatological judgment, it’s not hypothetical. He’s not talking about a covenant of works, or some kind of Pelagian system set up just to teach us we are sinners who cannot earn salvation. Rather, he’s talking about Christians, who conform imperfectly-but-truly to the law of God in their way of life. Christians do not fulfill the law perfectly, of course, but we do fulfill it to such a degree that we prove that we have been united to Christ by faith alone (cf. Romans 8:1-4). We are doers of the law, and we will be justified accordingly at the last day.

I especially love that line where Paul says God will give eternal life to those who seek glory, honor, and immortality. For Paul, this seeking is a matter of “patience” (a rough synonym for faith exercised over time in Paul’s writings, as we wait for God to keep his promises) and “well-doing” (a term for fulfilling the law in its new covenant form, which the Spirit empowers us to keep). But what does it mean to seek after glory, honor, and immortality? Some think it is a covenant of works, or even a pagan view, which Paul only mentions to refute. On the contrary, I think this is Paul’s way of summarizing what the Christian life is all about. As it turns out, it’s also a pretty good summary of what masculinity is all about. Let’s unpack it.

Unpacking Masculinity in Paul

If you were to talk to a church member and he was to tell you that he is seeking glory, honor, and immortality, you might think he’s left the reservation. You might wonder how a Christian could seek after glory and honor — isn’t that selfish? Isn’t that too works-oriented? Isn’t that arrogant? You might tell him immortality is a gift you receive, not something you seek after. But this misses Paul’s point. In reality, seeking after glory, honor, and immortality is exactly the shape of the Christian life. It’s what a saved life looks like, it’s what a life following Christ looks like, it’s what life in the Spirit looks like. Seeking after glory, honor, and immortality is not sin, it’s the essence of the life of faith and the way to eternal life.

What is sin? In the next chapter, Paul says sin is falling short of the glory of God. Sin is missing the target. The target is glory. That means hitting the target is glorious. Or, to put it another way, obedience is glorious. Righteousness is glorious. Those who live righteous lives will be covered in glory; those who want to be righteous will seek after glory because you cannot seek righteousness without also seeking glory. But, someone might ask, aren’t we supposed to seek after God’s glory, not our own? I would respond: Why pit our glory against God’s glory? When David defeated Goliath, God got the glory. But that glory was also lavished on David. David sought God’s glory on the battlefield and, in doing so, sought after his own glory as well.

Seeking Glory

There is no reason to think of God’s glory as a zero-sum game, as if God getting glory means his people cannot get glory, or vice versa. There is certainly a glory unique to God that cannot be shared with any creature. But there is also a kind of glory that God is happy to share with his people. Indeed, one aspect of God’s glory is surrounding himself with a glorious people. God does not want us weak and glory-less. It is God’s glory to make his people strong and to glorify them. The end goal of our salvation is our glorification.

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On July 11, 2024 By Bill Smith In Church, Theology, Wisdom, Worship 1

Singing the Psalms with Jesus

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs singing with grace in your hearts to God.”
~Colossians 3:16

Everybody loves Psalm 23. Many Christians do not know, and still fewer love and will sing Psalms 109 and 137. When it comes to a few Psalms, Christians become Marcionites. (He was a second-century theologian who pitted the vengeful God of the Old Testament with the loving God of the New Testament revealed in Jesus. Consequently, he cut the Old Testament out of the biblical canon and highly edited the New Testament.) Christians will rightly appeal to Psalm 139 to declare that the unborn are persons and shouldn’t be aborted, but they might ignore the last part of that Psalm that declares that we hate our enemies with a perfect hatred. This hatred reflects God’s own hatred, as declared in Psalms 5 and 11.

“This is not what Jesus taught,” you may hear. But in Colossians (along with a parallel in Ephesians 5:19), Paul says that the Psalms are “the word of Christ” that is to “dwell in [the church] richly.” We are to teach and admonish one another with these Psalms. Paul is not contradicting Jesus. Singing the Psalms is a clear command of Scripture, so it is incumbent upon us to obey the command and seek to better understand as we obey.

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On July 10, 2024 By Bill Smith In Church, Culture, Postmillenialism, Theology, Worship 4

The Cult of Reformed & Evangelical Churches?

On more than one occasion, I have heard the CREC and particular churches within the denomination labeled as “a cult.” This puts us right there with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Jim Jones, and David Koresh. Apparently, we are a dangerous heterodox group of over-zealous extremists following some sort of charismatic personality. Our Book of Confessions puts us in the stream of Reformational Christianity, but somehow, we are still labeled as a cult. Maybe it is our acceptance of paedocommunion, but that is far from new to the Christian faith. Maybe it is our optimistic eschatology, but many Christians have been optimistic about the kingdom of God in history. Perhaps it is because we have Doug Wilson, and, well, they just don’t like him. I don’t really think any of those particulars cause people to label us as a cult.

From my own observation (and this is my personal opinion), what seems to chafe the average American Christian about the CREC is the commitment. The commitment level of the average CREC family to attend worship regularly, participate in the church’s life, and live out the faith in a counter-American-cultural way is staggering for the modern American Christian.

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