day no. 17,180: made from and made for

“The man was created to tend the garden, and the woman was created to tend the gardener.” — Douglas Wilson

Man was made from the dirt of the ground and woman was made from the rib of the man. Man was made out of the dust of the garden and woman was made from the fruit of the garden. The woman is the garden of gardens and has within herself a garden. She is the garden incarnate. As such, she serves the man by receiving his seeds and growing his crops. She produces fruit and provides nurture. 

He was made to take care of the dirt he came from and she was made to take care of the man she came from.

1 Corinthian 11:12

For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.

The first woman was made from the man, but every man since has been made inside a woman. God has knit all things together that each may honor the other by being who He made them to be and for the reason He made.

1 Corinthians 14:33

For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.

God is a God of order. He does not do things haphazardly or without the end in mind. Nothing is done out of sequence, too soon, or too late.

1 Timothy 2:13

For Adam was first formed, then Eve.

Forms and functions matter and God is the Author of all of them. 

day no. 17,179: rocco is TEN

Happy 10th Birthday, Rocco!

We have now all been blessed by a full decade of Rocco. Ten years may not seem like many, but it is ten percent of one hundred years, which seems like a lot. God has designed us in such a way that we spend our formative years growing into and becoming the kind of person we will be for most of our life. Ten year old Rocco will be a lot different than five year old Rocco, but forty year old Rocco will likely be a lot like thirty-five year old Rocco. All that to say, at this stage of life, things change quickly. You learn a lot of new things. You gain a lot of weight and muscle. You grow a lot of inches in height. You mature. In celebrating your birthday today, we are remembering with fondness all the good times we've already had and all the good times we look forward to as you become more and more who you are, that is, who God made you to be.

So, who is this man of mystery, this ten year old rocket of sauce? He is quiet and kind. He cares what others think of him without being consumed by constantly worrying about what others think of him. He likes to be crazy and scream and run around and he likes it best when most people aren't paying attention to him. He falls asleep during story club sometimes and he gets up early to do schoolwork and push-ups. He is strong. He is a good friend. He is easy to get along with and easy to like. He knows what is right. He loves his partner in crime, Finneas. He does not like being the center of attention, but he doesn't want to be ignored. He is smart, friendly, loyal, and reliable. In summary, he is a good man and I am proud of him. He is my son and I love him with all my heart.

Happy Birthday, Rocco!

Dad

day no. 17,178: of fundamentalists and fun-haters

"Whatever Protestants were, they were not sour, gloomy, or severe; nor did their enemies bring any such charge against them… Protestantism was not too grim, but too glad, to be true.” — C.S. Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century Excluding Drama (1954)

The fundamentalists have not always been the fun haters. While many modern fussbudgets come by the epithet honestly, the original wearers of the Word did not. They went back to the Word of God and found the joy of the Lord.

Nehemiah 8:10

Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength.

For those who see the Word of God as a feast, their hearts and souls are fat and satisfied, not fat and sassy. They are full of good things, not full of themselves. This is the way. Word-centered wonder and warmth will keep the fire going until Christ returns.

day no. 17,177: world changes and Word keepers

“God raised up a ne’er-do-well tchotchke-maker to pave the way for a spiritually tortured monk, and his successors, to reclaim the word of God and reset the history of redemption.” —  Rick Segal, The Accidental Reformer

What Gutenberg meant for profit, God meant for prophets. Gutenberg meant to make some money and God used it to make disciples. As the Bible was rediscovered in the days of Josiah, it was rediscovered in the days of Luther. God preserved it and in plain sight and then provided a prophet to read it and a printing press to reproduce it. The history of redemption is always marked by a return to the Word of God. He keeps it safe in its purity and then unleashes it in its danger. God gives us world changers as He raises up Word keepers. The Word changes the world and it always will until the world is conformed to the commands of Christ and delivered by Him to His Father. 

day no. 17,176: two elders enter, one elder leaves

"It is quite true that some consider the subject of church government boring. But I can assure you that if you get certain principles of church government wrong, this will set you up for some of the most exciting moments of your life. I refer of course to the Thunderdome approach to congregational meetings." — Douglas Wilson, The New Synagogue

Jurisprudence and jurisdiction are not click bait... until they are. Having and holding to a confessional standard is not an easy sales pitch, but the consequences of not having or holding to a confessional standard is the stuff exciting plots are made of. Who has the authority and responsibility to act is not a topic that people tune in for, but conflicts over authority and a lack of responsibility often produce story grip.

day no. 17,175: the protestant reformation

Today, the sons and daughters of the Protestant Reformation will invest a great deal of time, energy, and resources into remembering and celebrating the anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, an event which is now well over 500 years in our rearview mirror. But why? With everything going on in our world, why take the time to remember a world that no longer exists? In other words, “Why are we bringin’ up old stuff?”

Hebrews 2:1 answers that question. “We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” So, are you paying attention? Good. Pay more. Are you looking to the Word of God? Good. Look closer. Why? Because if you don’t, you might drift away from it. If you are not anchored in the Word of God, you will float away on the current of current events. Drift is the default position of the human heart. The only thing you have to do in order to drift is nothing. The lazy river of life does not discriminate. Anyone can get caught up in its undertow. And that current never revisits the same place twice. It has no memory. It never doubles back. It is only concerned with forward progress. But as Chesterton once observed, that kind of “progress” is more like a funeral procession than it is like a victory march. "A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it."

So, today we remember the Protestant Reformation and the men and women who gave so much in order to give us so much, like the Bible in our own language, congregational singing, the end of the sacred/secular distinction with respect to lawful vocations, pastors with wives and children, beards behind the pulpit, and most importantly, the recovery of the doctrine of justification by grace through faith in Christ alone to the glory of God alone according to His Word alone.

But if we were to pay much closer attention to what the reformers said in order to avoid drifting away from it, what would we hear them say? What words would we hear echoing to us from 500 years ago? We would hear, “We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” The reformers were not trying to win a special place in history for the 15 and 1600s, they were trying to recover a special place for the Word of God for all times and places. One of the rally cries of the Reformation was ad fontes, or to the sources. This included a return to all source materials, but most emphatically it meant a return to the Bible itself as the standard of doctrine and conduct. So, if you had been alive at the time of the Reformation, you would have been surrounded by people who were not looking to their own time and place, but people looking back to the Word of God in order to understand and operate in their particular time and place. The timeless Word of God provides timely instruction for whoever you, wherever you are, whenever you are. The Reformers were simply saying what we have been fond of saying, which is, “By what standard?” So, they studied the Bible and they learned Greek and Hebrew in order to make sure they understood what the words actually were and what that text actually said. They always wanted to go as far back as they could in order to find the firmest foundation possible off which to go forward.

So, when we look to the reformers we see them looking back to the original text. So, what does our text say? “We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.” So, even if we look all the way back to the first century church we find them urging us to look back even further. In the immediate context of the book of Hebrews that would mean looking back to 1:1 which says this, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” That is what we must pay much closer attention to lest we drift away from it. The Word of God that was in the beginning, that was with God, that was God, and became flesh and dwelt among us. He is the rock on which we must build. When we build on Him and His Word we find a rich history of materials with which to work and a solid foundation already laid.

1 Corinthians 3:11,10

For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Therefore, let each one take care how he builds upon it.

day no. 17,174: Christendom or Chaos?

“These culture wars have been with us from the very foundation of our nation. They are not something new that erupted when the first hippies started to disrupt Berkeley. From the very beginning, we have had men like Patrick Henry wanting America to take her place among the nations of Christendom. And also from the very beginning, we have had men like Thomas Paine, who wanted something much more like the French Revolution.” — Douglas Wilson, Mere Christendom

Christ or chaos is always the choice before us. It always has been and it always will be. There are no other choices. You will either worship Christ or you will worship chaos. Nations will either be governed by the law of Christ or by the chaos of antichrist. You can drink from the rivers that make glad the city of God or you can not drink from them. But there is no other stream. If you do not drink from the living waters, you will die of thirst. 

Isaiah 55:1-2

Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.

So, with all that said, come. Won't you come? Please come. Don't die of thirst. Not when there is ever-flowing, free grace right in front of you. Get down on your knees and lap it up like a dog. Be baptized in it. Drink it like down like sweet wine and be refreshed. Be washed from your sins and separated from them. Rise again and walk with a clean conscience before God and man. Slake your parched soul in the Savior. If you don't, you will drown in your sins.

“Are you not thirsty?" said the Lion.

"I am dying of thirst," said Jill.

"Then drink," said the Lion.

"May I — could I — would you mind going away while I do?" said Jill.

The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.

The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.

"Will you promise not to — do anything to me, if I do come?" said Jill.

"I make no promise," said the Lion.

Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.

"Do you eat girls?" she said.

"I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms," said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.

"I daren't come and drink," said Jill.

"Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion.

"Oh dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer. "I suppose I must go and look for another stream then."

"There is no other stream," said the Lion.

— C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair