Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning, by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men condemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores [Studies pass into and influence manners]. Nay, there is no stond or impediment in the wit but may be wrought out by fit studies; like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man’s wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the Schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores [splitters of hairs]. If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers’ cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.
A Bit on Dignity September 18, 2007
I’ve been making my way through Helmut Thielecke’s book of sermons on the Lord’s Prayer. At one point he says this:
Some poor fools say, “The greater one makes God the smaller man becomes–until finally he becomes so small that he considers himself a worm.” This self-deprecation, they say, is typical of the Christian way in which man approaches the Orientally exaggerated colossal figure of his god. In reply I would ask this question: Isn’t it obvious today that the truth is the absolute opposite of that statement? The more God is banished from life the more forlorn and worthless man becomes, the more he becomes merely a game beast to be hunted and killed. And I venture further to ask: Where in the world does man have any higher dignity than here–where the Son of God discovers human nobility deep beneath the surface of depravity and vice, finds it even in the possessed, the insane, the tainted and infected, and gives his life to them? Isn’t it true that every beaten and oppressed man, borne down by anxiety or guilt or inferiority feelings, begins to lift up his head and take a new lease on life when he comes in touch with Jesus of Nazareth (106).
While on the surface this passage does not seem to cohere with John the Baptist’s statement “let me decrease so that he might increase,” I think Thielecke puts his finger on a Western, Christian tendency that is found in many of our churches. We seem to have the false idea that, by setting forth some falsely humble stance of ourselves and displaying God as the all-knowing, all-present, all-loving one, we do him a favor. But while emphasizing his attributes in this way, we miss his character. God’s character is such that the least among us (including you and me) are worth his knowledge, his presence, and his love. It is both the subject and object of God’s work that tells us where his heart is–and his heart is with his creation, particularly with his people. As a result, we decrease by increasing our reflection of his knowledge, his presence, and his love. We don’t disappear, but become more apparent through communion with Jesus.
A Quote Regarding the Gospel August 29, 2007
A. W. Tozer writes,
“The gospel can lift this destroying burden from the mind, give beauty for ashes, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. But unless the weight of the burden is felt the gospel can mean nothing to the man; and until he sees a vision of God high and lifted up, there will be no woe and no burden. Low views of God destroy the gospel for all who hold them.”
Knowing God for Who He Is, Pt. 2 July 13, 2007
Augustine in his Confessions prays, “Grant me, Lord, to know and understand which of these is most important, to call on you or to praise you. Or again, to know you or to call on you. For who can call on you without knowing you? For he who does not know you may call on you as other than you are….Let me seek you Lord by calling on you, and call on you believing in you as you have been proclaimed to us. My faith calls on you Lord, the faith you have given me.”
I’m starting to get the drift that great theologians are very conscientious about this, and that makes a lot of sense. I particularly am challenged by the way that Augustine and Calvin both tie the truth about God to our personal lives before him. In many American churches, it seems that we look for a version of God that makes us feel good about him and about ourselves. Yet true relating to God means relating to the true God and no other; the command, ‘You shall have no other gods before me’ applies to fabrications concerning God that we may tout as true of the true God. There’s a lot more risk involved in pursuing God in spirit and truth, in seeking God for who he and not what we in all our naivete, unwisdom, and immaturity (not to mention sin!) would have him be.
A little redundant, but that’s good for at least me right now…
Augustine on Beautiful Language & Truth June 28, 2007
Taken from his On Christian Doctrine, Chapter 2.—It is Lawful for a Christian Teacher to Use the Art of Rhetoric.
3. Now, the art of rhetoric being available for the enforcing either of truth or falsehood, who will dare to say that truth in the person of its defenders is to take its stand unarmed against falsehood? For example, that those who are trying to persuade men of what is false are to know how to introduce their subject, so as to put the hearer into a friendly, or attentive, or teachable frame of mind, while the defenders of the truth shall be ignorant of that art? That the former are to tell their falsehoods briefly, clearly, and plausibly, while the latter shall tell the truth in such a way that it is tedious to listen to, hard to understand, and, in fine, not easy to believe it? That the former are to oppose the truth and defend falsehood with sophistical arguments, while the latter shall be unable either to defend what is true, or to refute what is false? That the former, while imbuing the minds of their hearers with erroneous opinions, are by their power of speech to awe, to melt, to enliven, and to rouse them, while the latter shall in defense of the truth be sluggish, and frigid, and somnolent? Who is such a fool as to think this wisdom? Since, then, the faculty of eloquence is available for both sides, and is of very great service in the enforcing either of wrong or right, why do not good men study to engage it on the side of truth, when bad men use it to obtain the triumph of wicked and worthless causes, and to further injustice and error?
[I owe this quote to my friend Christopher]
Real vs. Imaginary Being: Which Do We Prefer? June 25, 2007
Blaise Pascal writes,
“We do not find sufficient the life that we have in us and in our own being; we wish to live in the minds of other people with an imaginary life, and we strive for that reason to put on a front. We work incessantly to embellish and preserve our imaginary being, and we neglect the real one. And if we have either tranquility, or generosity, or fidelity, we hasten to make it known, in order to attach those virtues to our other being; and we would detach them rather from ourselves so that we might join them to that other; we would not hesitate to act as cowards if by so doing we might acquire the reputation of being valiant. What a great mark of the nothingness of our own being that we are not satisfied with the real being without the imaginary one, and frequently exchange one for the other! For he who would not die to keep honor would be infamous.”
Suffering as the Justified, Pt. 2 June 20, 2007
In the address of our sufferings, we also see the difference in the type of ruler God is, compared to the type of ruler humans (when left to themselves) or the devil is. Whereas the devil uses our suffering to rule over us, God uses it to prepare us to rule with him. In this way, his sovereignty prepares us for our responsibility by grooming wisdom, love, compassion, courage, confidence, kindness, fidelity, etc. Satan, on the other hand, uses our suffering for fear, foolishness, hardness of heart, cowardliness, cruelty, and fickleness. But perfect love casts out the fear—it drives out the things that debilitate us and, though the process is painful and scary, it rehabilitates us for kingly, priestly service in his kingdom. As his children, we are co-regents, those who rule alongside the Messiah and thereby physically extend the dominion and dignity of humanity to every corner of creation. The world, sin, and Satan use our suffering to subdue us; God subdues our suffering so that we might be fit to reign as his image-bearers.
Faithful Forgiveness June 18, 2007
In his first letter, John writes “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.”
In thinking about these few verses, I’ve been reminded how often our sin stems from misbelief and irrational emotions. These incorrect beliefs and emotions can be about ourselves, about God, about our world, or about the nature of sin. And these misbeliefs and misguided emotions result in faulty theology–and when we have faulty theology, we have faulty living (though faulty living isn’t always the result of faulty theology). This disruption in our thinking and feeling is deeply rooted in our sinful nature. Sin is an intrusive and pervasive cancer that has infested every part of who we are: mind, body, will, heart, relationships, spirit, soul—everything. Like a cancer patient cannot of his own will rid himself of his cancer, we can’t remove the rancid sinfulness from our selves. If the cancer patient did insist on his own ability to heal himself without assistance, he would only be fooling himself; likewise for sinners. Here, John is pointing out an incorrect belief about ourselves in relation to sin. Apparently some in his flock claimed that they were no longer sinners and therefore rendered pointless the resurrection of Jesus Christ. John responds by saying that if we claim to be without sin, we are not living in the truth and we make God a liar. Those are hefty indictments. Rather, we must confess our sins and repent—this means naming our sins for what they are and recognizing who we are in relation to who Jesus is. This provision of repentance and the forgiveness that follows is not made only for the especially weak-willed who cannot overcome their sin, but for all of us (because we are all weak-willed). The time has not yet come when God will finally and totally eradicate all sin. But when we come to God as the sinners we truly are, he changes us to be more like him. As Holy Spirit begins to sweep away some of the sin in our lives now, we are able both to better align our beliefs and emotions with God’s truth and subsequently to live righteously. In this way, he cleanses us and confirms the hope we have that when Christ returns we will be free from all sin forever. Until Christ returns, though, we must combat our sinfulness by readily and regularly repenting of our sins—sinful thoughts, feelings, actions, words, desires, intentions, inclinations, assumptions—in pursuit of forgiveness, redemption, and transformation so we might faithfully serve our Lord. The point of faithful forgiveness, then, is reconciliation that elicits forth in faithful service.
Suffering as the Justified June 18, 2007
A. A. Hodge says in his commentary on the Westminster Confession 15.1,
“This section teaches that justification changes radically and permanently the relation which the subject of it sustains both to God and to the demands of the divine law viewed as a condition of favor. Before justification, God is an angry judge, holding the sentence of the condemning law for a season in suspense. After justification, the law instead of condemning acquits, and demands that the subject be regarded and treated like a son, as is provided in the eternal covenant; and God, as a loving Father, proceeds to execute all the kind offices which belong to the new relation. This requires, of course, discipline and correction, as well as instruction and consolation. All suffering is either mere calamity, when viewed aside from all intentional relation to human character; or penalty, when designed to satisfy justice for sin; or chastisement, when designed to correct and improve the offender. Irrespective of the economy of redemption, all suffering is to the reprobate installments of the eternal penalty. After justification, all suffering to the justified, of whatever kind, is fatherly chastisement, designed to correct their faults and improve their graces.”
Difficult indeed. But here are some things that occurred to me as I was thinking on this. Suffering is the same for a person both before and after justification—same load, same things, sometimes same events keep happening. But for the unjustified (reprobate, which we were before coming to Christ), these things are their taste of eternity. Punishment, the consequences of being sinners in God’s world, of being someone who is defined by lies in the presence of someone who is himself truth. This is the taste of things to come. But for those who are justified, these things are making us what we shall always be. The difference? For the unjustified, there is only her; no one else is wielding the suffering in her life. It just is. For the justified, there is the Holy Spirit who wields the suffering in such a way that it is making her who she will be in eternity. For the unjustified, suffering is eternity. For the justified, suffering is the correction of our faults and the improvement of our graces so that we are increasingly growing into the image of Christ. Just as the one thief could be crucified and despise God because the suffering was his end, the other thief could be crucified and trust God because the suffering was subject to the Spirit’s use of it. For the unjustified, suffering gets the last word. For the justified, suffering is conquered progressively so that God’s righteousness in us gets the last word. The unjustified suffer as children of the devil; we suffer as children of God. As a father, the devil uses suffering against his children. As a father, God uses suffering in advocacy of his children. So, because we’ve come from being children of the one who attacks us with suffering to being children of the one who advocates and improves us with the suffering, the same suffering yields different consequences because it has now been conquered. If we are brought into a new relationship with God, and our suffering is a part of our lives, then the suffering is brought into a new relationship with God; God, in turn, changes the relationship of the suffering to us. Whereas before, the suffering (the things suffered, as well) was in control, powerful, mighty to conquer and destroy—the suffering is now controlled, conquered and being destroyed. And it is being destroyed through God’s reversal of its effect—instead of preparing us for eternal condemnation, it is preparing us for eternal joy (something the sin of suffering wants no part of).
Real-like-our-bodies Redemption June 14, 2007
In his volume Jesus and the Victory of God, Bishop N. T. Wright writes,
“If [Jesus] was a teacher of timeless truths, the announcer of the timeless call to decision, or the pioneer of a new way of being-in-the-world, his resurrection would presumably endorse the programme he had articulated; though, interestingly, those who have constructed Jesus-figures like that tend not to include the resurrection in their schemes, except as a metaphor for the rise of the Christian faith. But if he was an eschatological prophet/Messiah, announcing the kingdom and dying in order to bring it about, the resurrection would declare that he had in principle succeeded in his task, and that his earlier redefinitions of the coming kingdom had pointed to a further task awaiting his followers, that of implementing what he had achieved. Jesus, after all, as a good first century Jew, believed that Israel functioned to the rest of the world as the hinge to the door; what he had done for Israel, he had done in principle for the whole world. It makes sense, within his aims, as we have studied them, to suppose that he envisaged his followers becoming in their turn Isaianic heralds, lights to the world” (660).
In other words, the way that Jesus’ teaching has been abstracted from history makes our identities as Christians and the significance of the resurrection in our lives abstract. Trying to make the gospel timeless and transcendent makes it meaningless and empty. But in the particularity of Jesus’ self-identity, words, and deeds we find the establishment of our own identities and the investing of significance in our own words and deeds. Moreover, as the new creation, the resurrection is a commission, not merely a doctrine or a metaphor regarding our souls (though it certainly is a doctrine, too!). It initiates something new about our bodily existence, namely that we are redemption for this world as he was redemption for Israel. This means real redemption—a redemption as real as our bodies. How do we know? Because Jesus has been there, done that and might even be wearing a t-shirt that says “I survived Death’s Sting–and defeated it, to boot!” Death isn’t abstract, sin isn’t abstract so redemption cannot be abstract, removed from the everydayness of our lives. Once we receive redemption, we are commissioned to bear redemption to the world.
